Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made every thing beautiful in his time: also he has set the world in their heart… 1. Let us first take this text as it is given in our old Bible — "He hath set the world in their heart." That is, the Creator hath set the world in the hearts of the children of men. This correspondence between the world without and the mind within is one of the most striking evidences of wisdom and the beneficence of the Creator. You see it in those outworks of the mind — those five senses. Between them and the qualities of the world outside there is a correspondence on which all the activity and movement of life depend. All the senses are inlets by which the forms and the glory of the world pass inwards to be set in the heart of man. But it is when you go a little further into the mind itself that you fully see the beneficence of the Creator. Take, for instance, what seems to be referred to in this verse — the sense of beauty in the mind. Beauty exists in the world in a thousand forms — in the lines of light, in the currents of the wind, in the circle of the moon and of the sun, in the forms of leaves and plants; and so on. But what would it all be if there were not in the mind a sense of beauty corresponding to it? Do you remember that ancient fancy of that all knowledge is reminiscence — i.e. when the shapes of things present themselves to the senses they do not so much convey knowledge into the mind as wake up knowledge that is dormant in the mind. Have you not noticed when you looked for the first time on some glorious landscape that you felt as if you had known it all your life? So when you have met for the first time a fine specimen of human nature you had the impression that you had always been waiting for it. Why was it that Shakespeare, without any classical culture, was able with his Roman play to enter into the very spirit of the ancient world and in all his works to anticipate forms of society and describe how all possible forms of character would act in all possible circumstances? Was it not because, as another great poet has said, "when he came into the world he brought all the world with him"? Or, to put it in other words, God has set the world in his heart. 2. Secondly, let us take this text as it occurs in the margin of the R.V. — "He hath set eternity in their heart." What is the meaning of that? Perhaps the meaning is suggested by the words which immediately follow — "Man cannot find out the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end." Great as is the satisfaction which the beautiful world gives to the mind of man, it is not a complete satisfaction; the questions of the mind are never all answered; the desires of the heart are never all satisfied. It is vaguely the Divine — something above the world, which you would fain be at. Many as are the things in the mind which find their corresponding satisfaction in the world, there is in the mind something deeper which reacheth forth to something above the world — to the Divine, the Infinite, and the Eternal. The whole Book of Ecclesiastes, from which this text is taken, may be said to consist of variations on this theme. It is a description of a splendid nature determined to find out all that the world contains for it, and to tear out of it its secret. From every one of his quests Solomon returned with the same verdict on his lips — "All is vanity and vexation of spirit." And that, in every age, has been the verdict of every living soul that has sought its satisfaction in earthly things. It was the verdict of St. Francis that spring morning when he stood at the gate of Assisi, and looked down upon the smiling plain of Umbria, and yet felt in his own heart nothing but dust and ashes. It was the verdict of St. when, having lost a dearly-loved friend, he wept, and thought he would "give up the ghost," and could no longer live in the town from which his friend had been taken away. He had tried friendship, learning, ambition, and honour; he had tried sensual gratification, and yet his heart was sick, unsatisfied, and broken. Yes, but the deep, searching mind of St. Augustine found out exactly what was the reason of his dissatisfaction, and expressed it in that immortal sentence which occurs in the first paragraph of his "Confessions," "Thou hast made each heart for Thyself, and it finds no rest until it rests in Thee." Blessed are they that discover that this is the reason of their disappointment and dissatisfaction. 3. Thirdly, there is one meaning that may be put on the words, "He hath set eternity in their heart": and it is a very natural meaning — that the Creator has set in the human heart the hope and the desire of immortality. The Creator has put into us a conscience by which we judge the world round about us, but this conscience is very little satisfied with the world as it sees it. The conscience anticipates that in the world the righteous will always be prosperous and the unrighteous confounded. But how little that is the aspect of the world as at present constituted, — on every road the righteous man is bearing his cross amidst persecution and contempt, and the unrighteous lifts high his head while others bend before him. Therefore, the conscience anticipates another state of things where these difficulties will be redressed, where the righteous will be exalted, and where the unrighteous will be humbled. But this is only one of the pathways by which the mind arises to the idea of immortality. There are many others; in short, the Creator has set in the heart of man the desire and hope of immortality, and He has set it very deep. Now it can surely be shown that at a certain state of development the hope of immortality appears; and not only so, but that where this hope appears there sets in a new axis of development. When man realizes that he has before him not one life, but two, that he is not only the child of time, but the heir of eternity, he shoots up in moral stature, and a new dignity overspreads his existence. On the other hand, when, after being there, the hope of immortality perishes, it is as if there were extracted from the atmosphere a health-giving element, so that man becomes small and miserable. The late Professor Romanes, even before he became a Christian, confessed that the disappearance in his mind of the hope of immortality was like the disappearance of the sun from the firmament. It may be argued, indeed, that neither the universality of this belief, nor even of its exalting character, is any conclusive evidence that there actually is a future world corresponding to our desires; and that is quite proved if you take an atheistic view of the world. But if you take a theistic view of the world, I think the existence of the desire is evidence that it will be satisfied. God will not deceive His creatures. When the bird of passage, obeying the instinct which God has set in its heart, spreads its wings for the South, its Creator does not deceive it; there are sunny landscapes awaiting it where it goes. And do you think that, when the human spirit, rising out of selfishness and passion, spreads its wings for an immortal home, there is no paradise there to receive it? (J. Stalker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. |
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