The expression is, of course, somewhat difficult, even if we accept
generally the explanation which I have given. It may be either a
declaration of the actual immortality of the soul, or it may mean, as
I rather suppose it to do, the consciousness of eternity which is part
of human nature.
The former idea is no doubt closely connected with the latter, and
would here yield an appropriate sense. We should then have the
contrast between man's undying existence and the transient trifles on
which he is tempted to fix his love and hopes. We belong to one set of
existences by our bodies, and to another by our souls. Though we are
parts of the passing material world, yet in that outward frame is
lodged a personality that has nothing in common with decay and death.
A spark of eternity dwells in these fleeting frames. The laws of
physical growth and accretion and maturity and decay, which rule over
all things material, do not apply to my true self. 'In our embers is
something that doth live.' Whatsoever befalls the hairs that get grey
and thin, and the hands that become wrinkled and palsied, and the
heart that is worn out by much beating, and the blood that clogs and
clots at last, and the filmy eye, and all the corruptible frame; yet,
as the heathen said, 'I shall not _all_ die,' but deep within
this transient clay house, that must crack and fall and be resolved
into the elements out of which it was built up, there dwells an
immortal guest, an undying personal self. In the heart, the inmost
spiritual being of every man, eternity, in this sense of the word,
does dwell.
'Commonplaces,' you say. Yes; commonplaces, which word means two
things--truths that affect us all, and also truths which, because they
are so universal and so entirely believed, are all but powerless.
Surely it is not time to stop preaching such truths as long as they
are forgotten by the overwhelming majority of the people who
acknowledge them. Thank God! the staple of the work of us preachers is
the reiteration of commonplaces, which His goodness has made familiar,
and our indolence and sin have made stale and powerless.
My brother! you would be a wiser man if, instead of turning the edge
of statements which you know to be true, and which, if true, are
infinitely solemn and important, by commonplace sarcasm about pulpit
commonplaces, you would honestly try to drive the familiar neglected
truth home to your mind and heart. Strip it of its generality and
think, 'It is true about _me. I_ live for ever. My outward life
will cease, and _my_ dust will return to dust--but _I_ shall
last undying.' And ask yourselves--What then? 'Am I making "provision
for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof," in more or less refined
fashion, and forgetting to provide for that which lives for evermore?
Eternity is in _my_ heart. What a madness it is to go on, as if
either I were to continue for ever among the shows of time, or when I
leave them all, to die wholly and be done with altogether!'
But, probably, the other interpretation of these words is the truer.
The doctrine of immortality does not seem to be stated in this Book of
Ecclesiastes, except in one or two very doubtful expressions. And it
is more in accordance with its whole tone to suppose the Preacher here
to be asserting, not that the heart or spirit is immortal, but that,
whether it is or no, in the heart is planted the _thought_, the
_consciousness_ of eternity--and the longing after it.
Let me put that into other words. We, brethren, are the only beings on
this earth who can think the thought and speak the word--Eternity.
Other creatures are happy while immersed in time; we have another
nature, and are disturbed by a thought which shines high above the
roaring sea of circumstance in which we float.
I do not care at present about the metaphysical puzzles that have been
gathered round that conception, nor care to ask whether it is positive
or negative, adequate or inadequate. Enough that the word has a
meaning, that it corresponds to a thought which dwells in men's minds.
It is of no consequence at all for our purpose, whether it is a
positive conception, or simply the thinking away of all limitations.
'I know what God is, when you do not ask me.' I know what eternity is,
though I cannot define the word to satisfy a metaphysician. The little
child taught by some grandmother Lois, in a cottage, knows what she
means when she tells him 'you will live for ever,' though both scholar
and teacher would be puzzled to put it into other words. When we say
eternity flows round this bank and shoal of time, men know what we
mean. Heart answers to heart; and in each heart lies that solemn
thought--for ever!
Like all other of the primal thoughts of men's souls, it may be
increased in force and clearness, or it may be neglected and opposed,
and all but crushed. The thought of God is natural to man, the thought
of right and wrong is natural to man--and yet there may be atheists
who have blinded their eyes, and there may be degraded and almost
animal natures who have seared their consciences and called sweet
bitter and evil good. Thus men may so plunge themselves into the
present as to lose the consciousness of the eternal--as a man swept
over Niagara, blinded by the spray and deafened by the rush, would see
or hear nothing outside the green walls of the death that encompassed
him. And yet the blue sky with its peaceful spaces stretches above the
hell of waters.
