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THE 
 
 EPISTLE OF PAUL 
 
 THE PHILIPPIANS, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES, 
 
 PRACTICALLY AND HISTORICALLY EXPLAINED. 
 
 BY 
 
 DR AUGUSTUS NEANDER. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 COMING OF THE LORD, AND ITS SIGNS. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, BY THE REV. ALEXANDER NAPIER, M.A., 
 VICAR OP HOLKHAM, NORFOLK. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 
 
 LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.; SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND (.'0. 
 DUBLIN: JAMES M^GLASHAN. 
 
 M D C C C L I. 
 
EDINBURGH: 
 
 ANDKEW JACK, PRINTER, 
 
 NIDDKY STREET. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 ON THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS, . . 1 
 
 ON THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES, . . . .65 
 
 ON THE COMING OF THE LORD, AND ITS SIGNS, . . .123 
 
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL 
 
 TO 
 
 THE PHILIPPIANS 
 
 PRACTICALLY AND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 When the Spirit of God revealed to holy men of old the 
 word of Truth, to be by them proclaimed for the salvation of men, 
 — when He revealed Himself, through their life, their discourses, 
 their writings, as the vessels of His Spirit, — this is not to be 
 regarded as a fact of sole occurrence, and as belonging only to 
 the Past. To us, as living members of the body of Christ, par- 
 takers of the communion of the Spirit — a communion which 
 connects the Present, as a part, with the progressive develop- 
 ment of the whole, since the first outpouring of the Spirit by 
 the glorified Son of Man, — this cannot be as a dispensation in 
 which we have no interest or concern; the Past must become to 
 us the Present. We need, it is true, no further new revelations, 
 but we must feel, as if the Lord had spoken to us at this mo- 
 ment, inasmuch as He has given us instruction, sufiicient for 
 all the higher requirements of the Present, inasmuch as He 
 has declared everything which it is needful for us to know, that 
 we may find consolation under all present sufferings, — the 
 means of certain victory in all our conflicts, — the clue to extri- 
 cate us from a labyrinth' of embarrassments of an age however 
 disorganised. As the pre- requisite to this attainment, we must 
 attentively investigate the ascertained historical conditions and 
 relations under which these vessels of the Spirit of God spoke 
 and acted; we must place ourselves livingly in the Past, and in 
 
 B 
 
2 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 those circumstances in which, and in reference to which, these 
 holy men spoke and acted. Herein we recognise the de- 
 signs of Divine wisdom in the government of the church, that 
 Divine truth has been revealed to us, not in a law of the letter 
 not in any summary of determined articles of belief, but that it 
 has been communicated to us in this historical embodiment, in 
 its particular application to particular cases, to ascertained his- 
 torical relations and circumstances of life, through the instru- 
 mentality of appointed human organs, who lived among men as 
 representatives of Divine truth, who, amid the world and its 
 concerns, witnessed to and revealed the things of God, and who, 
 in their peculiar human manner, though in a manner sancti- 
 fied by the Spirit of God, humanly spoke and acted. Thus 
 was it ordained, that Divine truth should, humanly, be brought 
 near to us. To our own intellectual and spiritual energies, 
 animated, indeed, and guided by the Spirit of God, without 
 whom nothing Divine can be apprehended or understood, it has 
 been committed, to investigate the Divine in its connection 
 with the human; from the particular, to deduce the universal; 
 and again, by its application to the special circumstances of 
 our own time and life, to show the action of the universal in our 
 particular relations; and in what these organs of the Spirit of 
 Christ spoke and did, under the peculiar conditions of the 
 Past, to discover its applicability to the conditions and rela- 
 tions of our Present times. As, in order rightly to understand 
 the word of God in its human embodiment, and, according 
 to this understanding, to apply it, bumble submission to the 
 Divine Spirit, who alone guides into all truths, and reveals the 
 depths of His word, is always requisite; so also is it always 
 requisite that we carefully attend to all these human relations. 
 The word of God desires no indolent hearers, but claims all 
 the powers of feeling and of mind. So only can its treasures 
 be discovered. If we fail to discover them, if amid the dark- 
 ness of the present, we murmur for want of light, we must 
 attribute this to our own shortcomings of these requirements. 
 That pregnant saying of our Lord, " He that hath, to him 
 shall be given," may here be applied, as well to excite and en- 
 courage, as to warn and rebuke us in our inquiries. 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS, 3 
 
 The principles above stated find especial application in the 
 Epistles of the Apostles, in which we should find far more to 
 instruct, to edify, and to guide us in all the relations of life, if, 
 with due attention and earnestness, we endeavoured to investigate 
 their contents in this manner, if, in accordance with these rules, 
 we sought to weigh each word. May the Spirit of God en- 
 lighten and guide us, thus to learn to understand and apply 
 one of the noblest epistles of the apostle Paul, who wrote as no 
 other could write, and in which, the living image of the apos- 
 tle of the Gentiles is placed before our eyes, — the Epistle to the 
 Philippians. 
 
 We must, therefore, first realise to ourselves the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances and aspects, under which the apostle wrote this 
 epistle. Zeal for the salvation of the Gentile world had brought 
 upon him his last persecutions from the frenz}^ of the Jews, 
 who refused to grant to the Heathen equal participation and 
 equal rights in the kingdom of God. It was this which occa- 
 sioned his seizure in Jerusalem, his captivity of several years in 
 the city of Caesarea, and, on his appeal to the Roman emperor, 
 his imprisonment at Rome, the issue of which was still uncer- 
 tain. Care for the welfare of the churches in various parts of 
 the world, which, through the dangers that had befallen their 
 apostolical teacher, might become unstable in their faith itself, 
 and which, in the approach of troublous and agitated days, 
 would be deprived of his personal guidance, occupied his thoughts 
 in his bonds and imprisonment, far more than care for his own 
 life. This deficiency he designed to supply through the medium 
 of his disciples and companions in the preaching of the Gospel, 
 who formed the living bond of union between himself and 
 these churches, and by his own epistles. Of these the church 
 at Philippi in Macedonia was one, and the first which Paul 
 had founded in that country. Having witnessed the odium 
 and the sufiferings endured by Paul for the cause of the Gospel, 
 — of which we have the record in the Acts of the Apostles, — 
 having seen before their own eyes the example of bis boldness 
 in the faith, of his devotion to the Lord, of his triumphant en- 
 thusiasm for His cause, of his rejoicing amid all his trials, 
 of the wonderful dispensations of the Lord, through which he 
 
4 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 had been delivered, the faith of the Christians there had been 
 peculiarly confirmed and strengthened, while their love to him, 
 who was ready to sacrifice everything to bring them the glad 
 tidings of salvation, became the more warm and fervent. They 
 followed the example of their faithful teacher. Although, at 
 that period, Christianity had not attracted the attention of the 
 Roman government, nor was the object of persecution through 
 any express edicts, as, on account of its revolt against the old 
 state-religion, it must soon become, according to the Roman 
 constitution in reference to the affairs of religion; and although, 
 therefore, no general persecutions against Christianity and the 
 church had as yet taken place, and the Christians, in most re- 
 gions, enjoyed rest, yet, in this respect, Macedonia formed an 
 exception. From the very first, the rage of the Jews, whc^ were 
 dispersed in considerable numbers among the commercial towns, 
 had been excited against the preachers and the professors of 
 the Gospel, and the dissensions which necessarily arose be- 
 tween believers and their heathen fellow-citizens, they soughif 
 to strengthen. Although there were no statutes in force 
 against Christianity, the heathen population, from whom 
 the new Christians were so strikingly distinguished by the pe- 
 culiarity of their Christian life and conversation, could easily 
 devise manifold means to disturb and annoy them; just as, 
 in the history of modern missions, we see a repetition of such 
 efforts in the intercourse of the newly converted and their old 
 heathen associates. Amid such persecutions, the church at Phi- 
 lippi remained steadfast, and thereby their faith and their love 
 were tested. Hence, also, the persecutions which had befallen 
 their apostolical teacher could not confound their faith. They 
 were conscious of a communion in a higher life with him, amid 
 all his conflicts and sufferings. Through his afflictions and the 
 dangers impending over him, their love and sympathy for him 
 were only the more kindled. To prove this to him, thfey had 
 sent one of their own number, Epaphroditus, to obtain, through 
 him, more accurate intelligence of his situation. We know 
 that, although the Lord Christ conferred on His apostles the 
 power of imposing on those for whose salvation they laboured, 
 the provision of their bodily wants, Paul had not availed him- 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 5 
 
 self of this right. As the preventing and saving grace of the 
 Lord had manifested itself in so peculiar a manner in him, as 
 from being the most vehement persecutor, it transformed him 
 into a preacher of the Grospel, so he felt himself constrained to 
 do more than the others, whom Christ had called to himself in 
 the usual way, and had gradually trained for His service, and 
 to renounce a right, which, like the other apostles, he might 
 have exercised. By his more abundant labours and sufferings, 
 by his greater acts of self-denial, did he, who had been called 
 as by force, seek to show his free love in the dispensation 
 committed to him. (1 Cor. ix. 17-19.) His own peculiar na- 
 ture, strengthened by the supernatural gift of the Spirit, ena- 
 bled him to be of those whom Christ counted blessed, because 
 they renounced marriage for the kingdom of heaven's sake; who 
 were so counted blessed, not on account of the celibate life in 
 itself, — as if Paul could have any pre-eminence above Peter, 
 who, in marriage sanctified by the Lord, laboured for the ad- 
 vancement of the kingdom of God, — but on account of the feel- 
 ings which prompted them to renounce it, viz. love, sacrificing 
 all for the kingdom of God. It was this spirit of all-sacri- 
 ficing love which animated Paul, which led him to regard as 
 his duty, and undertake with joyous zeal, everything which, 
 under any given circumstances, tended to promote his vocation. 
 From the same principle he supported himself amid all his 
 labours of preaching, by the work of his own hands, as a tent- 
 maker. He felt in himself the truth of the word spoken by 
 the Lord, " It is more blessed to give than to receive." To avoid 
 every appearance of self-seeking, to remove every ground of sus- 
 picion from his opponents among the Jews and Judaizing 
 Christians, he took on himself alone the care of his temporal 
 maintenance. The Christian community at Philippi, however, 
 urged by their sincere love, had anticipated his wants, and had 
 several times sent him contributions in money, well knowing the 
 straits he would often be put to, in order to gain his livelihood; 
 and Paul, though himself desiring nothing, would not, consi- 
 dering the source of such feeling, repel these offerings of free 
 love. Thus, at that period, had this church shown its active 
 sympathy for Paul, through their emissary Epaphroditus. This 
 
6 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 mark of affectionate remembrance, and the information regard- 
 ing the state of the community at Philippi, which he learnt 
 from Epaphroditus, were the occasion of Paul's writing this 
 epistle, — the design of which was, to express his gratitude and 
 love to the church at Philippi, — to comfort them regarding his 
 own condition, — to exhibit before it his Christian tone of feel- 
 ing amid his conflicts and dangers, — and to impart those ex- 
 hortations and encouragements which were adapted to its own 
 state. 
 
 We must now, therefore, direct our attention to Paul's condi- 
 tion during his imprisonment at Rome, — to those lessons which 
 are to be learnt from his conduct during it, and from that 
 picture of his state of mind, which this epistle affords us, — 
 and to his instructions to this church, in reference to its pecu- 
 liar position, for the various application of which, our own 
 coo:nate circumstances will afford us abundant matter. 
 
 First, then, with regard to the condition of Paul, which was 
 one calculated to produce a conflict of feelings in his heart. He 
 had publicly testified to the cause of the Lord, and made his 
 own defence. His apology had produced the general impression, 
 that his imprisonment was the result, not of any disturbance 
 he had raised against the public peace, nor of any other cri- 
 minal transgression laid to his charge, but solely on account 
 of his preaching a faith odious to the Jews, against which new 
 faith, as we have already remarked, no statutes were in exist- 
 ence. If then, on this point, Paul could triumphantly prove 
 his innocence, his safety might thence appear secured. Accord- 
 ing to the Roman laws, however, the act of seducing the citizens 
 and subjects of the Roman empire to revolt against the religion 
 of the state, and of seeking to make proselytes to a faith, which, 
 though not yet expressly condemned by an edict, from its very na- 
 ture must perpetually conflict with this state religion, would be 
 regarded as punishable. Paul's case, therefore, was not so 
 simple; there might still be room for manifold perplexities. At 
 one time, expectations, founded on the impression, which his 
 public defence had made, would arise in him, that he would 
 safely be delivered from his bonds, and that it would again 
 be possible to him, to visit the churches he had formerly 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 7 
 
 founded, and among them, therefore, the church at Philippi; 
 at another time, the thought of death would present itself to his 
 mind. Buc what then? Do we find his soul a prey alternately 
 to fear and hope, to dejection and joy, as dependent on impres- 
 sions received from outward changes and chances, as is the 
 case generally with other men in a similar position? No; a 
 prevailing tone of cheerful repose, and of submission to the 
 will of the Lord, breathes through the entire epistle. We 
 recognise a man, whose confidence rests on a foundation firm 
 as a rock, independent of the alternation of events, and un- 
 shaken by any waves or storms. He is assured that the Lord, 
 in one way or other, will carry him victoriously through those 
 conflicts, to a glorious end. With joyous confidence he is ready 
 to meet the termination of a life consecrated to one holy cause. 
 He is conscious to have laboured not in vain, as a faithful 
 preacher of the truth, which he sees producing fruit in the 
 churches. These, like the church at Philippi, are the living 
 monuments of a ministry devoted to the Lord, — the testimony, 
 that he has purely preached the word of God the Lord, — his 
 rejoicing before the Lord, on that day, when He will bring to 
 light the hidden things of darkness, when much, that bears an 
 imposing appearance here, will be exposed in its nothingness, 
 and when much, that was mistaken and condemned by the 
 world, will be acknowledged as His own by the Lord. The feel- 
 ings of Paul, in this respect, are nobly expressed in the words of 
 this epistle, where he says, — " Yea, and if I be offered upon 
 the sacrifice and (priestly) service of your faith, I joy and re- 
 joice with you all. For the same cause also do ye joy and re- 
 joice with me," (chap. ii. 17, 18.) The full import of these 
 weighty words, we must seek to make clear. As the Lord 
 Christ is the alone Mediator between God and the sinful hu- 
 man race redeemed by Him, all who believe in Him, enter into 
 communion with Him, are freed from the w^orld, which is 
 alienated from God, and through Him are consecrated into 
 one holy Church of God, and thus become one priestly race; in 
 this relation, there no longer exists the distinction of priests 
 and laics, but all through Him, and in communion with 
 
8 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 Him, become, what He himself is, priests before His God, 
 who is also their God, before His Father, who is also their 
 Father; their whole life is a priestly vocation, as it is de- 
 scribed by Paul, (Rom. xii. 1), a rational service, i. c, a 
 spiritual service, one proceeding from the reason, from the 
 spirit, wherein the whole spiritual life manifests itself as 
 consecrated to God, as a sacrifice offered unto God; wherein, 
 every inward and outward action, as done in communion with 
 Christ, as performed in His name, as filled by His Spirit, as 
 expressing His Holy Image, is the offering of praise and 
 thanksgiving of the Redeemed, acceptable and well- pleasing 
 to God. This being true of every action of every Christian 
 in his own particular calling, Paul regards his calling as an 
 apostle, as his peculiar priestly vocation, and the faith planted 
 through him in the heathen world, — the Christian life of the 
 Gentiles converted by him — as the acceptable sacrifice offered 
 by him to God; and in this sense he speaks, in these words, of 
 the "sacrifice and service" of the faith of the Philippians, of- 
 fered by him to God. Further, as wine was generally poured 
 out as a seal to the sacrifices, the so-called libation, — and as he 
 plainly foresaw that he would pour out his own blood in his 
 priestly vocation of preaching the Gospel among the heathen, 
 and would testify what he preached even in the face of death, 
 and at last, by the testimony of his martyrdom, would seal what 
 formed the vocation of his whole life; so, in this respect, he 
 speaks of pouring out his blood, as the offering himself on this 
 sacrifice. The apostle, therefore, is ready to meet so glorious 
 an end of his labours with confidence and joy. Far from need- 
 ing the consolation of others, he is enabled to invite the Philip- 
 pians to rejoice with him. Uncertain, therefore, whether mar- 
 tyrdom would terminate his imprisonment, or whether his life 
 would be preserved for further labours in advancing the king- 
 dom of God on earth, his mind is prepared for both, and in 
 either case submissive to the will of God, — the Lord's will was 
 his will. The turn which events might take would be, to him, 
 the appointment of the Lord, how his life could be made most 
 subservient to His glory. He was divided between the longing 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. '9 
 
 to be gone from the conflicts of this earthly life, to the peace of 
 the heavenly home of the Spirit, — to depart from the land 
 where the Lord is seen only by the eye of faith, to that, where, 
 amid the society of the blessed. He exhibits Himself as the 
 object of sight. Conscious, though Paul was, of communion 
 with the Lord, he was yet far from feeling satisfied with what he 
 had already attained. Not only did his many outward conflicts 
 make him feel, that the land of peace promised to Christians 
 and the object of his fervent longings, is not to be found here 
 below; inward conflicts, also, through which the life of faith 
 must pass, and harder far than those from without, were not 
 unknown to him, conflicts in which even his Saviour, who cried 
 out, " My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death," and, 
 '' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken mef led the way. He 
 had suffered much from the " thorn in the flesh," as he calls it, 
 (2 Cor. xii.), which, like wounds, incessantly inflicted in the 
 body by the prickings of a goad, ever accompanied him. Thus 
 must he experience the weakness of man, a weakness the more 
 felt by him, in contrast with the revelations of Divine glory, 
 which, from time to time, were imparted to him. But thus 
 was he to learn what is Divine and what is human, — what be- 
 longs to this, and what to the other life. Thus also was he to 
 discover, that the land of heavenly peace, the object of the 
 longing of every spirit which partakes of the Divine nature, is 
 not to be found on earth. Although, as his life and epistle 
 testify, Paul had made great advances in sanctification, he was 
 yet far from desiring to make any distinction between himself and 
 the number of sinners seeking their justification in Christ, — far 
 from esteeming himself a sinless saint. He knew that he had still 
 and ever to battle with sin, and to persevere in this conflict even 
 to the end, if he were to stand before the Lord. We need only 
 hear his own confessions; as, when writing to the Corinthians, 
 he warns them against a false security : " I keep under my body, 
 and bring it into subjection, lest by any means when I have 
 preached to others, I myself should be a castaway," (1 Cor. ix. 
 27); wherein he describes his continual conflict with himself, 
 lest, having been the means of leading others to salvation 
 
10 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 through the preaching of the word, — whose effects, in virtue of 
 its inherent Divine Spirit, are independent of the preacher, and 
 productive of fruit unto eternal life, — he himself should yield 
 to temptations, and fall short at last of that object to which he 
 had conducted others. The metaphor here used by the apostle 
 was derived from the pugilistic contests of the ancients. He re- 
 presents the body as the antagonist with which the pugilist con- 
 tends. The presupposition here, therefore, is the continual an- 
 tagonism of the body, which formerly served sin, to the Divine 
 life in the spirit. Paul describes himself as one who, by constant 
 efforts, renders his body, the vessel of sanctification which he has 
 received, obedient to himself as the servant of Christ. This con- 
 flict with the body of sin, so far as in the body the whole out- 
 ward life of man is exhibited, thus describes generally the en- 
 tire contest which the spiritual man has to maintain with the 
 fleshly, the new man with the old man, even in a Paul. Taught, 
 therefore, by severe self-examination, he is far from supposing 
 he has already attained the ends of Christian perfection; far, 
 when he contemplates his own life, from building his confi- 
 dence on it, as if it were one of perfect holiness, as he expresses 
 himself so beautifully in the words of this epistle, " Not as 
 though I had already attained, either were already perfect," 
 (chap. iii. 12.) Therefore Paul knew that the blessings pro- 
 nounced by the Lord, "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst 
 after righteousness, for they shall be filled;" and "blessed are 
 the pure in heart, for they shall see God," were words which, 
 even in him, were not perfectly fulfilled; but, rather, were still, 
 in certain respects, words of a promise. Further, although Paul 
 had risen to greater heights in the contemplation of Divine 
 things than others of his own or of all time, although he had 
 been deemed worthy of special higher revelations, over and 
 above what was to form the subject of general preaching, and 
 of deeper and higher views of the connexion of the visible and 
 invisible world, he knew that all this was but fragmentary and 
 partial, and still far from perfect knowledge, and that when 
 this is given, all the higher views entertained in this life, all 
 prophecy, and all speaking with tongues, will vanish. He 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 11 
 
 reckoned himself among those whose knowledge of Divine 
 things was still but " seeing through a glass darkly," where 
 much still remains mysterious, — a knowledge which bears the 
 same relation to that of eternal life, which the knowledge of a 
 child bears to that of matured manhood. He knows that, once 
 exalted to the contemplation of eternal life, the knowledge of 
 Divine things he attained in this life would be cast off by him, 
 as the natural man casts off the notions of his childhood. His 
 lofty spirit, ardently desiring knowledge, longs to depart from 
 the dim twilight of the earthly life of faith to the bright-shin- 
 ing light of heavenly glory, where our knowledge of God and 
 the things of God will be inward and immediate — a vision of 
 immediate presence — a knowing even as we are known. In all 
 these respects, therefore, Paul felt in the depth of his soul, that 
 the life of the Christian, as it subsists in faith now, can only 
 subsist in hope of the future; without this assured view of the 
 future, the whole Christian life appears in his eyes as endeav- 
 ours without object — the pursuit of a phantom, the sport of de- 
 lusion, as he himself says, " If in this life only we have hope, 
 we are of all men the most miserable," (1 Cor. xv. 19.) For the 
 life of other men is directed to the higher or lower aims which 
 are to be attained in intellectual pursuits, or in the gratification 
 of the senses, and which can actually be attained on earth; 
 but the life of Christians, with all its conflicts, its efforts, its re- 
 nunciations, refers to an object which has no truth, if it is not to 
 be realised in the eternal life of the future. Hence Paul, from 
 this point of view, reproaches the Corinthians with living in a 
 boasted security, that they had lost the consciousness of the 
 difference between this world and the next, between the conflict 
 of earthly life and the triumph of eternal life, that they 
 thought and acted as if already in^possession of all their rights, 
 as if already enjoying the perfect satisfaction of all their needs, 
 as if no conflict from within or without any longer awaited 
 them, and contrasts, in this respect, the very different life of 
 the apostles: " Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned 
 as kings without us," (I Cor. iv. 8.) They seemed to think and 
 act, as if the kingdom of Christ in its plenitude had already 
 come among them, as if, partaking in this, they had already 
 
12 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 attained all its riches, and all its enjoyments. And I would, 
 he says, that this were the case: " I would to God ye did reign," 
 (1 Cor. iv. 8), that ye were already partakers of the full glory 
 of Christ's kingdom, for then certainly the apostles would hard- 
 ly be excluded — " that we also might reigu with you;" then 
 our position would be different indeed from what it was. And, 
 in contrast with this their false security, with this unauthorised 
 and unfounded triumphing, he sets before them his own trials 
 and conflicts, (1 Cor. iv. 9-13.) 
 
