All go to one place; all come from dust, and all return to dust. Sermons
The double nature of man has been recognized by every student of human nature. The sensationalist and materialist lays stress upon the physical side of our humanity, and endeavors to show that the intellect and the moral sentiments are the outgrowth of the bodily life, the nervous structure and its susceptibilities and its powers of movement. But such efforts fail to convince alike the unsophisticated and the philosophic. It is generally admitted that it would be more reasonable to resolve the physical into the psychical than the psychical into the physical. The author of Ecclesiastes was alive to the animal side of man's nature; and if some only of his expressions were considered, he might be claimed as a supporter of the baser philosophy. But he himself supplies the counteractive. The attentive reader of the book is convinced that the author traced the human spirit to its Divine original, and looked forward to its immortality. I. THE COMMUNITY OF MEN WITH BEASTS IN THE ANIMAL NATURE AND LIFE. If we look upon one side of our humanity, it appears that we are to be reckoned among the brutes that perish. The similarity is obvious in: 1. The corporeal, fleshly constitution with which man and brute are alike endowed. 2. The brevity of the earthly life appointed for both without distinction. 3. The resolution of the body into dust. II. THE SUPERIORITY OF MEN OVER BEASTS IN THE POSSESSION OF A SPIRITUAL AND IMPERISHABLE NATURE AND LIFE. It is difficult for us to treat this subject without; bringing to bear upon it the knowledge which we have derived from the fuller and more glorious revelation of the new covenant. "Christ has abolished death, and has brought life and immortality to light by the gospel." We cannot possibly think of such themes without taking to their consideration the convictions and the hopes which we have derived from the incarnate Son of God. Nor can we forget the sublime speculations of philosophers of both ancient and modern times. 1. In his spiritual nature man is akin to God. Physical life the Creator imparted to the animal Organisms with which the world was peopled. But a life of quite another order was conferred upon man, who participates in the ... Divine reason, who is able? think the thoughts of God himself, and who has intuitions of moral goodness of which the brute creation is for ever incapable. Instead of man's mind being a function of organized matter, as a base sensationalism and empiricism is wont to affirm, the truth is that it is only as an expression and vehicle of thought, of reason, that matter has a dependent existence. 2. In his consequent immortality man is distinguished from the inferior animals. The life possessed by these latter is a life of sensation and of movement; the organism is resolved into its constituents, and there is no reason to believe that the sensation and movement are perpetuated. But "the spirit of man goeth upward;" it has used its instrument, the body, and the time comes - appointed by God's inscrutable providence - when the connection, local and temporary, which the spirit has maintained with earth, is sundered. In what other scenes and pursuits the conscious being is continued, we cannot tell. But there is not the slightest reason for conceiving the spiritual life to be dependent upon the organism which it uses as its instrument. The spiritual life is the life of God; and the life of God is perishable. "The sun is but a spark of fire,
A transient meteor in the sky;
The soul, immortal as its Sire,
Can never die.? T. A time to be born, and a time to die. (with Ecclesiastes 7:17): — The verse has two parts: "There is a time to be born; and a time to die": and it seems as if man had as little control over the one as over the other — over the day of his death as over the day of his birth. These are the two milestones between which is included the whole of man's life on earth. Here is no place for free-will. All is blind, remorseless destiny. And yet the correlative text, "Why shouldest thou die before thy time?" seems to imply that life and death are in a man's own power. And in a plain sense this also is true, so that the two are only the opposite poles of one great truth, which in its completeness embraces a whole philosophy of life. That philosophy is summed up in this: That life is a gift of God — a sacred gift — to be wisely used and soberly enjoyed, and not to be trifled with, nor thrown away. But life on earth is not immortal: "There is a time to die." Nor is this a harsh decree. If only the end for which life was given be attained, man may surrender it, at the last, not only without regret, but in perfect peace. The only thing he has to fear is that he be called out of life before his time, with all his plans unfulfilled, his hopes disappointed, and his great destiny unattained. The latter half of our text, "Why shouldest thou die before thy time?" teaches us this practical lesson: That we are to make the most of life by a prudent economy of it — not a petty economy of money (which is often but the smallest element in the total of influences which make up the being that we are), but an economy of life itself, of all the vital forces, of health and reason and the elements of happiness. All this is embraced in the one great word, Life. This is the prize which the Creator offers to every being to whom He gives a living body and a reasonable soul. "Why shouldest thou die before thy time?" In one sense no man can die before his time, for is not the day of death fixed? Hath not God appointed His bound that he cannot pass? Yet, in another sense, it is quite possible to cut short the term of life' That is