Eccl. 2:3.  And I thought in my heart that I would abstain from wine and govern my heart wisely and comprehend prudence, till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under the sun during all the days of their life.

…. Therefore I shall undertake a rigid and austere way of life, one of total abstinence and strictness.” …. This passage is like a thunderbolt against all the regulations and the religiosity of the monks, by which they subject to themselves and to their own planning such things as do not belong to them. This is not to say that abstinence is evil; what is evil is to seek it out by one’s own planning and to bind oneself to it as something necessary. For time, things, and places are gifts of God, which they nevertheless want to take captive through their rules and prescriptions. Besides, all they get out of it is sorrow and misery, while they torture the flesh and torment themselves in vain. For this is what the Carthusians prescribe: One is not to eat meat even if one were dying of hunger. The worst part of it is that they look for sanctity in such things, as though the devil himself could not be a saint this way, since, after all, he neither drinks wine nor dresses in purple, etc.

For Love. CONFIRM, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the hearts of Thy children, and strengthen them with the power of Thy grace, that they may both be devout in prayer to Thee and sincere in love for each other; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen  (Oremus, 1925, p.35).

Therefore he is saying: “All things would be good for me, whether abstaining or eating and drinking, but they become very evil when I add my own ideas.” God has not prescribed place or time, food or abstinence, but in our foolishness we prescribe: “Now I shall eat meat, now I shall not eat it.” God Himself says: “When you have it, eat; if you do not have it, abstain.” Therefore if you want to be abstinent, wait for the counsel of the Lord. He is able to cast you into prison, into hunger, into infirmity, and the like. There you should be abstinent, for there you have a rule that has been prescribed for you not by yourself but by God Himself. But now by your own ideas you make up a form of abstinence that is contrary to the will of God. These outstanding despisers of the world, moreover, everywhere abstain from things in such a way that they never lack for anything. They act in such a way as never to have to abstain. In short, just as they are puffed up above God through their own righteousness, so they are puffed up above the creation through their own ordinances. (Luther’s Works, v.15 p.32-33)

Eccl. 2:2.  I said of laughter: It is mad, and of pleasure: What use is it?

You should take all these things as referring to human counsels. He wants to say: “I wanted to use skill to seek the good, to seek pleasures and happiness. But this thought was sheer madness, which brought me double affliction. In the first place, the very labor of thinking and seeking brings affliction to the heart. In the second place, when I was hoping that I had achieved it, suddenly there came another conflict or trouble, and I lost both the labor and the joy.” By “laughter” he means what I myself seek, and by “pleasure” what I try to accomplish. What use is it? “Because it never turns out right for me, and some kind of trouble always arises.” Therefore the best happiness and gaiety is that which is not sought but is offered unexpectedly by God without your caring or planning. Thus outward happiness is indeed a good thing, but only for those who know how to use it well. The wicked, by contrast, even when they are lost in revelry, still are not happy, because they do not recognize that this is a gift of God and are always bored, dissatisfied with the things that are present and looking for something else.  (Luther’s Works, v.15 p.331-320)

Therefore he says: I said to myself: Come now, I will make a test of pleasure, that is, “I wanted to measure it by manners and rules, but this was nothing but vanity.” Here again it is appropriate to warn that we should not stray from the theme, as Jerome did when he foolishly boasted that from this book he had learned contempt for the world and for all things. He was then followed by monks and sophists, who did not know what it was to flee the world—in fact, did not know what the world was. For this is in fact to teach a contempt for the good creatures of God and to forbid their use, contrary to the clear words of Holy Scripture. Fleeing the world, therefore, does not mean abstaining from things, but it means abstaining from one’s own counsels. This would have been the right way for Jerome to teach his disciple Blesilla: “Do not despise things, but rather despise the strivings, plans, affections, and concerns by which you seek to obtain everything for yourself by your own exertions. It is not honor and desire for things that is evil, but an anxiety about things and your schemes to obtain them are to be despised. Nor is a contempt for the world the same as wearing dirty clothes, wearying your flesh with vigils, growing weak through fasting, and the like, but using these very things as they come. If God has given you food, eat it; if fasting, bear it; if honor, accept it; if condemnation, suffer it; if He casts you into prison, put up with it; if He wants you to be king, obey Him when He calls; if He casts you down, do not worry.” So David was a real despiser of the world when with equanimity he administered his kingdom and bore his exile. The real despisers of the world are those who accept everything as God sends it to them, using everything with thanksgiving while it is present and freely doing without it if the Lord takes it away. (Luther’s Works, v.15 p.31)