A Greater Than Solomon

“The Queen of the South .... came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.” — MATT. xn. 42.

IT was autumn with the Hebrew commonwealth. Like withered leaves from the sapless tree, the Jews easily parted from the parent Palestine, and were blown about, adventurers in every land; and like that fungous vegetation which rushes up when nobler plants have faded, formalism and infidelity were rankly springing everywhere; and it was only a berry on the topmost bough — some mellow Simeon or Zacharias — that reminded you of the rich old piety. The sceptre had not quite departed from Judah, but he who held it was a puppet in the Gen tiles’ hand; and with shipless harbours, and silent oracles, with Roman sentinels on every public building, and Roman tax-gatherers in every town, patriotism felt too surely, that from the land of Joshua and Samuel, of Elijah and Isaiah, of David and

Solomon, the glory was at last departing. The sky was lead, the air a winding-sheet; and every token told that a long winter was setting in. It was even then, amid the short days and sombre sunsets of the waning dynasty, when music filled the firmament, and in the city of David a mighty Prince was born. He grew in stature, and in due time was manifested to Israel. And what was the appearance of this greater than Solomon? What were his royal robes? The attire of a common Nazarene. What were his palaces? A carpenter’s cottage, which He sometimes exchanged for a fisherman’s hut. Who were his Ministers and his Court attendants? Twelve peasants. And what was his state chariot? None could He afford; but in one special procession He rode on a borrowed ass. Ah! said we so? His royal robe was heaven’s splendour, whenever He chose to let it through; and Solomon, in all his glory, was never arrayed like Jesus on Tabor. His palace was the heaven of heavens; and when a voluntary exile from it, little did it matter whether his occasional lodging were a rustic hovel, or Herod’s halls. If fishermen were his friends, angels were his servants; and if the borrowed colt was his triumphal charger, the sea was proud when, from crest to crest of its foaming billows, it felt his majestic footsteps moving; and when the time had arrived for returning to his Father and his God, the clouds lent the chariot, and obsequious airs upbore Him in their reverent hands.

Solomon’s pulpit was a throne, and he had an audience of kings and queens. The Saviour’s synagogue was a mountain -side — his pulpit wras a grassy knoll or a fishing-boat — his audience were the boors of Galilee; and yet, in point of intrinsic greatness, Solomon did not more excel the children playing in the market-place, than He who preached the Sermon on the Mount excelled King Solomon.

Looking at Solomon as a Teacher, the first thing that strikes us is, that he was a great querist. Next to the man who can answer a question thoroughly, is the man who can ask it clearly. Our world is full of obscure misery — dark wants and dim desiderata: like a man in a low fever, its whole head is sick, and its whole heart faint; but it can neither fix exactly on the focus of disease, nor give an intelligent account of its sensations. But in this respect Solomon was the mouth-piece of humanity. Speaking for himself, he has so described the symptoms, that a whole ward — an entire world of fellow- sufferers — may take him for their spokesman. “These are exactly my feelings. I have experienced all that he describes. I am just such another fitful anomaly — just such a constant self-contradiction. One day I wish time to fly faster; another I am appalled to find that so little remains. One day I believe that I shall die like the brutes; and, frantic in thinking that a spirit so capacious is to perish so soon, I chafe around my cage, and beat those bars of flesh which inclose a captive so god-like; I try to burst that cell which is ere long to be a sepulchre: anon I am content, and I say, ( Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you die:’ and no sooner is the carnival over than I start up, conscious of my crime — descrying the forgotten judgment- seat, and aghast at my own impiety in embruting an heir of immortality. One day I deny myself, and save up a fortune for my son and successor; another, it strikes me he may prove a prodigal, and I fling the hoard away. Now it seizes me that I must needs be famous; and then I grow disgusted with the praise of fools. What will cure a broken heart? What will fill an abysmal gulf? What will make a crooked nature upright? What will restore his Creator unto man, and man unto himself?” And Jesus answers: “Believe in God and believe in me, and that faith will heal heart-trouble. Hunger after righteousness, and your craving spirit will be filled. The words that I speak unto you are spirit and life: imbibe them, ponder them, delight in them, and they will satisfy the vastest desires of the most eager soul. What will make the crooked upright V Be born again. What will restore the Creator to revolted man? God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should have eternal life.” And thus, one by one, the great Evangelist answers the queries of the great Ecclesiastes. And if the sage has done a service, who, in articulate words, describes the symptoms of the great disease, how

D incomparably greater is the service done by the Saviour, who prescribes the remedy! After all, Solomon is only an eloquent patient; Jesus is the Divine Physician.