the evident meaning here. By a man's "time" is meant the natural limit to which one of his vitality and strength, living a sober, temperate life, might attain. Anything short of that may be ascribed to his own folly or guilt. Thus, all will admit that a man dies before his time who takes his own life, which he has no more right to take than that of his neighbour. Even though the existence that is left to him have to be endured rather than enjoyed a man must stand like a sentinel at his post, keeping watch through the long night hours, and waiting for the breaking of the day. But the wretched suicide is not the only man who is guilty of taking his own life. There are other ways of ending one's existence than by violence. The drunkard. The number of those who thus untimely perish is beyond all counting. Vice has slain its thousands, and drunkenness its ten thousands. And now turn and look at another picture. If it be a shame so to die, on the other hand what a glorious thing it is to live — to enjoy a rational, intelligent, and moral existence! Even as a matter of selfish calculation, the purely intellectual enjoyment of a man of science far transcends the vulgar delights of a life of pleasure. What a life must have been that of Kepler or Galileo! Who would throw away an existence that contains such possibilities of knowledge? Make it, then, your resolve to live a life of the strictest temperance and purity and virtue, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God giveth you. But this is only half the truth of my text. "Why shouldest thou die before thy time?" But at the last "there is a time to die." O God, I thank Thee for that word! "There is a time to die!" And religion, while it condemns the reckless throwing away of life, equally condemns the cowardly clinging to life when duty requires it to be sacrificed. Dear as life is, there are things which are a thousand times dearer — truth, honour, justice, and liberty, one's country and religion; and it may become a duty to sacrifice the lesser interest to the greater. It does not follow that a man dies before his time because he dies young. "That life is long which answers life's great end;" and though one may finish his course on the very threshold of manhood, that end may be gloriously fulfilled.() A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted The seasons succeed each other, and each has its own use and purpose. The spring with its fresh loveliness comes first on the stage, and then, after a due interval, follows autumn with its sad decay. The sower takes possession of the field in the bright days of April, and he is the most appropriate figure in the landscape, while he is scattering the seeds of promise over the bare, brown furrows. He departs, and his place is taken by the reapers, who form a pleasant company on the golden harvest field, and gather in the sheaves under the bright smile of the blue September day. The time of planting is associated with all that is fresh and animated and hopeful. But the time of plucking up that which was planted is associated with failure and disappointment, with vanity and death. And Nature makes her work of decay particularly unsightly, in order to force its moral lesson more emphatically upon our notice. We cannot help feeling how disconsolate the apple-tree looks after its rosy-white petals have fallen and when the small green fruit is setting, how dim the much fine gold of the laburnum tresses become in fading, and how the hawthorn blossoms in their withering leave a dirty-brown stain upon the country hedges like the parched bed of a belated snow-wreath that has melted away beneath the summer sun. While we are thus impressively reminded of the periodicity of Nature, the ebb and flow of her seasons and productions, we can apply the lesson to our human affairs. There are periods in human history that are analogous to the season of spring when we sow and plant with a bright enthusiasm and a large hopefulness. Our minds are ardent and vigorous. Everything is fresh and full of interest. It seems as if we had only newly awakened to the beauty and glory of the world. Looking but upon the past we can recall ages of creative genius when man conceived and executed great things in art and literature, when every work had on it the hallmark of original inspiration. Such an age was that of Pericles in Greece, and of Queen Elizabeth in England. Such periods were times of planting, and they had all the glory and freshness of spring. But they were followed by ages in which a woeful reaction of weariness and decay took place. Rules and precedents were followed instead of the fresh insight, freedom and spontaneity of nature; criticism assumed the function of inspiration; and everywhere might be seen the slavish conventionality of exhausted capacity. They were ages in which whatever intellectual energies men had left to them were expended in plucking up that which nobler ages had planted. The commencement of the Victorian epoch was a period of remarkable creative power, a springtime of exuberant mental fertility. But the close of it seems to be characterized by a kind of listless decay. Like the fruit-tree that has one season been too productive, and must rest till it recover and accumulate fresh stores of vitality, so this age seems to be suffering from the reaction of over-production. The largest proportion of our literature is given up to criticism or imitation. It is a time to pluck up that which was planted. And the same periodicity that distinguishes the intellectual also characterizes the religious world. It has its ages of faith and its ages of doubt; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which was planted. We seem