The Law of Circularity

             

                                 
                                                             Ecclesiastes 1:4-10
Ecc 1:5  The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
Ecc 1:6  The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
Ecc 1:7  All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
Ecc 1:8  All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
Ecc 1:9  The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
Ecc 1:10  Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh.

The law of circularity, or retrogression, an essential element of progress

The circle is the archetype of all forms, physically as well as mathematically. It is the most complete figure, the most stable under violence, the most economical of material; its proportions are the most perfect and harmonious; and therefore it admits of the utmost variety consistent with unity of effect. The universe has apparently been framed according to this type. Nature attains her ends, not in a series of straight lines, but in a series of circles; not in the most direct, but in the most roundabout way. All her objects, organic and inorganic, have a tendency to assume the circular form, and in the attainment of this form consists their highest perfection. The lowly lichen on the wall spreads itself out in a circle; the mushroom in the meadow, with its round cap and stem, grows in fairy rings; the moss-tuft on the tree—the clump of fern in the shady bank—the plot of wild-flowers in the wood—the trees in the forest, alike in their individual and social state, exhibit this form in endless and graceful diversity. The cell, which is the ultimate germ of all life, is round, and every increase which it makes by growth or reproduction, preserves the same shape. The leaf, with all its varied modifications in the different parts of the plant—the stem, the flower, the fruit, the seed—are all more or less circular. So also are the different parts and organs of animals, from the simple primary cell of the animalcule, barely visible under the microscope, up through increasingly complex structures, to the highly-organized and wonderfully-formed head of man—the apex of creation; and though dead, inert minerals may seem to offer an exception to the law, crystallizing, or, in other words, attaining the highest perfection of which they are capable, not in circles but in straight lines, yet, when exposed to the influence of natural agencies, they speedily assume the circular form. The various forces of nature, and the properties of the matter upon which they act, are so arranged and balanced, that they invariably bring out curved lines in the surface of the earth. The winds and the waters produce undulating surfaces wherever they operate. The sea and the lake flow in curving waves and ripples to the shore: the rivers and streams meander in silvery links through the landscape; the clouds float in ever-varying curves of magical loveliness along the sky; the very winds—emblems of fickleness and change—obey fixed laws, and blow over the earth in cyclones and rotatory currents. The same law of circularity may be observed in the alternations of day and night, and in the vicissitudes of the seasons. Each bright blue day of sunshine, with all its work and enjoyment, is folded and shrouded up in its grave of darkness. Night comes, as it were, to undo the work of the day—to reverse the processes and functions of life—to restore the molecules of matter which the sunlight had kept in incessant motion and change to their previous condition, and by this recoil and rest to qualify for greater exertions and further advancement on the morrow; and thus, with alternations of darkness and light, the year progresses to its close. Spring clothes the earth with verdure; summer develops this verdure into its highest beauty and luxuriance, and autumn crowns it with ripeness and fruitfulness; but winter comes with its storms and frosts to mar and destroy the fair fabric which it had taken so many months to perfect. And yet this apparently wanton destruction, this retrograde movement, tends more to advance the progress of nature than if summer were perpetual. The exhausted soil is permitted to rest, in order that it may acquire new elements for increased production, and the forces of vitality are suspended that they may burst forth again with more exuberant energy. Flowers die down to their roots, yet it is no grave into which they have retired, but the hiding-place of power, from whence they shall start into greater beauty and luxuriance when stimulated by the showers and the sunbeams of spring. Life is a ceaseless vortex, a perpetual whirlpool, from the beginning to the ending, and from the ending to the beginning. Every death is a new birth, every grave a cradle. Ascending beyond our earth, to the regions of the astronomer, we find the same law in operation there also. We know nothing of the forms and attributes of extra-terrestrial existence; but we know at least that all the heavenly bodies are more or less circular, and move in more or less circular orbits. The sun, the moon, the planets have this shape: and we know that our earth revolves on its own axis, and moves round the sun; that the solar system advances in space, not in a straight line, but in a series of mighty revolutions round a central sun. Passing from the physical world to the domain of man, we find there also innumerable traces of the law of circularity. “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh.” The circulation of blood in the veins, the circulation of matter in the body, the circulation of impressions in the nerves and impulses in the muscles, are all helps and means of physical growth; while the vicissitudes of circumstances, the opposite conditions of prosperity and adversity, health and sickness, joy and sorrow, tend to develop the mental and moral character. Action and reaction is the law of man’s life. A season of misfortune is usually followed by a season of success; and when circumstances are most prosperous, a time of reverses is not far off. Nowhere, either in science or in morals, has a straight line ever been drawn. There is no distinct, definite line of demarcation between pain and pleasure, between joy and sorrow, between relative evil and good. “Thus far and no further,” is said to all moral operative causes, as well as to the waters of the ocean; but the line along the coast is not uniformly straight and unbending; on the contrary, it winds in and out, in gulfs and promontories, in capes and bays, in the most charming and picturesque irregularity. It is a fact of the deepest significance in the philosophy of human progress, that no great step can be taken in the intellectual or moral advancement of our race except by the sacrifice of at least one generation. There is not a single great truth that has influenced mankind but has passed through a process of contempt and injustice before it was established upon a firm and lasting foundation of popular favour; the invention or discovery that one generation despised is turned to profitable account by the next; the scientific creed that is persecuted in one age forms an undoubted and essential part of the faith of the succeeding age. The general progress of the human race has been marked by strange fluctuations. Civilization after civilization advances from the dim horizon, reaches the zenith of its prosperity, blazes for a while with unexampled splendour, then sets in darkest midnight. Such facts as these show us how hopeless is the boasted gospel of natural progress; how vain it is to expect that humanity can develop itself by its own unaided powers; that any race or country is capable of carrying on the process of improvement uninterruptedly and continuously, by the simple motherhood of nature. Man is, indeed, naturally progressive to the fullest extent of his capacities; and whatever he is capable of becoming, the aspirations of his soul are in themselves proofs and pledges, that he will ultimately become. In the progress and revolutions of time he has steadily advanced to a nobler dignity. Each civilization that appeared on the stage of history borrowed from its predecessors materials for a higher range of advancement. The Roman civilization was a propagation of the Greek, and the Greek of the Egyptian and the Hebrew. But this progressive elevation was not attained by a natural process of development, carried on in a uniform, undeviating, straight line. On the contrary, wherever humanity was left to its own unaided powers, unassisted by supernatural means and influences, it has everywhere in the end degenerated and declined, however long and glorious may have been its heroic age. And analogy would lead us to conclude, that as it has been in the past, so it may be in the future, that again and again may be exhibited the solemn-spectacle of civilizations “advancing in charmed circles,” races passing from hardihood to courage, from courage to conquest, from conquest to power, from power to wealth, from wealth to luxury and effeminacy, and from thence to the last stages in the melancholy drama—corruption, decline, and extinction. History is given to repeating itself. The persistency with which forms of faith and aspects of society appear age after age is truly marvellous. Fashions of dress, schools of art and philosophy, theories and speculations of science and theology, seem to have the same kind of periodicity which marks the phenomena of nature. As regularly as the same primroses bloom on the woodland bank spring after spring, and the same roses blush by the wayside summer after summer, so regularly and uniformly do the same modes of thought, and the same types of manners, appear and reappear. Phases of human error and folly are found occurring again and again, after long intervals. In every department of human affairs such instances are easy to find, proving the truth of the trite aphorism, that “there is nothing new under the sun”: that the moral world, as well as the physical, revolves in a circle, and thus necessarily often comes back to the point from which it started. These examples of retrogression appear melancholy and disheartening to those who believe in the uninterrupted development of mankind in straight lines; but, rightly considered, they are far from being perplexing and unintelligible. The law of circularity is also a law of conservation; and every instance of retrogression may be regarded as a brake upon the wheels of the oar of progress, absolutely necessary for its safe and steady motion. The Bible affords so many illustrations of this doctrine, that it is somewhat difficult to make a selection. Almost the first event in the spiritual history of the human race was an act of degradation, a retrograde movement. “God created man upright, but he has sought out many inventions.” And yet, by a wonderful interposition of Divine love, this retrograde step, which issued in so much disaster, has raised man to a higher position than he could have attained, even had he continued pure and sinless as at the first. He is not merely brought forward to the point from which he retrograded: he is advanced greatly beyond it. Schiller boldly says, “the Fall was a giant stride in the history of the human race.” The Deluge affords another illustration of the law we are considering. It was a terrible remedy for a terrible disease. Another retrograde movement, of scarcely less importance, occurred very speedily after this event. The confusion of languages, and the consequent dispersion of mankind, and their separation into distinct nations and races, seems at first sight an unaccountable procedure—hostile to the best interests and wisest processes of civilization; and yet, on the contrary, it has proved eminently helpful in forwarding the progress of the human race by the formation of national feeling, or patriotism, and the full, harmonious development of the “many-sidedness” of human nature. Descending the stream of Scripture narrative, we find that Joseph was sold into slavery as the path to the highest honours of Egypt; and that the latter end of Job, after he had been stripped of everything, was more prosperous than the beginning. When the children of Israel had reached the borders of Canaan, after their long and toilsome wanderings win the wilderness, and the enterprise which had been attended with so much trouble and hardship, and from which they had hoped to reap the richest result, was on the eve of being accomplished, the Divine command was given them to return to the very point in the wilderness from which they started. The immediate cause of this ignominious failure and retreat was, no doubt, their own obstinacy and unbelief. A wise and benevolent purpose lay hid under the apparently harsh and severe judgment, which subsequent events unfolded and explained. The children of Israel, as their conduct too plainly proved, were not as yet in a fit state to occupy the land, and carry out God’s intention of supplanting its wicked and idolatrous tribes by “a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” In the New Testament we also find several striking examples of this law. The salvation of the world is accomplished through treachery, false witness, and a cross. We are told by the evangelists that the disciples, after the resurrection, went back by the express command of Christ to Galilee, to the scenes and pursuits in which they were engaged when first called to follow Him. The same circumstances were repeated, the same miracles performed, as on the first occasion. This retrogression seems to have been wisely ordered as a preparatory discipline for reinstating them in that office from which, by their shameful desertion and denial of Christ, they had fallen at His death. By bringing them back to the old life, to the beginning of their course, He not only gave them a significant symbol of His willingness to overlook and forget all that had occurred during the interval, but also placed them in more favourable circumstances for the fulfilment of their noble mission as Christ’s witnesses and apostles to the world. The careful reader will observe a close similarity between the closing chapters of Revelation and the commencement of Genesis. The first and most prominent doctrine which Christianity teaches is the doctrine of retrogression as an essential element of progress. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” was its watchword when it first raised its voice amid the deserts and mountains of Judea. Repentance is the germinal bud of living Christianity. “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” And the beautiful profound truth hidden under this paradox is that not only are the spirit of childhood and the spirit of manhood not inconsistent with each other, but their union is essential to the highest spiritual culture. The afflictions and trials that bring the Christian low contribute in the end to raise him to a higher condition of heavenly-minded-ness. They may be regarded as a complication of inverse aids and assistances, by a right use of which the force of spiritual character may be more successfully displayed. And lust as the earthquake that fills a wide tract of country with ruins, and the storm that strews our coast with wrecks, or tears down our forests, or destroys life, are links in the chain of the weather which purifies our atmosphere, and supplies the materials of health and vigour to all animated nature, so are suffering and trials the iron links in that golden chain which connects earth with heaven. It is not suffering then glory, but suffering therefore glory. Our light affliction worketh out an exceeding great and eternal weight of glory. Death seems to the eye of sense the saddest and most mysterious of all retrogressions. “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” is the beginning and end, the source and destiny of the material part of our being. Death despoils us of all with which we were invested, terminates all the functions and feelings of life, resolves the body into its original particles, and scatters them over the face of the earth. But though to the eye of sense appearing a great loss, an unaccountable retrogression, it appears to the eye of faith, gifted with a keener and farther-reaching vision, a great, an immeasurable gain. The day of death is better than the day of birth, because death is a higher and nobler birth. Nay, the continuity of the path will not be broken, It is no strange and unknown scene upon which the just are ushered at death. The sacred employments of life will continue without pause or interruption amid circumstances the most favourable and congenial. The river that hides itself for a time in the earth, and breaks forth at a distance with a greater volume and a wider channel, does not sever its connection with the former part of its course. One more vision of retrogression, the sublimest and the most awful, reveals itself in dim outlines to our gaze from the pages of Revelation. When the earth shall have served the purpose for which it was created, as a scene of circumstances and temptations for the education of the immortal spirit, it will be reduced, we are told, to the state of chaos from which it sprung. “The elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth, and all the works therein, shall be burnt up.” And yet this sublime retrogression will be necessary to bring in a better world, where sin and sorrow shall be unknown. The scene of probation passing through this terrible ordeal will become the scene of enjoyment; and earth, purified by the baptism of fire, shall be transformed into heaven. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)