Again: Solomon’s teaching is mainly negative. Five centuries later, it was the business of the wisest Greek to teach his brethren knowledge of their ignorance. And so dextrously did he manage his oblique mirrors — so many of his countrymen did he surprise with side-views and back-views of them selves; so much fancied knowledge did he confute, and so many Athenians did he put out of conceit with themselves, that at last the Athenians lost conceit of him, and killed the mortifying missionary. And, like Socrates, Solomon is an apostle of sincerity. His pen is the point of a diamond; and as it touches many of this world’s boasted jewels, it shows that they are only coloured crystal. His sceptre is a rod of iron, and as it enabled him to command all pleasures, so it enables him to prove their nullity; and before his indignant stroke they crash like potsherds, and dissipate in dust. But more sincere than Socrates. His tests, his probes, his solar lamp, the Greek employed for his neigh bors’ benefit; such an awful earnestness had God’s Spirit enkindled in the Hebrew sage, that his grandstruggle was against self-deception: and the illusions on which he spends his hottest fury are the phantoms which have befooled himself. Socrates gossips; Solomon communes with his own heart. Socrates gets his comrade to confess; Solomon makes his own confession. And so terrible is his intensity, that if it be well for our modern idoloclasts and showers-up of shams that there is no Socrates now-a-days to show them to themselves, it will be well for us all if we take a pattern from Solomon’s noble fidelity, and if we strive after his stern self-knowledge. And yet the result was mainly negative. He had dived deep enough into his nature to find that there was no genuine goodness there; and from the heights of his stately intellect he swept a wide horizon, and reported that within his field of view there was perceptible no genuine happiness. If he was taller than other men, he was sorry to announce that, far as he could see, no fountain of joy now sprang in this desert: no tree of life grew here-away. If he was stronger than other men, he had bad news for them: he had tried the gate of Eden, and shoved it and shaken it: but he feared no mortal shoulders could move it on its hinges, nor any human contrivance force it from its fastenings.

But if Solomon in his teaching was mainly negative, Jesus was as mainly positive. Solomon shook his head, and told what happiness is not: Jesus opened his lips, and enunciated what it is. Solomon said, “Knowledge is vanity. Power is vanity. Mirth is vanity. Man and all man’s pursuits are perfect vanity,” Jesus said, “Humility is blessedness. Meekness is blessedness. Purity of heart is blessedness. God is blessed for evermore, D 2 and most blessed is the creature that is likest God. Holiness is happiness.” “We labour and find no rest,” said Solomon. Jesus answered, “Come unto ine, all ye that labour, and I will give you rest.” “All is vanity,” sighed the Preacher. “In the world ye shall have tribulation, but in me ye shall have peace,” replied the Saviour. “What is truth?” asks Ecclesiastes. “I am the truth,” returns the Divine Evangelist. Solomon was tall enough to scan the most of earth and see an expanse of sorrow; the Son of Man knew all that is in heaven, and could tell of a Comforter who fills with peace unspeakable the soul immersed in outward misery. Solomon could tell that the gate of bliss is closed against human effort. Jesus has the key of David, and opens what Adam shut; and into the Father’s propitious presence He undertakes to usher all who come through Him. Solomon composed Earth’s epitaph, and on the tomb of the species wrote, All is Vanity. Accustomed to date men’s history from their death, Jesus substituted, All is Heaven or Hell.*

Nay, so positive was the Saviour’s teaching, that, in order to understand him rightly, we must remember that he was not only the Prophet, but the doc trine; not only the Oracle uttering God’s truth, but his very self that Truth. Other prophets could tell what God’s mind is: Jesus was that mind. “The law “— a portion of God’s will —” was given

* Matt. v. 3 — 12; xi. 28 — 30. Johnxvi. 33; xiv. 6, 16, 17. Rev. Hi. 7. John x. 9; vi. 37. Luke xvi. 19 — 31.

by Moses; but grace and truth “— the gracious reality, the truthful plenitude of the Divine perfections, “came by Jesus Christ.” He was the express image of the Father. He was the Word Incarnate. And to many a query of man’s wistful spirit, He was the embodied answer. Is there any immortality to this soul? Is there any second life to this body? “In my Father’s house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you, and I will come again and receive you to myself.” “I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that believeth in me shall never die: I will raise him up at the last day.” Is there any mediation betwixt man and his Maker? — is there any forgiveness of sin? “I am the way. Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you. Go in peace: thy sins are forgiven thee.” Is there any model of excellence exempt from all infirmity? — any pattern in which the Most High has perfect complacency? “He was holy and harmless, separate from sinners.” “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him.” Solomon was wise; but Jesus was Wisdom. Solomon had more understanding than all the ancients; but Jesus was that eternal Wisdom of which Solomon’s genius was a borrowed spark — of which the deep flood of Solomon’s information was only an emitted rill.

To which we only add the contrast in their tone. Each had a certain grandeur. Solomon’s speech was regal. It had both the imperial amplitude and the autocratic emphasis, — stately, decisive, peremptory.