 There was ground enough, therefore, even for Paul, although 
 he rejoiced in his conflicts, and found in them his glory, to 
 long after perfect communion with the Lord in the other 
 world. And although, in earlier years, he makes mention 
 only of the diiFerence between the earthly life of faith and the 
 state of perfection consequent on the resurrection, in later 
 times, and especially from the date of his second Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, the consciousness acquires in him a more distinct 
 and prominent form, that believers, through the indissoluble 
 union between them and the Lord, in virtue of which they are 
 to follow Him in every stage of existence, shall, immediately 
 after their departure from their earthly bodies, enter into a 
 higher life, where they shall actually behold Him, and into a 
 higher and purer communion with Him; as, in the fifth chapter 
 of the second Epistle to the Corinthians, he describes the life 
 in the body as being, in this respect, an absence from the Lord, 
 i. e. separated from the actual vision of Him, and the state con- 
 sequent on this, eff'ected through death, the laying aside of this 
 earthly life, as the being present with the Lord. (2 Cor. v. 8.) 
 He expresses also a similar conviction in this epistle. He 
 here describes Christ as his life, (chap, i, 21.) From life in this 
 sense he distinguishes his life in the flesh, (chap. i. 22.) Christ 
 is his true life; he has no life but in Him, and none without 
 Him. That which alone he calls life, has its foundation in 
 Him; it has its root in communion with Him; Christ is the 
 principle and soul of this life; it is the life of his life; and 
 therefore this life is one with Christ himself. And as Christ is 
 now triumphant in the Divine life, as He has put off human 
 weakness, and in the power of God lives a life exalted above 
 
ON THE PJIILIPPIANS. 13 
 
 the sphere of death — a life over which death has no more do- 
 minion, and since he rose from the dead, and has ascended into 
 heaven, so the life of believers, as one with His, one M'ith Him- 
 self, will resemble it in these points. And hence Paul con- 
 cludes, that although Christ was his true life while living in 
 the flesh, death would yet be gain to him, inasmuch as, by 
 casting oif this earthly life, the true life, which has its founda- 
 tion in Christ, would be delivered from all the restraints and 
 hinderances and vexations to which it is now subject, and at- 
 tain a more perfect development of the powers inherent in its 
 nature and essence. He knows, that his being with Christ in 
 that more perfect sense, the being with Him as the object of 
 vision, will be coincident with his departure out of this earthly 
 life, (chap. i. 23.) It is, therefore, the end of his longing. 
 
 There are two errors, then, against which the example of the 
 apostle warns us, the subsiding of that longing after the other 
 world, which, as we have seen, is inseparable from the V(ry 
 heart and essence of the Christian life; and the one-sided, 
 fanatical predominance of such longing, where patient submis- 
 sion to the will of God is checked. With regard to the first, it 
 may happen that the Christian, not only through the enjoyment 
 of earthly pleasures, the transitory nature of which he should ever 
 remember, and never suffer himself to forget, that they are but 
 the shadow and the pledge of the higher eternal joys of heaven, 
 may be drawn away from that longing; but that his very ener- 
 gies, devoted to the vocation committed to him for the interests of 
 the kingdom of God, may so entirely absorb him, that the con- 
 sciousness of having here no " enduring city," but that his true 
 eternal home is in heaven, may thereby become obscured within 
 him. He so labours, as if his work on earth, which is but the 
 commencement of higher energies destined for eternity, were here 
 to attain perfection, as if it were already the work of eternity. 
 The thought, therefore, that everything here below is at best 
 imperfect, that nothing attains perfection, nothing attains its 
 aim and end, imperceptibly departs from him, and death sur- 
 prises him in the midst of his labours, even those consecrated to 
 the service of God, as an unexpected and unwelcome guest. He 
 is summoned away before he has finished his reckoning, and 
 
14 OjST the philippian?. 
 
 instead of joyously obeying the summons of redemption from 
 the sufferings of earth, his heart cleaves to the duties of his 
 earthly sphere, from which he is so unwilling to depart, and to 
 their successful results, which have too much value in his eyes. 
 Here we find the application of the warning of the Lord, "Rejoice 
 not that the spirits are subject to you, but rather that your 
 names are written in heaven." This longing ever remains the 
 salt of the Christian life, amid all its sufferings and its joys, 
 alike in repose as in activity. The other error consists in this, 
 — when this longing, which has its perfect right, only with 
 the necessary limitation, that it be found with submission to 
 the will of God, who has appointed our vocation in our earthly 
 existence, and has assigned His term to it, and with fidelity to 
 our vocation, oversteps these limitations, and issues in a one- 
 sided bent of feeling, which renders us impatient to meet a sum- 
 mons, which should be awaited in the persevering exercise of 
 faith and patience. Thus it comes to pass, that the predominance 
 of a one-sided longing for the eternal makes us forgetful of the 
 importance of this earthly life, and of its duties in reference to 
 eternity. The joys and employments of earth lose the value 
 w^hich is their due, and which is founded in the appointment 
 of God. That which God has given for the present moment, as 
 the pledge of and preparation for the higher blessing of the 
 future, is impatiently and unthankfuUy despised. There is a 
 want of the consciousness, which should ever be found in the 
 Christian, that, to the redeemed, standing in communion with 
 Christ, everything earthly, in all they receive and all they do, in 
 their enjoyments and in their labours has even in this lower world 
 been transformed into the character of the heavenly. The state of 
 feeling, exhibited in the words of Paul, observes the true me- 
 dium between both these opposite false tendencies. The longing 
 for the eternal, for the state of perfection which is found in being 
 with the Lord, remains the key-note of his soul, unquenchable 
 by aught else. The longing for heavenly rest is never sup- 
 pressed, never extinguished by all the pressure of his Divinely 
 consecrated employments; but, at the same time, he is far 
 from a precipitate impatience, which cannot await the end of 
 the earthly conflict j far, also, from that more refined self-seeking 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 15 
 
 whicli can no longer endure to fight and labour for the salva- 
 tion of men, and be without the calm enjoyment of heavenly 
 blessedness. Although his desire is to depart from the earthly 
 body, and to be with the Lord in perfect personal communion, 
 he is ready to deny even this desire, which proceeds from what- 
 ever is noblest in man, that he may labour longer on earth, 
 and strive for the salvation of his brethren. He is willing to 
 renounce the object of his ardent longing, and to continue 
 longer on earth, if it should serve to further the work commit- 
 ted to him by the Lord. Love for his brethren, who need his 
 aid for their salvation, disposes him willingly to make even this 
 sacrifice; and though tossed to and fro by the conflict of his de- 
 sires, he remains, in each case, resigned to the will of the Lord. 
 His one enduring desire, to which every other gives place, is, 
 that Christ may be glorified by him, whether by his life or bj 
 his death. Let us hear his own noble words: " According to 
 my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be 
 ashamed, but that, with all boldness, as always, so now also, 
 Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by 
 death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I 
 live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour; yet what I shall 
 choose I wot not, for I am in a strait betwixt two, having a 
 desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better," 
 (chap. i. 20-23.) Still, however, he gives the preference to 
 that which would be most subservient to the good of the 
 churches established by him, and says, therefore, " Neverthe- 
 less to abide in the flesh is more needful for you," (ver. 24:.) 
 And love for the churches inspires him even at this moment, 
 with the expectation and hope, which, as he well knew, might 
 prove deceptive, but which, we have reason to suppose, was ful- 
 filled, that God, by delivering him from his first imprisonment 
 at Rome, would again bring him among them for the confir- 
 mation of their faith, and the furtherance of their joy; as he 
 says, " And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide 
 and continue with you all, for your furtherance and joj of 
 faith, that your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus 
 Christ for me by my coming to you again," (ver. 25, 26.) 
 Here we recognise in Paul the example of resignation to 
 
16 ON THE PIIILIPPIANS. 
 
 the Divine will, in suffering and in acting, in his self sacrifice 
 and in his self-preservation. He is ready to deny his own will 
 to obey the call of God, whether it be, that his life or his death 
 should be the more instrumental in promoting the work which 
 was committed to him to perform. Though filled with longing 
 for his home in heaven, he yet does not seek death. He is will- 
 ing his life should be preserved for the welfare of the church. 
 Death shall find him in the faithful fulfilment of his vocation, 
 and as the appointment of God, to be received with joy from 
 the hands of his Heavenly Father. Thus it is the same act of 
 self-denying love, in living and in dying. The example of 
 Paul refers, indeed, principally to true Christian martyrdom, 
 purified from every fanatical element. But has it no applica- 
 tion to the death which happens in the course of nature? Yea, 
 it may happen, that there be found in the heart, either a self- 
 willed impatience of the yoke of earthly life, though it stop 
 short of the crime of severing the thread of life; or a self-willed 
 love of earthly life, which cleaves to it with all its power, and 
 is loath to relinquish its hold, even when the call of God de- 
 mands it. In both these respects the example of the resigned 
 love of Paul, in his self-sacrifice and self-preservation, may find 
 its true application. Thus should every Christian, in life and 
 in death, be one with him in feeling, though his vocation may 
 not lead him to martyrdom. 
 
 Further, we here find in Paul that higher grade of self-abne- 
 gation which expresses itself, not in the denial of sensual and 
 earthly interests, which could have no charm for a Paul, but in 
 the denial of the higher interests of the spirit, which partakes 
 of the Divine nature. It is a heavenly longing which kindles 
 the lofty soul of the apostle. He desires to escape from the 
 narrow bounds and vexations of this lower life, to gain the 
 beatific vision of Christ, and find in Him the satisfaction of all 
 the needs of the higher life. This would be the highest interest 
 of his soul. He does not, however, become its slave. He is 
 ready to deny the most precious object of his heart, to renounce 
 the satisfaction of his heavenly longing, and to remain longer 
 in a strange land, that he may continue longer to labour, and 
 struggle, and suffer for the good of others. The welfare of the 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. ] 7 
 
 churclies, the advancement of the kingdom of God on earth, 
 has more value, in his estimation, than his own individual ad- 
 vantage. This example finds its application, not only according 
 to the letter, in a precisely similar case, — when one, possessed 
 with the longing for his heavenly country, is necessitated to 
 bear the burden of earthly life for the benefit of others; we 
 may apply it, according to its spirit, to all cases where a man 
 is called to abandon a life which promises most for the higher 
 interests of the soul, — a peaceful life, consecrated, in undisturb- 
 ed composure, to meditation, and prayer, — and to throw himself 
 into the midst of duties, and labours, and conflicts, with which 
 the higher desires of his soul have no sympathy, but where he 
 is summoned to work for the salvation of others, who need his 
 aid. In this respect, Paul gives us the example, to be imitated, 
 of a self-denying love, which dreads no sacrifice in the service of 
 others. How often have Christians, who have withdrawn from 
 amid the corruptions, instead of seeking to be the salt, of the 
 world, acted contrary to this example ! 
 
 Standing between life and death, what is the ground of 
 Paul's confidence? This is a point so important for all Chris- 
 tians, that it claims we should dwell on it. He, if any one, 
 was a true labourer in the work of the Lord. He was conscious 
 of having laboured more abundantly than all the apostles in 
 the preaching of the Gospel; but he was conscious also that 
 this was not his work, but that the grace of God had wrought 
 everything through him, as he himself says, " I laboured more 
 abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God, 
 which was with me," (1 Cor. xv. 10.) Where higher considera- 
 tions required it for his self-defence against suspicions tending 
 to unsettle the confidence of the churches in him, he knew well 
 how to enumerate all that he, more than others, had laboured and 
 suffered and borne for the cause of the Lord, (2 Cor. xi. 22, 23); 
 he could appeal to the marks of the Lord Jesus which he bore, 
 signs like those imprinted on slaves and soldiers, testifying 
 whose servant he was, and impressed on him by the Lord himself, 
 in whose communion he bore these his sufferings, and whose 
 example in suff"ering he followed in his. (Gal. vi. 17.) But yet, 
 when he looked to the end of his earthly career, and surveyed 
 
18 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 a life so rich in deeds and sufferings in the cause of the Lord, 
 not upon what he himself had done, did he believe he could 
 ground his confidence; in his eyes all this appeared defective. 
 All that he had hitherto performed, he believed he must forget, 
 and look only to that which still remained for him to do. His 
 principle was to forget all past performances, and ever to press 
 forward towards the prize of his heavenly calling. It may, at 
 first sight, appear strange to us, that Paul should express him- 
 self with so much hesitation and doubt, as to whether he shall 
 attain the prize of eternal life, a participation in the blessed- 
 ness of the Resurgent. This seems to conflict with the Divine 
 confidence which breathes throughout the epistle, and with 
 which he expresses himself elsewhere upon the object of his 
 hope; as, for instance, '"'I have fought the good fight, I have 
 finished my course, I have kept the faith, henceforth there is 
 laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the 
 righteous judge, shall give me in that day," (2 Tim. iv. 8, 9.) 
 But these are discrepancies which belong to the essence of Chris- 
 tian life, and which must always be found in the life of Chris- 
 tians. When the Christian looks to his Redeemer, to the grace 
 of redemption assured to him, to the unchangeable word of 
 promise, the end to which all his conflicts are directed appears 
 to him as an object of undoubted certainty; but when, on the 
 other hand, he examines his own life by the measure of Divine 
 holiness, his confidence has no firm foundation ; defects and 
 stains everywhere present themselves to his view, and all this 
 the more he has advanced in holiness, the keener his spiritual 
 glance has become, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to 
 apprehend the ideal pattern of Divine holiness, in its applica- 
 tion to the duties of his own life, to test, in reference to this, 
 his inward and outward life, to prove its nakedness and its 
 shortcomings, and to penetrate the dark corners of his heart. 
 Hence the source of this fluctuation in Paul's expressions re- 
 garding both what he is, and has done. His past actions ap- 
 pear as nothing in his own eyes, — he considers only what he has 
 yet to do. He is filled with the consciousness that he is still far 
 from perfection — that he has not yet attained the perfect. But 
 this is the foundation of his confidence, that as Christ had drawn 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 19 
 
 him into communion with Himself, as Christ had "apprehended" 
 him, so, therefore, he hopes that, having been thus appre- 
 hended, he also would apprehend the prize offered him by- 
 Christ. He knows that Christ, who apprehended him, will not 
 leave His work in him unfinished, but will carry it through all 
 conflicts to a glorious termination, if he yield himself truly to 
 Him. Let us hear his own words upon this — words which, 
 though few, express so much: " Not as although I had al- 
 ready attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after, 
 if that I may apprehend that for which also I am appre- 
 hended of Christ Jesus," (chap. iii. 12.) This is a topic of 
 such magnitude in Paul's mind, that he dwells on this thought, 
 and urges it on all Christians, from his own Christian self- 
 consciousness and experience, in order to warn them against 
 all danger of self-satisfaction, and self-righteousness, and spiri- 
 tual pride; and therefore, he once more addresses them, and 
 says, " Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended : but 
 this one thing 1 do, forgetting those things which are behind, 
 and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press 
 toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in 
 Christ Jesus," (chap. iii. 13, 14.) Conscious of the insufficiency 
 of all human righteousness — not merely of that righteousness 
 preceding regeneration, which is wanting in the true principle 
 of life, and which subsists independent of Christianity, but of 
 that which has the true principle of holiness in faith, although 
 still imperfectly developed and imperfectly realised, — the alone 
 immoveable ground of Paul's confidence is Christ, through 
 whose grace he has been apprehended, and whom he seeks 
 more and more to apprehend and make his own. Turning his 
 glance from himself, and directing it to Christ, he is full of 
 confidence ; directing it to himself, he is given over to doubts 
 and uncertainties; in order that, by averting it from himself, 
 he may again cleave more and more to Christ, from whose 
 love nothing can separate him. The righteousness given to 
 him by God in Christ alone has value in his eyes, as he says 
 in these words of this epistle, '' The righteousness .... which 
 is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of 
 God through faith," (chap. iii. 9.) To him Christ is all in all. 
 
20 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 Everything depends only on entering into communion with 
 Him, and making it more and more our own, — on following 
 Him, by taking His cross upon us, therefore, on following Him 
 as the crucified for us, by dying, in His communion, to sin, our- 
 selves, and the world, on following him in self-denial and re- 
 nunciation of the world, and in the fellowship of His sufferings, 
 which we fear not to share with Him, and on following Him as 
 the Resurgent Christ, experiencing in ourselves the power of 
 His resurrection — a resurrection to an imperishable Divine life, 
 exalted above sin and nature, which passes from Him upon 
 us, if so be He has apprehended us, and we have apprehended 
 Him; as Paul says in these words, "That I may know the 
 power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, 
 being made conformable to His death; if by any means I might 
 attain to the resurrection of the dead/' (chap. iii. 10, 11.) We 
 have already remarked how compatible it is with the assurance 
 of faith, that the apostle should express himself here with such 
 apparent hesitation. 
 
 It was the greatest joy of the apostle to perceive, that his 
 imprisonment, — when once it became known that no charge of 
 any kind could be proved against him, but that zeal only for 
 the faith he pleaded, had brought his afflictions upon him, — 
 must tend to the furtherance of the cause of the Gospel. Atten- 
 tion would necessarily be directed to a cause, for which such a 
 man as Paul felt himself constrained to sacrifice everything. 
 The impression, moreover, which the noble enthusiasm of his 
 testimony, his steadfastness, and his whole life, made on 
 those who were witnesses of them, contributed to the same 
 end, (chap. i. 13.) The report of these things was spread 
 abroad, as he hints, by the different reliefs of the soldiers of the 
 Emperor's body-guard, the Castra Pr^etoriana, who were ap- 
 pointed to watch him in his dwelling, more and more among 
 their comrades, and through them was still further dissemi- 
 nated. The example of the apostle inflamed other Christians 
 at Rome to imitate him in zeal for the preaching of the Gospel, 
 without showing fear, when they saw him so dauntless. And 
 thus there was an increase of preaching. 
 