The passing of humanity

It is profitable, as well as sometimes pleasant, for a traveller, as he advances, by different stages of his journey, to look back on the scenes through which he has passed. It is pleasant to him to call to his recollection scenes which he formerly enjoyed; there is a pleasure also in remembering the rough and stormy passages of his journey, when he considers how he was helped through, them, how he has been delivered out of danger, and brought thus far on his journey. We are all pilgrims. Some of you have lately set out on your journey; some of you have advanced many stages towards the last. We shall, after a few more stages, all of us arrive at the end of our journey: how near we are to our end is uncertain.
I. Consider the representation the text gives us of the generations of men. For what is here spoken is not concerning one man, or one family of the human race, or one city, or a particular nation, or a certain age. It is true of all nations, of all generations, from the time of Adam and Noah to the present.
1. “One generation passeth away.”
(1) Look back to the past. Many generations that once existed in this world are gone. Men; famous for their various exploits, are now no more. In the past generations, some rose from mean and low stations to the highest rank; while others fell from posts of dignity to a state of poverty and depression. All of them—high and low, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, kings and their people—all are swept away. In former ages, immense armies of men; one army is said to have consisted of a million; but they have all passed away, and nothing is known of any one of them, except their commander. Nations once great and flourishing are now almost forgotten: even Babylon can scarce be found. “One generation passeth away.”
(2) This is true also of the present. The generation to which we belong is moving off the world. There is no continuance, no abiding here. Our old friends and acquaintances are gone, and we all feel that we live in a dying generation. Yes, great and useful men are taken away; parents are taken from children. There is no standing still, even if you live. “One generation passeth away.”
(3) This is true of all future generations. They all will pass away, and all in the same manner.
2. As one generation passeth away, another cometh. This implies that it is the design of the great Author of our being that, though death has entered the world by sin, the world shall not be depopulated. What a wonderful idea does this give us of the almighty power and infinite wisdom of God! Of His almighty power.
We admire the wisdom and power of God in the creation. But is the power of the Preserver less than that of the Creator? Think of the creatures that swarm on the face of the earth, going away one generation after another, yet all preserved from the time of Noah until now—millions consumed, yet continually replenished. The wisdom of God, too, is apparent in this. For is it not observable that race has so succeeded race, that the world has never been depopulated. Labourers have never been wanting to till the ground; men endowed with talents of various descriptions have sprung up from time to time to carry on the various purposes of society. So in the Church of Christ. The designs of God have been compared to those of a great builder. One man comes and fells a tree and retires; another attained, even had he continued pure and sinless as at the first. He is not merely brought forward to the point from which he retrograded: he is advanced greatly beyond it. Schiller boldly says, “the Fall was a giant stride in the history of the human race.” The Deluge affords another illustration of the law we are considering. It was a terrible remedy for a terrible disease. Another retrograde movement, of scarcely less importance, occurred very speedily after this event. The confusion of languages, and the consequent dispersion of mankind, and their separation into distinct nations and races, seems at first sight an unaccountable procedure—hostile to the best interests and wisest processes of civilization; and yet, on the contrary, it has proved eminently helpful in forwarding the progress of the human race by the formation of national feeling, or patriotism, and the full, harmonious development of the “many-sidedness” of human nature. Descending the stream of Scripture narrative, we find that Joseph was sold into slavery as the path to the highest honours of Egypt; and that the latter end of Job, after he had been stripped of everything, was more prosperous than the beginning. When the children of Israel had reached the borders of Canaan, after their long and toilsome wanderings in the wilderness, and the enterprise which had been attended with so much trouble and hardship, and from which they had hoped to reap the richest result, was on the eve of being accomplished, the Divine command was given them to return to the very point in the wilderness from which they started. The immediate cause of this ignominious failure and retreat was, no doubt, their own obstinacy and unbelief. A wise and benevolent purpose lay hid under the apparently harsh and severe judgment, which subsequent events unfolded and explained. The children of Israel, as their conduct too plainly proved, were not as yet in a fit state to occupy the land, and carry out God’s intention of supplanting its wicked and idolatrous tribes by “a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” In the New Testament we also find several striking examples of this law. The salvation of the world is accomplished through treachery, false witness, and a cross. We are told by the evangelists that the disciples, after the resurrection, went back by the express command of Christ to Galilee, to the scenes and pursuits in which they were engaged when first called to follow Him. The same circumstances were repeated, the same miracles performed, as on the first occasion. This retrogression seems to have been wisely ordered as a preparatory discipline for reinstating them in that office from which, by their shameful desertion and denial of Christ, they had fallen at His death. By bringing them back to the old life, to the beginning of their course, He not only gave them a significant symbol of His willingness to overlook and forget all that had occurred during the interval, but also placed them in more favourable circumstances for the fulfilment of their noble mission as Christ’s witnesses and apostles to the world. The careful reader will observe a close similarity between the closing chapters of Revelation and the commencement of Genesis. The first and most prominent doctrine which Christianity teaches is the doctrine of retrogression as an essential element of progress. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” was its watchword when it first raised its voice amid the deserts and mountains of Judea. Repentance is the germinal bud of living Christianity. “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” And the beautiful profound truth hidden under this paradox is that not only are the spirit of childhood and the spirit of manhood not inconsistent with each other, but their union is essential to the highest spiritual culture. The afflictions and trials that bring the Christian low contribute in the end to raise him to a higher condition of heavenly-mindedness. They may be regarded as a complication of inverse aids and assistances, by a right use of which the force of spiritual character may be more successfully displayed. And just as the earthquake that fills a wide tract of country with ruins, and the storm that strews our coast with wrecks, or tears down our forests, or destroys life, are links in the chain of the weather which purifies our atmosphere, and supplies the materials of health and vigour to all animated nature, so are suffering and trials the iron links in that golden chain which connects earth with heaven. It is not suffering then glory, but suffering therefore glory. Our light affliction worketh out an exceeding great and eternal weight of glory. Death seems to the eye of sense the saddest and most mysterious of all retrogressions. “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” is the beginning and end, the source and destiny of the material part of our being. Death despoils us of all with which we were invested, terminates all the functions and feelings of life, resolves the body into its original particles, and scatters them over the face of the earth. But though to the eye of sense appearing a great loss, an unaccountable retrogression, it appears to the eye of faith, gifted with a keener and farther-reaching vision, a great, an immeasurable gain. The day of death is better than the day of birth, because death is a higher and nobler birth. Nay, the continuity of the path will not be broken, It is no strange and unknown scene upon which the just are ushered at death. The sacred employments of life will continue without pause or interruption amid circumstances the most favourable and congenial. The river that hides itself for a time in the earth, and breaks forth at a distance with a greater volume and a wider channel, does not sever its connection with the former part of its course. One more vision of retrogression, the sublimest and the most awful, reveals itself in dim outlines to our gaze from the pages of Revelation. When the earth shall have served the purpose for which it was created, as a scene of circumstances and temptations for the education of the immortal spirit, it will be reduced, we are told, to the state of chaos from which it sprung. “The elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth, and all the works therein, shall be burnt up.” And yet this sublime retrogression will be necessary to bring in a better world, where sin and sorrow shall be unknown. The scene of probation passing through this terrible ordeal will become the scene of enjoyment; and earth, purified by the baptism of fire, shall be transformed into heaven. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)


