Charles Bridges' commentary on Ecclesiastes shows that this
neglected book of Scripture is:
- Relevant for today. Our land needs to be
awakened to the futility of seeking happiness without God. - Clear when interpreted in the light of its
overall theme. - Suitable not merely for 'the light-hearted and
thoughtless' but for 'the most eminent saint of God'. - Necessary. 'On no account could we have spared
this book from the canon. It has its own sphere of instruction and that of no
common value'. - Harmonious with the New Testament. 'We cannot
fully enforce and apply Ecclesiastes except by the aid of Gospel light'. - Sanctifying. The message of the book is designed
to bring men to complete consecration to God, as Bridges declares: 'The men
that we want are lively, warm, real men- men who have a daily contact with a
personal living Saviour- men whose religion is the element in which they
breathe, the principle by which they work- men who think of life as the seed
time for eternity'.
About the Author
Charles Bridges (1794-1869) was one of the
leaders of the Evangelical party in the Church of England in the nineteenth century.
He was the vicar of Old Newton, Suffolk, from 1823 to 1849, and later of
Weymouth and Hinton Martell in Dorset.
Educated at Queen's College, Cambridge, Bridges was ordained in 1817. As a
preacher he was called upon for such important occasions as the Clerical
Conference at Weston-super-Mare in 1858 (when he preached along with J. C.
Ryle) and the consecration of the Bishop of Carlisle in York Minster in l860.
Renowned though he was in his own day for his pulpit ministry, his subsequent
fame rests in the books which came from his pen An Exposition of
Psalm CXIX (1827), Forty-eight
Scriptural Studies (5th
ed. 1833), Fifty-four
Scriptural Studies</o> (1837), An
Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846), a Manual for the Young (1849), and An Exposition of the Book of Ecclesiastes (1860). His The Christian Ministry went through nine editions within 20 years
of its appearance in 1829 and has probably remained unequalled in its field.
These works earned high commendation from many, including C. H. Spurgeon, who
described all Bridge's writings as 'very suggestive to ministers.'
After his death a small selection of his
correspondence was published in book form in 1870 and it reveals a man of deep
Christian piety. 'I never remember anyone,' says the writer of the Foreword to
The Christian Ministry, 'in whose presence it was more difficult to be
irreligious, or even frivolous.'