 But among those preachers, Paul himself draws a great distinc- 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 2J 
 
 tion. He says, namely, in expressing his joy, that his bonds in 
 Christ contribute to the spreading of the Gospel : " Some in- 
 deed preach Christ even of envy and strife, and some also of 
 good will; the one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, 
 supposing to add affliction to my bonds : but the others of love, 
 knowing that I am set for the defence of the Gospel," (chap. i. 
 15-17.) With regard to the latter, he means to say, that such, 
 with their love for the Gospel, j oined also a love for himself They 
 knew, that they could give him no greater joy, than in co-operat- 
 ing in rendering his imprisonment a means for the furtherance 
 of the Gospel ; for they knew, that this is the great function of 
 his whole life, that he regards this as his life-long appointment 
 from God, the end of all God's dispensations towards him, 
 — even of his present "bonds." This is clear; but how are 
 we to understand the declaration, "the one preach Christ of 
 contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my 
 bonds?" Who are those who sought, by preaching the Gospel, 
 to add to the apostle's vexation in his imprisonment, and whom 
 he reproaches with want of sincerity ? Along with this we must 
 take, what he afterwards says on this difference, that, by the 
 one, Christ was preached " in truth," by the others, only " in 
 pretence," (chap. i. 18.) Are we, then, to assume that these men, 
 without any love for the cause of the Gospel, without any in- 
 ward conviction of its truth, preached Christ, merely, in order 
 to contribute to render Paul's position worse, and to expose 
 him to greater dangers, — that their motive, in the further dif- 
 fusion of the Gospel in Rome, was to make that Paul, who was 
 the centre of the whole movement, an object of greater suspicion 
 and hatred to the Koman authorities? It is easy to be seen, 
 how unnatural and intrinsically improbable such a supposi- 
 tion is. If by preaching, they could bring Paul into greater 
 dangers, they would, at the same time, have incurred the 
 same dangers. And is it conceivable, that they would have 
 played so dangerous a game, merely to gratify their hatred 
 of another? He, who did not himself believe the Gospel, 
 must, at that period, have been prejudiced against it, and could 
 not certainly have gone so far as to preach it, as a means to 
 another end. We must, therefore, seek another explanation 
 
22 ON THE PHILIPPIAXS. 
 
 of this difficulty. When it is said of one, that he preaches 
 the Gospel only in pretence, this need not be so under- 
 stood, that he has no interest in the subject of his preach- 
 ing, that he employs it as a means for another end, with- 
 out any personal interest in it, without any personal con- 
 viction of its truth. This may be so understood, that his 
 preaching is not pure and perfect, but mixed up with hetero- 
 geneous matter, and that, although an interest in the thing 
 cannot be altogether denied him, this is not pure and undivided. 
 Thus is it to be explained, how Paul could express himself in 
 this manner, with regard to those who, although their testi- 
 mony to the Gospel of Christ was sincere, yet preached not the 
 whole unmixed, pure Gospel in its fulness, but one impure, cor- 
 rupt, and mutilated. Further, when Paul says of such, that they 
 acted from party spirit and hatred to himself, and desired to 
 occasion fresh annoyance in his afflictions, this need not be so 
 taken, as if their testimony was feigned and hypocritical, there 
 being no occasion, no ground, in the circumstances of these 
 times for the existence of such hypocrisy; but it is very con- 
 ceivable, that in their preaching, not sincere love to the Lord 
 was their motive, but that, consciously or unconsciously, the de- 
 sign to vex Paul by their mode of preaching, and to form them- 
 selves into a party against him, prevailed in all their actions. 
 
 If we examine the historical development of Christianity 
 in this first period, the history of the apostolic church; if we 
 more closely investigate the peculiar relations of, and antagon- 
 isms to the ministrations of Paul, we shall soon be in a condi- 
 tion to specify with more exactness the generalizations of the 
 above remarks. We know that Paul had many conflicts to 
 sustain with opponents, to whom all that has been said is 
 strictly applicable. There were those, who acknowledged in- 
 deed, and preached Jesus as the Messiah, but made of Him 
 a Messiah in the Jewish sense, recognised Him, not as He 
 Himself had revealed Himself to be, as the only ground of 
 salvation for mankind, — those who, along with the one article 
 of faith in Jesus, the Messias promised in the Old Testament, 
 would, at the same time, join and retain the whole Jewish 
 Law, who understood nothing of the new creation, which 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 23 
 
 Christ came to found, but sought to patch, on the old garment 
 of Judaism, faith in Jesus as the Messiah, merely as another 
 new piece. These were the opponents with whom we see Paul 
 so frequently combating in his epistles. Of such he could 
 partly say, that they preached the Gospel, not purely and sin- 
 cerely, but only " in pretence," for they were concerned far 
 more for Judaism than Christianity, and through them, people 
 were made rather Jews than Christians. Of such, also, could 
 he say, that they endeavoured to form a party against him, and 
 occasion fresh annoyance to him in his bonds; for always we 
 find these men animated with a spirit of jealousy against Paul, 
 the preacher, in the heathen world, of the Gospel freed from all 
 dependence on Judaism ; they are his constant assailants, un- 
 ceasinoly dispute his apostolic authority, seek to encroach on 
 his sphere of action, and seduce men from him to themselves, 
 from the pure and perfect, to their impaired and mutilated 
 Gospel. And that such persons were found even in Rome, need 
 occasion us no surprise; for the Epistle of Paul to the Komans, 
 written some years before his captivity at Rome, shows us, in 
 this church, consisting for the greater part of Gentiles, to whom, 
 as the apostle of the Gentiles, he felt himself peculiarly called 
 on to write, a smaller party of such Judaizing Christians. It 
 was natural, therefore, that when the pure Gospel, in the sense 
 of Paul, was preached by the one, the others should rise up 
 against it, and, led on by the spirit of jealousy, should endeav- 
 our to introduce a Gospel, mutilated and corrupted by the in- 
 troduction of Jewish elements. The attitude Paul assumes to- 
 wards them, we must endeavour properly to understand, for, 
 rightly interpreted, it affords us an important rule, applicable 
 to many cases. First of all, then, it is evident that these men 
 were personal enemies of Paul; all their actions were based on 
 the design, to counteract him in his efforts, and to form a party 
 against him. How great, then, is the self-abnegation of Paul, 
 that he treats with indifference this personal relation, and, un- 
 concerned about the design which was levelled against himself, 
 only rejoices, that the one Christ, whom alone he seeks to 
 glorify, is preached, even though it be by his own personal 
 enemies! Every selfish principle gives place to the absorb- 
 
24 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 ing love of the Lord, and of those for whom he is ready to 
 give his life. How rare the examples of a love so exalted, so 
 purified from everything pertaining to self? A man may really 
 be filled with zeal for the cause of the, Lord, which, notwith- 
 standing, may be stained by the intermixture of the purely 
 personal. When the same sacred cause is furthered through 
 the instrumentality of others, who, with feelings hostile to him- 
 self, seek to counteract him, this inspires him with no joy. That 
 this is effected, not through him, but through those who seek 
 to oppose him, is of more moment with him, than the com- 
 mon cause of the Lord ; and instead of rejoicing, it be- 
 comes to him only a cause of vexation, of jealousy, and envy. 
 Everything is not made to depend alone on Christ's being 
 preached, but that He be preached by him, or at least by his 
 disciples, by those who, in everything agree with him, and who 
 look to him, as their teacher in Christianity. Least of all can 
 he brook it, when Christ is preached by those, who place 
 themselves in a hostile attitude to him, whose earnest endea- 
 vour it is to depreciate his fame and reputation, to render him 
 suspected as a teacher, and draw away men from him. To 
 feelings so often occurring, the self-denying zeal of Paul forms 
 the most striking contrast. But it harmonised with the great 
 principle laid down by him elsewhere, with respect to the man- 
 ner in which the preacher of the Gospel should be regarded: 
 "Let no man glory in man," (1 Cor. iii. 21.) The glory of 
 Christ, and the salvation of believers, should be paramount. 
 
 This point would thus admit of an easy construction, and the 
 conduct of Paul might serve as an example to us, were it here 
 a question, merely of opposition encountered from individuals, 
 and not of a controversy on the very essence of doctrine. This, 
 from what we have seen, was not the case. He is speaking of a 
 false doctrine, opposed to his own preaching, of a mutilated and 
 adulterated Gospel. To those opponents of Paul, Jesus, indeed, 
 was the Christ, but not in the sense in which He was so to 
 Paul. To them. He was not the alone ground of salva- 
 tion, the centre of the whole Christian life, as He was to 
 Paul. It might, therefore, be thought, that he could not 
 rejoice that Christ was preached by them, because it was 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 25 
 
 not Christ, purely and entirely and perfectly. And, in fact, 
 we find Paul elsewhere acting otherwise with such persons. 
 With what indignation does he combat them in the Epistle to 
 the Galatians ! He does not admit them to be preachers of the 
 same Gospel; he declares there that there is no other Gospel, 
 than that preached by him, and that such sought to pervert 
 the Gospel of Christ, (Gal. i. 7.) To those who would unite the 
 righteousness of the law with the Gospel, he says : " If righteous- 
 ness came by the law, then Christ died in vain," (Gal. ii. 21.) 
 And in this very epistle, Paul, as we shall afterwards see, ex- 
 presses himself most emphatically against such tendencies. 
 How, then, are we to reconcile his mode of expression here with 
 his declarations in those other relations'? To understand this, 
 we must rightly apprehend and distinguish the different cir- 
 cumstances, which conditionate this diversity of judgment and 
 action. Paul manifests vehement indignation against such 
 tendencies only, where the foundation of the Gospel already 
 existed among the Gentiles, and where such Judaizing tend- 
 encies threatened to pervert it, or alloy it with so much Juda- 
 ism, that the distinctive character of Christianity was thereby 
 altogether suppressed. In that case, it grieved him that men 
 should be deprived of what they already possessed. Bat it was 
 otherwise where he is speaking with regard to Heathens, who 
 knew nothing of the Gospel. These his opponents testified at 
 least, that Jesus had appeared to establish the kingdom of God 
 among men, — of His history, of the fact of His sufferings, His 
 resurrection. His ascension into Heaven, although their minds 
 w^ere unconscious of all that was involved in these truths, and, 
 therefore, unable to develope them. It could, therefore, and it 
 would, rejoice Paul, that the general ground of the Gospel, 
 the Person of Jesus Christ and His history, were made known 
 among those, who knew nothing of them. This was the germ, 
 from which all future growth must issue. This Person, those 
 facts once made known, once made the object of attention* 
 something further might be built on this. They who had 
 once attained to the knowledge and acknowledgment of Christ, 
 Crucified, Resurgent, and Exalted, might, from this ground, be 
 led on to find still more in Him, and make more and more pro- 
 
 C 
 
26 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 srress in searchinir out the inexhaustible riches which are in 
 Christ Jesus. Paul, therefore, might rejoice that Christ was 
 preached, though not yet preached, purely, truly, and completely. 
 There are different grades of the knowledge of Christ; more or 
 less is found in Hira; and our aim must be, not to assail any 
 one, because at first he has less, but from this less to lead him 
 on to the attainment of more, till he become conscious of greater 
 riches, which he has only to gather from what he has already 
 received, " until," as Paul describes it in the Epistle to the 
 Ephesians, " we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the 
 knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the 
 measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," (chap. iv. 13.) 
 Paul here acts according to the spirit of the principle laid down 
 by Christ himself; who, when certain of his disciples met one, 
 who trusted in the power of the name of Christ to cast out evil 
 spirits, and was so applying it, and supposed they must not 
 permit the name of Christ to be so used by one not yet a de- 
 cided disciple, and enrolled in the common cause with them, 
 rebuked them in these memorable w^ords, " He that is not 
 against us is for us." The not being against Christ contained 
 a germ from which a decided love for Christ might be deve- 
 loped. Although the person described, as yet knew not Christ, 
 as the apostle knew Him, — although many errors were joined 
 with his faith in the name of Jesus Christ — although the true 
 meaning and power of this name w^ere still strange to him, — 
 there was yet, here, a germ of faith not to be despised, capable of 
 still further development, a connecting link of still further 
 progress to him, who had advanced thus far. Such an one 
 might be led to consider, what there must be presupposed in the 
 name of Christ, that its invocation should be followed by such 
 effects. Who must He be, from whose name such power pro- 
 ceeds? In what relation to the kingdom of the wicked one, 
 must He stand whose name has such authority over evil spirits? 
 It is clear, that he who had admitted so much, if met on the 
 road with patience and love, might be led further in knowledge 
 and love. By building on that which was received by himself, 
 he, who as yet knew and acknowledged Christ only partially, 
 might become a decided disciple of Christ. If, however, we 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 27 
 
 acted otherwise with him, if we forthwith demanded of him 
 more than he, from his standing-point, was able to give, we 
 might entirely repel him, and not only hinder him from making 
 further advances, but even, by such abrupt opposition, unsettle 
 his mind as to what he already possessed. Against such a mode 
 of proceeding these words of Christ warn us; and Paul, in har- 
 mony with their spirit, rejoices, that Christ was preached and 
 acknowledged, even though corruptly and defectively. 
 
 Although the example of self-denying zeal and love for the 
 cause of Christ must have been recognised by us in the apostle, 
 eren before the whole relation of the opponents to himself was 
 clearly laid before us, and while they were regarded merely in 
 the general light of his personal enemies, we are now in a posi- 
 tion, this relation having been considered more in detail, to 
 direct our attention to a new aspect under which this example 
 exhibits itself to us. Nothing but a love purified, in a more than 
 common measure, from every selfish element, could embrace and 
 greet with joy the cause of the Lord, when that cause is found 
 in the hands of our personal enemy. But the might of this 
 pure and exalted love here reveals itself to us under another 
 point of view, in this, namely, that the fundamentally true, 
 found in the erroneous view, is acknowledged and welcomed; 
 that the seed of truth is not disdained and assailed on account 
 of the error, even though this error is opposed to the more 
 pure, more perfect view of the truth, which is preached by him- 
 self, but rather is welcomely received as one step gained in 
 the progress of truth. Such is the force of love, purified 
 from self, which we here perceive in Paul. How seldom is 
 such found in practice? Even the man who is capable of hail- 
 ing the work 'of the Lord, when it was furthered by his per- 
 sonal enemies, is not, therefore, in a condition so far to for- 
 get himself, as to receive with good-will and love, and use, for 
 the common cause of the Lord, the fundamental truths which 
 he finds in the errors propagated by his opponents, and propa- 
 gated, too, in open contradiction to the pure truth which he 
 is conscious of teaching. How much would have been other- 
 wise in the church! how many divisions might have been avoid- 
 ed! how many, who now work in opposition to each other, might 
 
28 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 be working together for the propagation of the Gospel! how 
 many who have become hardened in their errors, and who have 
 gradually lost the portion that remained to them of Christian 
 truth, might, from that portion, have been led on to the know- 
 ledge of the truth, and been recovered from the bonds of error, 
 li^ instead of desiring, with the impatient zeal of a love not 
 sufficiently purged from the selfish element, to have everything 
 at once, the different degrees of faith and of knowledge had been 
 more respected, and cherished with circumspection and love. 
 
 The principle here expressed and followed by Paul admits of 
 manifold application. In what kind of operations must it be 
 said, that it is to be especially applied? In that kind, which 
 entirely corresponds with the peculiar labours and agency of 
 Paul; where, namely, the Church has first to be established on 
 the one ground, which is Christ, — we mean missionary labours. 
 There should all, according to the example given us by Paul, 
 direct their eyes solely to Him, — the paramount object should 
 be, that Christ be everywhere known, and that all testify of 
 Him alone. There, therefore, should ail contentions about 
 diff"erent confessional views disappear; and, amid all differ- 
 ences, all should co-operate only in this, — that Christ be 
 preached. Their disagreements on other points should be of- 
 fered to Him as a sacrifice. Each should rejoice, that Christ, 
 the centre of all, is made more and more known by others, 
 even by those who, according to his opinion, may have a less 
 perfect knowledge of Him; and that to Him the attention of 
 all is, from every side, directed. We may, also, apply this ex- 
 ample of Paul in another respect. There are times, in which 
 the Church, even where it is already established, is called on to 
 renew her missionary agency, in which, although the unconscious 
 influence of the ideas and tendencies first called forth and disse- 
 minated by Christianity still continues operative, — times which 
 deny, notwithstanding, their connection wich it, and even set 
 themselves in opposition to it. There are, also, times of far- 
 spreading apostacy, when the civilisation, which has grown up 
 under the guardianship of Christianity, revolts against it, when 
 this very revolt is produced by the corrupt combinations of 
 Christianity with human ordinances. As, in the history of all 
 
ON THE PIIILIPPIANS. 29 
 
 Religions, there are periods in which, reason, grown up to inde- 
 pendence, severs itself from that religious tradition under whose 
 guardian care it has attained this growth, so, too, Christianity 
 cannot be exempt from the same destiny. It is subject to the 
 same laws and conditions to which everything human is subject. 
 It manifests its difference from all Keligions, — a difference which 
 it owes to its Divine nature and character, — only in the manner 
 in which it emerges victorious from all such conflicts. While, 
 namely, all other Religions find their grave in these trials, 
 they are to Christianity but the points of transition to a re- 
 surrection in exalted purity and majesty and renovated power. 
 In such periods, equally as in those of missionary agency, again 
 does the principle find its application, — " that Christ only be 
 preached." The main aim and endeavour should be, that Christ 
 be brought near to the alienated minds of men, so that they may 
 be drawn to Him, and made subject to Him. And here, again, 
 everything cannot at once be effected; but gradually only, will 
 the road to a union among minds, which have to be brought to 
 Him, from principles the most various and opposite, be opened. 
 Here, also, the example of the high-minded denial of self, which 
 Paul gives us, must be our instructor. Every one, who is filled 
 with the same spirit which animated him, will rejoice if only 
 Christ be preached in manifold ways, even when he cannot but 
 perceive, that these modes leave much to be desired. 
 
 The Christian character of Paul exhibits itself also, in a pecu- 
 liar manner, in the way in which he received the gifts transmitted 
 to him by the church at Phiiippi. There is, in the natural man, 
 a false straining after independence, a pride of self-will, often 
 adorning itself w^ith noble names, which makes men ashamed 
 to accept from others the gifts they stand in need of, lest they 
 be humbled before them; or a still more depraved tendency, 
 which proceeds from the same fundamental vice of the natural 
 man, when, namely, men receive gifts for their ow^n advantage, 
 but are, notwithstanding, too ready to forget them, dread the 
 very recollection of them, and refuse to pay the gratitude due to 
 others, and all from fear of rendering themselves dependent on 
 others, and of degrading themselves in their eyes. But the 
 Christian is pervaded with the consciousness, that all men are 
 
so ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 related to eacli other as members of one body, and that all should 
 continue in this state of mutual dependence, as members under 
 the one Head Jesus Christ. He knows, that the increase of the 
 whole, from the one Head, which guides, and animates, and 
 sustains all the members, can be truly furthered, only when all 
 the individual members, as organs of that one Head, are ready 
 mutually to support and aid each other, and in love and har- 
 mony to co-operate, equally in things spiritual as in things tem- 
 poral; as Paul himself so finely describes it in the Epistle to the 
 Ephesians: " That we may grow up into Him in all things, 
 which is the Head, even Christ ; from whom the whole body, 
 fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint 
 supplieth, according to the effectual working, in the measure of 
 every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of 
 itself in love," (chap. iv. 15, 16.) Christ is here described as 
 He, to whom thu whole development should tend; to grow up 
 into communion with Him^ to receive Him into ourselves, to 
 be filled with Him, as the end and aim of all; and, at the same 
 time, as He, from whom this development to himself can alone 
 proceed, from whom issue all vital powers and principles, and 
 from whom alone ail the members can receive their motives of ac- 
 tion and their guidance. Christ works upon the whole body, by 
 working through the instrumentality of the different members, 
 through whom this animating energy diffuses itself, and there- 
 fore " the increase" from Him and to Him, can only there truly 
 flourish, where all fc-he members equally yield themselves to Him, 
 and in mutual dependence upon, and mutual co-operation with 
 one another, continue under his guidance, in close union with 
 one another. The Christian, then, bears in mind, that wants, 
 and abilities to satisfy these wants, are distributed in different 
 ways and in various measure among the different members, in 
 order that their mutual dependence upon, and mutual co-oper- 
 ation with, each other may be maintained, so that no one, dis- 
 sociating himself from union with the whole, should imagine that 
 he can, in any way, subsist for himself alone; and that thu?, along 
 with the mutual need of help, mutual love also should be more 
 furthered. The Christian, therefore, will not be ashamed of 
 this relative dependence on others, but will recognise in this 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 31 
 
 the natural order in the relation of the members one to an- 
 other. As the giver rejoices in having received from God what 
 may be employed for the relief of others, and regards it as con- 
 ferred on himself by their common Lord for this very end, — 
 a mean to manifest that love, which the Spirit of God sheds 
 abroad in the hearts of believers, and which is the characteris- 
 tic by which the disciples of the Lord, as members of His body, 
 are t) be recognised, — so the receiver rejoices, even more than in 
 the momentary bodily advantages which he derives from the 
 gift, in the Divine feeling, which expresses itself therein, in the 
 love, that element of life to the church, which displays itself in it. 
 He knows that this will turn to the true interest of the giver 
 himself, while, through w^orks of love on earth, he is sowing what 
 he will reap in eternal life, and while he manifests in his works 
 that feeling which prepares him for Heaven. And this Chris- 
 tian conduct exhibits itself to us in the manner in which Paul 
 received the gifts of the church of Philippi, while he writes, 
 (chap. iv. 10, 11), "But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that 
 now at last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye 
 were also careful, but he lacked opportunity. Not that I 
 speak in respect of want." He then concludes with these 
 words, (ver. 17), " Not because I desire a gift, but I seek fruit 
 that may abound to your account" — fruity which procures eter- 
 nal life for the Philippians. 
 
