I said of laughter, "It is folly," and of pleasure, "What does it accomplish?" Sermons
I. THE WORLDLY MAN'S AIM. This is to learn what the human heart and life can derive from the gifts and enjoyments of this world. Man's nature is impulsive, acquisitive, yearning, aspiring. He is ever seeking satisfaction for his wants and desires. He turns now hither and now thither, seeking in every direction that which he never finds in anything earthly, in anything termed "real." II. THE WORLDLY MAN'S MEANS TO THIS END. How shall satisfaction be found? The world presents itself in answer to this question, and invites its votary to acquisition and appropriation of its gifts. This passage in Ecclesiastes offers a remarkable and exhaustive catalogue of the emoluments and pleasures, the interests and occupations, with which the world pretends to satisfy the yearning spirit of man. There are enumerated: 1. Bodily pleasure, especially the pleasure of abundance of choice wine. 2. Feminine society, 3. Riches, consisting of silver and gold, of flocks and herds. 4. Great works, as palaces, parks, etc. 5. Household magnificence. 6. Treasures of art, and especially musical entertainments. 7. Study and wisdom, associated with all diversions and distractions of every kind. It seems scarcely credible that one man could be the possessor of so many means of enjoyment, and it is not to be wondered at that "Solomon in all his glory" should be mentioned as the most amazing example of this world's greatness and delights. It needed a many-sided nature to appreciate so vast a variety of possessions and occupations; the largeness of heart which is ascribed to the Hebrew monarch must have found abundant scope in the palaces of Jerusalem. It is instructive that Holy Writ, which presents so just a view of human nature, should record a position so exalted and opulent and a career so splendid as those of Solomon. III. THE WORLDLY MAN'S FAILURE TO SECURE THE END BY THE USE OF THE MEANS DESCRIBED. 1. All such gratifications as are here enumerated are in themselves insufficient to satisfy man's spiritual nature. There is a disproportion between the soul of man and the pleasures of sense and the gifts of fortune. Even could the wealth and luxury, the delights and splendor, of an Oriental monarch be enjoyed, the result would not be the satisfaction expected. There would still be "the aching void the world can never fill." 2. It must also be remembered that, by a law of our constitution, even pleasure is not best obtained when consciously and deliberately sought. To seek pleasure is to miss it, whilst it often comes unsought in the path of ordinary duty. 3. When regarded as the supreme good, worldly possessions and enjoyments may hide God from the soul. They obscure the shining of the Divine countenance, as the clouds conceal the sun that shines behind them. The works of God's hand sometimes absorb the interest and attention which are due to their Creator; the bounty and beneficence of the Giver are sometimes lost sight of by those who partake of his gifts. 4. The good things of earth may legitimately be accepted and enjoyed when received as God's gifts, and held submissively and gratefully "with a light hand." 5. Earth's enjoyments may be a true blessing if, failing to satisfy the soul, they induce the soul to turn from them to God, in whose favor is life.
