SECTION III

SECTION IV.

THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES;

THAT is, the Preacher, or one who harangues a public auditory. This book was written by Solomon, evidently towards the close of his splendid career, and after he had been brought to repentance for his awful apostasy from God. The purpose of the book is explicitly declared in its title; namely, to demonstrate the vanity of all earthly acquisitions, and to show that, when the heart is set on sublunary enjoyments, all will prove to be "vanity and vexation of spirit." In the course of his argument, the wise teacher anticipates the objections of the licentious and the thoughtless, and produces their absurd opinions for the purpose of refuting them. It is therefore necessary to keep the eye steadily fixed on the purport of the discourse, and to discriminate what the author delivers in his own, and what in an assumed, character. Mr. Holden, in his "Attempt to illustrate the Book of Ecclesiastes," has divided the work into two principal parts. The first, which extends to the tenth verse of the sixth chapter, he considers as taken up in demonstrating the vanity of all earthly conditions, occupations, and pleasures; and the second part, which includes the remainder of the book, as occupied in eulogizing WISDOM, and in describing its nature, excellence, and bene

ficial effects.* The conclusion of the work is worthy of an inspired author: "Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man," &c. The following synopsis is from the work just referred to. PART I.-The vanity of all earthly conditions, occupations, and pleasures. The vanity of all earthly things (i. 2); the unprofitableness of human labour, and the transitoriness of human life (i. 3-11); the vanity of laborious inquiries into the ways and works of man (i. 12—18); luxury and pleasure are only vanity and vexation of spirit (ii. 1-11); though the wise excel fools, yet, as death happens to them both, human learning is but vanity (ii. 12—17); the vanity of human labour, in leaving it they know not to whom (ii. 18-23); the emptiness of sensual enjoyments (ii. 24-26); though there is a proper time for useless and vain; the divine counsels, however, the execution of all human purposes, yet are they are immutable (iii. 1—14); the vanity of human pursuits proved from the wickedness prevailing in courts of justice, contrasted with the righteous judgment of God (iii. 15-17); though life, considered in itself, is vanity, for men die as well as beasts, yet in the end, it will be very different with the spirit of man and that of beasts (iii. 18-22); vanity is increased unto men by oppression (iv. 1-3); the vanity of prosperity (iv. 4); the vanity of folly, or of preferring the world to true wisdom (iv. 5, 6); the vanity of covetousness (iv. 7, 8); though society has its advantages, yet dominion and empire are but vanity (iv. 9—16); errors in the performance of divine worship, which render it vain and unprofitable (v. 1-7); the vanity of murmuring at injustice; for though the oppression of the poor and the perversion of judg ment greatly prevail, they do not escape the notice of the Almighty (v. 8, 9); the vanity of riches, with an admonition as to the moderate enjoyment of them (ver. 10-20); the vanity of avarice (vi. 1-9).

The answer

PART II.-The nature, excellence, and beneficial effects of wisdom, or religion. Since all human designs, labours, and enjoyments are vain, it is natural to inquire, What is good for man? What is his supreme good (vi. 10—12)? is contained in the remainder of the book. The praise of character and reputation (vii. 1); affliction improves the heart, and exalts the character of the wise (vii. 2—10); the excellence of wisdom (vii. 11-14); an objection, with the answer (vii. 15-viii. 7); the evil of wickedness shows the

* Preliminary Discourse, p. lxv.

may be called the moral or doctrinal, and the predictive. It is not a series of mere predictions far from it. It abounds in matter of another kind: there is a continued strain of moral doctrine which runs through it, including under that name the only efficacious and sufficient moral doctrine, that which is founded upon a knowledge of God, his attributes, and his will, with a sense of the direct, personal, and responsible relation of man to him. Accordingly, the most frequent subjects of the prophet are the laws of God, his supreme dominion and his universal providence, the majesty of his nature, his spiritual being, and his holiness, together with the obligations of obedience to him in the particular duties of an inward faith and worship, and of justice and mercy to man, the whole of these duties being enforced by explicit sanctions of reward and punishment. These original principles of piety and morals overspread the pages of the book of prophecy; they are brought forward, they are inculcated, from first to last. They are often the subject when nothing future is in question; they are constantly interwoven with the predictions; they are either the very thing propounded, or they are connected with it, and all the way they are impressed with a distinctness and energy of instruction, which show it was none of the secondary ends of the prophet's mission to be this teacher of righteousness; insomuch that, if we except the gospel itself, there can nowhere be shown, certainly not in the works or systems of pagan wisdom, so much of luminous and decisive information concerning the unity, providence, mercy, and moral government of God, and man's duty founded upon his will, as is to be gathered from the prophetic volume. Let the predictions of prophecy, then, for a time be put out of our thoughts, and let the prophetic books be read for the pure theology they contain. With what feelings of conviction they are read by the religious person, it is not hard to tell. He perceives that he is instructed and elevated by the discoveries made to him of the Supreme Being, and the kind of worship and obedience required from himself; and these discoveries, made with an authority and a commanding power which argue them to be what they are given for,- -a law of life and practice; doctrines, not of theory, but of selfgovernment and direction; the most useful, therefore, to himself, and the most worthy of the source whence they profess to come. On this view of the prophetic writings, Origen, who does not overstate their persuasive force, says, that "to the meditative and attentive reader they raise an impression of enthusiasm" (a true and rational enthusiasm, like a spark of their own inspiration),

"and by his perceptions, convince him, as he reads, that these compositions can be none of the works of men which have obtained the credit of being the oracles of God." The more sceptical reader will see in them something to arrest his attention, at least, and to excite in him a suspicion, that the teachers of so excellent and virtuous a discipline of life, and the expositors of so rational a theology, are not to be set down for vain pretenders to inspiration.