 Further, Paul here gives us an example of the true Christian 
 character, in the way in which he bears himself to outward 
 things. The Christian, in the power of the Lord, which 
 strengthens him for everything, shows his independence of the 
 things of the world, and his superiority over them, by his cheer- 
 ful disposition to bear all those wants, which the Lord, through 
 circumstances, and the requirements of his vocation, imposes 
 upon him. His spirit, filled with the Divine life, cannot be bowed 
 down under earthly wants; in all his renunciations, the Chris- 
 tian proves himself to be master of the world, and as such, feels 
 his inner man the more exalted. But the Christian is, also, far 
 from a self-imposed mortification of the flesh in fancied spiritual- 
 ity, which serves only to gratify the fleshly sense; for Holy 
 Scripture places everything which proceeds not from the Spirit 
 
32 ON THE PHILTPPIANS. 
 
 of God, everything which is merely self-imposed, all kinds of 
 vanity and spiritual pride, under the category of the flesh, 
 (Col. ii. 13.) He is far from imposing renunciations on himself, 
 in order thereby to recommend himself to God or man; but 
 cheerfully submits to those imposed on him by God, and, with 
 lowly thankfulness, receives whatever God is pleased to bestow 
 on him, over and above the satisfaction of his own immediate 
 needs. The nobleness of the Christian is ever built on humility. 
 His independence and conquest of the world consists in this, that, 
 in all circumstances, whether of fulness or of want, he is the same, 
 neither bowed down by the one, nor secularised by the other, 
 and that everything is used by him alike, to manifest and ex- 
 hibit the Divine life within him raised above the world and its 
 cares. This is the mind which we discover in Paul, when he 
 says that, although he needs not the gifts of the Philippians, 
 he yet rejoices in the display of their love in them, and when 
 he testifies, at the same time, how, amid all the changes and 
 chances of life, whether amid fulness, whether amid want, he is 
 taught to accommodate himself to all, through the strengthen- 
 ing influence of Christ: " I have learned in whatsoever state I 
 am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, 
 and I know how to abound: everywhere, and in all things, I 
 am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound 
 and to sufl"er need. I can do all things through Christ which 
 strengtheneth me," (chap. iv. 11-13.) Here we have true Chris- 
 tian strength of mind and greatness of soul based on humility. 
 
 Having now contemplated the frame of mind exhibited by 
 Paul, in this juncture of his history, as well as this junc- 
 ure itself in its various relations to things and persons, we pro- 
 ceed to consider the state of the church at Philippi, and those 
 directions which he gives, in reference to it, for their exhortation 
 and safe guidance in the future. 
 
 We shall, in the first place, direct our attention to some gen- 
 eral truths, and then pass on to the consideration of the Epistle 
 in detail. Paul generally begins his Epistles by acknowledging 
 the good which he finds in the Churches. This is a point 
 in which his wisdom in the conduct of souls displays itself; 
 for the confidence of men will be easier gained for what we 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. So 
 
 have to say to them in the waj of exhortation or reproof, and 
 we shall more easily secure a hearing to ourselves, when we 
 show, that we are by no means unjust in mistaking the good 
 which is in them, and that we are by no means disposed to 
 blame, but ready cheerfully to acknowledge every actually ex- 
 isting good. Further, it often happens that good and evil are 
 closely connected with each other, that the evil is based on the 
 good, and the good soiled by contact with the evil. It will be 
 best, therefore, to pass from the one to the other. And the wis- 
 dom of Paul shows itself in rightly perceiving this relation, and 
 in the judicious manner in which he makes the transition — a 
 wisdom of which the first Epistle to the Corinthians especially 
 is a pattern. But, then, all the truly good, which he is con- 
 strained to acknowledge in the Churches, is regarded by Paul, 
 not as proceeding from themselves or effected by themselves, 
 but as wrought in them by the Spirit of God, who has be- 
 gun to transform them into new men. Therefore, he feels him- 
 self bound to thank God, first, for what He has wrought in 
 their souls and their life by His grace, before he prays, that Pie 
 would more and more purify, and further, and perfect the work 
 He has already begun in them. Upon the good already found 
 in them, he builds the hope, that they will grow more and more 
 in good, even unto perfection. Not on the good as the work of 
 man, does he. or can he, ground such hope; he knows too well 
 the weakness of man, and how liable to continual change is 
 everything human; but the ground of his hope is this, that in 
 the Christian life once begun, he sees not the work of man, but 
 of God. Thus his hope is built on the truth and faithfulness 
 of God, who will carry on what he has begun, through all con- 
 flicts and tribulations, to perfection. It is not God's way to do 
 things by halves. And in this manner Paul commences the 
 Epistle to the Philippians, thanking God, "for their fellowship 
 in the Gospel, from the first day until now," (chap. i. 5.) He 
 then expresses the confidence, that He who has begun a good 
 work in them, will also perfect it, (chap. i. 6.) He presupposes, 
 however, at the same time, that they will perform their part, that 
 they will yield themselves to the power of God, which, although 
 it works not without man, without it, man is able to do nothing; 
 
34 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 in the same manner, as in the eleventh chapter of Romans, he 
 makes the continuance of the revelation of the goodness of God 
 to men, dependent on their continuance in the goodness of God, 
 by true obedience on their part, which renders them receptive 
 of the grace of God. And, in virtue of this connection of the 
 Divine and human, he exhorts them, (chap. ii. 12, 13), *' to 
 work out their salvation with fear and trembling," while he 
 adds, " For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to 
 do of His good pleasure." Paul here presupposes that man's 
 salvation is conditionated by his own actions. He is himself to 
 work out his own salvation. And yet he always regards the 
 salvation of men as effected only through Divine grace — as God's 
 work in man. He specifies also in this passage the frame of 
 mind with which they should work out their salvation, by sub- 
 joining, " with fear and trembling." This designation would be 
 unmeaning, if in the work of his salvation everything depended 
 on man's power alone. But, even because he is conscious of the 
 weakness and insufficiency of all human power, because he pre- 
 supposes that man can do nothing without God, and must con- 
 tinually watch over himself, lest he forfeit, through his own 
 fault, the assistance of Divine grace, without which all human 
 efforts are vanity itself, does he designate the frame of mind which 
 must ever be found in them, as one of "fear and trembling," — 
 and the consciousness of responsibility and weakness that needs to 
 be strengthened, of the insecurity and instability of our own 
 hearts, ever exhorting us to constant watchfulness, and ever 
 leading us anew to God, as the source of all strength in us. The 
 consciousness, therefore, that we can do nothing of ourselves, 
 that it is God who alone gives us the power to will and to do, 
 all that pertains to our salvation, is the argument he employs for 
 such exhortation; everything is dependent on His Almighty 
 will. The fundamental feeling of our dependence on His will 
 should ever be maintained in us. It is this which must coun- 
 teract the confidence of a vain human self-trust, which, while 
 it sees itself deceived so often by the result, is so apt to fall 
 into despondency and despair. 
 
 All the exhortations of the apostle to the Philippians, in 
 reference to the Christian life, are contained in this one, that 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 35 
 
 they walk worthily of the Gospel of Christ, (chap. i. 27.) And 
 in chap. ii. 15, IG, he describes what should be their demeanour, 
 placed as they were in the midst of a crooked and perverse ge- 
 neration. Their call, namely, to live as the children of God 
 amid a corrupt world, was a call to preserve the Divine life, 
 of which, as the children of God, they were made partakers, 
 undefiled amidst the pollutions of the wickedness which sur- 
 rounded them, and to manifest its glory before the perverse 
 generation in which they live. The expressions "crooked" and 
 "perverse," which Paul employs to describe this generation, 
 refer to the perversion of man's primitive Divinely-allied na- 
 ture, which is restored again only through the new creation. 
 Thus, as children of God, they are to show themselves as lights, 
 as shining stars in the world of darkness. If darkness be every- 
 where around them, among them light only should prevail. 
 Such is the language of Christ to those who belong to His king- 
 dom: "Ye are the light of the world," (Matt. v. 14); even as He 
 is the Sun, which shines into the darkness of the world — the Light 
 of the world in the alone and highest sense. Thus, that which 
 He himself is, is transmitted into those who enter into commu- 
 nion with Him, and they become, through Him, the light of the 
 world. This light shines in the Divine walk and conversation 
 of Christians ; by this they testify of Him, who is light itself, 
 and in whom is no darkness; by this they glorify Him, and 
 lead others to acknowledge and reverence Him ; as Christ him- 
 self says, " Let your light so shine before men, that they may 
 see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in hea- 
 ven," (Matt. V. 15.) They should w^itness to what life is, 
 set forth the true life in this world of death. Whatever, ac- 
 cording to the revelation of the law written in their conscience, 
 and in virtue of the instincts of their moral nature, men reckon 
 moral and virtuous, forms part also of the peculiar character 
 of that Divine life, in which the children of God manifest them- 
 selves as such. Everything must here find its fulfilngent; that 
 only which proceeds from the defilement of sin, is abolished; 
 as Christ saith, He came not to destroy, but to fulfil. Hence, 
 at the end of his exhortation, (chap. iv. 8), Paul bids them 
 think of whatsoever things are true, — the true and the good, in 
 
36 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 the Biblical sense, coincide; in the Bible, truth appears as the 
 determining and pervading principle of all life, everything has 
 its root in truth — "whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever 
 things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things 
 are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report." Thus Paul 
 presupposes, that the Divine life must appear in an amiable 
 form before men ; and appeals, in reference to these exhorta- 
 tions, to what they had heard from his instruction, and had 
 seen before them, in the example of his own life. Although 
 far removed, as we have seen, from regarding his life as altoge- 
 ther pure and perfect, he could yet confidently assume, that in 
 him doctrine and life harmonised in their fundamental cha- 
 racter, — that his teaching was not rebuked by his actions. And 
 thus, without untruth and self-exaltation, he could exhort the 
 Philippians by an appeal to his own life and conversation 
 among them. Self-exaltation was, here, the further from his 
 mind, because he was conscious that everything in him, which 
 he could set forth as an example, was but the work of grace, 
 and proceeded from the new creation in him. So the Chris- 
 tian, if he has succeeded, as the comparison of his earlier and 
 his later life will enable him to discover, in gaining a victory 
 over his old nature in any of its sinful propensities, may be 
 conscious of this, yea, and rejoice in this ; for this is not self- 
 exaltation. He knows that he owes all, not to his own nature 
 and his own powers, but that the Spirit of God, the Spirit of 
 Christ, has wrought this in him ; and the discovery, therefore, 
 only leads him to praise and thank Him, through whose power 
 the victory has been achieved. He feels himself, at the same 
 time, constrained to know how much there yet remains in him 
 to be contended with, and, like the apostle, in the words we 
 have already cited, to " forget those things which are behind, 
 and to reach forth to those things which are before." 
 
 The church at Philippi, as we have already remarked, had 
 .various j^ersecutions to undergo; to constancy under which, 
 Paul was necessarily led to exhort them. How, then, does he 
 express himself on this? It is important to dwell on this 
 point; for his admonitions are applicable, at all times, to 
 every species of opposition which Christianity may have to 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 37 
 
 encounter. " In nothing terrified by your adversaries, which 
 is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of 
 salvation, and that of God. For to you it is given, in the 
 behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer 
 for His sake," (chap. i. 28, 29.) What is implied in these 
 words? Let us suppose, for the sake of illustration, the oppo- 
 site to be the case. If the adversaries of the Gospel had suc- 
 ceeded in terrifying the Philippians, the extent of their power 
 would thereby have been manifested, and the weakness of the 
 Philippians, at the same time, revealed, while the cause they 
 professed would appear as impotent; or it would have seemed 
 as if it were merely a conflict between man and man, in which 
 their opponents were the stronger and they the weaker; their 
 conduct would have proved how far short they were of that 
 power of God, which displays its operation in the souls of be- 
 lievers, and how far, therefore, they still were from the true 
 life of faith. While, however, they were not dismayed by those 
 who fought with the weapons of the flesh, this showed the di- 
 vinenessof the cause they served, victorious over all the opposition 
 of man, and that the power of God wrought in them, against 
 which no human might could prevail The conflict with their 
 adversaries, therefore, served only to test and verify their faith 
 and its power. It was a demonstration of the vanity of all the 
 efforts of their opponents; as Christ regards it as one of the 
 operations of the Holy Spirit, to convince men that " the prince 
 of this world is judged," (John xvi. 11), and has no power over 
 His organs. Thus, through them, was this power of the Holy 
 Spirit revealed. In so far, also, this was a witness of the con- 
 demnation which these adversaries, who were in arms under 
 the service of the prince of this world, had drawn down on 
 themselves. To them, on the other hand, it was a sure proof, 
 an earnest of their salvation ; for the faith, which endures in 
 the trial, is assured of salvation. It was the pledge that the 
 power of God, through which they were not dismayed by their 
 enemies, would guide them through every conflict, even to the 
 end of their salvation; for there is a correspondency in all the 
 works of God, — the one guarantees the other. Hence Paul 
 places peculiar emphasis on its being no mere human fact, no 
 
38 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. ^ 
 
 delusive human proof, but an actual proof given from God. That 
 to them it had been given, by God, to sutFer for Christ, was part of 
 this proof. For he who follows Christ in His sufferings, will also 
 follow Him in His glory. Paul had said, "on the behalf of Christ," 
 meaning at first only to say, " to suffer for Christ;" but desiring 
 to express more emphatically what is implied in this, he inter- 
 rupts himself, and says, " not merely to believe in Him, but 
 also to suffer for His sake. He who believes in Christ is as- 
 sured of salvation, in so far as his faith attests itself as true 
 faith; but it can only attest its genuineness, when those who 
 profess to have it are to be dismayed by no opposition, and 
 when it infuses such strength into those who, through its 
 agency, have been brought into communion with Carist, that 
 they are enabled to follow Him in His sufferings. Therefore, 
 although with faith in Christ, as the root of all that pertains 
 to the Christian life, everything also in the principle from 
 which it issues, and in the generative power which produces it, 
 is given, suffering for Christ's sake is more than mere faith, in 
 so far as the power of faith displays itself in these sufferings, 
 and in so far as faith thereby reveals its sincerity; since it may 
 happen that a man imagines himself to possess true faith, and 
 yet the result, if he shuns participating in the sufferings of 
 Christ, testifies against it. In another aspect, indeed, suffering 
 is less than faith, for there may be a suffering which would not 
 be true Christian suffering, proceeding from the life of faith, 
 from the faith which worketh by love, as Paul says, (1 Cor, xiii. 
 3), " And though 1 give my body to be burned, and have not 
 charity, it profiteth me nothing " The same is true, in a more 
 general sense, of the relation of faith to the entire life and conver- 
 sation of theChristian as it appears outwardly, — of the relation of 
 faith to good works. Tiiis will always more or less find its applica- 
 tion to every thing which pertains to the relation of the inward and 
 the outward, — of inner feeling, and its external manifestation. 
 
 The Christian life is not one partaking of the nature of 
 instinct, and unconsciously obeying merely the dictates of feel- 
 ing, but always demands the conscious distinguishing between 
 godliness and ungodliness, in their bearings on all the circum- 
 stances of life, between that which is according to the will of 
 
ON THE PniLlPPIANS. 39 
 
 the Lord and the Spirit, and the essence of Christianity, and 
 that which is opposed to it. It cannot subsist and fulfil its 
 destiny without reflective, conscious examination, and separa- 
 tion. Since flesh and spirit are ever to be found in the Chris- 
 tian, and in a state of mutual opposition, so also the separating 
 between what proceeds from the one or the other, and what corre- 
 sponds wdth the one or the other is always imperatively de- 
 manded, so that the Christian may not yield to the suggestions of 
 the flesh, while he thinks to act according to the motions of 
 the Spirit. And since Christianity, conflicting, as it did, with 
 morals and views and relations of life proceeding from a spirit 
 and principle so different from its own, had to call forth a new 
 creation, in which Christ should be all in all, such examination 
 and separation were peculiarly necessary in those churches 
 which were founded amid the Heathen and Jewish world. There 
 the question must often have arisen, w^hat are the requirements 
 of Christianity? In what respect is the Heathen or Jewish stand- 
 ing-point in opposition with it? Wherein can the Christian as- 
 similate himself to the w^orld? wherein not? Therefore, among 
 his practical exhortations to the church of the Philippians, 
 Paul especially desires, that their love may abound yet more 
 and more, in knowledge and in the faculty of discernment, so 
 that they may test the diff'erences of things, the good and the 
 bad, the true and the false, to avoid the one and choose the 
 other, (chap. i. 9, 10.) Paul assumes, that this demanded a 
 peculiarly exercised faculty; that, from the various exercise 
 of Christian judgment, such faculty proceeded; just as in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews (chap. v. 14), it is regarded as the 
 attainment of Christian maturity, that the spiritual organs 
 of perception shall have acquired by exercise the capacity to 
 distinguish between good and evil. There are objects of know- 
 ledge and of judgment, where everything depends merely on the 
 exercise of the understanding, and where he who is most ac- 
 customed to thought, will exercise the best judgment, and be 
 the most secured from error; but in the objects which the apostle 
 has in his mind, this is by no means the case, namely those, 
 which relate to the moral nature of man. We shall frequently 
 discover, how generally the bent of the feelings here determines 
 
40 ON THE PHILIPPIAXS. 
 
 the judgment, how the errors, which lie at the foundation of 
 actions, and deviations in acting, arise not from any defect of 
 thought, but proceed from those propensities of the inner man, 
 which dictate to the judgment. Now, it is especially true of 
 Christianity, that it appoints entirely new ends and aims to 
 life; and love must give the direction to the whole life, before 
 we know its requirements. The more man is animated by love, 
 the more will bis moral judgment become assimilated with Chris- 
 tianity. The mind, however exercised in thinking, falls short 
 of the right, unless it be inspired with love ; and through love, 
 the mental vision becomes healthy. Moreover, Christianity is 
 no law of the letter, which lays down merely certain general 
 dictates of duty, according to which, all cases of action may be 
 determined ; but it is a law of the Spirit, which enables each 
 to ascertain tlie peculiar sphere of life which the Lord has as- 
 signed him to fulfil, and what its fulfilment demands of him. 
 No man, from his own point of view, and under the peculiar 
 shape which circumstances have taken with him, can prescribe 
 to another what he has to do; but love is the spirit, the com- 
 mon element in all, which points out to each what is his pecu- 
 liar duty, and which guides him, in reference to it, to that dis- 
 cernment. Here Paul assigns in this passage the first rank to 
 love, and from the animating principle of love, derives know- 
 ledge, and the faculty of discerning the good and the bad, the 
 true and the fiilse, as he said in his own words, " that your love 
 may abound, yet more and more, in knowledge and in all dis- 
 cernment," so that in them the abundant operations of love 
 should be displayed. But as here, the theoretical proceeds from 
 the practical, from the new direction of the will and the feelings, 
 and the new direction of the judgment; so, again, the theoretical 
 should re-act on the practical, the better judgment on action; 
 and, accordingly, Paul places as the end to which they should thus 
 attain, (chap. i. 10, 11), that they might be " pure and without 
 offence " in their Christian conversation, till they shall all ap- 
 pear before the Lord, " filled with the fruit of righteousness, 
 which is by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."* 
 
 * Sucli is tlie ti'anslation given by Neander, from a reading Ka^Tov ^,- 
 
 xecioa-vvr,;. — TbANS. 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 41 
 
 Thus Paul here describes righteousness, not as something to be 
 gradually acquired, in order to communion with Christ, but 
 as something grounded in believers, in virtue of their commu- 
 nion with Him, flowing from Him upon them, and effected in 
 them through His Spirit. He regards the whole Christian 
 walk as the fruit of this righteousness, not here particular 
 fruits in particular works, as he says in other passages, but 
 the whole Christian walk, in its connective unity, as one fruit 
 — the fruit which is produced through Jesus Christ. That, 
 from Him everything proceeds^ that through Him everything 
 is wrought, this constitutes the peculiar character of such a 
 walk of life, this is that which is truly acceptable to God, and 
 through which God is glorified; even as the whole life of 
 Christ was the glorifying of God among men. It is, however, 
 clear from what has been said, that although Paul describes 
 the life and conversation of Christians in the whole, as the 
 fruit of righteousness produced through Jesus Christ, he pre- 
 supposes, notwithstanding, manifold degrees of development, 
 various consequences from the reciprocal re-action of the prac- 
 tical and the theoretical, of feeling and judgment, to bring about 
 this collective result; even as, to follow the metaphor chosen 
 by Paul, the fruit of a tree is not at once perfectly formed and 
 matured, but has to pass through various processes and stages 
 in the natural development of the growth. 
 
 We have before remarked how Paul regards the church, as a 
 whole, consisting of different members, and how he makes its 
 growth dependent on the harmonious co-operation of all the 
 individual members. To this harmony, however, many hin- 
 derances stand opposed, which can only gradually be overcome 
 by the might of the Christian spirit. That higher unity could 
 be formed only by degrees, through the power of that spirit, 
 from out of existing antagonistic principles. There were, in 
 antagonism with the principles of Christianity, the prejudices 
 of national descent from Jewish or Heathen races, the preposses- 
 sions of Judaism or Pao^anism. Hence the orio-in of those con- 
 flicting tendencies, of which we shall afterwards treat more 
 minutely. Further, there were differences of condition and of 
 wealth, which threatened to disturb the common Christian spirit. 
 
