The Pulpit Commentary — Ecclesiastes — Section 243

Ver. 4.-" .A living dog better than a dead lion." I. ANIMATED BEING BETTER THAN INAKIMATE. Life a higher product than matter; and a lion without life is only matter. Life added to matter in its meanest forms imparts to it a dignity, worth, and use not possessed by matter in its most magnificent shapes where life is absent. The higher life, the nobler being. IL CoMPLETED BEING BETTER THAN INCOMPLETE. A living dog is a complete organism ; a dead lion an organism defective. The living dog possesses all that is necessary to realize the idea of "dog; 11 the dead lion wants the more important element, life, and retains only the less important, matter. In the living dog are seen the" spirit" and "form" combined; in the dead lion only the" form" without the "spirit." If preseotly man is complete naturally, he is incomplete spiritually. Here- after redeemed and renewed, man will be "perfect and entire, wanting nothiug." III. ACTIVE BEING DETTER THAN INACTIVE. The living dog, if not a person, is yet more than a tbiog. Along with life and an organism, it bas powers and functions it can exercise; senses through which it can perceive, a measure of intelligence through which it can understand, at least rudimentary affections it can both feel and express, instincts aod impulses by and under which it can act. On the other hand, the dead lion has none of these, however once it may have owned them all. lt is now passive, still, inert, powerless-an emblem of the soul dead in sin, as a living dog is of the same soul energized by religion. • IV. SERVICEABLE BEING BETTER THAN UNSERVICEABLE. A living dog of some use, a dead lion of none. The gio-antic powers of the forest king are by death rt:duced to a nullit,·, and can effect nothing; the feeble capacities of the yelping cur, just because it is ali-ie, can be turned to profitable account. So magnificent powers of body and iotellect without spiritual life are comparatively rnlueless, while smaller abilities, if inspired by grace, may accomplish important designs. L!,;ssoNs. 1. Be thankful for life. 2. Seek that moral and spiritual completeness w!Jich is the highest glory of life. 3. Endeavour to turn the powers of life to the best account. 4. Serve him from whom life comes. Vers.1-10.-Thepictureofanideallife. I. A LIFE OF PEBENNIALJ0Y. '.}'he_joy sb,uld be fourfold. 1. Material enjoyment. "Go thy way, eat thy br~ad W1th Joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart" (ver. 7). The permission her~m g~anted to make a pleasurable use of the good things of this world, of its meats and its dnnks, has not been revoked by Christianity. Not only did the Son of man by his example (Matt. tllt, It. 1-lS.J :tWCL~sIAS'r:F!S i on, THE PREA.CHElt. 233