So the thought is in us all--a presentiment and a consciousness; and
that universal presentiment itself goes far to establish the reality
of the unseen order of things to which it is directed. The great
planet that moves on the outmost circle of our system was discovered
because that next it wavered in its course in a fashion which was
inexplicable, unless some unknown mass was attracting it from across
millions of miles of darkling space. And there are 'perturbations' in
our spirits which cannot be understood, unless from them we may divine
that far-off and unseen world, that has power from afar to sway in
their orbits the little lives of mortal men. It draws us to
itself--but, alas! the attraction may be resisted and thwarted. The
dead mass of the planet bends to the drawing, but we can repel the
constraint which the eternal world would exercise upon us--and so that
consciousness which ought to be our nobleness, as it is our
prerogative, may become our shame, our misery, and our sin.
That Eternity which is set in our hearts is not merely the thought of
ever-during Being, or of an everlasting order of things to which we
are in some way related. But there are connected with it other ideas
besides those of mere duration. Men know what perfection means. They
understand the meaning of perfect goodness; they have the notion of
infinite Wisdom and boundless Love. These thoughts are the material of
all poetry, the thread from which the imagination creates all her
wondrous tapestries. This 'capacity for the Infinite,' as people call
it--which is only a fine way of putting the same thought as that in
our text--which is the prerogative of human spirits, is likewise the
curse of many spirits. By their misuse of it they make it a fatal
gift, and turn it into an unsatisfied desire which gnaws their souls,
a famished yearning which 'roars, and suffers hunger.' Knowing what
perfection is, they turn to limited natures and created hearts for
their rest. Having the haunting thought of an absolute Goodness, a
perfect Wisdom, an endless Love, an eternal Life--they try to find the
being that corresponds to their thought here on earth, and so they are
plagued with endless disappointment.
My brother! God has put eternity in _your_ heart. Not only will
you live for ever, but also in your present life you have a
consciousness of that eternal and infinite and all-sufficient Being
that lives above. You have need of Him, and whether you know it or
not, the tendrils of your spirits, like some climbing plant not
fostered by a careful hand but growing wild, are feeling out into the
vacancy in order to grasp the stay which they need for their fruitage
and their strength.
By the make of our spirits, by the possibilities that dawn dim before
us, by the thoughts 'whose very sweetness yieldeth proof that they
were born for immortality,'--by all these and a thousand other signs
and facts in every human life we say, 'God has set eternity in their
hearts!'
II. And then turn to the second idea that is here. The disproportion
between this our nature, and the world in which we dwell.
The writer of this book (whether Solomon or no we need not stay to
discuss) looks out upon the world; and in accordance with the
prevailing tone of all the earlier parts of his contemplations, finds
in this prerogative of man but another reason for saying, 'All is
vanity and vexation of spirit.'
Two facts meet him antagonistic to one another: the place that man
occupies, and the nature that man bears. This creature with eternity
in his heart, where is he set? what has he got to work upon? what has
he to love and hold by, to trust to, and anchor his life on? A crowd
of things, each well enough, but each having a _time_--and though
they be beautiful in their time, yet fading and vanishing when it has
elapsed. No multiplication of _times_ will make _eternity_.
And so with that thought in his heart, man is driven out among objects
perfectly insufficient to meet it.
Christ said, 'Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but
the Son of man hath not where to lay His head'--and while the words
have their proper and most pathetic meaning in the history of His own
earthly life of travail and toil for our sakes, we may also venture to
give them the further application, that all the lower creatures are at
rest here, and that the more truly a man is man, the less can he find,
among all the shadows of the present, a pillow for his head, a place
of repose for his heart. The animal nature is at home in the material
world, the human nature is not.
Every other creature presents the most accurate correspondence between
nature and circumstances, powers and occupations. Man alone is like
some poor land-bird blown out to sea, and floating half-drowned with
clinging plumage on an ocean where the dove 'finds no rest for the
sole of her foot,' or like some creature that loves to glance in the
sunlight, but is plunged into the deepest recesses of a dark mine. In
the midst of a universe marked by the nicest adaptations of creatures
to their habitation, man alone, the head of them all, presents the
unheard-of anomaly that he is surrounded by conditions which do
_not_ fit his whole nature, which are not adequate for all his
powers, on which he cannot feed and nurture his whole being. 'To what
purpose is this waste?' 'Hast thou made all men in vain?'
