Eccl. ii. 2. / said of laughter, It is mad : and of mirth, What
doeth it?
WHO is it that has ventured to speak thus respect- ing that which constitutes, in the world's estimation, the great happiness of life ? Was he an ignorant man ? or one who from envy decried a thing which he was not able to attain ? or an inexperienced man, who had no just means of forming a judgment? or an irritated man, who vented thus his spleen against an object that had disappointed him ? Or was he one whose authority in this matter we are at hberty to question? No : it was the wisest of the human race, who had more ample means of judging than any other of the children of men, and had tried the matter to the
uttermost : it was Solomon himself, under the in- fluence of the Spirit of God, recording this, not only as the result of his own experience, but as the declara- tion of Jehovah, by him, for the instruction of the world in all future ages. He had been left by God to try the vain experiment, whether happiness was to be found in any thing but God. He tried it, first, in the pursuit of knowledge ; which, to a person of his enlarged mind, certainly promised most fair to yield him the satisfaction which he sought. But partly from the labour requisite for the attainment of know- ledge ; partly from discovering how little could be known by persons of our finite capacity; partly also from the insufficiency of knowledge to satisfy the innumerable wants of man; and partly from the dis- gust which had been created in his mind by the insight which his wisdom gave him into the ignorance and folly of the rest of mankind ; he left it upon record, as his deliberate judgment, that " in much wisdom is much grief; and that he who increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow^." He then turned to pleasure, as the most probable source of happiness : '' I said in my heart. Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth : therefore enjoy pleasure." But being equally disap- pointed in that, he adds, " Behold, this also is vanity\" Then, in the words of my text, he further adds, " I saidof laughter, Itis mad: andof mirth, What doeth it?"
In discoursing on this subject, I shall,
I. Shew what that is which he here pronounces to be " vanity"—
It becomes us, in considering such weighty declara- tions as that before us, to attain the most precise and accurate views of the terms employed ; neither attenuating the import of them on the one hand, nor exaggerating it on the other.
We are not, then, to understand the text as decry- ing all cheerfulness —
[The Christian, above all people upon earth, has reason to be cheerful. And religion in no way tends to destroy the
^ Eccles. i. 18. ^ ver. 1.