I said of laughter, It is mad. If you were asked who had sat for the portrait of a madman, you would be disposed to look out for some monster, some scourge of our race, in whom vast powers had been at the disposal of ungoverned passions, and who had covered a country with weeping and with desolate families; and at first we might be readily tempted to conclude that Solomon employed somewhat exaggerated terms when he identified laughter with madness. Neither need we suppose that all laughter is indiscriminately condemned; as though gloom marked a sane person, and cheerfulness an insane. "Rejoice evermore" is a scriptural direction, and blithe-heartedness ought to be both felt and displayed by those who know that they have God for their Guardian, and Christ for their Surety. But it is the laughter of the world which the wise man calls madness; and there will be no difficulty in showing you, in two or three instances, how close is the parallel between the maniac and the man by whom this laughter is excited. We would first point out to you how that conflict, of which this creation is the scene, and the leading antagonists in which are Satan and God, is a conflict between falsehood and truth. The entrance of evil was effected through a lie; and when Christ promised the descent of the Holy Ghost, whose special office it was to be to regenerate human kind, to restore their lost purity, and therewith their lost happiness, He promised it under the character of the Spirit of truth; as though truth were all that was needed to the making of this earth once more a paradise. And it is in accordance with this representation of that great struggle, which fixes the regards of higher orders of intelligence, as being a struggle between falsehood and truth, that so much criminality is everywhere in Scripture attached to a lie, and that those on whom a lie may be charged, are represented as thereby more especially obnoxious to the anger of God. "A lying tongue," says the wise man, "is but for a moment": as though sudden vengeance might be expected to descend upon the liar, and sweep him away ere he could reiterate the falsehood. And if there be thus, as it were, a kind of awful majesty in truth, so that the swerving from it is emphatically treason against God and the soul, it follows that whatever is calculated to diminish reverence for truth, or to palliate falsehood, is likely to work as wide mischief as may well be imagined. You are all ready without hesitation to admit that nothing would go further towards loosening the bonds of society than the destroying the shame which now attaches to a lie; and accordingly you would rise up as by one common impulse to withstand any man or any authority which should propose to shield the liar, or to make his offence comparatively unimportant. But whilst the bold and direct falsehood thus gains for itself the general execration, mainly perhaps because felt to militate against the general interest, there is a ready indulgence in the more sportive falsehood, which is rather the playing with truth than the making a lie. Here it is that we shall find laughter which is madness, and identify with a madman him by whom the laughter is raised. There is very frequently a departure from truth in that mirthful discourse to which Solomon refers. In amusing a table, and causing light-heartedness and gaiety to go round the company, men may be teaching others to view with less abhorrence a lie, or diminishing in them that sanctity of truth which is at once an admirable virtue and essential to the existence of any other. I do not fear the influence of one whom the world denounces as a liar; but I do of one whom it applauds as a wit. I fear it in regard of reverence for truth — a reverence which, if it do not of itself make a great character, must be strong wheresoever the character is great. The man who passes off a clever fiction, or amusingly distorts an occurrence, or dextrously misrepresents a fact, may say that he only means to be amusing, and that nothing is further from his thoughts than the doing an injury; but nevertheless, forasmuch as it can hardly fail but that he will lower the majesty of truth in the eyes of his neighbour, there may be equally ample reason for assenting to the wise man's decision — "I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?" But we have not yet given the worst case of that laughter which may be identified with madness. It is very true, that whatever tends to diminish men's abhorrence of a lie, tends equally to the spreading confusion and wretchedness, and may therefore be justly classed amongst things which resemble the actings of a maniac. It is also true that this tendency exists in much of that admired conversation whose excellence virtually lies in its falseness; so that the correspondence is clear between the wit and the madman. But it is not perhaps till the laughter is turned upon sacred things that we have before us the madness in all its wildness and in all its injuriousness. The man who in any way exercises his wit upon the Bible conveys undoubtedly an impression, whether he intend it or not, that he is not a believer in the inspiration of the Bible; for it is altogether insupposable that a man who really recognized in the Bible the Word of the living God, who felt that its pages had been traced by the very hand which spread out the firmament, should select from it passages