But the Saviour’s was Divine. There was no pomp of diction, but there was a God-like depth of meaning; and such was its spontaneous majesty, that the hearer felt, How easily He could speak a miracle! And miracles He often spake; but so naturally did they emerge from his discourse, and so noiselessly did they again subside into its current, that we as frequently read of men astonished at his doctrine, as of men amazed at his doings. But though both spake with authority — the one with authority as a king of men, the other with authority as the Son of God — there is a wonderful difference in point of the pervasive feeling. Like a Prometheus chained to the rock of his own remorse, the Preacher pours forth his mighty woes in solitude, and, truly human, is mainly piteous of himself. Consequently, his enthroned misery — his self-absorbed and stately sorrow, moves you to wonder, rather than to weep; and, as when you look at a gladiator dying in marble, in your compassion there is not much of tenderness. But though greater in his sorrows, the Saviour was also greater in his sympathies; and though silent about his personal anguish, there is that in his mild aspect which tells each who meets it, If his grief be great, his love is greater. And whilst Solomon is so king-like that he does not ask you to be his friend, the Saviour is so God-like that he solicits your affection, and so brotherly that he wins it. Indeed, here is the mystery of godliness — God manifest in flesh, that flesh may see how God is love; and that through the loveliness of Jesus we may be attracted and entranced into the love of God. O melancholy monarch! how funereal is thy tread, as thou pacest up and down thy echoing galleries, and disappearest in the valley of Death-shadow, ever sounding — Vanity of vanities! 0 Teacher blessed! how beautiful are thy feet on the mountains, publishing peace! How benign thy outstretched hand, which, to the sinner weeping over it, proves God’s golden sceptre of forgiveness, and which then clasps that sinner’s hand and guides him to glory! O Thou greater than Solomon! “let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.”

A greater than Solomon. The cedar palace has long since yielded to the torch of the spoiler; but the home which Jesus has prepared for his disciples is a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Thorns and thistles choke the garden of Engedi, and the moon is no longer mirrored in the fish-ponds of Heshbon; but no briar grows in the paradise above, and nothing will ever choke or narrow that fountain whence life leaps in fulness, or stagnate that still expanse where the Good Shepherd leads his flock at glory’s noon. And Solomon — the wonder of’ the world — his grave is with us at this day; his flesh has seen corruption; and he, too, must hear the voice of the Son of Man, and come forth to the great account: but Jesus saw no corruption. Him hath God raised up, and made a Prince and a

Saviour; and hath given him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of man. And, reverting to the allusion of our outset: Solomon effloresced from his country ’s golden age; a greater than Solomon appeared when miry clay was mixing with its age of iron. Solomon was, so to speak, an effusion of his age, as well as its brightest ornament: the Son of Mary was an advent and an alien — a star come down to sojourn in a cavern — a root of Deity from our earth’s dry ground. But though it was the Hebrew winter when he came, he did not fail nor wax discouraged. He taught, he lived, he fulfilled all righteousness — he loved, he died. It was winter wheat; but the corn fell into the ground ungrudgingly; for as he sowed his seeds of truth, the Saviour knew that he was sowing the summer of our world. And as, one by one, these seeds spring up, they fetch with them a glow more genial; for every saved soul is not only something for God’s garner; but an influence for mankind. Already of that handful of corn which this greater Solomon scattered on the mountain-tops of Galilee, the first-fruits are springing; and by and by the fruit shall shake like Lebanon, and the Church’s citizens shall be abundant as grass of the earth. On the wings of prophecy it is hastening towards us; and every prayer and every mission speeds it on — our world’s latter summer-burst, our earth’s perennial June — when the name of Jesus shall endure for ever, and be continued as long as the sun: when men shall be blessed in Him, and all nations shall call Him blessed.

So great is this Prince of prophets, that the least in his kingdom is greater than Solomon. The saint is greater than the sage, and discipleship to Jesus is the pinnacle of human dignity. In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom, and all the germs of undeveloped goodness. He is the true theology, the perfect ethics, the supreme philosophy; and no words can limit the mental ascendancy and moral beauty to which that young man may aspire, who, in all the susceptibility of an adoring affection, consecrates himself to the service and society of the Son of God. My brothers! is it a presumptuous hope that, even whilst I speak, some of you feel stirring within you the desire to join yourselves to blessedness by joining yourselves to Jesus? Is it too much to hope that some of you, who are Christian young men already, are wishing and praying that God would make you characters less commonplace, and render you influences in your day more abundant and benign? Is it too much to hope that, even from this rapid survey, some shall retire with a happy consciousness, — Blessed be God! I belong to a kingdom which cannot be moved, and am embarked in a cause which cannot be defeated? Is it too much to hope that some one who has found, in regard to godless enjoyment, “All is vanity,” may now be led to exclaim, with the gifted youth to whom our poet-laureate has inscribed “In Memoriam,”

“Lord, I have viewed this world over, in which thou hast set me; I have tried how this and that thing will fit ray spirit, and the design of my creation, and can find nothing on which to rest, for nothing here doth itself rest; but such things as please me for a while in some degree, vanish and flee as shadows from before me. Lo! I come to thee — the Eternal Being — the Spring of Life — the Centre of Rest — the Stay of the Creation — the Fulness of all things. I join myself to Thee; with Thee I will lead my life and spend my days, with whom I am to dwell for ever, expecting, when my little time is over, to be taken up into thine own eternity.”*

* From a deeply interesting account of Arthur H. Hallam, in the “North British Review,” for February, 1851.