AND THE CONVICTION THAT IT IS OPPOSED TO THE WILL OF GOD AS EXPRESSED IN THE ORDINANCES OF HIS PROVIDENCE, Ecclesiastes 3:1 This is one help to a wise content with our lot; but he has many more at our service, and notably this, -that an undue devotion to the toils of business is contrary to the wil... [ Continue Reading ]
THE QUEST OBSTRUCTED BY DIVINE ORDINANCES. Ecclesiastes 3:1 The time of birth, for instance, and the time of death, are ordained by a Power over which men have no control; they begin to be, and they cease to be, at hours whose stroke they can neither hasten nor retard. The season for sowing and the... [ Continue Reading ]
SECOND SECTION The Quest Of The Chief Good In Devotion To The Affairs Of Business Ecclesiastes 3:1 - Ecclesiastes 5:20 I. IF the true Good is not to be found in the School where Wisdom utters her voice, nor in the Garden in which Pleasure spreads her lures: may it not be found in the Market, in de... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT ABOVE ALL, IN THE IMMORTAL CRAVINGS WHICH HE HAS QUICKENED IN THE SOUL. Ecclesiastes 3:11 Nay, going to the very root of the matter and expounding its whole philosophy, the Preacher teaches us that wealth, however great and greatly used, cannot satisfy men, since God has "put eternity into thei... [ Continue Reading ]
AND BY HUMAN INJUSTICE AND PERVERSITY. Ecclesiastes 3:16; Ecclesiastes 4:1 But not only are our endeavours to find the "good" of our labours thwarted by the gracious, inflexible laws of the just God; they are often baffled by the injustice of ungracious men. In the days of Coheleth, iniquity sat in... [ Continue Reading ]
TO PRODUCE A MATERIALISTIC SCEPTICISM; Ecclesiastes 3:18 (c) The "speculation" in the eye of business men is not commonly of a philosophic cast, and therefore we do not look to find them arguing themselves into the materialism which infected the Hebrew Preacher as he contemplated them and their bli... [ Continue Reading ]