The Pulpit Commentary — Ecclesiastes — Section 229

£ear that we ourselves may be taken from the scene. But God is not hurried by such considerations as these. The guilty can never get beyond his reach, and he ie ever present, Time does not enter into the account of him who is "from everlasting tu everlasting." God's long forbearance is, therefore, no proof of Divine indifference or of the absence of a ruling hand from the affairs of men. IV. ITs TRUE SIGNIFIOANCE, What the Divine long-suffering really means is that God is patient with us in the hope that we shall repent and live (see Ezek. :u:xiii. 11; Rom. ii. 4; 1 Tim. ii. 4; and especially 2 Pet. iii. 9). The truth is that (1) while men do often seem to escape the retribution that is due to them, and while they do in fact enjoy a large measure of Divine forbearance; (2) sin is always suffering, and is on its way to doom. (a) If outward and visible evils are not attending it, inward and spiritual evils are. (b) Sin always tends toward misery and shame, and is working it out, as the event will show. Even if it should escape the hundredth time, there is a number that will prove fatal. (3) The righteous man has a distinct and immeasurable advantage. It is" weli with them that fear God." (a) Piety and virtue have tho promise of the life that now is. Sobriety, chastity, uprightness, diligence, prudence, courtesy, kindness,-these are all making for health and for prosperity, and for the best friendship which earth can offer. (b) They lead up to the gates of the heavenly city.-C. Ver. 1.-" Sweetness ancl light." The wisdom which is here spoken of as conferring upon its possessor an incomparable superiority is not mere wealth of intellectual knowledge, or a wide and accurate acquaintance with any department of science or philosophy. It is rather a moral condition, a state of heart and mind with an outward life consonant with it, a temperament and disposition attained by long and careful endeavour. In our modern use of the word, wisdom is equivalent to knowledge, and generally indicates mental endowments and equipment which may or may not enable its possessor to act sensibly in the ordinary affairs of life. We are familiar enough with the phenomena of men of science who in practical matters are as helpless as children, who betray a gross and astounding ignorance of things which lie outside the depart- ment of knowledge which they have cultivated, or who make it manirest to e.11 that their knowledge has not had a relining influence upon them, and delivered them from the evil of being biassed by the disturbing influence of prejudices and passions. Such wisdom which we admire aud respect, in spite of its unpractical character, is not or thu same order with that which the Preacher eulogizes. The wisdom which is so often spoken of in the Hebrew Scriptures, especially in the Proverbs, in this Book of Ecclesiastes, aud in Job, is a Divine facult_.y by which a man is enabled to live a well- ordered life. Its source is in God, but it 1s not confined to the one nation which Le chose, or synonymous with the exceptional revelations made to it. Thus the wisdo111 of Solomon is declared to have been higher in degree than that attained by any in the neighbouring peoples, but not different in kind (1 Kings iv. 29-31). '!'hen, too, it,i ro.nge is very wide. Nothing is too high, nothing is too low, for wisdom "fitly'' to "order." Law and government (Prov. viii. 15, 16), and even the precepts of husbandry (fsa. xxviii. 23-29), are equally her productions with those moral observations which constitute in the main the three books of Scripture to which I have referred. She i,i the source of skill of every kind, the mistress of the arts, the guardian of the vast and inexhaustible stores garnered by experience, from which men may equip themsE'lves for meeting every emergency of life. The wise man is God-fearing, free from superstition and fanaticism, prudent, shrewd, a good counsellor, a safe guide (vide Cheyne,' Job an,! Solomon,' pp. 117, et seq.). The enthusiastic manner in which the influence of wisdom upon a character is described reminds us of the somewhat similar sentiment expressed by Ovid- " Addo quod ingenuas didicisse fideliter 11rles, Emollit mores neo-sinit esse feros." (' Epp. ex Ponto,' ii. 9, 47.) "A man's wisdom maketh his face to shine, and the boldness of his face shall bi, chano-ed." 'l'he words depict very vividly and beautifully the almost transfiguring effect of serene wisdom upon the countenance-how it lights up the face, and give~ tu 2i8 ECCLESIASTES; OR, THE PRE.A.CHER. (cu. VIII. 1-17,