Everything is 'beautiful in its time.' Yes, and for that very reason,
as this Book of Ecclesiastes says in another verse, 'Because to every
purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is
great upon him.' It was happy when we loved; but the day of
indifference and alienation and separation comes. Our spirits were
glad when we were planting; but the time for plucking up that which
was planted is sure to draw near. It was blessed to pour out our souls
in the effluence of love, or in the fullness of thought, and the time
to speak was joyous; but the dark day of silence comes on. When we
twined hearts and clasped hands together it was glad, and the time
when we embraced was blessed; but the time to refrain from embracing
is as sure to draw near. It is good for the eyes to behold the sun,
but so certainly as it rolls to its bed in the west, and 'leaves the
world to darkness' and to us, do all earthly occupations wane and
fade, and all possessions shrivel and dwindle, and all associations
snap and drop and end, and the whirligig of time works round and takes
away everything which it once brought us.
And so man, with eternity in his heart, with the hunger in his spirit
after an unchanging whole, an absolute good, an ideal perfectness, an
immortal being--is condemned to the treadmill of transitory
revolution. Nothing continueth in one stay, 'For all that _is_ in
the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the
pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the
world passeth away, and the lust thereof.' It is limited, it is
changeful, it slips from under us as we stand upon it, and therefore,
mystery and perplexity stoop down upon the providence of God, and
misery and loneliness enter into the heart of man. These changeful
things, they do not meet our ideal, they do not satisfy our wants,
they do not last even our duration.
'The misery of man is great upon him,' said the text quoted a moment
ago. And is it not? Is this present life enough for you? Sometimes you
fancy it is. Many of us habitually act on the understanding that it
is, and treat all that I have been saying about the disproportion
between our nature and our circumstances as not true about them. 'This
world not enough for me!' you say--'Yes! it is; only let me get a
little more of it, and keep what I get, and I shall be all right.' So
then--'a little more' is wanted, is it? And that 'little more' will
always be wanted, and besides it, the guarantee of permanence will
always be wanted, and failing these, there will be a hunger that
nothing can fill which belongs to earth. Do you remember the bitter
experience of the poor prodigal, 'he would fain have filled his belly
with the husks'? He tried his best to live upon the horny,
innutritious pods, but he could not; and after them he still was
'perishing with hunger.' So it is with us all when we try to fill the
soul and satisfy the spirit with earth or aught that holds of it. It
is as impossible to still the hunger of the heart with that, as to
stay the hunger of the body with wise sayings or noble sentiments.
I appeal to your real selves, to your own past experience. Is it not
true that, deep below the surface contentment with the world and the
things of the world, a dormant but slightly slumbering sense of want
and unsatisfied need lies in your souls? Is it not true that it wakes
sometimes at a touch; that the tender, dying light of sunset, or the
calm abysses of the mighty heavens, or some strain of music, or a line
in a book, or a sorrow in your heart, or the solemnity of a great joy,
or close contact with sickness and death, or the more direct appeals
of Scripture and of Christ, stir a wistful yearning and a painful
sense of emptiness in your hearts, and of insufficiency in all the
ordinary pursuits of your lives? It cannot but be so; for though it be
true that our natures are in some measure subdued to what we work in,
and although it is possible to atrophy the deepest parts of our being
by long neglect or starvation, yet you will never do that so
thoroughly but that the deep-seated longing will break forth at
intervals, and the cry of its hunger echo through the soul. Many of us
do our best to silence it. But I, for my part, believe that, however
you have crushed and hardened your souls by indifference, by ambition,
by worldly cares, by frivolous or coarse pleasures, or by any of the
thousand other ways in which you can do it--yet there is some response
in your truest self to my poor words when I declare that a soul
without God is an empty and an aching soul!
These things which, even in their time of beauty, are not enough for a
man's soul--have all but a time to be beautiful in, and then they fade
and die. A great botanist made what he called 'a floral clock' to mark
the hours of the day by the opening and closing of flowers. It was a
graceful and yet a pathetic thought. One after another they spread
their petals, and their varying colours glow in the light. But one
after another they wearily shut their cups, and the night falls, and
the latest of them folds itself together, and all are hidden away in
the dark. So our joys and treasures, were they sufficient did they
last, cannot last. After a summer's day comes a summer's night, and
after a brief space of them comes winter, when all are killed and the
leafless trees stand silent.
'Bare, ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.'
We cleave to these temporal possessions and joys, and the natural law
of change sweeps them away from us one by one. Most of them do not
last so long as we do, and they pain us when _they_ pass away
from us. Some of them last longer than we do, and _they_ pain us
when we pass away from them. Either way our hold of them is a
transient hold, and one knows not whether is the sadder--the bare
garden beds where all have done blowing, and nothing remains but a
tangle of decay, or the blooming beauty from which a man is summoned
away, leaving others to reap what he has sown. Tragic enough are both
at the best--and certain to befall us all. We live and they fade; we
die and they remain. We live again and they are far away. The facts
are _so_. We may make them a joy or a sorrow as we will.