The passing of humanity
It is profitable, as well as sometimes pleasant, for a traveller, as he advances, by different stages of his journey, to look back on the scenes through which he has passed. It is pleasant to him to call to his recollection scenes which he formerly enjoyed; there is a pleasure also in remembering the rough and stormy passages of his journey, when he considers how he was helped through them, how he has been delivered out of danger, and brought thus far on his journey. We are all pilgrims. Some of you have lately set out on your journey; some of you have advanced many stages towards the last. We shall, after a few more stages, all of us arrive at the end of our journey: how near we are to our end is uncertain.
I. Consider the representation the text gives us of the generations of men. For what is here spoken is not concerning one man, or one family of the human race, or one city, or a particular nation, or a certain age. It is true of all nations, of all generations, from the time of Adam and Noah to the present.
1. “One generation passeth away.”
(1) Look back to the past. Many generations that once existed in this world are gone. Men; famous for their various exploits, are now no more. In the past generations, some rose from mean and low stations to the highest rank; while others fell from posts of dignify to a state of poverty and depression. All of them—high and low, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, kings and their people—all are swept away. In former ages, immense armies of men; one army is said to have consisted of a million; but they have all passed away, and nothing is known of any one of them, except their commander. Nations once great and flourishing are now almost forgotten: even Babylon can scarce be found. “One generation passeth away.”
(2) This is true also of the present. The generation to which we belong is moving off the world. There is no continuance, no abiding here. Our old friends and acquaintances are gone, and we all feel that we live in a dying generation. Yes, great and useful men ate taken away; parents are taken from children. There is no standing still, even if you live. “One generation passeth away.”
(3) This is true of all future generations. They all will pass away, and all in the same manner.
2. As one generation passeth away, another cometh. This implies that it is the design of the great Author of our being that, though death has entered the world by sin, the world shall not be depopulated. What a wonderful idea does this give us of the almighty power and infinite wisdom of God! Of His almighty power.—We admire the wisdom and power of God in the creation. But is the power of the Preserver less than that of the Creator? Think of the creatures that swarm on the face of the earth, going away one generation after another, yet all preserved from the time of Noah until now—millions consumed, yet continually replenished. The wisdom of God, too, is apparent in this. For is it not observable that race has so succeeded race, that the world has never been depopulated. Labourers have never been wanting to till the ground; men endowed with talents of various descriptions have sprung up from time to time to carry on the various purposes of society. So in the Church of Christ. The designs of God have been compared to those of a great builder. One man comes and fells a tree and retires; another goes to a pit, and collects a few stones, and he is gone; a third rears some pillars, and you see no more of him; a fourth lays rafters and beams, and goes his way; these men retire one after another; still the building goes on. Is it not evident that some one is at the head of all this, who has formed a plan, and who has skill to contrive?
II. Deduce some inferences from this subject—to promote a personal improvement of the whole.
1. Are all that have been before passed away? and are all that are now present, and all that will be in future, passing? What will be your state if you were to die now?
2. Then let us be concerned to do with diligence the work which God requires of us while in the present world. Now, the first thing which God requires of us is that we believe on the name of the Son of God: without this, nothing else will avail.
3. Then we who are pious, and active, and useful, in the present generation, should be concerned to do what we can that the succeeding generation which is to follow us may be wiser, holier, and better able to do good than we are. It should be our aim as parents in our families, as teachers in Sabbath and other schools, to train children up in the fear of the Lord, that the generation to come may be a seed to serve Him. We have great reason to rejoice that we were born in such a generation as this. We might have lived at the time when our ancestors bowed down to stocks and stones, and practised the most horrid abominations.
4. Has the grave been filling for thousands of years, and will the present and future generations of men descend thither also? What an awful and sublime idea does this give us of the last day!
5. Let us rejoice that there is another state of society in which there will be no such changes and passing away. In passing through this world, let us fix our eyes of faith on that “inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for those who are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation.” (S. Hillyard.)


What passes and what abides
(with 1Jn_2:17):—The antithesis is not really so complete as it sounds at first hearing, because what the Preacher means by “the earth” that “abideth for ever” is not quite the same as what the apostle means by the “world” that “passes,” and the “generations” that come and go are not the same exactly as the men that “abide for ever,” But still the antithesis is real and impressive. The bitter melancholy of the Preacher saw but the surface; the joyous faith of the apostle went a great deal deeper, and putting the two sets of thoughts and ways of looking at man and his dwelling-place together, we get lessons that may well shape our individual lives.
I. The sad and superficial teaching of the preacher. The Preacher says “All is vanity.” That conviction had been set vibrating in his heart, as it is set vibrating in the heart of every man who does as he did, viz. seeks for” solid good away from God. That is his starting-point. It is not true. All is not vanity, except to some blasé cynic, made cynical by the failure of his voluptuousness, and to whom all things here are out of joint, and everything looks yellow because his own biliary system is out of order. He looks out upon humanity, and sees that in one aspect the world is full of births, and in another full of deaths. Coffins and cradles seem the main furniture, and he hears the tramp! tramp! tramp! of the generations passing over a soil honeycombed with tombs, and, therefore, ringing hollow to their tread. All depends on the point of view. This strange history of humanity is like a piece of sheer silk: hold it at one angle, and you see the dark purple; hold at another, and you see the bright golden tints. Look from one point of view, and it seems a long history of vanishing generations. Look to the rear of the procession, and it seems a buoyant spectacle of eager young faces pressing forwards on the march, and of strong feet treading the new road. But yet the total effect of that endless procession is to impress on the observer the transiency of humanity. Man is the lord of earth, and can mould it to his purpose, but it remains and he passes. He is but a lodger in an old house that has had generations of tenants, each of whom has said for a while, “It is mine,” and then they all have drifted away, and the house stands. “One generation cometh and another goeth,” and the tragedy is made more tragical because the stage stands unaltered, and the earth abides for ever. That is what sense has to say “the foolish senses”—and that is all that sense has to say. Is it all that can be said? If it is, then the Preacher’s bitter conclusion is true, and “all is vanity,” and chasing after wind. He immediately proceeds to draw from this undeniable, but, as I maintain, partial fact, the broad conclusion which cannot be rebutted, if you accept what he has said in my text as being the sufficient and complete account of man and his dwelling-place. There is immense activity, and there is no progress; it is all rotatory motion round and round and round, and the same objects come round duly and punctually, as the wheel revolves, and life is futile. Yes; so it is unless there is something more to be said. If all that you have to say of him is, “dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” then life is futile, and God is not vindicated for having produced it. And there is another consequence that follows, if this is all that we have got to say. If the cynical wisdom of Ecclesiastes is the ultimate word, then I do not assert that you destroy morality, because right and wrong are not dependent either upon the belief in a God or the belief in immortality. But I do say that to declare that the fleeting, transient life of earth is all is to strike a staggering blow at all noble ethics. The man whose creed is only “to-morrow we die” will very speedily draw the conclusion “let us eat and drink,” and sensuous delights and the lower side of his nature will become dominant. There is more to be said; the sad, superficial teaching of the Preacher needs to be supplemented.
II. The joyous and profounder teaching of the apostle. The cynic never sees the depths; that is reserved for the mystical eye of the lover, so John says: “No, no; that is not all. Here is the true state of affairs: ‘The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” And what of the man whose life has been devoted to the things seen and temporal, when he finds himself in a condition of being where none of these have accompanied him? Nothing to slake his lusts, if he be a sensualist! No money-bags, ledgers, or cheque-books, if he be a plutocrat or a capitalist or a miser! No books or dictionaries if he be a mere student. Nothing of his vocations if he lived for “the world”! And yet the appetite is abiding; will that not be a thirst that cannot be slaked? The world is passing, and the lust thereof, and all that is antagonism to God, or separated from Him, is essentially as “a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanishes away,” whereas the man who does the will of God abideth for ever in that he is steadfast in the midst of change. He shall “abide for ever,” in the sense that his work is perpetual. In one very deep and solemn sense, nothing human ever dies, but in another all that is not running in the same direction as, and borne along by the impulse of, the will of God, is destined to be neutralized and brought to nothing at last. There may be a row of figures as long as to reach from here to the fixed stars, but if there is not in front of them the significant digit, which comes from obedience to the will of God, all is but a string of cyphers, and their net result is nothing. And he “abideth for ever,” in the most blessed and profound sense in that through his faith, which has kindled his love, and his love which has set in motion his practical obedience, he becomes participant of the very “eternity of the living God.” This is “eternal life,” not merely “to know,” but to do the will of our Father. Nothing else will last, and nothing else will prosper any more than a bit of drift-wood can stem Niagara. Unite yourself with the will of God, and you abide.
III. The plain practical lessons that come from both these texts. May I say, without seeming to be morbid or unpractical, one lesson is that we should cultivate a sense of the transiency of this outward life? One of our old authors says somewhere, that it is wholesome to smell at a piece of turf from a churchyard. The remembrance of death present in our lives will often lay a cool hand upon a throbbing brow; and, like a bit of ice used by a skilful physician, will bring down the temperature, and stay the too tumultuous beating of the heart. Let me say again, a very plain, practical lesson is to dig deep down for our foundations below the rubbish that has accumulated. If a man wishes to build a house in Rome or in Jerusalem he has to go fifty or sixty feet down, through potsherds and broken tiles and triturated marbles, and the dust of ancient palaces and temples. We have to drive a shaft clear down through all the superficial strata, and to lay the first stones on the Rock of Ages. Do not build on that which quivers and shakes beneath you. Build on God. And the last lesson is, let us see to it that our wills are in harmony with His, and the work of our hands His work. We can do that will in all the secularities of our daily life. The difference between the work that shrivels up and disappears and the work that abides is not so much in its external character or in the materials on which it is expended, as in the motive from which it comes. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)


But the earth abideth for ever.—
The abiding earth
We may look at the durability of the earth—
I. As a contrast. It abides in contrast with very much whose only constancy is the constancy of change.
1. The earth abideth in contrast with its own ever-varying appearances. Every year tells of the change of the seasons in which earth changes her raiment, and what does not geology tell of cycles in which the earth has changed her countenance and form beyond all that we can describe.
2. The earth abideth in contrast with human structures. Houses, villages, cities, citadels, where are they? Some utterly swept away: some in ruins: all destined to decay.
3. The earth abideth in contrast with the lives of individual men.
4. The earth abideth in contrast with the existence of nations.
II. As a type. It is a type of much that will outlast itself.
1. Of man. His animal nature may pass; his mental and spiritual being shall continue.
2. Of truth. Here, again, like man’s body, like the moods of the seasons, the forms of truth may change. But truth is eternal.
3. Of God. “They shall perish, but Thou remainest.” (U. R. Thomas.)