to have reached at the present day a period of listlessness and analytical indifference in regard to religious things. On every side we see, instead of a noble enthusiasm in the highest of all studies, a carping finical criticism on the most sacred subjects. However much we may deplore this state of things, we cannot say that it is absolutely evil. It has, indeed, a good purpose to serve. Winter periods are necessary in the spiritual world as testing times, to find out what is merely superficial and transient, and what is substantial and has in it the elements of endurance. It is a winter desolation to make ready for a spring of revival; and many of its evils are caused by the quickening of new life. The best thing, therefore, to do during the disquietude of a time of plucking up in the religious world is to dwell much in thought upon the ages of faith when men lived heroic lives and died blessed deaths in the heartfelt belief of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The criticism and analysis of the present time can best be counteracted by the synthesis and construction of a nobler time when men created instead of destroyed, built up instead of east down, planted instead of plucked up the springtime of divine grace. And this synthesis is practically always possible to the meek in spirit to whom God will teach His way. () People SolomonPlaces JerusalemTopics Dust, Return, Turn, TurningOutline 1. by the necessary change of times, vanity is added to human travail
11. is an excellence in God's works
16. as for man, God shall judge his works hereafter, though here he be like a beast
Dictionary of Bible Themes Ecclesiastes 3:20 5081 Adam, life of Ecclesiastes 3:18-21 4604 animals, nature of Ecclesiastes 3:19-20 5864 futility
9023 death, unbelievers Ecclesiastes 3:19-22 4938 fate, final destiny
6203 mortality Library Eternity in the Heart
'He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also He hath set the world in their heart.'--ECCLES. iii. 11. There is considerable difficulty in understanding what precise meaning is to be attached to these words, and what precise bearing they have on the general course of the writer's thoughts; but one or two things are, at any rate, quite clear. The Preacher has been enumerating all the various vicissitudes of prosperity and adversity, of construction and destruction, of society and solitude, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture 'A Time to Plant'
'A time to plant.'--Eccles. iii. 2. The writer enumerates in this context a number of opposite courses of conduct arranged in pairs, each of which is right at the right time. The view thus presented seems to him to be depressing, and to make life difficult to understand, and aimless. We always appear to be building up with one hand and pulling down with the other. The ship never heads for two miles together in the same direction. The history of human affairs appears to be as purposeless as the play …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture For what Christian Men of Our Time Being Free from the Marriage Bond...
15. For what Christian men of our time being free from the marriage bond, having power to contain from all sexual intercourse, seeing it to be now "a time," as it is written, "not of embracing, but of abstaining from embrace," [1977] would not choose rather to keep virginal or widowed continence, than (now that there is no obligation from duty to human society) to endure tribulation of the flesh, without which marriages cannot be (to pass over in silence other things from which the Apostle spares.) …
St. Augustine—On the Good of Marriage But Thou who Both Hast Sons, and Livest in that End of the World...
11. But thou who both hast sons, and livest in that end of the world, wherein now is the time not of casting stones, but of gathering; not of embracing, but of abstaining from embracing; [2244] when the Apostle cries out, "But this I say, brethren, the time is short; it remains, that both they who have wives be as not having;" [2245] assuredly if thou hadst sought a second marriage, it would have been no obedience of prophecy or law, no carnal desire even of family, but a mark of incontinence alone. …
St. Augustine—On the Good of Widowhood. Letter xxvi. (Circa A. D. 1127) to the Same
To the Same He excuses the brevity of his letter on the ground that Lent is a time of silence; and also that on account of his profession and his ignorance he does not dare to assume the function of teaching. 1. You will, perhaps, be angry, or, to speak more gently, will wonder that in place of a longer letter which you had hoped for from me you receive this brief note. But remember what says the wise man, that there is a time for all things under the heaven; both a time to speak and a time to keep …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux The Conclusion of the Matter
'Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; 2. While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain; 3. In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, 4. And the doors shall be shut in …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Of Self-Annihilation
Of Self-Annihilation Supplication and sacrifice are comprehended in prayer, which, according to S. John, is "an incense, the smoke whereof ascendeth unto God;" therefore it is said in the Apocalypse that "unto the Angel was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all Saints'' (Chap. viii. 3). Prayer is the effusion of the heart in the Presence of God: "I have poured out my soul before God" saith the mother of Samuel. (1 Sam. i. 15) The prayer of the wise men at the feet of …
Madame Guyon—A Short and Easy Method of Prayer Introductory Note.