Transiency is stamped on all our possessions, occupations, and
delights. We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of
eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our
inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed
even by the most short-lived trifles of time. Either these things will
be the blessing or the curse of our lives. Which do you mean that they
shall be for you?
III. These thoughts lead us to consider the possible satisfying of our
souls.
This Book of Ecclesiastes is rather meant to enforce the truth of the
weariness and emptiness of a godless life, than of the blessedness of
a godly one. It is the record of the struggles of a soul--'the
confessions of an inquiring spirit'--feeling and fighting its way
through many errors, and many partial and unsatisfactory solutions of
the great problem of life, till he reaches the one in which he can
rest. When he has touched that goal his work is done. And so the
devious way is told in the book at full length, while a sentence sets
forth the conclusion to which he was working, even when he was most
bewildered. 'The conclusion of the whole matter' is 'Fear God and keep
His commandments.' That is all that a man needs. It is 'the whole of
man.' 'All is' _not_ 'vanity and vexation of spirit'
_then_--but 'all things work together for good to them that love
God.'
The Preacher in his day learned that it was possible to satisfy the
hunger for eternity, which had once seemed to him a questionable
blessing. He learned that it was a loving Providence which had made
man's home so little fit for him, that he might seek the 'city which
hath foundations.' He learned that all the pain of passing beauty, and
the fading flowers of man's goodliness, were capable of being turned
into a solemn joy. Standing at the centre, he saw order instead of
chaos, and when he had come back, after all his search, to the old
simple faith of peasants and children in Judah, to fear God and keep
His commandments, he understood why God had set eternity in man's
heart, and then flung him out, as if in mockery, amidst the stormy
waves of the changeful ocean of time.
And we, who have a further word from God, may have a fuller and yet
more blessed conviction, built upon our own happy experience, if we
choose, that it _is_ possible for us to have that deep thirst
slaked, that longing appeased. We have Christ to trust to and to love.
He has given Himself for us that all our many sins against the eternal
love and our guilty squandering of our hearts upon transitory
treasures may be forgiven. He has come amongst us, the Word in human
flesh, that our poor eyes may see the Eternal walking amidst the
things of time and sense, and may discern a beauty in Him beyond
'whatsoever things are lovely.' He has come that we through Him may
lay hold on God, even as in Him God lays hold on us. As in mysterious
and transcendent union the divine takes into itself the human in that
person of Jesus, and Eternity is blended with Time; we, trusting Him
and yielding our hearts to Him, receive into our poor lives an
incorruptible seed, and for us the soul-satisfying realities that
abide for ever mingle with and are reached through the shadows that
pass away.
Brethren, yield yourselves to Him! In conscious unworthiness, in lowly
penitence, let us cast ourselves on Jesus Christ, our Sacrifice, for
pardon and peace! Trust Him and love Him! Live by Him and for Him! And
then, the loftiest thoughts of our hearts, as they seek after absolute
perfection and changeless love, shall be more than fulfilled in Him
who is more than all that man ever dreamed, because He is the
perfection of man, and the Son of God.
Love Christ and live in Him, taking Him for the motive, the spring,
and the very atmosphere of your lives, and then no capacities will
languish for lack of either stimulus or field, and no weariness will
come over you, as if you were a stranger from your home. For if Christ
be near us, all things go well with us. If we live for Him, the power
of that motive will make all our nature blossom like the vernal woods,
and dry branches break into leafage. If we dwell in Him, we shall be
at home wherever we are, like the patriarch who pitched his tent in
many lands, but always had the same tent wherever he went. So we shall
have the one abode, though its place in the desert may vary--and we
shall not need to care whether the encampment be beneath the
palm-trees and beside the wells of Elim, or amidst the drought of
Marah, so long as the same covering protects us, and the same pillar
of fire burns above us.
Love Christ, and then the eternity in the heart will not be a great
aching void, but will be filled with the everlasting life which Christ
gives, and is. The vicissitude will really become the source of
freshness and progress which God meant it to be. Everything which,
when made our all-sufficient portion, becomes stale and unprofitable,
even in its time, will be apparelled in celestial light. It shall all
be lovely and pleasant while it lasts, and its beauty will not be
saddened by the certainty of its decay, nor its empty place a pain
when it has passed away.
Take Christ for Saviour and Friend, your Guide and Support through
time, and Himself, your Eternity and Joy, then all discords are
reconciled--and 'all things are yours--whether the world, or life, or
death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours, and ye are
Christ's, and Christ is God's.'