Ecclesiastes 5:3,7
A dream cometh through the multitude of business…For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): When the body is soundly asleep, the soul or mind is not inactive, as our dreams manifestly evidence.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Dreams in the patriarchal age were frequently prophetical.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): True, there were, in old times, dreams in which God spoke to men prophetically—but ordinarily they are the carnival of thought, a maze of mental states—a dance of disorder!
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Dreams have been on one hand superstitiously regarded, and on the other, skeptically disregarded. That some are prophetic there can be no doubt.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): It would be foolish and puerile to extend this to all dreams; as we see some persons never passing by a single one without a conjecture, and thus making themselves ridiculous. We know dreams to arise from different causes. Experience also sufficiently teaches us how our daily thoughts recur during sleep, and hence the various affections of the mind and body produce many dreams…It will now be well to discuss the points which are worthy of consideration.
ADAM CLARKE: Dreams may be divided into six kinds: First, those which are the mere nightly result of the mind’s reflections and perplexities during the business of the day.
C. H. SPURGEON: Our dreams often follow the leading thoughts of the day; or, if not of the day, yet the chief thoughts that are upon the mind…I should not wonder if some before me, who are deeply engaged in earnest Christian work, have often dreamt about their Sunday-school, or their mission-station.
ADAM CLARKE: Second, those which spring from a diseased state of the body, occasioning startings, terrors, etc.
JOHN CALVIN: The body itself causes dreams, as we see in the case of those who suffer from fever; when thirst prevails they imagine fountains, burnings, and similar fancies.
C. H. SPURGEON: Dreams frequently depend upon the condition of the stomach, upon the meat and drink taken by the sleeper before going to rest. They often owe their shape to the state of the body or the agitation of the mind. Dreams may, no doubt, be caused by that which transpires in the bedchamber of the house—a little movement of the bed caused by passing wheels, or the tramp of a band of men—or even the running of a mouse behind the wainscot may suggest and shape a dream. Any slight matter affecting the senses at such time may raise within the slumbering mind a mob of strange ideas.
JOHN CALVIN: We perceive also how intemperance disturbs men in their sleep; for drunken men start and dream in their sleep, as if in a state of frenzy.
ADAM CLARKE: Third, those which spring from an impure state of the heart, mental repetitions of those acts or images of illicit pleasure, riot, and excess, which form a profligate life. Fourth, those which proceed from a diseased mind, occupied with schemes of pride, ambition, grandeur. These, as forming the characteristic conduct of the life, are repeatedly reacted in the deep watches of the night, and strongly agitate the soul with illusive enjoyments and disappointments.
GEORGE B. CHEEVER (1834-1892): Our dreams sometimes reveal our character, our sins, our destinies, more clearly than our waking thoughts; for by day the energies of our being are turned into artificial channels, but by night our thoughts follow the bent that is most natural to them; and as man is both an immortal and a sinful being, the consequences both of his immortality and his sinfulness will sometimes be made to stand out in overpowering light, when the busy pursuits of day are not able to turn the soul from wandering towards eternity.
THOMAS SCOTT (1747-1821): Unprofitable, proud, covetous, sensual, envious, or malicious imaginations, occupy the minds of ungodly men, and often infect their very dreams. These are not only sinful in themselves, indicating the state of their hearts, and as such will be brought into the account at the day of judgment; but they excite the dormant corruptions, and lead to more open and gross violations of the holy law. The carnal mind welcomes and delights to dwell upon these congenial imaginations, and to solace itself by ideal indulgences, when opportunity of other gratification is not presented, or when a man dares not commit the actual transgression. But the spiritual mind recoils at them: such thoughts will intrude from time to time, but they are unwelcome and distressing, and are immediately thrust out.
C. H. SPURGEON: The thoughts of men appear to be utterly lawless, especially the thoughts of men when deep sleep falls upon them! As well might one foretell the flight of a bird as the course of a dream! Such wild fantasies seem to be ungoverned and ungovernable. If anything beneath the moon may be thought to be exempt from law and to be the creature of pure chance, surely it is a dream!
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Dreams are either natural, or supernatural. Natural dreams are not much to be regarded…There are also dreams diabolical.
ADAM CLARKE: Fifth, those which come immediately from Satan, which instil thoughts and principles opposed to truth and righteousness, leaving strong impressions on the mind suited to its natural bent.
MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): Satan plagues and torments people all manner of ways. Some he affrights them in their sleep, with heavy dreams and visions, so that the whole body sweats in anguish of heart.
JOHN TRAPP: Eusebius* tells us that Simon Magus had his dream-haunting devils—his familiars by whom he deluded men in their dreams, and drew them into the admiration of himself. These devilish dreams are either mere illusions—or else they tend to sin, as nocturnal pollutions, and other evil dreams; whereby the devil sometimes fasteneth that sin upon the saints when asleep, that he cannot prevail with them to commit while awake.
JOHN CALVIN: On the other hand, it is sufficiently evident that some dreams are under divine regulation.
ADAM CLARKE: Sixth, those which come from God, and which necessarily lead to Him, whether prophetic of future good or evil, or impressing holy purposes and heavenly resolutions. Whatever leads away from God, truth, and righteousness, must be from the source of evil; whatever leads to obedience to God, and to acts of benevolence to man, must be from the source of goodness and truth.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): The mind much occupied on God will often in sleep find the communion still maintained with Him, and the very dreams holy and comforting…When we lie down with good thoughts, we may hope that our very dreams shall be holy. Though most visions of the night are vain and incoherent, and that to be troubled by them would be superstitious folly; yet there are some, I doubt not, which bear the mark of God’s hand, and deserve our solemn attention.
JOHN TRAPP: That some dreams are divine, some diabolical, and some natural, no wise man ever doubted…But what are dreams ordinarily, but very vanities, pleasant follies and delusions, the empty bubbles of the mind, tales of fancy, and idle and fruitless notions—mere baubles. Why, then, should men make so much of them?
THOMAS COKE: Why may not dreams sometimes still be monitory?**
MARTIN LUTHER: We will discuss these questions some other time.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Eusebius* was a Greek historian, who died in 339 AD. The word monitory** means cautionary, or to warn or admonish.