The earth permanent, man transitory
Permanence, then, characterizes the material world, while man, viewing him apart from his immortal hopes, lives a mere transitory life. There is, indeed, a sense in which even the material world suffers change. Of all outward things none are so associated with our conceptions of durability as “the everlasting hills.” And yet we know that the hills, in scientific strictness, are not everlasting: that rain and sun and storm are leaving their traces upon the scarred and seamed precipices, and that what the globe is at the present moment is the result of agencies irresistible and unceasing, though carried on through periods of time quite inconceivable. But the writer of Ecclesiastes is not viewing the world from a scientific, but from a practical point of view. Everlasting indeed is the material world in relation to the sixty, seventy, or eighty years allotted to human beings. And what makes the permanence of the material world as compared with the briefness of human life so oppressive is this: that man, thus hemmed in by outward limitations, compelled to do all which his hand finds to do within quite a moment of time, is yet conscious of views, feelings, longings, immeasurably too large for a creature whose life hero is evanescent. There is no imputation upon the lovingkindness of the Creator in the fact that He has created, let us say, a may-fly to be born in the morning and to die in the afternoon. It has no anticipation of a future. There is nothing startling in the fact that to a fly is assigned only the life of a fly. Am I putting contempt on the present life? Far from it. It is good, but yet as connected with another and higher life. It is bright with a light thrown back upon it from immortality. But view it without reference to that life. Withdraw the radiance which everlasting hopes throw around it; think of it as the kindling of ideas which are merely to be quenched; of cravings which are never to be satisfied; of high anticipations which never, never are to be fulfilled; and then must you not allow that this being, so strangely constituted, walking in a vain shadow and disquieting himself in vain, is really worse off than the may-fly, and that his existence is absolutely irreconcilable with faith in a wise and good Creator? I know not what amount of evidence would satisfy me, if I saw a bird of newly-discovered species with powerful wings, that it never was intended to fly and never in fact did fly. That it was capable of flying would be to me conclusive proof that it was intended to do so; and by analogy the existence of faculties and capacities unnecessary for a brief life here, out of proportion with such a life, and demanding eternity for their exercise, would convince me that man was made for immortality, and that his troubled and sin-stained life here was but the prelude to an endless existence, untroubled and unstained, under the eye of Him who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light. I own that I could see no reasonableness in urging the truth contained in my text, if I were unable to supplement it with this latter truth. What call would there be to meditate on the brevity of my life here, if it was not to be followed by another with which it is connected in a very momentous way? The creed of the Epicurean is odious and degrading; but the question is, Is it not the legitimate inference from a denial of man’s immortality? If man’s death is but as the death of an animal, how can his life be anything more than an animal life? But once accept the thought that his existence here is but a brief introduction to a diviner existence, and, while you ennoble this life, you make it a reasonable thing to dwell on its transiency, not to suggest merely lugubrious thoughts, nor to inspire an unpractical dejection of feeling, but because, short as it is, it is the seedtime of immortality, and because into this little space assigned us here below are crowded duties, responsibilities, opportunities, having the most intimate relation to our undying life beyond the grave. “One generation passeth away and another cometh.” There is something within us which makes it difficult to conceive this in its simple truth. Only by thought and training do we lay hold of the fact that the men of tile past were not shadows. I am aware that those who have no trust that we shall live hereafter speak nevertheless of a continuity which belongs to the human race, and remind us truly enough that though the individual passes away, the race continues, and moves forward to a better destiny; and that even if we as individuals are to be blotted out from God’s universe, we ought to work with energy in the faith that posterity will be blessed by our efforts, when we are ourselves forgotten. There is doubtless an element of truth in this, and also an element of disinterestedness which is valuable; but after all we shrink from the thought of being forgotten. Still more, there is surely something unspeakably dreary in the prospect, when we have striven hard for others, of passing into nothingness, and missing the result of our strivings. It is not in human nature to rouse itself to energy under such an absence or feebleness of motive. It is not alone the thought of being forgotten. An unselfish man, though he might be better pleased to be remembered, will bear even being forgotten if he may have some assurance that his labor is not in vain in the Lord; but to work without this assurance were dismal indeed—we may welt say impossible. To work and wait is the lot of the Christian. It is small consolation to us that the material earth abideth for ever, if the things we care for most are daily passing away, and we and they are hurrying to annihilation. Take away the immortality of man, and the continuity of the race is practically an unreality. It is not this poor negation which has done such mighty things in the world. I would dwell on the transiency of this life, not to depress, but to awake you to a profounder conviction of the value of the present moment, of the greatness of the issues which must be determined within this short life, by vast numbers so grievously misemployed, by vast numbers so utterly frittered away. We are to “number our days,” not so as to embitter life by the thought how few they are, but so as to “apply our hearts unto wisdom.” Much indeed that is said about the shortness of life is sadly unpractical. Perhaps it is best to think much more of life than of death, much more of living unto God without a moment’s delay, than of conjuring up anticipations of our last moments. There is comparatively little in the New Testament about death. Life, the new life in Christ, so glorious as to make the dissolution of the body comparatively unimportant—this was the thought which filled the foreground of the Christian prospect. Dwell, then, on the thought of death mainly as a motive to newness of life. The commencement of a year is a memento to us that one generation is passing away and another coming. There are other mementoes which God often sends. He sends the failing health, the waning strength, the disappointment of life’s most cherished hopes, the gathering of clouds round the eventide of life. Thus God often painfully reminds us how time is passing. True religion is not the putting ourselves right by some clever expedient which enables us to combine a worthless life with a Christian’s death. It is the making the life right. It is the regarding our existence here as an anticipation of the rest that remaineth for the people of God. The one condition of a Christian death is a Christian life. (J. A. Jacob, M. A.)


The durability of the earth contrasted with human mortality
This place of our sojourn, this earth, has many things tending to beguile us out of reflection, to lull us into unconcern. But it has some things fitted to awaken us to thought and apprehension. This should, in all reason, be the effect of such circumstances, and facts, as force on our attention the contrast between the duration of the earth itself and that of our abode on it. There are many things to illustrate this comparison, and force our thoughts upon it. History itself;—why is history, but because the generations of men are gone? We want to know something of them, and to converse with them, as a former world of men. And history tells us of one generation, and of another, that has passed away, leaving not a living “rack behind.” It is obviously suggested here, that we have another illustration of the text in places of interment, that have been such for ages. The earliest of the generations that have terminated their earthly existence, are gone beyond memory or tradition. In greater number there are dates of a later generation, still far gone in the past. And so you come down, at last, to the recent grave and tomb. But not only the abodes of the dead,—those of the living also, may yield illustration of the contrast, those of them which were built in a former age; or, take them collectively, in a village, town, or city. How many successions of the inhabitants, since it became a populous city! Would it be an extravagant conjecture that seven or eight times as many persons have died in it, as are at this hour living in it? But think, now, of the whole population having been so many times changed! It requires thought; because the change, being gradual, is at no one time presented in its full magnitude. Were it in the nature of things that there should be, at one grand sweep, the removal of so vast a number, repeated at the average period of an age of man, the event, and the succession of such events, would have an overwhelming awfulness. But what is in effect equal to this takes place, and but feebly excites attention. There may be many things incidentally suggesting themselves to reflecting minds that will strongly enforce the consideration of the brevity of life as contrasted with the permanence of the scene in which it is passed. Reflections of this character may occur under occasional and transient states of feeling,—excited at one time by objects that would not excite them at another. But we should think it must have happened to many, or to most men, to have this reflection excited at the view of some object or other,—“How much longer this has been—or shall be—than I—or any now living man.” There are, as we said, occasional states of feeling in which the reflection, so suggested, comes with vivid impression. And it were well to cultivate that reflective habitude through which the mind should he susceptible of instructive and solemn suggestions and impressions from any and all objects. To a mind so habituated, the transiency of life, the “passing away of the generations,” will be forcibly suggested by the view of such things as mountains, massive rocks, ancient trees, the never-tiring, never-ending, action of the sea, and the solid structures of human labour. Well may such objects make an impression of contrast with man, when we find them in Scripture taken as emblems to represent the unchangeableness and eternity of God. And we may observe, it is the manifest intention of the Divine Spirit, as shown in the sacred writings, that we should be taught to find emblems, in the world we are placed in, to enforce solemn instructions upon us. The reflection may include the ideas of all the various personal qualities—states of mind and character,—and condition altogether, of this unknown long succession. “Depravity has been here, in how many forms! Misery, of how many kinds and degrees! Visions of anticipation—deeply pondered schemes—fluctuations of hope and fear—thoughtlessness and consideration—practical atheism and devout sentiment! All this has passed away—and here is the object still, to which all this was, once, present!” And then to think there is yet to come more of all this, to be present to it—after we shall see it no more. What a train of sinners yet, but also, we trust, of saints, are to reside, or pass and repass, within sight of that pile of rocks. In a solitary and contemplative state of the mind, the permanent objects give the impression as if they rejected and scorned all connection with our transitory existence—as ii we were accounted but as shadows passing over them. They strike the thoughtful beholder with a character of gloomy and sublime dissociation and estrangement from him. It is true that the altering effect of time is visible on many of the objects thus contrasted with us by their permanence. But the extreme slowness of that alteration serves to display again that contrast, and to enforce the instruction. For example, the gradual decay of some mighty, ancient structure,—or of some magnificent cedar or oak,—the working away of the very rocks on the seacoast. The effect has been wrought, but so slowly and imperceptibly that no man can say that he has seen its progress. The man that has looked on the objects in his childhood can hardly, in his most advanced age, say that he perceives any difference. But then let him turn and look at his fellow-mortals, such of them as remain alive! He can recall the image of the childhood of even the oldest of them. The great general instruction from all this is,—how little hold—how little absolute occupancy we have of this world. When all the scene is evidently fixed to remain, we are under the compulsion to go. We have nothing to do with it, but as passing from it. The generation “comes” but to “pass away,” seeing another following it closely under the same destination. Men may strive to cling—to seize a firm possession—to make good their establishment—resolve and vow that the world shall be theirs. But it disowns them,—stands aloof;—it will stay, but they must go. It signifies to us, that equally to all it will yield one matter of permanence—just one, and no more, and that is—a grave. If that enduring possession of the earth will content us, that is secure. In all other senses of possession it will eject us. Men, in their earnest adhesion to it, may raise mighty works of enduring stability—towers, palaces, strongly built houses, as if they absolutely would connect themselves with the world’s own prolonged duration. Well! they may do so; and the earth will retain these, but will expel them. But should not the final lesson be, that the only essential good that can be gained from the world is that which can be carried away from it? Alas! that mere sojourners doom themselves to depart in utter deprivation—when their inquisitive glance over the scene should be after any good that may go with them,—something that is not fixed in the soil, the rocks, or the walls. Let us look on the earth in the spirit of this inquiry, “What has the bounteous Creator placed here?—what has the glorious Redeemer left here, that I may, by His grace, seize and take with me, and find it invaluable in another world?” It will then be delightful to look back, with the reflection, “I could not stay on that earth. I saw but a little while its enduring objects,—its grand solidities,—I saw them but to be admonished that I should remove. I have left them maintaining their unchanging aspects; but in my passage I descried, by the aid of the Divine Spirit, something better than all that they signified to me was no possession for me—I seized the pearl of great price, and have brought it away.” (J. Foster.)