3. We may further remark, that this moral revelation, made by a succession of prophets, holds an intermediate place between the law of Moses and the gospel of Christ. It is a step in progress beyond the law, in respect of the greater distinctness and fulness of some of its doctrines and precepts; it is a more perfect exposition of the principles of personal holiness and virtue; the sanctions of it have less of an exclusive reference to temporal promises, and incline more to evangelical : the ritual of the law begins to be discountenanced by it; the superior value of the moral commandment to be enforced; and altogether, it bears a more spiritual and a more instructive character than the original law given by Moses. In a word, in the prophets there is a more luminous, a more perfectly reasoned, rule of life and faith, than in the primary law; and therefore God's moral revelation was progressive. It is more perfect in the prophets than in the law; more perfect in the gospel than in either.*

4. Lastly, the prophets had a practical office to discharge, as pastors and ministerial monitors of the people of God. To "show Jacob his transgressions, and Israel his sins," was a part of the commission they received. Hence their work to admonish and reprove; to arraign for every ruling sin, to blow the trumpet to repentance, and shake the terrors of the divine judgments over a guilty land. Often they bore the message of consolation or pardon; rarely, if ever, of public approbation and praise. The integrity and fortitude with which they acquitted themselves of this charge, is attested by impartial history, which recites the death and martyrdom some of them endured. But it lives also in their own writings; not in the praise of their sincerity and zeal, but in the faithful record of the expostulations and reproofs which they delivered in the face of idolatrous or oppressive kings, a degenerate priesthood, and a corrupt, idolatrous people. "Great was the fidelity and great the boldness of the prophets," is their just panegyric. But in this service they betray none

• Davison's Discourses on Prophecy, pp. 41-48.

of the spirit of turbulent and fanatical agitators; men who step out of order to make the public sin their field of triumph; but a grave and masculine severity, which bespeaks their entire soberness of mind, and argues the reality of their commission. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, are all eminent examples of this ministerial duty. And if Paul could say of holy writ, that it "is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness," as he speaks of the old Scripture, so to no part of it does that idea more fitly belong, than to the admonitory homilies of the prophets.*

5. With respect to the precise nature and extent of prophetic inspiration, much has been written with which it is unnecessary that we should trouble the reader. We may rest satisfied in the assurance that these "holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Pet. i. 21); and that by them "God spake, at sundry times and in divers manners, unto the fathers," Heb. i. 1.

6. The prophetic books are sixteen in number; and in modern editions of the Bible, they are usually divided into two classes, viz., the greater prophets, comprising Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, who were thus distinguished from the length of their books; and the minor prophets, comprising Hosea, Joel, Amos, Jonah, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. They are not placed in our Bibles in the order of time in which they prophesied; but this circumstance should be carefully attended to, if we would understand them correctly.

7. The great object of prophecy was a description of the Messiah and his kingdom. The particulars of these were gradually unfolded by successive prophets, in prophecies more and more distinct. They were at first held forth in general promises; they were afterwards described by figures, and shadowed forth under types and allusive institutions, as well as clearly foretold in the full lustre of descriptive prophecy. The prophets were oftentimes the representatives of the future dispensers of evangelical blessings; as Moses and David were unquestionably types of Christ, Ezek. xxxiv. 23; Matt. xi. 14; Heb. vi. 20, vii. 1—3. Persons were sometimes descriptive of things, also, as Sarah and Hagar were allegorical figures of the two covenants, Gal. iv. 22-31, Rom. ix. 7-13. And, on the other hand, things were used to symbolize persons, as the brazen serpent and the paschal lamb were signs of our healing

Davison's Discourses on Prophecy, pp. 53, 54.

14: compare

was,

and spotless Redeemer, John iii. Exod. xii. 46 with John xix. 36. Hence it that many of the descriptions of the prophets had a two-fold character; bearing often an immediate reference to present circumstances, and yet being in their nature predictive of future occurrences. What they reported of the types was often, in a more signal manner, applicable to the thing typified; what they spoke literally of the present, was figuratively descriptive of future particulars; and what was applied in a figurative sense to existing persons, was often actually characteristic of their distant archetypes. Many passages, then, in the Old Testament, which in their first aspect appear to be historical, are in fact prophetic; and they are so cited in the New Testament, not by way of ordinary accommodation, or casual coincidence, but as intentionally predictive; as having a double sense, a literal and mystical interpretation. This mode of wrapping up religious truth in allegory, gives great interest to the sacred books, in the diligent perusal of which the most admirable contrivance and unexpected beauty will be discovered. That many of the prophecies in the Old Testament were direct, and singly and exclusively applicable to and accomplished in our Saviour, is certain; and that some passages are cited from the Old Testament by way of accommodation to circumstances described in the New, is perhaps equally true: but that this typical kind of prophecy was likewise employed, is evident from a vast number of passages; and it is this double character of prophecy which occasions those unexpected transitions and sudden interchange of circumstance, so observable in the prophetic books. Thus different predictions are sometimes blended and mixed together; temporal and spiritual deliverances are foretold in one prophecy; and greater and smaller events are combined in one point of view. To unravel this requires much attention, and a considerable acquaintance with the scope the Scriptures. +

of

8. The language of the prophets is remarkable for its magnificence; the ornaments being derived, not from accumulation of epithet, or laboured harmony, but from the real grandeur of its images, and the majestic force of its expressions. Its sudden bursts of eloquence, its earnest warmth, its affecting exhortations and appeals, afford very interesting proofs of that vivid impression, and of

For an able discussion of the structure and gradual development of prophecy, reference is made to Davison's Discourses on Prophecy, a work which cannot be too highly commended.