to parody, or expressions which might be thrown into a ludicrous form. It may be true that he does this only in joke, and with no evil design; he never meant, he may tell you, when he introduced Scripture ridiculously, or amused his companions by sarcastic allusions to the peculiarities of the pious — he never meant to recommend a contempt for religion, or to insinuate a disbelief in the Bible, and perhaps he never did; but nevertheless, even if you acquit him of harmful intention, and suppose him utterly unconscious that he is working a moral injury, he who frames jokes on sacred things, or points his wit with scriptural allusions, may do far more mischief to the souls of his fellow-men than if he engaged openly in assaulting the great truths of Christianity. If you have heard a text quoted in a ridiculous sense, or applied to some laughable occurrence, you will hardly be able to separate the text from that occurrence; the association will be permanent; and when you hear the text again, though it may be in the house of God, or under circumstances which make you wish for the most thorough concentration of thought on the most awful things, yet will there come back upon you- all the joke and all the parody, so that the mind will be dissipated and the very sanctuary profaned. And hence the justice of identifying with madness the laughter excited by reference to sacred things. Now, the upshot of the whole matter is, that we ought to set a watch upon our tongues, to pray God to keep the door of our lips. "Death and life are in the power of the tongue." Of all the gifts with which we have been entrusted, the gift of speech is perhaps that through which we may work most of evil or of good, and nevertheless it is that of whose right exercise we seem to make least account. It appears to us a hard saying, that for every idle word which they speak men shall give an account at the last, and we scarcely discern any proportion between a few syllables uttered without thought and those retributive judgments which must be looked for hereafter; but if you observe how we have been able to vindicate the correctness of the assertion of our text, though it be only the idle talker whose laughter is declared to be madness, effecting the same results, and producing the same evils as the fury of the uncontrolled maniac, you will see that a word may be no insignificant thing — that its consequences may be widely disastrous, and certainly the speaker is answerable for the consequences which may possibly ensue, however God may prevent their actual occurrence. The fiction may not make a liar, and the jest may not make an infidel, but since it is the tendency of the fiction to make liars, and the tendency of the jest to make infidels, he who invents the one, or utters the other, is as criminal as though the result had been the same as the tendency.(H. Melvill, B. D.) People Argob, SolomonPlaces JerusalemTopics Accomplish, Availeth, Foolish, Foolishness, Joy, Laughing, Laughter, Mad, Madness, Mirth, PleasureOutline 1. the vanity of human courses is the work of pleasure12. Though the wise be better than the fool, yet both have one event 18. The vanity of human labor, in leaving it they know not to whom 24. Nothing better than joy in our labor but that is God's gift Dictionary of Bible Themes Ecclesiastes 2:2 5716 middle age Library Of Spiritual AridityOf Spiritual Aridity Though God hath no other desire than to impart Himself to the loving soul that seeks Him, yet He frequently conceals Himself that the soul may be roused from sloth, and impelled to seek Him with fidelity and love. But with what abundant goodness doth He recompense the faithfulness of His beloved? And how sweetly are these apparent withdrawings of Himself succeeded by the consoling caresses of love? At these seasons we are apt to believe, either that it proves our fidelity, and … Madame Guyon—A Short and Easy Method of Prayer A Prayer for Cleansing of the Heart and for Heavenly Wisdom Chronology of the Life of Ephraim. Introduction to the "Theological" Orations. But Now I Will Proceed with what I have Begun... Whether the Church Observes a Suitable Rite in Baptizing? A Discourse of the House and Forest of Lebanon The Eternity of Heaven's Happiness. The Outbreak of the Arian Controversy. The Attitude of Eusebius. Paul's Missionary Labors. James the Brother of the Lord. "And These Things Write we unto You, that Your Joy May be Full. " The Life, as Amplified by Mediaeval Biographers. "For to be Carnally Minded is Death; but to be Spiritually Minded is Life and Peace. " Lii. Concerning Hypocrisy, Worldly Anxiety, Watchfulness, and his Approaching Passion. Messiah's Easy Yoke There is a Blessedness in Reversion The Hindrances to Mourning Exhortations to those who are Called Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners Or, a Brief Relation of the Exceeding Mercy of God in Christ, to his Poor Servant, John Bunyan Christ's Prophetic Office The Comforts Belonging to Mourners Ecclesiastes Links Ecclesiastes 2:2 NIVEcclesiastes 2:2 NLT Ecclesiastes 2:2 ESV Ecclesiastes 2:2 NASB Ecclesiastes 2:2 KJV Ecclesiastes 2:2 Bible Apps Ecclesiastes 2:2 Parallel Ecclesiastes 2:2 Biblia Paralela Ecclesiastes 2:2 Chinese Bible Ecclesiastes 2:2 French Bible Ecclesiastes 2:2 German Bible Ecclesiastes 2:2 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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