The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down.—
Opposite ideas of life: the materialistic and the spiritual
There are at least two very opposite ideas of human life working in men; and these ideas make life to man virtuous and blessed, or vile and miserable. Materialism propounds the one, spiritual Christianity the other. Solomon speaks what material philosophers teach, and what all mere worldly men feel life to be; Christ and His apostles reveal the experience of all genuine disciples of spiritual Christianity.
I. The one idea represents life as a transient appearance, the other as a permanent reality. Solomon says, speaking out the philosophy of Materialism, “One generation passeth away and another generation cometh.” “All is vanity, all is vanity”—a mere pageant, an empty show. Men, what are they? They rise from the dust and to the dust they go. A whole generation is but a troop of pilgrims, pursuing their journey from dust to dust. They soon reach their destination and disappear, but the earth, the old road over which they trod their way, “abideth for ever.” “Let us eat and drink, then, for to-morrow we die.” Ephemerous as we are, let us sport in the sunbeam while we have it; the starless night of eternal extinction will soon spread over us. So say the Materialists; their philosophy has no higher idea of life. In sublime contrast with this is the idea propounded in the New Testament. “He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” “He that believeth in Me,” says Christ, “shall never die.”
II. The one idea represents life as an endless routine, the other as constant progress. Solomon saw in nature what modern philosophers call the law of circularity everywhere. He saw the sun, the wind, the rivers, moving in an invariable circle, returning ever to the point whence they Set out. He compares this to human life, a mere endless routine. The motion of all organic life is from dust to dust. This is, says the Materialist, but a figure of man’s moral history; there is no progress,—it is an eternal round. Mankind, in all their efforts to improve themselves, are only like Sisyphus of ancient fable, rolling a heavy stone up a steep hill; the moment the hand is withdrawn it rushes to the valley again. This is a crushing idea of life; it comes over the soul like a black, rayless cloud of ice. There is some truth in it, but thank God it is not the whole truth. The true path of the soul is not a circle,—it is a ladder, like Jacob’s ladder, reaching from earth to the throne of the Eternal. Every golden rundle it climbs, it pierces a new cloud, gets new light; it hears new voices, sees new heavens, and thus passes “from glory to glory.” “It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He does appear we shall see Him as He is.”
III. The one idea represents life as unsatisfying laboriousness, the other as a blessed activity. “All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing,” etc. Voltaire, the brilliant wit, the literary idol of France, expressed his experience of life in one word, “Ennui.” The man who has laboured most, and laboured in the highest departments of labour with a worldly spirit, must ever experience dissatisfaction of soul. Worldly labour can never satisfy the human soul. You may as well endeavour to empty the ocean with your bucket, or quench Etna with your tears, as to get happiness due of any amount or kind of labour wrought in a worldly spirit. The idea of labour, however, propounded by Christianity is the opposite of this. Labour need not be, and ought not to be unsatisfying. A good man is “blessed in his deed.” This idea is the true one. All labour should be inspired with the spirit of love to God, and trust in His paternal care. Such labour will be ever satisfying, ever blessed. The labour of love is the melody of life. Every true deed beats heavenly music into the soul.
IV. The one idea represents life as doomed to oblivion—the other as imperishably rememberable. The past is forgotten, the present will soon be in oblivion. Men and their doings are speedily lost in forgetfulness. Such is the gloomy idea of Materialism—an idea under whose dark and chilling shadow men may well weep and wail. But is it true? “The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance.” The good man, “being dead, yet speaketh.” Thank God! Christianity tells us that man will never be forgotten. He will live for ever in the memory of those who love him. The genuine disciple of Christ has his name written in an imperishable book—“the Lamb’s Book of Life.” (Homilist.)


Ecclesiastes 1:9

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be.
Old things in new time
One of the things which strike an observer of human beings is the disposition they perpetually betray to imagine and expect something in the future, different from all that has been in the past. We not only anticipate futurity, but anticipate it as bearing a character, and doing a work, peculiar to itself. This habit is seen in all, and is revealed in nearly every way. Futurity is to do wonders. It is to cure all diseases, to correct all mistakes, to purge from all vices. To realize our conception, it must possess the mysterious powers of magic. The past is not permitted to afford any guidance in our mental wanderings into time to come. It will be affected by no such vulgar laws as have been used to operate. It will have a sphere and dominion of its own. It will present an improved series of life and providence. We speak of it as “doing,” “bringing,” “making” things, often forgetting that it is only the duration in which they are done, and brought, and made, by God and men.
I. The first application we make of the sentiment is to life. Who does not entertain a vague notion that some considerable variety will be introduced into his future life, some great change in the mode and manner of his outward existence? Yet this is a notion which a little reflection and a little memory may serve to rebuke. There is, perhaps, no solid ground on which to hope that in respect to circumstances this year will not be, to you, as the last. There is no reasonable probability, perhaps, that you will go into a different way of business, a different sphere, a different station. And as to more directly personal matters, it is certain that the common processes and ways of life will continue the same. Eating and drinking, sleeping and waking, thinking and speaking, weeping and rejoicing, will continue to be the daily experiences and occupations of all. There is something appalling in all this, when considered alone. This monotony of life is very solemn, and very sad. And it is because men feel it to be so dismal and distressing, that they constantly do violence to all sense and fact in fancying that the future will afford, they know not how, a different kind of being and of occupation. Hope is the safety-valve of tribulation and satiety: but for it, verily there would be more suicides. What are we but, in a figure, drivers over the same ground of life, with little variety but that of a fine or a wet day, a summer or a winter season, good or bad roads? And what is the remedy? As to hoping, that is a poor and an insufficient one. It is rather an excuse than a reason for peace and contentment. When men take no interest in food, what is the cure? We seek to create an appetite, by rectifying the system, giving the powers health and tone. And this must be the cure here. Men are miserable; they complain of the world, of their fellows, of their lot; this dish is bad, that is badly dressed, and so on. The fault is in the men. They want an appetite for life. Let there be that, and however common and plain the provision, there will be no lack of relish. But while that is wanted, the costliest delicacies and nicest preparations will impart but a mean and meagre gratification. A fictitious taste will always be a fickle one. Men tire of that for which they have no strong and healthy craving. Even stimulants lose their power, and to sustain the effect you must increase the consumption. The greater part of men have no serious purpose in life. They are destitute of great and abiding purposes, towards which to direct their energies, and which may give importance and continuity to their existence. Their history is not one united whole, but is made up of scraps; it is not a stream flowing on to one specific point, but so many unconnected pools. They labour not in continuous service, but chance-work. They are not filled with a solemn and spiritual idea, not engrossed by a momentous truth, not moved by an all-absorbing passion. Be assured that nothing can give zest and vivacity to life but a deep interest in the soul, and that nothing can secure that like the minding of the things of the Spirit. The only way to realize the charm, and fulness, and power of your being, is to live yourselves, in the Bible sense of the expression; to live spiritually, to live for Christ, to live toward God. This is the life that you were made for, and redeemed for; and, without it, the end of your being cannot be attained, its large capacity cannot be filled, its rich privilege cannot be enjoyed. Having this, you will not complain of the littleness of events and lots, for everything is great to him who connects it with responsibility, eternity, and God; or of their meanness, for everything is glorious to him who regards it as the occasion and the instrument of a Divine service and a spiritual salvation; or of their staleness, for everything is new to him who brings to it an eager will, a full purpose, and affections renewed and stimulated by the love of Jesus and the love of men. “Newness of life” must be sought for, not in strangeness of condition, but ever-quickened spirituality of soul. And let me, in this connection, press home to you the thought, that you have before you an everlasting future. The provision you have to make is not for time, but for eternity. Even if a skilful management of your materials could infuse something like freshness into your existence here, what is your resource for the endless hereafter? The mistake you ere making now, even did not more solemn considerations interpose, would be a mistake in the world to come. It is a solemn business to provide for the immortal interest of souls like yours, to secure them against the oppressive monotony of changeless being. All external expedients must of necessity fail, and the only hope remains in an intellect ever opening upon some fresh view of the truth of God, and a heart ever growing into a closer likeness to His holiness, and a fuller fellowship in the eternal Spirit.
II. We apply the sentiment to responsibility. Every one who has noticed his own heart or the hearts of others must have perceived how prone is man to rely on time for the production of mental, moral and spiritual changes in himself. They know there are intellectual defects, but they expect them to be supplied; they know there are improper habits, but they expect them to be corrected; they know there are sinful principles, but they expect them to be removed. They do not intend to continue ignorant, or irregular, or ungodly. Now, it is of the first importance to remember and possess, as a practical conviction, that time does nothing, in the ease of any of the changes that take place in men’s minds and hearts and lives, besides the affording a season in which they may be effected. He who expects to be mended merely by time, whatever the nature or measure of his defects, will find himself in as poor a plight as he who should stand by the stream till all the waters have passed along. Time will not change the nature of the seed sown, but only afford opportunity for its growth. Men will never be learned without study; will never be purged of bad habits without self-denial and decision and perseverance; will never become Christians, or, as Christians, abound in grace, without repentance, earnest faith, mortification of the flesh, crucifixion of the members, the entire and unconditional conversion of the heart to God and godliness. Is it not, after all, the moral pains, the effort of will, the self-sacrifice required, that let and hinder you? Is not your case exactly like that of a man who begrudges the toil and trouble of clearing a field that is overrun with weeds, and postpones them, in hope that hereafter the labour needed may be less? We implore you to take counsel of past experience. The hope of this present time was the hope of years ago. As you think or rather dream now, you used to dream. With what result? You have not attained the expected change. Will not holiness and duty involve renewal, a labour, a fight? Will it not always require the utmost unity of heart, and strength of will, and application of power? “Ah,” say you, “but there is the Holy Spirit.” But does He dispense with sorrow for sin, and subjection to Christ, and strenuous exertion? Will He weep for you, repent for you, believe for you, obey for you? Does He work without means and motives? The question then returns, What do you now? No reasonable man can look into the future with any confidence, while he is going on in sin; and he who says, “Time works wonders, I shall be wise, though now a fool, I shall be correct and consistent, though now far from being so, I shall be holy though now cherishing worldliness,” only postpones, but thereby augments, not diminishes, the labour.
III. We apply the sentiment to providence. The term “providence” is used here, of course, in a restricted sense, to denote the course of events taking place upon the globe. All events are under the control and direction of God; and all are connected, directly or indirectly, with the establishment and extension of His spiritual kingdom. We know of no distinction between ecclesiastical and worldly providence. All things are given into the hand of Christ, and He orders and governs all for the sake of His Body, the Church. The principles of spiritual providence will remain the same. Sometimes we fear. The question is suggested, “If the foundations be destroyed, what shall the righteous do?” It is highly probable that we are fast entering upon scenes to try the faith and fortitude even of “the elect.” It would, however, be a grievous error to suppose that, whatever the materials and outward forms of providence may be, its principles and purposes are not abiding and immutable. The laws which govern all physical and spiritual things “change not.” To fulfil the blessed designs of the Gospel is still His end. Christianity is the reason and the rule of all things. Whatever happens is a step towards the final and full attainment of the highest, holiest and most gracious purposes. That which seems to hinder is made to help. The path may be strange, but the Guide will bring them home. The prescription may be in an unknown tongue, but the Physician will complete their cure. God’s dispensations may be hidden, but God is not; and “all things are yours, for ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” Are you Christ’s? The scenes and processes of Providence are more alike in every ago than many, at first sight, may suppose. Sometimes the past, especially the ancient ages of the world, seem to have been very different from our own. And, doubtless, in some respects, thank God, they were. But when their spirit is separated from their form, and allowance is made for the fact that they are ancient, that we have, therefore, their great and prominent events and features, without the filling up of things minor and multitudinous, they are not so peculiar after all. What a different earth would ours appear to him who saw nothing but its mountains! God does not work so much by sudden and violent operations as in a gradual and silent way. The most important processes in Nature and in Providence are the most silent. The moral instrument of God’s providence is the same. Whatever change may take place in the human mind, in social customs and relations, in outward and material circumstances, truth will still be the means of advancing the Divine designs respecting our world. Our duty is therefore as plain as it is important, to study, to feel, to speak, to act, to spread the truth; in particular, the living and abiding truth of Christianity. Let us not, then, spend our time and waste our powers in a vain attempt to comprehend or predict events, but let us set about wholesome and unchanging duty. We are not called to be moral astrologers but moral husbandmen, and a miserable thing it would be for us to cast nativities and—die. (A. J. Morris.)