42 ON THE PIIILIPPIANS. 
 
 Then, again, there were those which, having their foundation in 
 peculiar natures peculiarly endowed, Christianity enlists into her 
 service. Hence the diversities in the operations of the Holy Spirit, 
 animating and inspiring these different peculiar natural gifts; 
 hence the diversity of spiritual gifts, and of the offices connected 
 with them in the church. From all these might spring antago- 
 nistic principles conflicting with the spirit of Christianity, and 
 disturbing the unity and unanimity of the Church; each might 
 assert his own; self-exaltation and dissension would be the re- 
 sult, and a conflict between the members would arise. Here, 
 therefore, must the spirit of love display its reconciliative 
 powers, in order that unicy in the Church, which belongs to 
 its very essence, might be effected and maintained. It is evi- 
 dent, therefore, how necessary and important, under these cir- 
 cumstances, were the rebukes and exhortations of Paul on these 
 points, how needful the wainings against self-exaltation and 
 disunion, and the exhortations to humility and unanimity. 
 This is a topic we shall consider somewhat more minutely. 
 His joy, he sajs, (chap, ii. 2, 3), is fulfilled in this, that they be 
 of one mind, have the same love, be of one accord, of one mind, 
 that they do nothing through strife or vain glory; but that, in 
 lowliness of mind, each should esteem other better than himself 
 How are we to understand this? It is not in the power of man, 
 how he shall judge another. How can he esteem his brother 
 higher than himself, if this be not in accordance with truth, if 
 he cannot but know in himself the good which is wanting in 
 the other, and find defects in him, to which he himself is not 
 liable? How can it be required of him to do violence to his 
 judgment? Is he to deceive himself? Is humility to be based 
 on falsehood? Assuredly not. If one should seek designedly to 
 force himself into such a mode of judgment upon others in rela- 
 tion to himself, or should express such judgments without mean- 
 ing them, this would be in fact hypocrisy more or less gross. But 
 the apostle presupposes such a characteristic disposition, proceed- 
 ing from the transforming agency of the Christian life, as would 
 find its necessary and natural expression, in such a way of view- 
 ing ourselves with reference to others. The love of the Christian 
 will cause him to discover first of all the good in other men, and 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 43 
 
 will lead him to recognise, even in their infirmities, those pecu- 
 liar gifts which they possess above himself; w^hile, through self- 
 examination, stimulated by the spirit which animates him, his 
 own faults are more severely regarded. And this severity to- 
 ward himself, combined with love, will soften his judgment of 
 that, which hinders the Divine life in others. This readiness, 
 such as we have described it, to view himself with regard to 
 others, will, therefore, be nothing accidental, artificial, and ex- 
 ternal in the Christian, but the result of the formation and the 
 progress of the Christian life within him. And this manner of 
 placing himself with regard to others, will display itself in the 
 whole mode of his acting in reference to them. That a man 
 should make himself the centre of everything, refer all to him- 
 self alone, and regard all others, as if they existed only for him, 
 self is thereby at once excluded. The great importance, which 
 others gain in his eyes, must also evidently flow from the 
 same source. The spirit of love and humility will be manifested 
 in his procedure towards others; as it is subjoined in the im- 
 mediately following words of Paul, (chap. ii. 4), " Look not 
 every man on his own things, but every man also on the things 
 of others;" that every one be ready to subordinate his own inte- 
 rest to that of another, to deny himself in order to further the 
 good of others. Paul says, "also," although from the first 
 clause, no such limitation, no such "also" might have been ex- 
 pected; but he used this " also," not because he would desire to 
 exclude all care for our own interest, but because he wishes to 
 set himself against the predominating, all-absorbing tendencies 
 of self-interest. He is speaking here, of course, of those merely 
 human and temporal interests, which we should sacrifice for 
 the good of others; for with regard to that, which, in itself is 
 the highest and really true interest of each, the interest of his 
 soul's salvation, the development of the inner man for eternal 
 life, no such opposition could exist, no such requirement of self- 
 denial could be made. Does this conflict with what we have 
 above remarked on self-denial, in relation even to the higher 
 interests of the soul? By no means. The true, the highest 
 interest of the soul, that it increase more and more in self- 
 denying love, be more and more purified from every selfish ele- 
 
44 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 ment, and, thereby, more fitted for the kingdom of God and 
 eternal life^ this can only gain by such sacrifices, which concern 
 even the higher interests of the soul, which, however, are not 
 the highest. As the example and pattern for such modes of 
 judging and acting, Paul then sets forth Him, after whom the 
 whole Christian life, both in feeling and in action, should be 
 formed, even Christ: " Let this mind be in you which was also in 
 Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not 
 robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputa- 
 tion, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made 
 in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, 
 he humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even the 
 death upon the cross. Therefore God also hath highly exalted 
 Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that 
 at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in hea- 
 ven, and thino-s in earth, and thino^s under the earth, and that 
 every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the 
 glory of God the Father," (chap. ii. 5-11.) 
 
 To discover, in the above connection, the right application 
 of the example of Christ to the Christian life, which is to be 
 formed according to it, we must, first, endeavour to apprehend 
 clearly and distinctly, the example itself. Before the eye of 
 the apostle stands the image of Christ, the Son of God ma- 
 nifested in the flesh, exhibiting himself as Man. From this 
 human manifestation, he elevates himself to the Eternal Word, 
 to use the expression of John, Who, before the appearance of the 
 Son of God in time, yea, before the whole creation, existed, in 
 whom God, before all time, beheld and reflected Himself; as He 
 is called by Paul, in the Epistle to Colossians, in this respect, 
 (chap. i. 15), " the image of the Invisible God." And, after this 
 elevation of his spiritual glance, he descends again to the depths 
 of the human life, in which the Eternal Word exhibited Himself 
 in human form. He tlms regards the entrance of the Son of 
 God into the form of humanity, as a self-abasement, as an act 
 of self-denial for the salvation of those to whose low estate He 
 condescended. He, who was " in the form of God," exalted 
 above all the defects and restrictions of earthly and finite exis- 
 tence, was not eager to assert this equality, which He had, but. 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. * 45 
 
 on the contrary, concealed and denied this in human lowliness, 
 and in the form of human dependence. And, as His whole life 
 as Man proceeded from such an act of self-renunciation and self- 
 abasement, so also, the whole earthly life of Christ, even to 
 His death on the cross, corresponded with this one act. Through- 
 out, there was the consciousness of Divine Majesty, which 
 He might assert, and the concealing and denying this, in all 
 the forms of humiliation and dependence of earthly human 
 life. His death, and especially His ignominious and tor- 
 menting death, appears as the acme of all. Paul then shows, 
 what Christ attained by such self-denial, continued even to this 
 culminating point, by such obedience in the form of a servant, 
 the recompense of the reward He received, the exaltation which 
 was bestowed upon Him ; here, also, setting forth the universal 
 law which Christ described, when He said, that whosoever 
 humbleth himself, and in proportion as he humbleth himself, 
 shall be exalted. Now, it is self-evident, that He w-ho, accord- 
 ing to Paul's doctrine, was in His own essence exalted above all, 
 the first-born of the whole creation. He, through whom, and in 
 whom all things were created, could not, as such, be exalted. 
 But Paul, as we have said, is here speaking of Christ in His 
 totality, as uniting in Himself the Divine and the human. As 
 this incarnate Christ, He may be described as being exalted as 
 man above all, as the glorified Son of man. And this His exalta- 
 tion ministered not to His own interests. He finds His exalta- 
 tion in the salvation of fallen beings. That while all acknow- 
 ledge Him as their Lord and Saviour, and subject themselves to 
 Him, God should be glorified in Him and through Him, — the 
 glorifying of God in the triumphant establishment of His king- 
 dom, — such were the ends to which His exaltation should 
 minister, and in such was it to manifest itself What appli- 
 cation, then, is to be made of this example set forth before us, 
 viewed in its connexion with what precedes 1 As Christ minis- 
 tered only for the salvation of others, so should Christians also 
 be ready to minister to the salvation of their brethren. As 
 Christ sacrificed His all to the salvation of others, so should 
 Christians be prepared to sacrifice their all to the salvation of 
 their brethren, to devote themselves to the good of others, and 
 
46 * ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 thus, in self- abasement and self-renunciation, to follow their 
 Master. Thus also, should the life of Christians, from its first 
 beginning in the soul, from the first act of faith, be one conti- 
 nuous self-abasement and self-renunciation. And, as this was 
 the ground and condition of exaltation in Christ, as the Son of 
 man, so also will this be the ground and condition of exaltation 
 to believers who follow Christ, until they attain the participa- 
 tion of His perfect glory, after whose example they have walked. 
 We may compare this with a similar argument of Paul, where 
 he says of Christ, (2 Cor. viii. 9), " Ye know the grace of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes 
 He became poor, that ye, through His poverty, might be rich." 
 To the being " rich," corresponds the being in the form of God, 
 the being equal to God, in the passage above cited; to the be- 
 coming poor, the self-renunciation and self-abasement, in all the 
 compass we have described it. In the passage of the second 
 Epistle to the Corinthians, this example is used as an exhorta- 
 tion to that care for the well-being of others which sacrifices 
 its own, and imposes renunciation on itself, in order to alleviate 
 their wants and necessities. The basis, however, of this, is the 
 general thought proceeding from the contemplation of the love 
 of Christ, that we be ready to sacrifice and deny our own for 
 the true good of others, — communicative, condescending, self- 
 denying Christian love, which embraces the Christian life in 
 all its actions. And in the passage of our epistle, it is viewed in 
 this universality. For it is the characteristic of Paul, as a moral 
 teacher, that he always refers the particular truth to the highest, 
 the deepest, the most universal — that he bases all his special 
 exhortations on the universal ideas of the Christian life, the 
 central point of which is the contemplation of the life of Christ. 
 The exhortations and warnings, addressed by the apostle to 
 the church at Philippi, were such as the oppositions, which 
 Christianity in its development had then chiefly to encounter, 
 rendered especially needful. In every period, its development 
 will have peculiar opposing principles to overcome, — principles, 
 however, between which a certain aflinity may be discovered, 
 although at different periods, different forms will arise. An 
 important distinction, however, is to be made, according to the 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. ' 47 
 
 nature of these antagonisms, according as it is a question of 
 those tendencies and doctrines, which are decidedly opposed to 
 the distinctive fundamental doctrines of Christianity, where no 
 reconciliation is possible, but where our choice must be either 
 the one or the other, and where pure Christian feeling manifests 
 its strength and integrity, in holding to the one, and in re- 
 jecting the other; or of those tendencies, which, along with a 
 sincere acknowledgment of Christian truth, still retain some 
 after-eiFects of their former abandoned standing-point, and 
 which form points of transition to Christian truth. The latter 
 was especially the case with those antagonisms, with which 
 Christianity at that period of its development had to contend. 
 As Judaism at first formed the transition to Christianity, so 
 also the first important opposition to the development of Chris- 
 tianity, was the intermixture of the Jewish standing-point. 
 And the distinction we have made here finds its application. 
 
 Such a predominance of the Jewish spirit then existed, that 
 the consciousness of the peculiar nature of Christian truth was 
 completely stifled and obscured. Although outwardly Jesus 
 was acknowledged to be the Messiah, its true power and meaning 
 were wanting to this conviction. They devised, in a Jewish 
 fashion, a fleshly Messiah, with fleshly hopes. When Christ, 
 after the miraculous feeding, said (John vi. 26) to the Jews 
 that they sought Him, not because they had seen the miracles, 
 — the tokens of the appearance of God in this low^er world, 
 which were designed to point to the Divine nature, which re- 
 vealed itself through such tokens, — but because they had eaten 
 of the loaves, and were satisfied, because a mere sensual want 
 impelled them towards Him; so was it also with those Jews of 
 whom we are now speaking. It was, again, the same want of 
 sense for the Divine, the same absence of the higher inner spi- 
 ritual needs; it was, again, but a merely sensual necessity which 
 led them to faith in Jesus. And although they had this above 
 the Jews, to whom Christ thus spoke, that they were not led by 
 their fleshly minds, which had so much affinity with theirs, to 
 open opposition to Jesus as the Messiah, but desired outwardly 
 to join themselves to Him, nothing very important was gained 
 thereby; for if the former would not believe in a Jesus, who re- 
 
48 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 fused to satisfy their carnal wants, the latter, believing, indeed, 
 in Jesus as the Messiah, yet made Him almost such a one as the 
 former would have had Him, but which Jesus would not be. 
 Along with this one article of Jesus as the Messiah, they com- 
 bined, as we have above seen, the observance of the law in all 
 its requirements. To them, not Jesus the Messiah, was the one 
 ground of salvation, but righteousness and salvation were sought 
 in the observance of the whole law, and in circumcision. They de- 
 sired not the righteousness which comes from within, from faith, 
 but such a righteousness as accrues to man from without. It is 
 clear, then, that the existence of such an antagonism rendered 
 compromise or reconciliation impossible. Christian feeling was 
 required to decide whether it would have a carnal or a spiritual 
 Messiah, and whether it sought righteousness alone in faith in 
 the Redeemer, or in the law and its works; whether it desired 
 the transformation of the Divine life regenerating man from 
 within, or only a change in outward demeanour, God's work or 
 man's work, the humble acceptance of Divine gifts, lowly sub- 
 mission to Jesus as the Saviour, — or a carnal Messiah, with the 
 assertion of the merit of works. Hence, because the new Church 
 had to decide on a question of such absolute opposition between 
 the Christian and the unchristian, Paul felt himself necessitated 
 to place this conflict of principles in its strongest light, and to 
 testify so emphatically against these errors; (chap.iii. 2), " Be- 
 ware of dogs," he says, (an expression designating, according 
 to the original language, shameless opponents of the truth); 
 *' beware of evil workers," (those who sought to substitute the 
 Jewish for the Christian point of view); " beware of the conci- 
 sion." How are we to understand it, that Paul should here so 
 contemptuously describe circumcision, which, however, he ac- 
 knowledges as a Divine ordinance for a certain period? Cir- 
 cumcision had value in his eyes, as the Divine sign, through 
 which the Theocratic people were distinguished from the other 
 nations given up to idolatry and the abominations connected 
 with it, as the people consecrated to God, in order to lead them 
 to the communion with God, which one day would embrace all 
 mankind. It was to him, as he says in the Epistle to the Rom- 
 ans, (chap iv. 11), an outward figurative sign of the new re- 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 49 
 
 lation into which Abraham, by reason of his faith, had entered 
 with God, a symbolical sign of that inward spiritual circum- 
 cision of the heart in the spirit, of that purification from the 
 deformities of sin, through which only a true people of God 
 can arise, and the idea of a people of God attain its realisation. 
 But when justification and sanctification were sought, as was 
 the case with these Judaizers, in outward circumcision as such; 
 when, to faith in Jesus as the Messiah, who alone produces 
 righteousness in the true sense, circumcision was to be added as 
 something higher, and as alone imparting true righteousness, Paul 
 felt himself necessitated to describe, in the most emphatic terms 
 the nonentity of such an outward action in relation to that 
 which it pretended to effect. No words are too strong for him 
 to designate the perversion evinced in a mode of thought, which 
 seeks to derive, from the outward and the sensuous, that which 
 can be effected only from within, in virtue of an inner act in 
 the heart, by the communication of a new life. Hence, in op- 
 position to such an over-estimate of circumcision, he calls it a 
 " concision," a mutilation, just as in the Epistle to the Galatians, 
 he says against such, (Gal. v. 12),* " I would they would even cut 
 themselves off which trouble you," i. e., I would, if circumcision 
 has such virtue in their eyes, if they lay such stress on their re- 
 ceiving it, they would circumcise themselves as much as they 
 please, yea, cut themselves off, i. e., emasculate themselves, if 
 only they leave other Christians in peace. Assuredly, that 
 which appears to Paul so unchristian and irrational, and which 
 fills him with so much indignation, has reference not merely to 
 circumcision, not merely to this peculiar form, which belongs 
 to Judaism, but to everything outward and sensuous, in so far as 
 justification, sanctification, and salvation, are made dependent on 
 it. All this, so far as such undue importance is attributed to it, 
 is directly opposed to the standing-point of the worship of God 
 in spirit and in truth, where all proceeds from the inner acts of 
 faith. And this antagonism to the true Christian point of view 
 is thus described by Paul in what follows, where he says, (chap. 
 iii. 3), " For we are the circumcision," i. e., these have not 
 true circumcision, but mere concision; their misused so-called 
 
 * The rendering of Neander is here given, which differs from that of 
 our translation. — Trans. 
 
50 ON THE PIIILIPPIANS. 
 
 circumcision is mutilation; for they who really merit this name, 
 the truly circumcised, are we Christians. And this the apostle 
 then establishes, adding, ' which worship God in spirit, and 
 boast in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." 
 The meaning of these weighty words we must now endeavour 
 to develope. The serving God in spirit forms the opposition 
 to a worship of God, tied to sensuous, outward, earthly things, 
 and made dependent on such, — to a worship of God which has 
 not its source in the inmost soul of man, as when it is thought, 
 that God can be served by circumcision, by any outward works 
 whatever of the law, whether of a religious or moral nature, by 
 any particular action of the outward service of God. The true 
 worship of God, on the other hand, is described by Paul as pro- 
 ceedino- from the spirit; and by such he means, that which re- 
 sults from the renewal and sanctification of the spirit of man 
 by nature alienated from God, through the Holy Spirit, which 
 is communicated by Christ alone. And thus the only place 
 from which God can truly be worshipped, is the spirit of man 
 brought back to communion with God, and made the temple 
 of God, and when the whole life and action of the spirit becomes 
 one worship of God. But because the Redemption wrought 
 through Christ is presupposed here, because faith in the Re- 
 deemer, and communion with Him, is the root and source of all, 
 Paul connects with this, "boasting in the Lord;" i. e., boasting 
 in a way which excludes all pride of human boasting, — the 
 boasting of humility; namely, in Christ only, and in that, 
 which we are in Him, and which we owe to Him; and there- 
 fore — which is but the counterpart of what has been said, — 
 having no confidence in the flesh, in anything human. And, 
 in this respect, Paul sets himself forth as an example to the 
 Philippians, (chap. iii. 4-G), as the proof of the sincerity of his 
 doctrine and exhortation. He appeals to his own experience; 
 he himself, though born a Jew, brought up in the severest 
 Pharisaism, having spent his life in the strictest fulfilment of 
 the Law, was yet conscious that all this could contribute no- 
 thing to his deliverance from guilt, — to his justification, his sanc- 
 tification, his salvation ; therefore he had renounced all this, to 
 find everything in Christ alone. He was unblameable, he says, 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 51 
 
 in the righteousness which is in the Law; and this is to be ex- 
 tended, not merely to the ceremonial works of the Law, but to 
 moral action, in so far as it exhibited itself before men; for both 
 these are involved in the notion of the Law. In all these respects 
 Paul had been blameless. Before men he stood spotless. What 
 he says is true, not less of what we generally understand by 
 moral integrity, than of a piety which subsists in particular 
 religious actions. Although Paul satisfied the demands which 
 man made on his integrity, this was of no value in his eyes. 
 When, through the light of the Spirit, the true nature of the 
 Law of God, and true self-knowledge beamed upon him, he ap- 
 peared to himself, notwithstanding this blamelessness before 
 men, nothing but a sinner, destitute of the true Divine righteous- 
 ness, in which everything proceeds from God, and is referred back 
 to Him, and in which God is the end of the whole life. What 
 men call moral rectitude does not raise itself above the world. 
 And therefore he says, (chap. iii. 7, 8), assuming the insufficiency 
 of all this, " But what things were gain to me, those I counted 
 loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but 
 loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my 
 Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and 
 do count them but dung, that I may win Christ." He says 
 here, everything which he before valued as peculiar and distinc- 
 tive, such as descent from the theocratic people, blamelessness 
 from the standing-point of the Law, all this now appears to 
 him hurtful, so far as he might place his confidence upon it, 
 and thereby be drawn away from Christ. Christ being now 
 his all in all, everything else must give place to Him. Every- 
 thing, however high in itself it may be, must appear as loss, 
 if Christ, who can belong to him only, who seeks and desires 
 Him alone, is thereby lost; because the knowledge of Christ, 
 which is sufficient for all things and involves all things, out- 
 shines and obscures all else. And thus Paul says, that he was 
 willing to lose everything for Christ's sake, to cast it away as 
 dung only to win Christ, who compensates him for all. To be 
 found in Christ, and to stand in communion with Him, is, he 
 says, (chap. iii. 9), paramount to all. Therefore he opposes 
 the Divine righteousness, Mhich is grounded in this, and which 
 
52 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 proceeds from faith, to a righteousness derived from without, 
 and resulting from the works of the Law, which a man might 
 think to possess as his own, or to have produced, or to be 
 able to produce by human endeavours. Everything is here 
 referred by him to knowing Christ. This knowledge, in the 
 Pauline sense, is not something merely intellectual, or mere- 
 ly notional; not certain particular articles of faith concern- 
 ing Christ, as they have been notionally developed and deli- 
 vered; but, as the following clauses testify, a knowledge, which 
 has its root in life, and which proceeds from life, a thing of 
 inner experience, the consciousness of Christ as the Son of God 
 and our Redeemer. He gives peculiar prominence to " the 
 power of His resurrection," which naturally presupposes the 
 preaching of Him as the Crucified, of His suffering for the 
 Redemption of man from sin. But, in the present connexion, he 
 brings forward the power of His resurrection, because this was 
 an actual proof of the Redemption wrought by Him — the actual 
 proof of the immortal Divine life, which in His glorified Person, 
 and in virtue of the Redemption from sin and its consequence, 
 death. He brought to mankind, — a life which passes over from 
 Him upon all who are in communion with Him through faith, 
 and which in them is the beginning of a new Divine life, which 
 shall more and more pervade their whole nature, until they 
 are wholly assimilated to it, both in body and soul. Paul next 
 proceeds to speak of the knowledge of '' the fellowship of His 
 sufferings," thereby indicating that we must follow Him in His 
 sufterings, if we are to partake more and more of the Divine 
 life which is found in communion with the Risen Christ. And 
 he then sums up all '^ in being made conformable unto His 
 death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of 
 the dead." We here refer to the previous explanation, which 
 we have given in another connexion. Thus have we all, that 
 pertains to, all that constitutes the Christian life, in contrast 
 with and opposition to, the standing-point of the piety of the 
 Law, or mere human integrity. 
 
