Sermon Bible Commentary
Ecclesiastes 1:18
The declaration of the text may be considered as the expression of a soul that seeks satisfaction in mere earthly knowledge.
I. Mere earthly knowledge is unsatisfactory in its nature. Take as an illustration of this the field of creation. The knowledge of facts and laws can employ man's reason, but it cannot ultimately satisfy it, and still less can it soothe his soul or meet the longings of his spirit.
II. Mere earthly knowledge is painful in its contents. How melancholy is the history of man when written down! Take away our hope in God, and we could bear to study history only as we forget all the higher ends it might serve as a school of training for immortal souls, and as the steps of a Divine Architect through the broken scaffolding and scattered stonework upwards to a finished structure. The very glimpse of this is reviving; but to give up at once Architect and end, and see human lives scattered and strewn across weary ages, and human hearts torn and bleeding with no abiding result this surely would fill a thoughtful mind with pain. The more of such history, the more of sorrow.
III. Mere earthly knowledge is hopeless in its issue. For an illustration of this we may take the field of abstract thought. Let a man seek the origin and end of things without God, and doubt grows as search deepens, for doubt is on the face of all things if it be in the heart of the inquirer. As he enlarges the circumference of knowledge he enlarges the encircling darkness, and even the knowledge yields no ray of true satisfaction.
IV. Mere earthly knowledge is discouraging in its personal results. We may consider here the moral nature of man. Earthly science can do very much to improve man's external circumstances. It can occupy his reason; it can refine and gratify his taste. But there are greater wants that remain. If the man seek something to fill and warm his heart, all the wisdom of this world is only a cold phosphorescence. The tree of knowledge never becomes the tree of life.
V. Mere earthly knowledge has so brief a duration. Here we may contemplate life as a whole. If the thought of God be admitted, all real knowledge has the stamp of immortality; but if there be nothing of this, "in one day all man's thoughts perish." "The wise man dieth, and the fool also." The sweeter truth is to the taste, the more bitter must be the thought of leaving the pursuit of it for ever.
J. Ker, Sermons,p. 44.
Melancholy arises:
I. From the thought that life is too short even for the most ardent labour to wrest from the bosom of nature or the ocean of the soul a thousandth part of their secrets. "Death comes," we think. "Is all I have done for others and learnt for myself lost? Why may I not live to finish my work, to complete and round my knowledge? If death be all, then the increase of my knowledge is the increase of my sorrow." The remedy and the answer lie in the teaching of Christ. He has brought, it is true, upon the world an increased dread of death, for He has deepened the sense of moral responsibility; but in deepening responsibility He has also brought upon the world an increased delight in life, because He has made life more earnest, active, and progressive. The remedy then, when the thought of death comes to shroud our little term of being with melancholy, is to take up with eagerness again the duties and responsibilities of life. We look to Christ, and the two sources of the melancholy of which we speak the idea of our work perishing, the idea of a cessation of the growth of knowledge vanish away. (1) He died, it is true, when half the natural sands of life were run; but we see that His labour has not died with Him. It has passed as a power and life into the world. (2) In Him we are ourselves immortal, and the work which we have started and left to others here we carry on ourselves in the larger world beyond. But if so, it will require added knowledge, and indeed in its progress it will necessarily store up knowledge. In Christ we know that we shall never cease to learn.
II. The second source of melancholy is retrospective thought. Christ calls us to a higher thought of life. "Let dead idols bury themselves," He says; "come away from them, and follow Me; there are other ideals in front, better and larger than the past." It is the one inspiring element of Christianity that it throws us in boundless hope upon the future, and forbids us to dwell in the poisonous shadows of the past. We are to wake up satisfied in the likeness of Christ, the ever-young humanity. Therefore, forgetting those things which are behind, let us press forward unto the mark of the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus.
III. A third cause of melancholy is the sadness of the world. What is its remedy? The true remedy is to penetrate steadily into the depths of the dreadful mystery; to comprehend what destiny, and evil, and death mean; to go down into hell, and know it, and conquer it. This is what Christ did in resolute action upon earth; and out of this meeting of sorrow and evil face to face, not by passing them by and ignoring them, sprang His conquest. Evil was overthrown, sorrow was changed into joy, death was swallowed up in victory, because He went down into hell.
S. A. Brooke, Christ in Modern Life,p. 243.
We may contradict this text as we please, but we do not in reality contradict it by asserting its opposite; we only complete it by asserting its other half. Both statements are half-truths. The whole truth of the thing is only found in the assertion of both. He that increaseth knowledge increaseth pleasure, and increaseth sorrow. This is what Albert Dürer saw and engraved in his subtle print of "Melencolia." It would be especially true in the artist's time of those who were attempting to penetrate into the secrets of the physical world. For the true methods of scientific investigation had not been found. We are freed from that grief, for we are consciously advancing, having found true methods; but the same profound pain besets us in the science of metaphysics and of theology, and for the same reason: the want of true methods.
I. The melancholy which arises from the vague answers which we can only suggest to many of our deepest questions is made greater by the clear answers which our questions receive in science. Distinctness in one sphere seems to suggest that distinctness might be reached in all ifwe had power. We have wings, then; but we have the misery of knowing that they are not strong enough.
II. What is the remedy for the sadness of increased uncertainty which growing knowledge has added to spiritual problems? The remedy is plainly stated in the New Testament. But let us see if we cannot approach the New Testament statement from the side of scientific practice, and so strengthen its force. The certainties of science are mixed up also with uncertainties. Towards these uncertainties what are the practice and attitude of men of science? It is that of men who possess a "faith which worketh by love." They believe in truth, and their faith works through love of truth. The result has been the swiftest and the safest success. In other spheres then, and in a different meaning, this text is true: "This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith." In every way this is a lesson which we would do well to learn. The root of our cowardice, of our hesitation, of our inactive melancholy, is our faithlessness. We are not asked at first to believe in certain doctrines or in the opinions of men. We are asked to believe in eternal right, in a Father of spirits whose will is good. This is not a faith in the commandments and doctrines of men. It is a faith in eternal love. It is not a blind credulity; it is a faith which the man has proved in adversity, and by which he has conquered.
S. A. Brooke, Christ in Modern Life,p. 250.
References: Ecclesiastes 1:18. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 2661; J. Fordyce, Christian World Pulpit,vol. viii., p. 303. 1 C. Bridges, An Exposition of Ecclesiastes,p. 1.Ecclesiastes 2:1. J. Bennet, The Wisdom of the King,p. 14.Ecclesiastes 2:1. J. J. S. Perowne, Expositor,1st series, vol. x., p. 165.