On the resemblance between the future and the past
The prerogative of imagining and looking into the future is one of which men avail themselves with the least moderation. How much time is spent in conjectures! See this illustrated in the flattering expectations of youth; the sad fore-castings of the sorrowful; our conjectures about political complications; the schemings of enthusiasts and partisans; and even in the musings of men who, rising above what is merely pleasant or useful, have the Good in view. This is certainly not the most profitable course. Else, why nothing but a bitter aftertaste left of extravagant expectations when these are disappointed? This is commonly thought to be the language of satiety. If it be regarded as a complaint, springing out of a longing for novelty, and adducing as its grievance that there is none to be found, then such a mental condition must be inferred; for when the mind in its hankering after new impressions fails to gain any, there sensibility must have become wholly dead. But these words stand here without reference to a personal experience, as a deliberate observation, followed by a steady and many-sided contemplation of the world.
I. “Nothing new under the sun” most naturally expresses the aspect of the world to the eye of the man who everywhere in the world seeks the Lord.
1. We must have regard, not at all to the exterior, but to the interior of events, both in the material and in the spiritual world. The exterior is ever varying, the interior is ever the same. What of the ever-changing situations of the heavenly bodies? The same laws have determined them from the beginning. What of the changes that appear in my body, in the plant world? The same powers and their laws are ever at work there to produce essentially the same forms. The Unchangeable is everywhere impressed upon His works!. . . So in what concerns you more closely, into which you may fathom still more deeply—the spiritual world. Why wonder at a fellow-creature who furnishes you with an unusual sight by extraordinary virtues or vices, wisdom or folly, skill in thought and action or unaccountable peculiarity in these? Look into his soul! There are the same faculties as in yourself, and the operations of the same laws. Consider the great mystery how the two worlds to which you belong are united; how mind is ever gaining fresh dominion over matter, and thereby advancing human fellowship, and education, and convenience. See in this nothing novel. They are all but evolutions of the same Divine thoughts, advances toward the same goal of His grace, according to the same plan of His wisdom; in short, “there is nothing new under the sun.”
2. To him who everywhere in the world seeks the Lord, there is no distinction between Great and Little. If the Lard does everything, and is active in everything, then everything must be worthy of Him, and no one thing will rise superior to another, as He is always equal to Himself. With Him in view, therefore, every event will reveal the same power or principle. This may appear strange to those who consider only the outside of things, and judge by the impressions which it produces on their sense and feeling. They overlook the greatness and glory of the Little; hence they deem great events to spring from trifling causes, and see novelty in quick, unexpected revolutions; hence the wondering gaze of folly here, and their stupid blindness before God’s revelation there. They see not the same elements and laws in the desolating storm as in the morning breeze; in the sudden death as in the steadily-maintained warfare of life and death. A new light of truth flames high in some quarter, and errors vanish. Now, what astonishment seizes men, and what congratulations abound! This, because they see not the heralding sparks of that, and the secret decay of these.
II. Such sentiments are connected with this view as belong to the exclusive endowments of the pious.
1. Every one holding this view finds so much the more cause to be contented with the post which God has assigned to him in the world. To him nothing is vain, and every position in the world may be fraught with benefit.
2. With such a view of the world, a man will use even in little and common things far greater diligence than others. Herein we see the humility of the pious man, which is a source of much good both to himself and to the world. Neglecters of the Little are sorry promoters of the good cause, and never come by fair means to the Great.
3. It hence follows that, more than any other, this mode of looking at the world is connected with the assured hope that we shall succeed from time to time in becoming better. This is one of the first characteristics of the future to be perceived. Not so to the man who is waiting for somewhat outwardly great and extraordinary. He is doomed to much anxiety and disappointment. By looking, then, through the surface of earthly things into their inner essence, we see the true connection of the Divine government; are able to greet the future as a friend, of whose thoughts we are sure, however changed his demeanour; and in modesty and humility may calm ourselves with the conviction that we shall receive from our Heavenly Father henceforth nothing different from what His love has already bestowed upon us in the past. (F. D. E. Schleiermacher.)


The helpful past
There are conclusions in science which are inevitable and independent of the student, except so far as his intellect is clear enough to understand them; but the moral conclusions, and the conclusions of the practical conduct which a man shall try from certain data or propositions upon which he or others shall be agreed—those vary with his immediate state of conscience or spirit. Now, with regard to this principle that Solomon found to be a great weariness. The conclusions that a man shall draw from it are very much dependent upon the man himself. There is a desire in man for that which is best. As long as the river ran into an eternity, it seemed to be lovely, but when we find that has got into a circle too, and that the water will come down in rain back again, that becomes a weariness. Man has a passion for something new; fairy tales, and many romances are built upon a desire that there should be something that has not been, and this spirit in a child is no doubt a great element of joy. Now, whether this weariness is yours, I know not; that it has been a passing feeling—judging from myself—I conclude, but as it is the fate to be so, it is the wisest thing to see what good it has, and to rejoice that this year will bring nothing new at all, that it will be the old story again, which will at times be a weariness, but also at times a joy; for remember that human life is based upon this great postulate—“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” Men try many ways to find out something new, but it is in vain. They travel sometimes for a change, and they go to the East, but they find that there are people there the same as elsewhere, and even travelling sometimes gets a weariness. What has been will be. Humanity is the same. Others try visiting. You get new people to come and see you, and you find out the old tune in new mouths. There are no new people scarcely. It is the old story; there is a little difference in the instrument perhaps, but you hear the old tunes, the commonplace talk, the same things over again, and why not? That is the way of life—let a wise man accept it. Now, see why it is the way. We have all to start from the beginning. We have all to build up, not what many of you love to build up—a house made with hands, but the end of life is to build up “a house not made with hands,” to be hereafter “eternal in the heavens.” When a man sees clearly that to build his character is of more consequence than to build his fame and fortune, then he is wise, for instead of he—a poor weakling—having to face the unknown, he knows what is coming, he learns to rejoice that he can consult the fathers, for what happened yesterday is a future precedent, and finding the thing that has been is that which shall be, the elements of uncertainty—fear and terror—are removed. If then I forget for a moment that the building of a character is the only wise thing for which I came into the world, and for which all other things exist, as far as I am concerned, then this glorious repetition, this wonderful monotony, this constant changeableness, is an element of my success. I know pretty much what duties and circumstances life can bring, I know its utmost, I have seen its worst and its best, and I know what I am about; I can go forth to build, knowing the materials I have at my disposal, what the dangers and difficulties I have to encounter, and the issues that will come to pass, and so for to-morrow I am prepared. For remember that of all a man’s possessions, the past is the surest, greatest, and most useful. The past is man’s storehouse, it is his volume to which he goes again and again for advice as to the future. He turns it over, as we turn over the pages of a book of law or a dictionary. He knows where to find each thing he wants. So when to-morrow comes, and brings me a difficulty, I go to yesterday, and, turning the volume over, I look for bodily pain perhaps, and I find that in a certain month of a certain year I suffered bodily pain to a degree to make sleep impossible, and life a despair. But it says at the end—“Got through it, not so bad as I thought.” And so the past is my dictionary, I know the meaning; it is my book of precedents, I know what will happen. Some man speaks evil of you, and, when you are young, it disturbs you much. It is like a scratch on the skin, it does not go deep, but it gives you an amazing pain while it lasts. But one fool saying another is a fool is simply a statement that he is a fool, and ‘thus to the wise man the past is a great hope for the future. It contains balm, consolation and comfort. It is the history of difficulties that turned out not to be so difficult. It is the history of struggles that came to an end. It is the history of long nights that were always followed by morning. Therefore to the wise man it is a joy to say with Solomon: “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.” We have character to build up, and we require the old circumstances, ways, results, the inevitable methods of God, in order that we may surely and safely build. Then as we have to learn things, and follow them for ourselves, it is needful that the same old story be applied to each of us, for were the circumstances of a man’s life greatly to vary, the character that would result must vary too. I am content. I look forward to this year, I confess, with no great enthusiasm, because I have ceased to be an enthusiast, and am simply a workman now. Life will bring me nothing new. Therefore if you expect me to be eager—excuse me—I have seen the show before. But no terror is possible, no cowardice, and no fear. I go forth with a grave heart, and the reason of it is this—“What has been, will be.” Old deliverances are the deliverances of the future. The thing that has been shall be, God who did deliver in the olden time, will deliver now, and the fixity of God, and the uniformity of human experience, then, instead of being (as they were to Solomon) a weariness and vexation, shall become at last a comfort and joy. So that, beginning a new year, we begin it with courage and quiet Confidence: The chances are, not one of us will find the year too much for us, because we have tried “a great many years, and have got the better of them. The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, He will deliver me out of the hands of the Philistine.” Thus then I rejoice, and look forward to the three hundred and sixty-five days with all their monotony—the sun rising and setting at the same time and place, knowing that through the same pane of glass the sun will shine (if it shines at all), with a quiet faith and confidence. For if the sun should rise in a different way I should not be ready for it. If the sea should take to going up-hill, there would be very sad changes with regard to human nature. If the law of gravity should take another change in consequence of the millennium, it would be a very sorry thing for human life. But human life is built up, all churches are erected, all institutions are founded, all coal pits sunk, all candles lighted, all the steps of men move according to one great proposition—what has been shall be. (G. Dawson.)