 Among the persons to whom the above is addressed, a certain 
 class is to be considered, which, after having set before the 
 Philippians the example of his own walk of life, and warned 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 53 
 
 them, with tears, against many whose ways were altogether 
 otherwise, he describes, (chap. iii. 17, 18), as enemies of the 
 cross of Christ. The notion of enemies of the cross of Christ is 
 one admitting of various applications. By these, might be under- 
 stood such as confess, indeed, Jesus the Crucified as their Savi- 
 our, but who, by their mode of thinking and acting, though 
 themselves unconscious of it, prove themselves the enemies of 
 the cross. Or it might be understood of those, who were the 
 conscious, declared enemies of the cross of Christ; and, at that 
 period of time, this might be the case in two respects, which, 
 however, will always be found in the History of the Church; 
 in the one case, from the point of view of the wisdom-seeking 
 Greeks, to whom, as the apostle elsewhere says, Christ crucified 
 was foolishness ; in the other, from that of the miracle-seeking 
 Jew, to whom Christ crucified was a stumbling-block. It 
 might be the unbelief of the presumption of wisdom, of the 
 arrogance of reason, of the claim of superior enlightenment, or 
 it might be the unbelief of the carnal man. But, from the con- 
 text, such open and conscious antagonism is here inadmissible. 
 This would not suit with the manner of Paul's opposition to 
 these enemies of the cross of Christ. He had no occasion to 
 warn, in the manner he does, against such open antagonists. 
 The class, therefore, we first described, is here to be supposed. 
 But this, also, may differently be understood. An enmity to 
 the cross of Christ, which is rather unconsciously than openly ex- 
 pressed, may be regarded either in a practical or in a more theo- 
 retical manner, as expressed in action only, or as exhibiting itself 
 as well in doctrine as in action. With respect to the former, 
 this again may be understood in two ways. By such might be 
 meant those, who are destitute of the humility which proceeds 
 from the belief, that we owe all to the cross of Christ, to Jesus 
 Christ crucified for us all, — those in whose life the pride of their 
 own righteousness, through which the cross of Christ is denied, 
 predominated, although not manifested in the doctrine professed 
 by them. Or such may be understood, who, so far from taking 
 the cross on themselves and following Jesus the crucified, by 
 their whole life devoted to the service of sin and the flesh, stood 
 directly opposed to the cross of Christ, to faith in Jesus Christ 
 
54 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 crucified to free man from sin, in order that all who cleave to 
 Him might be crucified to sin, the world, and themselves. The 
 whole carnal and sinful life of men, who, as much as lay in them, 
 made nought of the end for which Christ was crucified, might 
 be called an enmity to His cross. We admit, that all which 
 follows might be understood as directed against men of such 
 carnal propensities; but, if we compare the context with what 
 has been previously said, we shall be led to think rather, that 
 the apostle is speaking of such an enmity as appears not only 
 in life but in doctrine, — of that class of Judaizing opponents, of 
 whom he had before spoken. He calls enemies of the cross of 
 Christ, those, in whom that standing-point, to which Christ cru- 
 cified is a stumbling-block and rock of off"ence, manifests itself, 
 not in an open and conscious, but rather in an unconscious 
 and concealed manner, — those to whom the preaching which 
 necessitated them to owe salvation to Jesus the crucified as 
 their alone Saviour, to owe everything to Him alone, was 
 especially offensive, — those who asserted a righteousness of 
 the Law, and a self-righteousness against the cross of Christ. 
 Such also, as follows from what has previously been said, were 
 the opponents of a worship of God in the Spirit, by one which 
 adhered only to externals, and by their sensual and earthly- 
 minded tendencies. Such a E-eligion brought with it no moral 
 transformation, and might co-exist with sin, yea, form a 
 league with it, and give a false security to the service of sin; as 
 we have seen often in the History of the Church, where such 
 tendencies have made their appearance under the garb of 
 Christianity. And thus all that Paul says wdll here find its 
 application. He describes them as those, whose god is their 
 belly, who act from sensual motives to gratify their sensual 
 wants; for Paul frequently reproaches these Judaizing prosely- 
 tizers with making a gain of their preaching, and with seeking 
 to extort what served their own ends. He describes them as 
 earthly-minded, which explains itself from what has been said, 
 and all their hopes were in accordance with this characteristic. 
 They expected in the world to come, in the millennial king- 
 dom promised by them, not a Divine life, like that which the 
 true Christian even here receives in the veil of the flesh. 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 55 
 
 but their dreams were of an amplification of the happiness 
 of earth. He speaks of them as those, whose glory is in 
 their shame, as those who seek their glorj in that which con- 
 duces rather to their shame; for all that was supposed bj them 
 to confer peculiar honour on themselves above others, was, in 
 fact, degrading to the Christian life, and a denial of the true 
 dignity of Christians. To such, Paul opposes the heavenward 
 feelings of true believers, their hope purified from all carnal 
 colouring, and directed entirely to the heavenly. The standing- 
 point of the Divine life, freed from earth, forms the contrast and 
 opposition to these altogether worldly, earthly-minded religious 
 tendencies. This earthly-mindedness, Paul means to say, must 
 be far from us Christians; "for our conversation is in heaven." 
 Paul considers that Christians, even now, in their life and con- 
 versation, belong to heaven, and that there their life, in all its 
 directions, is centred. And this he derives from their relation 
 to Christ, from their communion with Him, with whom they 
 are so inseparably connected, that, where He is, there they are 
 also. Sustained by the consciousness that Christ, manifested 
 to believers, but hidden from the world, now lives in Heaven, 
 thither their looks are directed, and thence they long for the 
 Saviour, who shall come again to make them like unto Him- 
 self, to transform them wholly after His own image, and glorify 
 them into the heavenly; hence Paul says, (chap. iii. 20, 21), "From 
 whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who 
 shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto 
 His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able 
 to subdue all things unto Himself." Here is described, not a 
 resurrection, as the restoration of this earthly body in its earthly 
 form, but a glorious change, proceeding from the Divine, all- 
 transforming power of Christ, through which believers shall 
 attain a state, where, freed from all the defects of earthly exist- 
 ence, exempt from all its limitations, they shall perfectly exhibit 
 the image of the heavenly Christ, in their whole glorified per- 
 sonality, in the soul filled with the Divine life, and in the 
 glorified organ of the body, now perfectly allied with it. The 
 heavenly form of Christian hope, which proceeds from faith in 
 Jesus, Risen and Ascended into Heaven, is opposed, as well to the 
 
56 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 comfortless unbelief which reduces man, as a passing shadow, to 
 the brute, and cuts away all hope of anything beyond this earth, 
 as also, which is the case in the present passage, to a merely 
 carnal hope, which transfers the forms of earthly existence to 
 the future. Both these are growths from one and the same 
 root, from the tendency of the natural man, who, whether he 
 manifest himself in the form of sensual coarseness, or of more 
 refined culture, can yet never get beyond the narrow confines of 
 the world, who has no organ to perceive and apprehend the Di- 
 vine and Heavenly; whether it be, that he altogether denies that 
 which he has no faculty to perceive and apprehend, that he nega- 
 tives all personal duration beyond earthly existence, because he 
 cannot think of anything beyond this earthly form of person- 
 ality; or that he degrades that which he is not inclined or able to 
 deny, to his own fleshly standing-point, and carnalises the hope 
 which he admits. In all superstition there is ever an element 
 of unbelief; for that aspiration of the spirit is wanting which 
 alone is able to raise itself to the supramundane and the Divine. 
 And in all unbelief there is an element of superstition. All 
 unbelief makes idols for itself. It seeks in the appearances and 
 powers of the world, that which can be found only in God and in 
 the power of God. What Paul says of the idolatry of the things 
 of the world, is true also of it, — it becomes the servant of the ele- 
 ments of the world. It cleaves the more tenaciously to the 
 earthly, because it is quite alienated from that, which alone can 
 give true satisfaction to the Divinely allied spirit of man. It 
 contends the more vehemently for earthly interests, because 
 it has denied the higher interests of the soul, which point to 
 man's true home; and, therefore, the earthly interest swal- 
 lows up every other love and every other desire, by which the 
 spirit, which partakes of the Divine nature, is impelled. Christ 
 Kisen and Exalted to Heaven, whose life is hid with God, and in 
 whom our life is hid with God, and to whom we shall be like in 
 glory, when He, who is now hidden from the world, will reveal 
 Himself in glory, — this is the opposition to both these standing- 
 points of the natural man. 
 
 We have spoken of the antagonism of the Judaizing modes of 
 thought, which had its roots in the process of development, 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 57 
 
 througli which Christianity had then to pass, — how decidedly 
 opposed it was to the pure Gospel, and how all reconciliation 
 was excluded. There were, however, in the various churches 
 those, who were in a state of transition from the Jewish, or cog- 
 nate point of view, to the pure Gospel, and who were far from 
 being enemies of the cross of Christ — who were filled rather with 
 love to Jesus Christ crucified, as their Saviour — but who, in the 
 development of their faith, were still subject to many weaknesses, 
 and could not free themselves from many remaining effects of 
 their not wholly subdued Jewish standing-point. In the 
 Epistles of Paul, we find frequent mention of those, with whom, 
 as weak, he is accustomed to contrast strong, matured Christians, 
 — of those who, still possessed with fear of partaking of the flesh 
 of sacrifices, still adhering to the Jewish laws of food and to 
 the observance of certain days, could not at once shake off the 
 yoke of the Law in these respects. Were these, then, to be re- 
 garded in the same manner as those, who have previously been 
 described? Vvere those who had passed over to Christianity 
 from another, from the heathen standing-point, who, though 
 exposed to other dangers, could yet, from this side, advance 
 more e^isily to Christian freedom; or those who, farther ad- 
 vanced in the development of their faith, had more nearly ap- 
 proached maturity of manhood in Christ; were such to with- 
 draw themselves from communion with those who thought dif- 
 ferently on many points, and at once repulse them? Such a 
 course would have been directly contrary to what Paul de- 
 mands from Christian love, which patiently endures the weak- 
 ness of the brethren. By thus acting in an impatient and ar- 
 bitrary spirit, limits would be placed to the operations of the 
 Holy Spirit, who might yet further guidethose in whom he had 
 begun to work, and the thread of development, ordained by the 
 wisdom of God, and alone leading from Christ and to Christ, 
 would at once be severed. On the mode of procedure with such 
 subordinate grades of development, such less important antago- 
 nisms, Paul gives, in this epistle, a doctrine, conveying much 
 instruction in few words, the import of which we must endea- 
 vour clearly to ascertain. 
 
 After having- set forih, in the manner we have before un- 
 
58 ON THE PIIILIPPIANS. 
 
 folded, as a pattern for all, the standing-point, which forgets all 
 that has hitlierto been done, and, from Christian faith in sub- 
 mission to Christ, strives more and more after the prize of the 
 Christian calling, he says, (chap. iii. 15), "Let us, therefore, as 
 many as be perfect, be thus minded." This is the standing- 
 point of the matured Christian, who has attained to perfect free- 
 dom, and who, hindered by nothing, makes greater and greater 
 progress in his development. " And if in anything ye be other- 
 wise minded," than is in accordance with this principle, " God 
 shall reveal even this unto you" — i. e., wherein ye think other- 
 wise, even in that God will reveal the right to you, and thus 
 lead you to unity in the maintenance and application of that 
 principle. Paul, accordingly, points to this truth, that the 
 Spirit of God, who revealed to them the light of the Gospel, 
 will perfect this His revelation in them, and conduct it to that 
 mark of maturity in Christianity, — that He will yet more and 
 more further them in true Christian knowledge, and even in 
 that in which they still err and vary in opinion, will cause them 
 to find the one right thing. We should not, therefore, preci- 
 pitately enter into controversy, by which our distance from each 
 other is so easily widened, and by which, through obstinate ad- 
 herence to our once formed views, we so readily become har- 
 dened in opposition; much less should we condemn each other, 
 but endeavour to preserve that unity of the Christian spirit, 
 which is raised above all subordinate differences. To the com- 
 mon Teacher, the Holy Spirit, should all yield themselves, and 
 all trust, that He, who is the best Teacher, will yet more and 
 more further them and each other. While all proceed from the 
 Divine foundation once laid, the unfolding and progressive pu- 
 rification of the Divine work should be left to the operation of 
 the Holy Spirit, who first began it in each. No attempt should 
 be made to do violence from without to the unfolding of the 
 Divine life in another, which follows its own law, grounded 
 in the specialities of his character, or substitute anything im- 
 posed from without, in place of the free development which 
 proceeds from within. This would be tantamount to seeking 
 to penetrate into the inmost soul of man by human arts of 
 persuasion, which can avail nothing, where they find no sym- 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIAN-. 59 
 
 pathetic link in the already existing views of a man, and to 
 bring forth what alone can be effected by the Holy Spirit, the 
 inner teacher, whom, without constraint and with the entire 
 accord of their freedom, all follow. Everything, alike in each 
 individual, proceeds only from the leavening process of the same 
 leaven of Divine truth, which gradually shall pervade the whole 
 spiritual life, expurgating every heterogeneous element. And 
 when Paul here speaks of a revelation by the Holy Spirit, 
 through which the progressive insight of the believer is effected, 
 this has for its basis the truth, presupposed and expressed 
 throughout Holy Scripture, that all Divine things can be known 
 only in the light of the Holy Spirit ; as he says elsewhere, " No 
 man can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." The notion of 
 revelation, however, before us, by no means excludes the agency 
 of human thought, which developes and works out according to 
 the laws of human reason, that which it has received from the 
 Divine light. But it is assumed that the agency of man's spirit is 
 inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit, who is the soul of his 
 whole spiritual life ; hence all is referred to the Holy Spirit as 
 cause, in so far as all originates in His revelation, guidance, and 
 inspiration; all immediate or mediate progressive insight, pro- 
 ceeding from the Holy Spirit, is included in the notion of re- 
 velation. 
 
 We have now to consider more closely the necessary condition 
 laid down by Paul, in order that, all yielding themselves to 
 the guidance of the Holy Spirit, should be led by Him to this 
 progressive insight. But here it is essential to investigate the 
 original form of Paul's words, which has been corrupted by the 
 interpolated attempts at explanation, which, through misunder- 
 standing, have been received into the text as if they were com- 
 ponent parts of his own expressions. It has not been the de- 
 sign of Divine wisdom that such corruptions should be averted, 
 in the lapse of centuries, by a series of miracles, or by the 
 authority of a visible church enjoying the power of infallible 
 guidance; but while natural causes have here been left to their 
 course, so that such adulterations might, through misunder- 
 standing, gain free scope, the impulse was thereby given to in- 
 dependent investigation, to the development of all the faculties 
 
60 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 of the understanding in their functions of examining and dis- 
 tinguishing, in order that we might learn, through a spirit of 
 examination exercised under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, 
 and by the cultivation and application of that discipline which 
 is grounded in the nature of the human mind, and which we 
 designate by the name of criticism, to distinguish the true 
 from the false, and, by comparison, discover the original form 
 of apostolic words. Criticism, when guided and animated 
 by the Holy Spirit, should be regarded as belonging to the 
 spiritual gifts of the church. And thus we shall here also 
 be enabled to restore the true form of Paul's words; and by 
 continued investigation, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, 
 an agreement in this respect will be brought about in the 
 church. 
 
 If we follow the later reading adopted by Luther, we shall, 
 like him, thus translate: "Doch so fern, dass wir nach einer 
 Kegel, darin wir gekommen sind, wandeln, und gleich gesinnet 
 sein."* Thus, in this case, the condition of which we have above 
 spoken, would be unanimity. It would be an exhortation to 
 concord. But such is quite remote from this connexion, and 
 unanimity could not be the condition which the context would 
 lead us to expect, but the result of the conduct of the church 
 required by the apostle. If they so acted with reference to sub- 
 ordinate differences, as, according to our explanation, Paul 
 indicated, concord would be preserved undisturbed in the 
 church. Further, what is said of the one rule and the walk 
 according to this, and the being like-minded, is unsuitable to 
 the words, '' whereto we have already attained," (s/V o s^i^affa/xsi.) 
 For all had not attained to the same degree of insight. We 
 here discover, therefore, the combination of words which tally 
 not with each other, and it is easy to be understood, how, from 
 false attempts to explain the words, " If only we walk accord- 
 ing to that which we have attained" — words which are obscure, 
 if not viewed in their right connexion, — the rest originated in 
 falsely referring this to an exhortation to unanimity. We shall, 
 therefore, following the most ancient and authentic manuscripts, 
 
 * Provided we walk according to the one rule whereto we Lave al- 
 ready attained, and be like-minded. 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 61 
 
 regard this as the meaning of the genuine words of Paul, " If 
 only we act according to that whereto we have already at- 
 tained," i. €. if only each applies the measure of insight impart- 
 ed to hira truly to his own life. Paul says, therefore, the Holy 
 Spirit will reveal to all what is still wanting to them of true 
 Christian knowledge, and yet further advance the union of their 
 spirits, by expurgating those heterogeneous elements which mar 
 it, and will educe a higher unity from such existing differ- 
 ences, if that Christian communion resting on the one com- 
 mon ground of faith, be first and foremost maintained, and each 
 makes it his concern, without disputing with another as to those 
 points wherein he still thinks differently from him, rightly and 
 truly to exercise the measure of his insight and knowledge. 
 All progressive revelation of the Spirit, every new light w^hich 
 shall be imparted to man, presupposes that he has hitherto 
 faithfully applied the gifts committed to his keeping. The 
 words of the Lord, " He that hath, to him shall be given," here 
 also find their application. How many dissensions would have 
 been avoided in the church ; how many differences might have 
 been overcome and adjusted to her blessing, if it had been the 
 earnest care of all rightly to understand and apply the princi- 
 ple here described by Paul ! 
 
 Precepts, exhortations, and promises go hand in hand in 
 Paul's epistles, as throughout all Scripture. The essential cha- 
 racter of the Gospel, as it is distinguished from the Law, re- 
 quires this; for as all promises are joined to certain conditions, 
 without which these cannot be fulfilled, which leads, therefore, to 
 exhortations and precepts, promises would be vain, unless in 
 believers that promise was presupposed, in virtue of which 
 they should not want power for the fulfilment of all require- 
 ments. Thus Paul begins with the words, (chap. iv. 4), " Re- 
 joice in the Lord alway, and again I say, rejoice." He, the 
 prisoner of the Lord, who, it may be, expected death, finds cause 
 to promise and require a continual joy in the consciousness of 
 communion with the Lord, — to make joy the key-note of the 
 Christian life. But this again is followed by a demand on the 
 Christian walk and conversation, inasmuch as that rejoicing in 
 the Lord cannot exist, unless the life of the Christian accords 
 
62 ON THE PIIILIPPIANS. 
 
 with the law of the Lord, and testifies of communion with Him- 
 Since, then, the Philippians, as we have above remarked, lived in 
 such circumstances, where temptations to anger and revenge 
 were many and great, he gives especial prominence to the exhorta- 
 tion, (chap, iv.5), "Let your moderation (gentleness) be known 
 unto all men;" and then adds, " The Lord is at hand," referring 
 to the consciousness of His perpetual nearness. This consci- 
 ousness leads Christians to such gentleness when irritated, 
 that, as walking before the face of the Lord, they dread giving 
 way to passion in the presence of Him, who, with heavenly 
 patience and long-suffering, bore all manner of v.Tong. The 
 consciousness also of this nearness of the Lord will restrain 
 them from seeking to usurp the judgment which belongs to 
 Him, and to take retribution into their own hands. These 
 words also form the transition to the exhortation which follows, 
 (chap. iv. 8), " Be careful for nothing." Here again we must 
 call to mind the difficult position of these Christians under 
 their oppressions; yet, in the consciousness of the nearness of 
 the Lord, they were to care for nothing. Not that Paul rejects 
 all human care, — for, as we have seen in this epistle, he demands 
 human endeavours — but such an entanglement in cares as would 
 conflict with his exhortation to rejoice always in the Lord; such 
 only is objected to by him, and from this the consciousness of the 
 nearness of the Lord to believers should restrain them. From 
 such care he directs them rather to that elevation of their hearts 
 to God in which everything should merge. In the antithesis 
 we find the true meaning of these words of Paul, when he says, 
 " But in everything, by prayers and supplications, with thanks- 
 giving, let your requests be made known unto God," (chap. iv. 6.) 
 There is such care as stands opposed to the prayer of trustful 
 confidence in God, and through which the feeling of child-like 
 petition is obstructed. Such is the care v*-hich Paul objects to. 
 As he has described the whole Christian life as one act of re- 
 joicing in the Lord, so he describes it also as one continued prayer. 
 Between the two an intimate connexion subsists. The one can 
 exist only together with the other. He requires not the sup- 
 pression of these wants, the feeling of which begets care ; but 
 the feeling of tliese wants should transform itself into prayer. 
 
