than to teach doctrines. It has been called the Sermon on the Mount over again. Compare chap. i. 2, with Matt. v. 10-12; chap. i. 4, with Matt. v. 48; chap. i. 5, with Matt. vii. 7; chap. i. 9, with Matt. v. 3; chap. i. 20, with Matt. v. 22; etc. The writer seeing what were the besetting sins and vices of his countrymen, raises his warning voice betimes that he might rescue them from the fatal consequences which would follow by a retributive Providence. He exhorts them to patience, resistance to evil and endurance of trial, the impartial treatment of all classes of society, to show their faith by their works, to cultivate the Christian graces and virtues, govern the tongue and look forward to the coming of the Lord and in the mean time to minister to the fatherless and widows, the sick and afflicted. It is a handbook of Christian duty, a Vade Mecum of the virtues and graces the disciple should cherish and practise, and the sins he should flee from. THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES. CHAPTER I. Introduction and Exhortations to Endurance and Fidelity in the Christian Life. JAMES, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to 2 the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3 knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be per 1. James. This is supposed, see introduction, to be not James the Greater, the brother of John, who suffered martyrdom in Jerusalem under Herod the King, Acts xii. 1, but James the Less. A servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. The author does not call himself an apostle, but simply a servant, or slave of God and Christ. To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, or "the Dispersion" so-called, i. e. the Jews who had been carried away by war and captivity and emigration to the surrounding countries, Egypt, Arabia, Persia, Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, Rome. We know that the Apostle Paul and other missionaries of the gospel found synagogues wherever they went to preach, which offered the first opportunity to the introduction of the new faith. This epistle then like the last may also be called the epistle to the Hebrews. It was, however, not probably addressed to the entire Dispersion, but to those in the neighborhood of Palestine. 2. Count it all joy, etc. Instead of being daunted by the trials and temptations which beset them, they were rather to welcome them as a glorious opportunity to show forth the true character and spirit of the Christian faith. They were placed in the moral Thermopylae of the world. Their little band as true soldiers of the cross were bravely to stem the hosts of evil and of sin. 3, 4. The trying of your faith worketh patience, or endurance or steadfastness. The great compensation for their trials was, that furnace-like they would refine their characters and purge away the dross. Spiritual character being the great end of human life, whatever conduced to promote fect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, 5 let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in 6 faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man 7 think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double- 8 minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let the brother of 9 low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: but the rich, in that he 10 is made low because as the flower of the grass he shall pass this result was to be gladly welcomed. Let patience have her perfect work, etc. The ultimate aim was perfect symme try and roundness of character; nothing in excess and nothing wanting to a complete manhood. No single grace or virtue was sufficient, but all the active and all the passive excellences must be in their places in full vigor and in due proportion. 5. If any of you lack wisdom. The same verb as in the preceding verse wanting. Let him ask of God, etc. To this inexhaustible fountain they could come with perfect assurance that it would never fail them; that its refreshing waters flowed freely for all. It is the grand peculiarity of the Divine Benefactor that he gives to all, and does good to all, without respect of persons, to the evil and the good, to the just and the unjust. Upbraideth not. And notwithstanding the ingratitude of men and the misuse of his gifts, he still continues to give generously and freely, undeserving though they be, nor does he reproach them with their unfaithfulness, but with full confidence in the diviner elements of their nature anticipates the day, when they will at last awake to a consciousness of what they are doing in their abuse of his love and of what he is doing in his infinite magnanimity. 6-8. But let him ask in faith, etc. The one prime condition of prayer is trust, full assurance of the answer to earnest supplication; that God is more willing to give than we are to re ceive, that he is continually giving with open hand innumerable blessings more than we can number or appreciate, and that his goodness and his giving never can be exhausted until the wants of all his children whom he dearly loves shall be supplied. Nothing wavering. Better, "nothing doubting." For he that wavereth, or doubteth. Is. lvii. 20. Let not that man think that he shall receive any thing, etc. As much as to say, the poorest and meanest frame of mind possible is such a faithless, atheistic doubt of the liberal-mindedness of God, which does not really deserve to receive any thing from a Providence so lightly esteemed in spite of its boundless benevolence. In fact by a law of spiritual retribution such a man does not receive from the Lord, "for leanness is sent into his soul," and God's blessings, rich and endless as they are, do not carry blessing with them. Unstable in all his ways. Not only in prayer, but in all things else is the double-minded or two-minded man, as the original is, beset by giant Doubt, but the same instability undermines the whole character and neutralizes all the blessings of life. Confidence is the only bond of union of man with man or of man with God. 9-11. Let the brother of low degree rejoice, or "glory," etc. This passage contains a contrast between the lowly and the exalted, as affected by the Christian rule of judging of human conditions of prosperity or adversity. Humble as the poor man might be, I away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man 12 fade away in his ways. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, 13 which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God 14 cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, 15 and enticed. Then, when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth 16 sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not 17 err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, 18 with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of Christianity assured him if he was true, of a dignity far transcending earthly pomp and power. But the rich and prosperous if they trusted in their riches and prosperity will be fleeting as the morning flower that withers and perishes before noonday. The gospel alchemy is able by its searching crucible to separate the elements of human life and reveal the dross of mere outward show and riches and the gold of genuine humility and lowliness, though in the poorest of the children of men. 66 All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades Like the fair flower dishevelled in the wind." 12. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, or trial of any kind. When the Christian church began, its members were beaten upon by a fierce hail-storm of persecutions and afflictions. They often needed the encouraging voice of the Master, "Fear not little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." For when he is tried, etc. The language of this passage is taken from the public games. When he who runs the race is tried, tested or proved genuine, he shall receive the appropriate crown given to the victors in the race. 13, 14. Let no man say when he is tempted, etc. This paragraph from verse 13 to 18, treats of evil and temptation in its source and origin as coming from man and his incompleteness and not from God in his perfection. Man would fain shift off responsibility for his sins upon Providence, or his condition, or his nature, or Adam's fall, Adam excuses his sin by charging Eve with the seduction and Eve the serpent, but the enticement comes from the weakness or perversion within, or the triumph of the lower nature over the higher. "Evil concupiscence," says the Talmud, "is at the beginning like the thread of the spider's web, afterwards it is like a cart-rope." 15. It bringeth forth sin. The best paraphrase of this passage is found in Milton's Paradise Lost, 2nd Book. Where satan by his own evil desire is represented as bringing forth sin, and by union with sin bringing forth death. 16-18. Do not err my beloved brethren, etc. The fallacy of attributing the evil of sin to God, lies in the fact that it reverses the whole order and course of his Providence and grace which is never weary with doing good, which is forever blessing and giving and which makes no deviation or change in his eternal beneficence. his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures. Wherefore, my beloved 19 brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of 20 God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness, and superfluity of 21 naughtiness, and receive with meekness the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the 22 word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if 23 Labitur et labetur. It flows on and will ever flow on. With whom is no variableness, etc., i. e. no vicissitude or alternation or shadow from change as in eclipses or of the mutation of the heavenly bodies at the solstices. The great Father of lights unlike his most splendid symbols in sun or star, holds on his glorious course without beginning of days or end of years, serene, bright and eternal, the same yesterday, to-day and forever. "God is always in the meridian." Of his own will begat he us. But the utmost stretch of his love and wisdom is seen in the creation of beings like himself, as much as the finite can be like the infinite, a kind of first fruits of his creatures, representatives of his own moral and spiritual faculties on a humble plane, and warmed and kindled by a spark of his own divine love. 19, 20. Let every man be swift to hear, etc. These precepts seem to follow in some measure as inferences from the previous passage. With such a beneficent Providence over him, the becoming attitude for man to take, is one of a learner, a hearkener, as one more ready to be taught than to teach, not impatient or quick in temper, and to make the lesson more piquant it is put in the form of antithesis, swift versus slow; swift to hear, slow to wrath. The Rabbins say, "talk little and work much." "The righteous speak little and do much, the wicked speak much and do nothing." Prov. x. 19, xiii. 3, xv. 2. "In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin." The classics have some appropriate sentiments on this subject. "Men have two ears and but one tongue, that they should hear more than they speak." "The ears are always open, ever ready to receive instruction; but the tongue is surrounded with a double row of teeth to hedge it in and to keep it within proper bounds." Xenocrates said, “I have sometimes had occasion to regret that I have spoken, never, that I was silent." The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God, or godlike righteousness, or the righteousness which God requires. It is not the tendency of human passion to work out the best results for humanity; on the contrary the angry passions of men lead to contention, slander, litigation, war, and every evil word and work. Ps. lxxvi. 10. 66 21 Wherefore lay apart, etc., or put off. Superfluity of naughtiness, etc., or, excess of wickedness." Ecc. vii. 16, 17. The object of the passage is to teach moderation and neatness, gentleness and amiableness of spirit. The ingrafted word, or the implanted or inborn word, as the Revised Version, and margin have it. It is, to coin a phrase, "the innatured word," which may imply that it is not only put in, but is cognate to the soul. 22-25. But be ye doers of the word, etc. This passage is intimately connected with what goes before respecting hearing the word and receiving the word. Even they are not sufficient of themselves, however meek and receptive the attitude of the hearer may be. Another step must be taken. Faith must be followed by works. Motives must end in actions. The truths taught, the word engrafted, must result in their legitimate conse |