Imaginary schemes of happiness
There are few people who do not form in their minds agreeable plans of happiness, made up of future flattering prospects, which have no foundation except in their own fancies. This disposition, so general among mankind, is also one of the principal causes of their immoderate desire to live. A child fancies that as soon as he shall arrive at a certain stature, he shall enjoy more pleasure than he hath enjoyed in his childhood, and this is pardonable in a child. The youth persuades himself that men, who are what they call settled in the world, are incomparably more happy than young people can be at his age. Thus we go on from fancy to fancy, and from one chimera to another, till death arrives, subverts all our imaginary projects of happiness, and makes us know by our own experience what the experience of others might have fully taught us long before, that is, that the whole world is vanity. Of this vanity I would endeavour to convince you, and I dedicate this discourse to the destruction of imaginary schemes of happiness. All the past hath been vanity, and all the future will be vanity to the end of the world. The thing that hath been, is that which shall be: and that which is done, is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.
I. Let us first of all determine the sense of the text, and examine what error the wise man attacks.
1. When the wise man says that which hath been, is that which shall be, he doth not mean to attribute a character of firmness and consistency to such events as concern us. A spectator young in his observations, and distant from the central point, is amazed at the rapid changes, which he beholds suddenly take place like the creation of new worlds; he supposed whole ages must pass in removing those enormous masses, public bodies, and in turning the current of prosperity and victory. But should he penetrate into the spring of events, he would soon find that a very small and inconsiderable point gave motion to that wheel, on which turned public prosperity, and public adversity, and which gave a whole nation a new and different appearance. Sometimes the rare qualities of one single general animate a whole army, and assign to each member of it his proper work, to the prudent a station which requires prudence, to the intrepid a station which requires courage, and even to an idiot a place where folly and absurdity have their use. From these rare qualities a state derives the glory of rapid marches, bold sieges, desperate attacks, complete victories and shouts of triumph. The general finishes his life by his own folly, or is supplanted by a party cabal, or sinks into inaction on the soft down of his own panegyrics, or a fatal bullet, shot at random and without design, penetrates the heart of this noble and generous man. Instantly a new world appears, and that which was is no more; for with this general victory and songs of triumph expired. It would be easy to repeat of individuals what we have affirmed of public bodies, that is, that the world is a theatre in perpetual motion, and always varying; that every day, and in a manner, every moment exhibits some new scene, some change of decoration. It is, then, clear that the proposition in the text ought to be restrained to the nature of the subject spoken of.
2. But these indeterminate words, “that which hath been shall be, and there is no new thing under the sun,” must be explained by the place they occupy. Without quoting other examples, we observe that the words under consideration occur twice in this book, once in the text, and again in the fifteenth verse of the third chapter, where we are told, that which hath been is now, and that which is to be hath already been. However, it is certain that these two sentences, so much alike in sound, have a very different meaning. The design of Solomon in the latter passage is to inform such persons, as tremble at the least temptation, that they were mistaken. But in our text the same words, the thing that hath been is that which shall be, have a different meaning. It is evident by the place in which the wise man put them that he intended to decry the good things of this life, to make the vanity of them appear, and to convince mankind that no revolutions can change the character of vanity essential to their condition. We often declaim on the vanity of the world; but our declamations are not unfrequently more intended to indemnify pride than to express the genuine feelings of a heart disabused. We love to declaim against advantages out of our reach, and we take vengeance on them for not coming within our grasp by exclaiming against them. A man waiting on the coast to go abroad wishes for nothing but a fair wind, and he does not think that he shall find other, and perhaps greater, calamities in another climate than those which compelled him to quit his native soil. This is an image of us all. Our minds are limited, and when an object presents itself to us we consider it only in one point of view, in other lights we are not competent to the examination of it. Hence the interest we take in some events, in the revolutions of states, the phenomena of nature, and the change of seasons; hence that perpetual desire of change. Eyes never satisfied with seeing, and ears never filled with hearing. Poor mortals, will you always run after phantoms! No, it is not any of the revolutions you so earnestly desire can alter the vanity essential to human things: with all the advantages which you so earnestly desire, you would find yourself as void, and as discontented as you are now.
II. Let us endeavour to admit these truths with all their effects. Let us attempt the work, though we have so many reasons to fear a want of success. There are four barriers against imaginary projects; four proofs, or rather four forces of demonstrations in evidence of the truth of the text.
1. Let us first observe the appointment of man, and let us not form schemes opposite to that of our Creator. When He placed us in this world, He did not intend to confine us to it: but when He formed us capable of happiness, He intended we should seek it in an economy different from this. Without this principle man is an inexplicable enigma: his faculties and his wishes, his afflictions and his conscience, his life and his death, everything that concerns man is obscure, and beyond all elucidation. His faculties are enigmatical. Tell us, what is the end and design of the faculties of many Why hath he the faculty of knowing? What, is it only to arrange a few words in his memory? Only to know the sounds or the pictures to which divers nations of the world have associated their ideas? Hath man intelligence only for the purpose of racking his brain, and losing himself in a world of abstractions, in order to disentangle a few questions from metaphysical labyrinths, what is the origin of ideas, what are the properties, and what is the nature of spirit? Glorious object of knowledge for an intelligent being! An object in general more likely to produce scepticism than demonstration of a science properly so called. Let us reason in like manner on the other faculties of mankind. His desires are problematical. What power can eradicate, what power can moderate his desire to extend and perpetuate his duration? The human heart includes in its wish the past, the present, the future—yea, eternity itself. Explain to us what proportion there can be between the desires of man and the wealth which he accumulates, the honours he pursues, the sceptre in his hand, and the crown on his head? His miseries are enigmatical. Who can reconcile the doctrine of a good God with that of a miserable man, with the doubts that divide his mind, with the remorse that gnaws his heart, with the uncertainties that torment him. His life is a mystery. What part, poor man, what part are you acting in this world? Who misplaced you thus? His death is enigmatical. This is the greatest mystery of all enigmas. Lay down the principle, which we have advanced, grant that the great design of the Creator, by placing man amidst the objects of this present world, was to draw out and extend his desires after another world, and then all these clouds vanish, all these veils are drawn aside, all these enigmas explained, nothing is obscure, nothing is problematical in man. His faculties are not enigmatical; the faculty of knowing is not confined to such vain science as he can acquire in this world. He is not placed here to acquire knowledge, but virtue. If he acquire virtue, he will be admitted into another world, where his utmost desire of knowledge will be gratified. His desires are not mysterious. When the laws of order require him to check and control his wishes, let him restrain them. When the profession of religion requires it, let him deny himself agreeable sensations, and let him patiently suffer the cross, tribulations and persecutions. After he shall have thus submitted to the laws of his Creator, he may expect another period, in which his desire to be great will be satisfied. His miseries are no more enigmatical; they exercise his virtue, and will be rewarded with glory. His life ceases to be mysterious. It is a state of probation, a time of trial, a period given him to make choice of an eternity of happiness, or an eternity of misery. His death is no longer a mystery, and it is impossible that either his life or his death should be enigmas, for the one unfolds the other. We conclude, then, that the destination of man is one great barrier against imaginary schemes of happiness. Change the face of society; subvert the order of the world: put despotical government in the place of a democracy; peace in the place of war, plenty in the place of scarcity, and you will alter nothing but the surface of human things, the substance will always continue the same. The thing that hath been, is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
2. The school of the world opens to us a second source of demonstrations. Enter this school, and you will renounce all vain schemes of felicity. There you will learn that the greatest part of the pleasures of the world, of which you entertain such fine notions, are only phantoms. There you will find that those passions, which men of high rank have the power of fully gratifying, are sources of trouble and remorse, and that all the pleasure of gratification is nothing in comparison of the pain of one regret caused by the remembrance of it. In a word, you will there understand that what may seem the most fortunate events in your favour will contribute very little to your happiness.
3. But if the school of the world is capable of teaching us to renounce our fanciful projects of felicity, Solomon is the man in the world the most learned in this school, and the most able to give us intelligence. Accordingly we have made his declaration the third source of our demonstrations. I know no one more proper to teach us a good course of morality than an old reformed courtier, who chooses to retire after he hath spent the prime of his life in dissipation. On this principle, what an impression ought the declaration of Solomon to make on our minds! Few men are so fascinated with the world as not to know that some things in it are vain and vexatious. Most men say of some particular object, This is vanity: but very few are so rational as to comprehend all the good things of this life in the same class, and to say of each, as Solomon did, This also is vanity. A poor peasant, whose ruinous cottage doth not keep out the weather, will readily say, My cottage is vanity: but he imagines there is a great deal of solidity in the happiness of him who sleeps in a superb palace. Solomon knew all these conditions of life, and it was because be knew them all that he declaimed against them; and had you, like him, known them all by experience, you would form such an idea as he did of the whole.
4. To reflections on the experience of Solomon add your own, and to this purpose recollect the history of your life. Remember the time when sighing and wishing for the condition, in which Providence hath since placed you, you considered it as the centre of felicity, and verily thought could you obtain that state you should wish for nothing more. You have obtained it. Do you think now as you did then?
III. From all these reflections what consequences shall we draw? That all conditions are absolutely equal? That as they, who actually enjoy the most desirable advantages of life, ought to consider them with sovereign contempt, so people, who are deprived of them, ought not to take any pains to acquire them, and to better their condition? No, God forbid we should preach a morality so austere, and so likely to disgrace religion. On the one hand, they, to whom God hath granted the good things of this life, ought to know the value of them, and to observe with gratitude the difference which Providence hath made between them and others. Do you enjoy liberty? Liberty is a great good: feel the pleasure of liberty. Are you rich? Wealth is a great good: enjoy the pleasure of being rich. Behold the man loaded with debts, destitute of friends, pursued by inexorable creditors, having indeed just enough to keep himself alive to-day, but not knowing how he shall support life to-morrow, and bless God you are not in the condition of that man. Do you enjoy your health? Health is a great good: relish the pleasure of being well. Nothing but a fund of stupidity or ingratitude can render us insensible to temporal blessings, when it pleases God to bestow them on us. As they, to whom Providence hath granted the comforts of life, ought to know the value of them, and to enjoy them with gratitude, so it is allow-able—yea, it is the duty of such as are deprived of them to endeavour to acquire them, to meliorate their condition, and to procure in future a condition more happy than that to which they have hitherto been condemned, and which hath caused them so many difficulties and tears. Self-love is the most natural and lawful of all our passions. The more riches you have the more able will you be to assist the indigent. The higher you are elevated in society, the more you will have it in your power to succour the oppressed. Our design, m restraining your projects, is to engage you patiently to bear the inconveniences of your present condition, when you cannot remedy them: because whatever difference there may seem to be between the most happy and the most miserable mortal in this world, there is much less, all things considered, than our misguided passions imagine. Our design, in checking the immoderate inclination we have to contrive fanciful schemes of happiness, is to make you enjoy with tranquillity such blessings as you have. Most men render themselves insensible to their present advantages by an extravagant passion for future acquisitions. Above all, the design, the chief design we have in denouncing a vain and unsatisfactory being in this world, is to engage you to seek after a happy futurity in the presence of God; to engage you to expect from the blessings of a future state what you cannot promise yourself in this. But if all mankind ought to preserve themselves from the disorder of fanciful schemes of future pleasure, they above all are bound to do so, who are arrived at old age, when years accumulated bring us near the infirmities of declining life, or a dying bed. What advantage could I derive from a well-furnished table, I, whose palate hath lost the faculty of tasting and relishing food? What advantage could I derive from a numerous levee, I, to whom company is become a burden, and who am in a manner a burden to myself? In one word, what benefit can I reap from a concurrence of all the advantages of life, I, who am within a few steps of the gates of death? Happy! When my life comes to an end, to be able to incorporate my existence with that of the immortal God! Happy! When I feel this earthly tabernacle sink, to be able to exercise that faith, which is an evidence of things not seen! Happy to ascend to that city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God! (Heb_11:1; Heb_11:10). (J. Saurin.)