ON THE PHILIPPIANS. Do 
 
 Thus the heart will be relieved, and care at once be removed. 
 But although the Christian has to lay his wants before God 
 in prayer, and to beseech Hini for much for the future, yet 
 he knows — since to those who love God, all things must work 
 together for good — he may find enough, in every state, to lead 
 him to thankfulness to God. Paul therefore, though he called 
 on the Philippians, even amid their afflictions, to rejoice in the 
 Lord, assumes there is no exaggeration in calling on them to 
 thank God. The whole Christian life should be one prayer, 
 the prayer of thankfulness and supplication in the conscious- 
 ness of grace received, and in the feeling of the need of new 
 grace. And under the assumption, that the Philippians would 
 follow this direction, Paul was enabled to impart to them a 
 precious promise, (chap. iv. 7), which would secure immu- 
 nity from every anxious care amid all their conflicts: " And 
 the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep 
 your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." What does Paul 
 say here? What is the meaning of his deep, sublime words, 
 so pregnant, yet so brief? If the Philippians thus act, peace 
 with God, which they have received from Christ, will remain 
 with them — that peace, which is the source of ali other peace, 
 which can subsist in the midst of conflict with the world, and 
 which can be disturbed by no other power — the peace of which 
 Christ spoke : " Peace I leave with you, my peace 1 give unto 
 you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you," (John xiv. 27); 
 adding for the consolation of those whom He was leaving behind 
 amidst the trials and strifes of the world, the exhortation, " Let 
 not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." This 
 peace, as it is one which has its foundation in God, Paul describes 
 as exalted above all human conception. He who possesses it has 
 more than he himself knows, more than he can explain in words 
 and notions; it is an exceeding heavenly calm, which fills the 
 heart of him, who, redeemed from a state of enmity with the 
 Almighty and the Holy One, is conscious of being reconciled to 
 Him. The might of this peace, says Paul, will carry those 
 Bouls who live in communion with Christ safe and unharmed 
 through every conflict and every temptation, either from within 
 or from without. To this all their feelings and thoughts will 
 
64 ON THE PHILIPPIANS. 
 
 be attuned; this tlieir refuge, outweighing all human cares. We 
 may compare with this the words of Paul, in the Epistle to the 
 Colossians: " And let the peace of God rule in your hearts," 
 (chap. iii. 15.) Peace with God, gained by Christ for believers, 
 which is grounded in Him, and of which they are assured 
 who are in communion with Him, is here described as that 
 element in the Christian life, which maintains its superiority 
 amid all the changes and chances of mortal life. 
 
THE 
 
 EPISTLE OF JAMES, 
 
 PPiACTICALLY EXPLAINED. 
 
 It is the saying of an ancient Father of the church, that what 
 Paul expressed in reference to himself, that he became all things 
 to all men, to gain them to the Gospel, to lead them to salva- 
 tion, is true also, in a still higher manner, of Him whose pattern 
 the apostle followed in this, even of Christ himself, who, as well 
 in His ministry on earth as after His ascension into heaven, in 
 His revelation through the Spirit among all the nations of man- 
 kind, draws men to Himself, knows how to guide them to their 
 salvation in ways as diverse and manifold as their various stand- 
 ing-points. The manner in which Christ worked upon earth is 
 assuredly a type of the invisible Divine agency which embraces 
 all times, and in which He still continually reveals Himself, as 
 the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. This diversity Christ 
 Himself describes in the parables of the finding the kingdom of 
 God. In these is indicated at once the one thing in which all 
 must ultimately agree, the desire to be partakers of the kingdom 
 of God, as well as the manifold ways by which they are led to it. 
 To the kingdom of God they only attain who take it by vio- 
 lence. They only find the treasure hid in the field who risk 
 all, convert their all into money, to be able to purchase the 
 field in which the treasure lies concealed. They only gain pos- 
 session of the costly pearl, which surpasses all others in beauty 
 and lustre, who are ready to acknowledge its value, as one com- 
 
66 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 pared with which all others are as nothing, and who fear no 
 trouble, spare no cost, to secure this one pearl, — they who 
 regard all other possessions as nought, to be able to gain the 
 one highest good, the kingdom of heaven. But the inciting 
 motives of the persons described in these parables, who take the 
 resolution without which no one can enter the kingdom of 
 heaven, are different, according to tht/ir different standing- 
 points. The one is to be compared to merchants, who spare 
 neither labour nor cost to find beautiful pearls, and who at last 
 succeed in discovering that most glorious jewel, through this 
 their zealous and earnestly applied exploration. These are 
 they, who, impelled by the longing after the one good thing 
 able to give full satisfaction to their spirit, have long sought 
 after it. Many good things they have found in their search 
 capable of imparting some sort of satisfaction to their own soul, 
 but none of these, they at last become conscious, can fully and 
 enduringly satisfy their spiritual wants; and therefore they 
 again begin a new search, until at length, through this ever- 
 renewed seeking, they succeed in discovering that one highest 
 good, which now really imparts the desired satisfaction to their 
 souls. Others come unexpectedly, without seeking a treasure, 
 upon a field, where they, as it were, accidentally find it. Such 
 are they, in whom the longing after the highest good, the king- 
 dom of God, has not yet been evoked, and who, without their 
 seeking it, all at once stumble on that which imparts to their 
 spirit a satisfaction of which they had no presentiment, and 
 which they had never sought. The one, by a gentle and gra- 
 dual development, were drawn into communion with the Lord, 
 from a life in which, from the first, preparative grace evinced its 
 power in those germs of the higher nature of man, which dis- 
 played their vitality and unfolded themselves within them. The 
 other, who have oftered, by devotion to their own opposing pas- 
 sions, a long resistance to the Divine call, were drawn, as by 
 a power constraining their refractory will, to ilim whose love 
 seeks to save all. As then, in such, the process of development 
 which leads them to faith, is different, so also the form which 
 faith assumes in them will be different. In the one, therefore, 
 the new element imparted to them will exhibit itself, as having 
 
ox THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 67 
 
 been gradually prepared by antecedents, and blending itself 
 with these, will appear as their end and consummation; and 
 their previous accustomed form of life will ever remain agree- 
 able and familiar. In the other, the new will exhibit itself 
 rather in decided antagonism to the old. Each of these modes 
 of view will have its peculiar rights; each, in its own way, will 
 serve for the glory and furtherance of Christianity. In the 
 former view, it will be seen especially how all these antecedents 
 were destined to prepare that new element. The new will here 
 appear in a more modified form. The second view will as- 
 suredly be the more pervasive and profound. The new element, 
 in its peculiar essence, wherein it is raised above all else, will 
 here appear more developed. 
 
 This character of diversity and multifariousness is to be 
 recognised, as in the whole process of the development of 
 Christianity, so also in its first process of development, — 
 the apostolic period. But in the subsequent ages of the 
 history of the church, these diversities which, as we have 
 already remarked, were designed to serve as supplementary of 
 each other, are often seen to diverge into mutually exclusive 
 antagonisms. The notions of a higher unity disappear from 
 the consciousness of men, though, even amid these differences, 
 it will ever be discovered by him, who knows how to recognise 
 the one Christ in all His revelations, however partial and how- 
 ever obscured by human one-sidedness. Hence the origin of 
 those controvendes, which have brought so much ruin, instead 
 of edification. The relation, however, of the great teachers of 
 the New Testament to each other, as it is exhibited in their 
 lives and writings, discovers to us this character of multiformity 
 in the reciprocal supplementing of different, not mutually ex- 
 clusive, but mutually related modes of view, — the one Christ, 
 in the beams of His manifold revelation, refracted through 
 diverse organs. 
 
 Thus James, the brother of the Lord, appears to us in such 
 antagonism to the great apostle of the Gentiles. In order rightly 
 to understand and apply his Epistle, according to the rules laid 
 down in our explanation of the Epistle to the Philippians, we 
 must, first of all, endeavour to form a distinct image of his dis- 
 
68 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 tinctive characteristics, as they present themselves to us in the 
 course of his development and in his sphere of action, as also in 
 this Epistle. 
 
 A very important point, in regard to the character of 
 James, is found in the fact, that he was not of the number of 
 the apostles. These were taken from those disciples, who, with 
 immatured and childlike souls, joined themselves to the Re- 
 deemer and devoted themselves entirely to Him, with minds 
 open to, and susceptible of impression. From the first, they 
 unfolded themselves in communion with Ilim; they came not 
 to Him, after a training received in another and previous 
 school, and were, therefore, peculiarly adapted to receive truly 
 His image, and, as plastic organs in His hands, to serve for 
 the propagation of His word and Spirit in all ages. It is cer- 
 tain that, in the choice of the apostles, Christ aimed at gaining 
 such disciples as had not yet been formed in other schools, and 
 out of whom He could make everything. Paul, on the other 
 hand, though he had this in common with the rest of the apostles, 
 that he could testify of Christ the Risen, because he had actu- 
 ally beheld Him, and that he had received a personal impres- 
 sion from Him, was distinguished from them, in having come 
 to Him with a decided system, formed in a very different 
 school ; and hence, what he became through Christ, necessarily 
 developed itself in the most marked antithesis with what he 
 was before. Altogether different from either the apostles or 
 Paul, was it with James. He was a brother of the Lord, ac- 
 cording to the flesh. All the passages of the Gospels in which 
 the brethren of the Lord are mentioned, and Matt. i. 25, re- 
 ceive their most natural interpretation, when we assume that 
 Mary, after the birth of Jesus, bore other sons, who are to be 
 understood as the brothers of the Lord, of whom this James was 
 one. Since marriage, and the procreation of children, like 
 everything natural, were to be sanctified through Christ, in 
 such an assumption, nothing contradictory to the dignity of the 
 mother of Christ or His own, is to be found. The notions of 
 a false ascetical tendency, of the unsanctity of the marriage 
 state, or the pre-eminence of the celibate life, — which are at 
 variance with the essence of Christianity, — and the misun- 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 69 
 
 derstood reverence of Mary, could alone be the occasion that 
 anything objectionable should be found in this assumption. 
 On the contrary, the birth of Jesus, as a fact supernaturally 
 effected, thus appears in its right light and in its true meaning, 
 in contrast with that which resulted according to the natural 
 laws of procreation. Christ, as the son of Mary, begotten by 
 means of a miracle, is thereby differenced from, and opposed to 
 those who sprung from Mary in the natural way, according to the 
 laws of human derivation. The antithesis between the natural 
 and the supernatural, as it is described by Paul, (Gal. iv. 23,29), 
 — between that which is born according to the Spirit, and that 
 which is according to the flesh, is one which runs through the 
 history of the kingdom of God, in all stages of its progress. 
 The difference, therefore, between James and the other preachers 
 of the Gospel, in their religious development, consisted in this: 
 that his neither originated from Christ, as in the apostles, 
 nor did its later form ever appear in marked contrast with its 
 earlier; but his path, starting from a different point, took at first 
 an independent direction, not, indeed, opposed to, nor yet blend- 
 ing with that of the body which formed itself from Christ alone, 
 until at length, at a later period, it completely merged in it. 
 
 It might appear, then, that one who stood so near the Lord, 
 as His brother according to the flesh, the daily witness of His 
 life, must be pre-eminently fitted to be His disciple, — that one 
 so peculiarly favoured from the beginning, must possess advan- 
 tages even over the apostles. Such was the point of view which 
 produced the judgment of the Jewish Christians generally, who 
 considered themselves bound to exalt James above all other 
 teachers, and to depend especially on his authority. In this 
 estimate, by the measure of mere outward natural relation to 
 Christ, we perceive the intermixture of the Jewish spirit in 
 its notions of Christianity,— the Christian point of view being 
 the opposite of this; for, generally, while Judaism seeks re- 
 ligion in its externals, Christianity, in direct antithesis to it, 
 places the essence of religion within. The inward and the 
 outward not unfrequently stand in an inverse ratio to each 
 other. He who outwardly stood nearest the revelation of the king- 
 dom of God, to His manifestation in humanity, to the appear- 
 
70 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 ing of the Son of God, might inwardly be the most remote 
 from it, if he rested only on the external manifestation, and ac- 
 customed himself to regard the outward merely with the bodily 
 eye, and was hindered thereby from penetrating to the inward 
 with the eye of the Spirit. And such is the relation which 
 we see the Jews hold generally with regard to the kingdom of 
 God, and to Christ, who sprung from among this people, whose 
 destiny it was to prepare His appearing, Christ himself, in 
 opposition to the spirit of Judaism, which seeks religion in ex- 
 ternals, shows that all depends not on what is outward and per- 
 tains to the body, but on the inward relation to God, through 
 the tendency of the soul and its affections, and that we can draw 
 nigher unto Him, not through any affinity according to the 
 flesh, but only through the devotion of our spirits; and thus, 
 when on a certain occasion, it was thought necessary to inter- 
 rupt Him, when he was engaged in the great work of His life, 
 the preaching of salvation, and found hearts open to instruc- 
 tion, listening with all earnestness to His word, because those 
 who stood nearest to Him, "His mother and His brethren stood 
 without seeking Him," He rebuked this interruption, while, 
 pointing to the disciples, who were receiving the seed of the 
 word of God into the good ground of an honest and true heart. 
 He said, " My mother and my brethren are they that hear the 
 word of God and do it," (Luke viii. 21 ; Mark iii. 34, 35.) 'it 
 is, therefore, of no moment how w^e are related to Him, accord- 
 ing to fleshly derivation, but how we are related in spirit to the 
 Divine will revealed by Him. In the same manner, also, when 
 a certain woman, from the middle of a crowd hanging on His 
 words, carried away by the impression made by His Divine say- 
 ings, exclaimed, " Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the 
 paps thou hast sucked;" He, on the contrary, describing the 
 vanity of such beatitude, said, " Yea, rather, blessed are they 
 who hear the word of God, and keep it," (Luke xi. 27, 28.) 
 Prophetic warnings against the tendency to externals, which 
 manifested itself, not merely in that blending of the old Jewish 
 spirit with Christianity, but which has also, in after-times, often 
 repeated itself in other forms in the Christian church ! 
 
 The very thing, therefore, which might have been to the ad- 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 7l 
 
 vantage of James, in his religious development, turned to his 
 disadvantage. In him and his brethren the proverb found 
 its application, which Christ referred to in the case of the citi- 
 zens among whom He had spent the greatest portion of his life, 
 and who had been eye-witnesses of His development from His 
 earliest childhood, (Matt. xiii. 57), " a prophet is not without 
 honour, save in his own country, and in his own house." Just 
 because the brethren of the Lord had been witnesses from the 
 beginning of the purely human earthly development of the Son 
 of man, they held only by this veil of the flesh, which thus proved 
 to them a stumbling-block. And although afterwards, the revela- 
 tion of the Son of God, not merely in the inner might of the 
 Divine life, which can be apprehended and known only by him 
 who possesses the faculty to discern the things of God, but 
 in the demonstrations of His miraculous power, came before 
 them, by which the first stirrings of faith were called forth in 
 them, yet again and again that doubt asserted itself, which 
 springs from the prejudice of the natural man, who judges 
 merely according to the flesh, and relies only on the outward 
 appearance; and during the earthly life of Christ they remained 
 in the same state of oscillation between faith and unbelief Only 
 when that stumbling-block was removed from them, when the 
 Son of God no longer stood before their eyes in the earthly veil 
 of the Son of man, when He who was believed dead appeared 
 victorious over death, alive in Divine might, to those who needed 
 such confirmation ere they could recover their powers, was this 
 the decided turning-point of the development of the religious life 
 of a James, (1 Cor. xv. 7); and henceforth we see in him, the de- 
 clared steadfast zealous witness of the faith in Jesus, his brother 
 according to the flesh, as his Messiah, Lord, and Saviour, 
 (James i. L) But the manner in which he bore witness of 
 Him was conditionated by his previous religious training. His 
 was pre-eminently the standing-point of Jewish piety, as it ma- 
 nifests itself in the forms of the Old Testament; and under this 
 he had been entirely formed, when faith in Jesus, as the 
 promised Messiah, was superadded, and henceforth he be- 
 held Judaism, in which he had hitherto lived, transfigured. 
 Christianity appears to his mind as true Judaism. The Spirit 
 
72 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 of Christ glorifies the forms of the Old Testament, and leads 
 them to their true fulfilment. The standing-point which we 
 perceive in the teaching of Chri-t, as set forth in. the Sermon on 
 the Mount, which contains the germs of everything essentially 
 Christian, but w^here the abolition of the Law is not explicitly 
 declared, where everything proceeds from the idea of the king- 
 dom of God, and the references of each and every of its princi- 
 ple to the Person of Christ, though everywhere implied as the 
 basis and central point, is not so expressed in the letter, — this 
 is the peculiar standing-point of James. In the development, 
 therefore, of the kingdom of God, where, as in all His works, 
 equally in those of Nature as of Grace, there is no sudden abrupt 
 transition, but where the law of gradation prevails throughout, 
 he forms an important transition from the Old Testament to 
 the New. Something would be wanting had we not James in 
 the New Testament; and a mind which, in its one-sidedness, dis- 
 dains to follow patiently that law of gradual development, and 
 which demands perfection at once, maybe punished by a defective 
 knowledge of Christian truth. The standing-point of James 
 was also of peculiar service in bringing over devout Jews to the 
 faith of the Gospel. To a Paul, who was elected for the con- 
 version of the Gentile nations, it would have proved an hin- 
 derance; to James, in the sphere of action assigned to him among 
 unmixed Jews, in Palestine and Jerusalem especially, it was 
 serviceable. Thus does Divine wisdom display itself in the 
 manner in which it assigns a peculiar sphere of action to each, 
 and appoints to each a special task in the development of the 
 kingdom of God, according to his peculiar standing-point; and 
 the sole concern of each should be, that he rightly fulfil the 
 task so marked out for him; that each, knowing his own peculiar 
 line, and remaining true to it, stretch not beyond it; and, more- 
 over, that each recognise the call of God in him also, to whom, as 
 He has imparted different gifts, He has committed a different 
 sphere of action, and place himself in such relation with him, 
 that each may supplement the other. Such was the relation 
 of James to Paul. 
 
 This, indeed, James knew from the beginning, that, as the 
 voice of the prophets indicated, the time would come when the 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 73 
 
 worship of Jehovah would be extended among the Gentile na- 
 tions; that they too should participate in the blessings of the 
 kingdom of God ; and that as this would form a part of the glory 
 of the times of the Messiah, so was it to receive its fulfilment 
 in Jesus as the Messiah. But this was hid from him, even 
 when he had attained to a decided faith in Jesus as the Mes- 
 siah, — that a worship of Jehovah, that a participation in the 
 kingdom of God, is possible otherwise than in the old forms of 
 the Law. 
 