[a.d. 145-220.] When our Lord repulsed the woman of Canaan (Matt. xv. 22) with apparent harshness, he applied to her people the epithet dogs, with which the children of Israel had thought it piety to reproach them. When He accepted her faith and caused it to be recorded for our learning, He did something more: He reversed the curse of the Canaanite and showed that the Church was designed "for all people;" Catholic alike for all time and for all sorts and conditions of men. Thus the North-African …
Tertullian—Apology The Lapse of Time.
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest."--Eccles. ix. 10. Solomon's advice that we should do whatever our hand findeth to do with our might, naturally directs our thoughts to that great work in which all others are included, which will outlive all other works, and for which alone we really are placed here below--the salvation of our souls. And the consideration of this great work, …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII "For they that are after the Flesh do Mind,"
Rom. viii. s 5, 6.--"For they that are after the flesh do mind," &c. "For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." There are many differences among men in this world, that, as to outward appearance, are great and wide, and indeed they are so eagerly pursued, and seriously minded by men, as if they were great and momentous. You see what a strife and contention there is among men, how to be extracted out of the dregs of the multitude, and set a little higher …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning How the Silent and the Talkative are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 15.) Differently to be admonished are the over-silent, and those who spend time in much speaking. For it ought to be insinuated to the over-silent that while they shun some vices unadvisedly, they are, without its being perceived, implicated in worse. For often from bridling the tongue overmuch they suffer from more grievous loquacity in the heart; so that thoughts seethe the more in the mind from being straitened by the violent guard of indiscreet silence. And for the most part they …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great The Holy War,
MADE BY SHADDAI UPON DIABOLUS, FOR THE REGAINING OF THE METROPOLIS OF THE WORLD; OR, THE LOSING AND TAKING AGAIN OF THE TOWN OF MANSOUL. THE AUTHOR OF 'THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.' 'I have used similitudes.'--Hosea 12:10. London: Printed for Dorman Newman, at the King's Arms in the Poultry; and Benjamin Alsop, at the Angel and Bible in the Poultry, 1682. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. Bunyan's account of the Holy War is indeed an extraordinary book, manifesting a degree of genius, research, and spiritual …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3 A Sermon on Isaiah xxvi. By John Knox.
[In the Prospectus of our Publication it was stated, that one discourse, at least, would be given in each number. A strict adherence to this arrangement, however, it is found, would exclude from our pages some of the most talented discourses of our early Divines; and it is therefore deemed expedient to depart from it as occasion may require. The following Sermon will occupy two numbers, and we hope, that from its intrinsic value, its historical interest, and the illustrious name of its author, it …
John Knox—The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. "Who Walk not after the Flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the Flesh,"
Rom. viii. 4, 5.--"Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh," &c. If there were nothing else to engage our hearts to religion, I think this might do it, that there is so much reason in it. Truly it is the most rational thing in the world, except some revealed mysteries of faith, which are far above reason, but not contrary to it. There is nothing besides in it, but that which is the purest reason. Even that part of it which is most difficult to man, …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning Appendix 2 Extracts from the Babylon Talmud
Massecheth Berachoth, or Tractate on Benedictions [76] Mishnah--From what time is the "Shema" said in the evening? From the hour that the priests entered to eat of their therumah [77] until the end of the first night watch. [78] These are the words of Rabbi Eliezer. But the sages say: Till midnight. Rabban Gamaliel says: Until the column of the morning (the dawn) rises. It happened, that his sons came back from a banquet. They said to him: "We have not said the Shema.'" He said to them, "If the column …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life Ecclesiastes
It is not surprising that the book of Ecclesiastes had a struggle to maintain its place in the canon, and it was probably only its reputed Solomonic authorship and the last two verses of the book that permanently secured its position at the synod of Jamnia in 90 A.D. The Jewish scholars of the first century A.D. were struck by the manner in which it contradicted itself: e.g., "I praised the dead more than the living," iv. 2, "A living dog is better than a dead lion," ix. 4; but they were still more …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament Links Ecclesiastes 3:20 NIV
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