There is no new thing under the sun—
Two standpoints
(with 2Co_5:17):—These words bring before us two opposite standpoints which perhaps may be best described as the world’s standpoint and Christ’s standpoint. The one represents the Old Testament, the other the New. Solomon and Paul are the two types of these two different tendencies which are here brought before us—the world’s standpoint and Christ’s standpoint. Now, on the very threshold of the subject, we are arrested by a mighty paradox. If one had been asked beforehand to decide what would have been the origin of these two passages he should certainly, I think, have said that it would have been exactly the reverse. If there ever was a man in this world who ought to have felt the freshness and the joy and the glow of morning’s dawn, of the thing called existence, that man was Solomon. If there ever was a man who ought to have felt the extreme jadedness, commonplaceness, disjointedness of the thing called life, that man was Paul. And yet, strange and wondrous paradox, Solomon found life to be flat, stale, and unprofitable—a thing with all the glow and glory superseded and washed out. Paul felt life to be absolutely ringing with novelty. If any man be in Christ, he is not only new, but a new creation, “Old things are passed away”: and “behold all things are become new.” Now, which of these views is the true one? They are both true! That is the mystery, that is the problem to be solved to-day—how two such different estimates of men can both at one and the same moment be true. Now, I think, if you look at these passages, you will find that the two passages themselves give two decided hints as to the reason of the paradox—suggest two causes why two such opposite statements are each of them true of the men whom they represent; why the one man found life to be all novelty, and the other man a scene of commonplaceness. Let us consider these, in the first instance, as an explanation of the reason of the difference of these two views, that Solomon was under the delusion that novelty was to be found in things, in outward objects—“There is no new thing under the sun.” Paul, on the other hand, has taken his stand on a totally different principle; he says that novelty lies, and must always lie, not in things, but in men—“If any man be in Christ he is a new creature,” or a new creation: “old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” It was no change in the outward creation that made Paul feel the sense of novelty in passing into Christianity. How could it? The mirror cannot reveal anything that is not already in the room. You may put a new glass into the mirror, you may polish the old glass a hundred times, but unless you change the furniture beforehand the impression carried to the eye will be exactly the same. Now, let us take the opposite. Let us say, instead of beginning with polishing the mirror, or putting new glass into the mirror, we shall begin by changing the furniture of the room—in other words, by renewing the man. You find in everyday life, you and I find in this world, that a change in inward experience actually produces an absolutely new picture on a perfectly old mirror. You entered, e.g. some time ago into a picture gallery, your eye rested there incidentally upon something classical, say the battle of Lake Regulus or the Three Hundred that fought at Thermopylae; it rested there, but glanced immediately away. What was Thermopylae to you, with no knowledge of classical history? In five minutes that sight had no more impression on your organism than if it had never existed; you had forgotten its existence. Years pass away: you had begun to study classical studies, without reference to this picture. One day, incidentally, again you entered the same picture gallery: suddenly your eye was fastened, riveted. What a beautiful picture that is! How classical; how it makes the past live and breathe and glow! I never saw anything that expressed to my mind so vividly the old features of the Attic race. And yet that picture is not altered in outward lineament or feature: it is worse than better of the wear. It is the old glass in the mirror, but you have caught the glow of another scene—“Old things have passed away; and, behold, all things have become new.” And now, perhaps, you can understand what it was that gave to this man of Tarsus such a thrill and glow in beholding this aspect of nature and of life. He, too, as much as you on these occasions, had been experiencing the hollowness, the barrenness, the nothingness of human existence. Suddenly, suddenly there flashed before him an ideal, a present, a beauty before which the heavens fled away. There came to him the sight of an ideal perfect beauty, and before that ideal of beauty the world burst anew into bloom; and was not Nature, too, glad in mood that half-hour? In very truth the beauty of that idea filled all things—it put out the sun and moon; it put out the stars; it put out the glory of the landscape; it extinguished the forms of Nature and sat upon them; it occupied the place of all things that had occupied his senses before; it made common things precious; it made little things large and grand; it turned the water into wine; it lightened the long and weary marches in Macedonia, Thessalonica, Attica, Achaia; it lightened the long and weary drudgery of commonplace life—of tent-making, the buying, the selling, the jabbering of everyday talk about things of no interest at all. This round earth everywhere was bound with gold chains about the feet of God. Say—in sight of such a transformation as this, in sight of a transformation that came, not from a new glass in Nature’s mirror, but from a new impulse imparted to the innermost soul—can you wonder that the great Apostle of the Gentiles should have thus prescribed, inscribed, and stereotyped for ever his experience of the source of novelty—“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new”? I come now to the second of the great principles by which the passage explains its own paradox; the reason why Solomon failed to find that novelty in the things in which Paul expressed himself to have met with what was fresh and new. The second reason I take to be this: Solomon was under a second delusion, he not only thought that novelty lay in things, but he thought that novelty was to be reached by a change of the present, by a doing away with the present. Paul, then, has made the great discovery that in order to get novelty we do not require a change at all: it is the past—“If any man is in Christ he is a new creature,” because “old things are passed away,” therefore “all things are become new.” Solomon had sown his wild oats and passed from the far country into his father’s house, he had become a highly respectable member of society, but he was very much astonished to find that the seeds he had sown in the far country—he had finished the sowing of his wild seeds—were attending him in his father’s house. It was the past that troubled Solomon. There is a saying common in this world, “It will be all the same a hundred years hence.” A more foolish saying, perhaps, never existed. The weight that presses upon you and me is not of the present, but a weight of former years. He must be a poor-minded man, even if he has passed from the far country into his father’s house, even if he has sown the wild oats, and is at what we call a staid and sober period of life—he must, I say, be a poor-minded man that never says to himself: “Have I left no cross on the wayside? I am safe now; I have planted my feet upon a rock, but have I left no record, no cross over which my brother man shall fall?” Is there nothing which can comfort a man under these circumstances—supposing you and I have got this fever of the past, this sense of old things present upon us—is there anything which can be to you and me a source of possible comfort? Yes, there is one. Provided now it were revealed to you and me by faith, revealed in such a way that my faith could accept it, that all this time when I thought I was travelling, leaving crosses by the wayside, there was a Being, a mysterious Power, coming up behind me and taking up every cross that I had planted down and transmuting—not cancelling it, that would be impossible, the past can never be restored—but in the literal sense of the word atoning for it, in the sense of a ladder by which my brother, instead of falling, may rise. If, for example: you saw Joseph, that you put last year into the dungeon, step on to the throne of Egypt, not in spite of that, but by reason of it; for that dungeon which you meant to be his destruction had become the first necessary step to his throne. Say, in such a sense as that, in such a sense of transmuted energy as that, would not the regenerated man feel a sense of freedom which would make life bright, happy, and new? Now, that was the case with this man Paul; he had been regenerated, sown his wild oats in the far country—although different from Solomon’s, they had been very wild seeds indeed—and so he had still remaining the memory of those seeds. His life was very unhappy, for the old things had prevented the new things from appearing new. It was no mere sense of the abstract horror of sins that weighed him down, that made him cry, “O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Paul had killed a man—killed a man in his youth; the blood of the martyr Stephen lay upon him. That concrete, that personal thing, that thing which continued to meet him at every turn of life, again and again, with odious, horrid touch, it was that which weighed him down, and it was that against which he prayed time after time that it might be removed. “All the perfumes of Arabia would not cleanse that little hand,” all the freedom from punishment, all the regeneration would not blot cub this dark deed, this murder of Stephen, and he prayed if by any means this cup might pass from him. One day he heard a voice saying to him, “My strength is perfected in your weakness, My strength is perfected in your weakness,” and he looked up and suddenly there met him an awful, nay, a glorious apparition; he seemed to see before him the same form that had stood by him at the last, and now it was carrying his cross, that awful deed of shame, the murder of Stephen; but as he gazed, suddenly the brazen cross became gold, it became lighted to all the rays of sunshine; and suddenly, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, there flashed upon Paul a new thought, revelation—he had unconsciously been making Christ’s kingdom; he had not only made Stephen, but he had made Christianity; he had planted in that blood the first seed of a Church which will never die, and the worn-out man of Tarsus cried, “I am free! I am free! Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (G. Matheson, D. D.)