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W.J. Erdman
William Jacob Erdman (February 21, 1834 – January 27, 1923) was an American preacher, Presbyterian minister, and author whose leadership in the premillennialist and holiness movements of the late 19th century bridged evangelical fervor with scholarly exposition. Born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to John Erdman and Sarah Wunderly, he grew up in a German Reformed family before moving with his parents to western New York at age 11. Converted at 16 during an 1850 revival meeting in Rochester, New York, he graduated from Hamilton College in 1856 with a B.A., then studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York City (1856–1858), where he was ordained in 1860 by the Presbytery of Buffalo. Marrying Henrietta Rosenbury in 1860, he had six children, including Charles Rosenbury Erdman, a future Princeton theologian. Erdman’s preaching career began at Jefferson Presbyterian Church in Jefferson, New York (1860–1864), followed by pastorates in Jamestown, New York (1864–1870), and Dwight L. Moody’s Chicago Avenue Church in Chicago (1870–1874). Known for his clear, earnest sermons, he became a key figure in the Niagara Bible Conference (1876–1897), advocating premillennialism—the belief in Christ’s imminent return before a literal thousand-year reign. From 1875 to 1880, he served as superintendent of the New York Presbytery’s Home Mission, planting churches across the state, then pastored Second Presbyterian Church in Germantown, Pennsylvania (1880–1890), growing its congregation significantly. After retiring from regular ministry in 1890, he devoted himself to writing and itinerant preaching, speaking at holiness conventions like Keswick until 1900.
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W.J. Erdman preaches on how Ecclesiastes is a book that resonates with the natural man, as seen in the literature, poetry, ethics, and philosophies of various cultures throughout history. The questions, doubts, and reflections on the vanity of life expressed in Ecclesiastes are universal themes that echo in the hearts of people across different nations and time periods. The search for meaning, the struggle with despair, and the pursuit of the unknowable are all captured in the musings of Ecclesiastes, mirroring the sentiments found in the works of poets and thinkers worldwide.
The Literatures of the Natural Man
The different Literatures of the world are a Proof that Ecclesiastes is the book of the Natural Man. It hears its echoes or finds its fullest expressions in the poetry and ethics and philosophies of Greece and Germany, Persia and France, India and England, China and America. The book of this Preacher and the books of sages, moralists and poets, match each other at every part and point, but there is no more redemptive power in the one than in the others. The wise questions and doubtful answers put forth by the soul of man in its pressing needs are common to both; likewise the reviews of fitful experience and the monotonous verdict "All is Vanity." The king and Preacher finds his counterparts in other nations and ages;- his ancient sermon discloses the seeds and germs of many modern reasonings on man and his destiny his " be-all and end-all," and on the unknowable, all-molding idea, of "the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." " The world" — man, nature, history, time — " is set in man's heart " now as then, and the natural man comes to the " Unknowable," feeling after God, and in his vain wisdom finding him not. Here, too, are the sad musings of poets and sentimentalists, who clothe nature in the sack-cloth of their own melancholy; here the idealizing, the vacillation, the despair,. the fatalism, which are but enlarged in the soliloquies of a Hamlet or uttered in the disgust and mad resolve of a learned Faust. The very collections of confessions and sentiments, similar to these of Ecclesiastes, gathered by certain writers from the works of sages and moralists and poets of other ages and peoples, strongly confirm the statement, that this He brew Scripture is the Book of the Natural Man.
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William Jacob Erdman (February 21, 1834 – January 27, 1923) was an American preacher, Presbyterian minister, and author whose leadership in the premillennialist and holiness movements of the late 19th century bridged evangelical fervor with scholarly exposition. Born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to John Erdman and Sarah Wunderly, he grew up in a German Reformed family before moving with his parents to western New York at age 11. Converted at 16 during an 1850 revival meeting in Rochester, New York, he graduated from Hamilton College in 1856 with a B.A., then studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York City (1856–1858), where he was ordained in 1860 by the Presbytery of Buffalo. Marrying Henrietta Rosenbury in 1860, he had six children, including Charles Rosenbury Erdman, a future Princeton theologian. Erdman’s preaching career began at Jefferson Presbyterian Church in Jefferson, New York (1860–1864), followed by pastorates in Jamestown, New York (1864–1870), and Dwight L. Moody’s Chicago Avenue Church in Chicago (1870–1874). Known for his clear, earnest sermons, he became a key figure in the Niagara Bible Conference (1876–1897), advocating premillennialism—the belief in Christ’s imminent return before a literal thousand-year reign. From 1875 to 1880, he served as superintendent of the New York Presbytery’s Home Mission, planting churches across the state, then pastored Second Presbyterian Church in Germantown, Pennsylvania (1880–1890), growing its congregation significantly. After retiring from regular ministry in 1890, he devoted himself to writing and itinerant preaching, speaking at holiness conventions like Keswick until 1900.