 The indications in the discourses of Christ, which signified 
 that the word preached by Him v/ould be the leaven which, 
 through its indwelling power alone, independent of all else, will 
 pervade the life of humanity, and leavening Jew and Gentile 
 alike, will make all things new, — that the new spirit of Christi- 
 anity will burst through all the forms of legal Judaism, — these 
 indications were not yet understood by him. This was one of 
 those things of which Christ, when he took leave of his disciples, 
 said to them, that what they were then unable to understand, 
 the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit would afterwards reveal 
 to them. This revelation of the Holy Spirit was not, how- 
 ever, imparted to all at the same time, nor to all in the same 
 manner. This was conditionated by the different standing-points 
 from which they had attained to the Gospel. Accordingly, to 
 lead them to this insight, more or less preparation might be re- 
 quisite; it might be more through a process of thought, quick- 
 ened and guided by the Holy Spirit, which evolved till it clearly 
 apprehended the entire import of the Divine truth which had 
 been received through revelation ; or more, through an imme- 
 diate light, which the Spirit of God caused to spring up in them. 
 Often, in the history of the church, must we discover, by mournful 
 experience, that when views arise to one which are still hidden 
 from another, when the Spirit frees the one from the narrow 
 limits within which the other still remains confined, the result 
 is an antagonism between the freer and more confined view. 
 This was the source of much of the discord and division which 
 manifested themselves even in the apostolic church. James, 
 however, was far from that arbitrariness which adheres to its 
 
 B 
 
74 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 own views as alone valid, which at once rejects the revelations 
 made to others, because they are not its own, which would set 
 limits to the further development of the kingdom of God, and 
 is not to be refuted by facts. When, at the apostolic council at 
 Jerusalem, (Acts xv.), the question arose concerning the debated 
 point of the observance of the Mosaic Law, and Peter and Paul 
 testified of the effects of the Gospel among the believing Gen- 
 tiles, who had submitted neither to circumcision nor to any 
 other ordinance of the Law, such undeniable facts were proof 
 enough for him, that through faith in the Redeemer, the same 
 Divine results had been produced among the Heathen as among 
 the believing Jews. He saw in this a fulfilment of the prophe- 
 cies of the Old Testament, and he learnt better to understand 
 their scope and import in a relation which had hitherto been 
 hid from him. He then showed the mild conciliative spirit 
 peculiar to him, in the way in which he sought to adjust the 
 difference between the Jewish and Gentile Christians. He re- 
 cognises the rights of views which were not his own. The be- 
 lieving Gentiles, it was decreed, were, in virtue of their faith, 
 to have perfect equality of privileges with the believing Jews, 
 in the kingdom of God, and, for the furtherance of mutual ap- 
 proximation, were required to accommodate themselves to the 
 feelings of Jewish believers, in some few outward things, which, 
 moreover, had a tendency to diminish th'e danger of participa- 
 tion in the concomitants of Heathen worship. While, however, 
 James recognised the claim of the churches of the uncircumcised 
 Heathen to the participation of equal privileges, and admitted 
 the rights of the independent vocation of preaching the Gospel 
 among the Heathen, he still remained true to his own standing- 
 point, according to which the new spirit should continue to act 
 in the old forms, and the Jews alter nothing in their religious 
 national peculiarity. Yet, as the Acts of the Apostles show, he 
 was ever the mediator between Paul and the zealots of the Jew- 
 ish-Christian point of view, who were prejudiced against him. 
 Here also he acted in the same spirit of conciliation and mo- 
 deration. 
 In order rightly to understand and apply the Epistle of James, 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 75 
 
 we must now endeavour to form a distinct notion of the per- 
 sons to whom it is addressed, and to whose peculiar state he 
 chiefly has regard. 
 
 Nothing very definite can be decided with respect to the 
 region where these churches are to be sought; the information 
 we derive from the Epistle itself is conveyed in very general 
 terras, sufficient, however, for our object, which is entirely 
 practical. The important point is this, that these were churches 
 consisting of Christians of purely Jewish descent, in which 
 all the faults incidental to Judaism were combined with faith 
 in Jesus as the Messiah, and where, in many, little or nothing 
 was to be seen of the new creation which must issue from this 
 faith. 
 
 That feeling, whose whole bent is the earthly, which was 
 frequently found in connection with a false zeal for the glory of 
 God, avarice and covetousness, and the consequent collisions of 
 the selfish interest, and controversies, — these were the vices 
 which those churches took over with them from their earlier 
 Jewish state, to the domain of Christianity. The aristocracy of 
 money stood opposed to the pervading influence of Christian 
 love, which was designed to restrain and overpower all earthly 
 distinctions. The contrasts seen in the varying measure of 
 the possession of worldly goods, were not reconciled, as they 
 should be, by Christian love, but asserted at the expense of 
 that fraternal relation which should manifest itself among 
 Christians. Furthermore, it pertained to the vices of their 
 false Jewish spirit, that, instead of conceiving piety, as a whole, 
 proceeding from the heart, extending to the whole life, reliance 
 was placed only in certain particular and external acts in which 
 piety should exhibit itself, and these were substituted for the 
 whole, — the tendency to the external in Keligion. In them 
 this direction displayed itself in the great value which was laid 
 on descent from the theocratic people, on circumcision, the 
 works of the Law, on all of which justification was made to de- 
 pend; and this tendency passed over also to the Jewish Chris- 
 tians. Where these asserted their privileges against Heathens, 
 and Christians of Heathen descent, this would necessarily appear 
 with especial prominence; — a tendency however, which, in its 
 
76 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 essential character, is not to be regarded as having only once 
 existed, which was for ever abolished with Judaism, and 
 which cannot again appear in the Christian church. The 
 saying of the Preacher of wisdom, that nothing new happens 
 or will happen under the sun, which does not happen or 
 has not happened, here finds its application. As that, which 
 we designate with the name of the Jewish spirit, is not 
 grounded in the peculiar fundamental character of Judaism, 
 as a Divine institution, but is to be derived from the essence 
 of the natural man, who has degraded the Divine to his own 
 level, and would appropriate it without denying this; so, also, 
 from this essence of the natural man, which ever remains 
 the same, a similar error will again and again proceed, which 
 we may describe as having affinity with the Jewish spirit. 
 Even where Christianity is embraced, and the essential fea- 
 tures of the natural man interfuse their pernicious influence 
 with the views entertained of its nature, this peculiar char- 
 acteristic, which we call the Jewish, will reveal itself When 
 one imagines that he has any pre-eminence, because he is 
 descended from a Christian people, distinguished in former 
 times by its piety, from one which assumes an important place 
 in the history of the kingdom of God, without considering, that, 
 if his own life is not in harmony with the peculiar character 
 and standing-point of such a people, this will turn rather to 
 his condemnation than to his glory; or if one prides himself 
 on having sprung from a father conspicuous for his pious 
 deeds, without in any way following his example, in these and 
 similar cases, we must recognise the vice of the Jewish spirit. 
 When one places all his glory, grounds his confidence in be- 
 longing to a particular church, without concerning himself 
 about the practice of genuine Christianity, — when, in outward 
 Churchism, he forgets what belongs to Christianity, — this, also, 
 is something which, in that sense, we may call Jewish. When 
 one puts his trust and security in his zealous participation in 
 the external actions of Christian worship, attendance at church, 
 the celebration of the Sacrament, while all this remains to him 
 something merely external, — this is the same as when the Jews 
 placed their confidence on circumcision and the works of the 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 77 
 
 Law. The name only, not the thing, is altered. All, therefore, 
 that is said in Paul's epistles upon such tendencies, though that, 
 against which the apostle's arguments and reproofs are directed, 
 no longer exists according to the letter, may, nevertheless, be re- 
 ferred in all ages, to such practical errors as have been specified. 
 In the notions controverted by James in his epistle, we 
 do not find, it is true, precisely the same peculiar mode of 
 externalizing we have described, and which we find in Paul. 
 It is, however, the same root, the same fundamental tendency. 
 He has to show his readers, who, therefore, must have prided 
 themselves on their manner of worshipping God, how the true 
 worship of God, in which they were wanting, must manifest its 
 existence. It is a question merely of another mode of ex- 
 ternalizing, wherein, however, the same fundamental false ten- 
 dency is not to be mistaken. As there was a mode in which 
 this tendency displayed itself, in the undue estimation of the 
 outward works of the Law, so there was another mode, which 
 made the mere knowledge of the Law, of the true God, and that 
 which pertains to His worship, the main thing, — which, through 
 mere knowledge, mere profession of the known, through faith as 
 the object of knowledge, thought to have and to be more than 
 the Heathens, although the life by no means corresponded with 
 this knowledge and profession. Paul, also, in the second chap- 
 ter of the Epistle to the Romans, combated this false confidence 
 in mere knowledge of the Law. With this was connected dead 
 Scriptural learning, as when Christ himself rebukes the Phari- 
 sees, who thought to have eternal life in the Scriptures, and 
 yet were not guided by them to Him, who alone could impart 
 it to them. Hence it came to pass, that each was forward 
 to nssert his religious knowledge, that each sought to set him- 
 self up as a teacher for others, without first considering how- 
 to conform himself according to Divine truth. Hence ori- 
 ginated controversies between those who desired to usurp the 
 ofifice of teacher of others, passionate disputation and censuring, 
 — thus another mode of externalizing, another fashion of the 
 worship of the letter, proceeding from the same root, as that be- 
 fore described, and which might equally be found in harmony 
 with an ungodly life, and equally also serve as its stay. 
 
78 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 It may be asked, then, does the false notion of faith, and the 
 one-sided exaggerated estimate of mere faith, which James con- 
 troverts in this epistle, form component parts of this fundamen- 
 tal tendency? or must we here recognise something different 
 from this, something which owes its derivation to another quar- 
 ter? Is a reference to the Pauline notion of faith, here, unmistake- 
 able, so that we be necessitated to assume, that, in this church, 
 the Pauline notion of justification by faith was falsely viewed 
 and applied? It is possible, that men, who continued in sin, 
 may have thought, they could boast in justification through 
 faith in the Redeemer alone ; as Paul, assuredly, in several pas- 
 sages of the Epistle to the Romans, guards himself against such 
 a misunderstanding, or such a perversion of his doctrine. In 
 later times, after that doctrine to which Paul gave especial pro- 
 minence, in opposition to Jewish and Judaizing errors, had been 
 again asserted in its rights by Luther, in similar opposition to 
 a Jewish standing-point which had crept into the church, 
 again, in this instance, a new worship of the letter, a new mode 
 of externalizing introduced itself, and again the connexion be- 
 tween faith and practice was severed. Much of what James says 
 in his day, against such a tendency, might here again find its 
 application. 
 
 The question we are here discussing, viz., whether the pole- 
 mic of James is directed against a misunderstanding of Paul's 
 doctrine, or whether it has no reference to it, is by no means 
 necessarily connected with that concerning the relation of 
 the doctrines of Paul and James to each other. It might 
 have been the purpose of James to controvert a misunderstand- 
 ing of the doctrine of Paul, yea, even the doctrine of Paul him- 
 self, as it may have appeared to him only in the form of this 
 misunderstanding, w'ithout a previous acquaintance with it; 
 and, notwithstanding, a perfect harmony may be demonstrated 
 between both modes of doctrine, w^hich may serve as the sup- 
 plements of each other; for, it may easily happen, that in 
 controverting, from a different point of view, a peculiar mode 
 of doctrine which another has formed for himself, accord- 
 ing to his peculiar course of training, and the relation of the 
 differences he had in his mind, we, in fact, in the disputation. 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 79 
 
 prove a substantial agreement, so that in combating the opi- 
 nions of another, we rather express only what serves to explain 
 and supplement them. Thus also might an exposition of Chris- 
 tian truth called forth by a controversy against the peculiar 
 Pauline form of doctrine, find its place, as an important 
 supplementary member in the collection of those writings 
 which contain the original pure Revelation of Christian truth. 
 Both modes of view and doctrine might be co-related as mutu- 
 ally supplementary forms in the one revelation of the Holy 
 Spirit, through the different human organs who are inspired by 
 Him. Of the relation of those two modes of doctrine to each 
 other, we shall have, therefore, to treat specially in what fol- 
 lows. 
 
 Although, therefore, it is quite conceivable, that such an ex- 
 ternalizing tendency as the one we have remarked on, might 
 connect itself with the Pauline doctrine, and although, as we 
 have seen, this afterwards actually happened, it may yet be 
 questioned whether we are authorised in presupposing this 
 among the churches depicted in this epistle. Precisely among 
 such Judaizing churches, consisting purely of Jews, a misunder- 
 standing of the Pauline doctrine could least arise, because the 
 standing-point of Paul generally was so remote from them. The 
 Pauline notion of faith presupposes the marked distinction be- 
 tween the Law and the Gospel, and antagonism to the righteous- 
 ness of the Law, and the merit of our own works. That notion 
 vindicated itself in direct opposition to the Jewish externaliz- 
 ing; and such a form of view, as well as the misunderstanding 
 of it, were equally inadmissible, wliere such tendency predomi- 
 nated. 
 
 Is not the particular tendency which James impugns, to be 
 reduced to that characteristic defect 1 Let us only compare what 
 precedes and what follows these arguments of James, (chap, 
 ii.) Immediately before them, we find him controverting those 
 who presume on the mere hearing of the word, (chap, i.), on 
 mere knowledge of it, without concerning themselves about its 
 practice; and subsequently refuting the pretensions of a false 
 and presumptuous service of God. What, then, is this, but that 
 very externalizing tendency which finds its expression, when 
 
80 02T THE EPISTLE OE JAMES. 
 
 men pride themselves merely on holding certain articles of be- 
 lief concerning the one true God and the Messiah, and regard 
 themselves thereby justified, without making clear to themselves 
 the demands which this belief has on the life. When know- 
 ing and acting are not in accordance with each other, so is it 
 with the belief and the life. A merely theoretical belief corres- 
 ponds entirely with a merely theoretical knowledge. The man 
 who satisfies himself with being able to discourse much of the 
 law, without thinking of its practice, is also the same as he who 
 boasts of his belief without concerning himself about the works 
 which are required by belief. The man who thinks to have, in 
 certain external works, the essence of the true worship of God, 
 who boasts in being a true worshipper of God, simply because 
 he professes the true religion, is the same as he who thinks to 
 be just, through a belief which brings forth no works. And, if 
 we look to what follows, we find James arguing against those 
 who are so ready to assume the office of teaching others, (chap, 
 iii.), and who, while they teach what they do not practise, ren- 
 der themselves the more liable to condemnation. Have we 
 not, then, here again the same characteristic tendency? What, 
 therefore, can authorise us to sever what lies between from 
 this connexion, and refer it to something else, whose expla- 
 nation must be sought elsewhere, than in this one characteristic 
 tendency? 
 
 In the mode of combating these errors, which we shall pursue 
 at greater length, the difference indeed between James and 
 Paul, between the one as more practical, the other as more sys- 
 tematic, between the former, in whom faith in Christ had been 
 superadded as the crown and consummation of an earlier deve- 
 lopment begun in Judaism, and the latter, in whom faith in 
 Christ, as the centre of an entirely new creation, developed itself 
 in abrupt opposition to his previous Jewish standing-point, will 
 show itself in a peculiar manner. In James, therefore, the 
 controverting line of argument exhibits itself rather in isolated 
 theses and exhortations ; in Paul, everything is connected with, 
 and proceeds from one centre. In James, the reference to Christ 
 is found as one among other elements, which has brought on his 
 Epistle the reproach, as if Christ were not to be found in it; 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 81 
 
 whereas in Paul, the chief place is everywhere expressly and 
 prominently assigned to Christ's agency. He is described as 
 the central point of the whole life; from Him all is derived, to 
 Him all is referred. But in the isolated theses and exhorta- 
 tions of James, the higher unity on which they are based may 
 still be shown, and to Christ, as the living central point, all 
 might be reduced, although He is not expressly mentioned. 
 Thus, there may exist a moral conformation of life, which will 
 receive its light and meaning by a reference to Him as the cen- 
 tral point, though He be not explicitly named; and His name 
 may be much on the lips, where, notwithstanding, the inner 
 connexion of the whole constitution of the life with Him, is not 
 manifested. In this sense must we endeavour to understand 
 the arguments and exhortations of James. 
 
 The churches to whom this epistle is addressed, consisted of 
 poor and rich, of which the former, without doubt, constituted 
 the majority. We know that the Gospel, as everywhere, so es- 
 pecially among the Jews, found more acceptance with the poorer 
 and lower classes of the people, than among the rich and power- 
 ful; not that riches exclude from the kingdom of God, or 
 form a necessary hinderance to faith in the Gospel. When Christ 
 says that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a 
 needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of hea- 
 ven and be saved; he means by this, such rich men as the one 
 who was the occasion of His uttering these words, those to 
 whom, even unconsciously, earthly good is the highest, who have 
 their treasure on earth, and could not, therefore, have it in hea- 
 ven, whose heart belongs to earth, as their treasure is on earth, 
 and who are far, therefore, from that heavenward tendency, with- 
 out w^hich no one can attain to a participation of it. He says, fur- 
 ther, in that same connection, that, although the salvation of a 
 rich man is impossible with men, through merely human help, 
 that yet, with God, all things are possible. He gives us thereby 
 to understand that it needs the power of God, in order that his 
 riches be not an hinderance to the rich man in attaining the 
 kingdom of God. And thus these words imply, not that riches 
 in themselves, but only that direction of the feelings into which 
 the rich man falls more easilv than others, constitute the im- 
 
82 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 pediment. The rich man should be brought to the consciousness 
 of this, and, in the feeling of the difficulty existing in his posi- 
 tion, should be incited to turn himself to God, to implore from 
 Him the strength which he needs, in order that, amidst all his 
 earthly possessions, his treasure may be in heaven, and his heart 
 thither directed. In this same Epistle we shall find what is re- 
 quired of the rich man, in order to attain to this. Not riches 
 in themselves, therefore, form the hinderance to participation in 
 the kingdom of God; but it often happened at that time among 
 the Jews, that the rich and the mighty, amid the enjoyments 
 of this world, forgot the higher needs of the inner man, lost the 
 constant consciousness of dependence on the Power which alone 
 gives and guides all things. They thought to have all and abound, 
 and stifled in themselves the feeling of misery, and the necessity of 
 a redemption from it. Thus, even in the Old Testament, the 
 rich, the proud, and the godless, are often associated together- 
 As every outward condition may impede or further the salva- 
 tion of men, according to the different dispositions of rnen, as 
 nothing, independent of the bent of man's Avill, can serve 
 either for his furtherance, or turn to his prejudice; so also po- 
 verty, the wretchedness which crushes the spirit, which obstructs 
 the development of the consciousness of the inner man, and 
 permits not the emergence of the feeling of higher wants, may 
 become an hinderance, opposing the attainment of the kingdom 
 of God. Poverty, also, has its peculiar dangers, as this epistle 
 shows. But yet, on the whole, the poorer and lower classes of 
 the people, who languished under oppressions from the side of 
 the rich and mighty, became more alive, in the feeling of bodily 
 distress, to the need of a deliverance from the inner misery of the 
 soul, their bodily distress gave them more easily the connecting 
 point to bring the inner misery of their soul to their con- 
 sciousness, and thereby lead them to their Redeemer; because 
 there was for their souls no seeming delusive satisfaction, 
 they could the more easily be led to that which imparted 
 true satisfaction to all the higher needs. The worldly poor, also, 
 could, more easily than the rich, be brought to that poverty of 
 spirit, to which, as Christ says, belongs the kingdom of heaven. 
 Thus, among the Jews, the Gospel found more acceptance with 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 83 
 
 the poor than with the rich; and because men perceived this, 
 it came to pass that Christians were designated, in contempt, 
 the poor. Not that we mean to say that all the poor, who re- 
 ceived the Gospel, attained to it as the poor in spirit, and thus, 
 as such, received the true riches of the Gospel. Even among 
 these poor, there was not wanting that fleshly mind which pre- 
 vailed among the Jews, and which, instead of producing a true 
 hope, in harmony with a heart directed towards heaven, led 
 them rather to expect compensation for their bodily depriva- 
 tions in the dreams of a carnal blessedness in the kingdom of 
 Christ. And as the faith of such, if we may apply the name of 
 faith to this, originated in the fleshly mind of the natural man, 
 so also would the earlier form of this natural man, derived from 
 Judaism, necessarily subsist in their apparent Christianity, — 
 against which we shall hear James speak. The Christians, then, 
 as the poorer and the lower, had to endure many persecutions 
 and oppressions from the mighty and rich, partly on account of 
 their faith, partly on account of the selfish interests of these, or so 
 that their faith served only as a pretext for these acts. The rich, 
 also, who called themselves, without being, Christians, were in- 
 fected with the common vice of the rich among the Jews, and 
 were wanting in love and justice to their poorer brethren in the 
 faith. Thus, then, this epistle contains consolations and exhor- 
 tations to the oppressed and suffering, and rebukes to the rich, 
 both within and without the church. 
 
 James begins at once, by exhorting the sufferers to steadfast- 
 ness and submissiveness: " My brethren, count it all joy when 
 ye fall into divers trials," (chap. i. 2.) The notion of trial is one 
 capable of many meanings. By this is designated in Holy Scrip- 
 ture whatever may become a difficulty and occasion of falling to 
 Christian faith and Christian virtue,, — everything, whether fa- 
 vourable or unfavourable, outward or inward, which, while it may 
 be the occasion that faith or virtue succumb in the conflict, thus 
 brings them to the test, and may conduce to verify them. In 
 this more general sense it might, taken apart and in itself, be 
 understood, as Luther has translated it, by " Anfechtungen," 
 (temptations, as in our translation.) But it is evident, from the 
 context, that, as in many passages of Holy Scripture, those 
 
84? ON TUB EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 sufferings are here meant through which the Christian life is 
 tried. To those, then, who sighed under such afflictions as we 
 have described as the lot of these Christians, James says not, 
 that they should patiently endure them by looking to future 
 glory, but more than this, the feeling of suffering should resolve 
 itself into joy — they were only to rejoice. On what principle 
 could James so teach? He referred everything to that which is 
 highest in man, to that which constitutes his true essence, his 
 undying part, the inner man, as Paul calls it. And because he 
 was convinced, and desired to express this conviction, that these 
 trials, rightly used, must redound to the furtherance of the 
 inner man, and were ordained by God for this purpose, he, 
 therefore, calls upon Christians not to be troubled, but, re- 
 flecting on the end to which these sufferings necessarily conduced 
 in the children of God, to rejoice in them. The right use of 
 afflictions, as they appear in the light of Christianity, is there- 
 fore presupposed in this; as James describes it in the subjoined 
 words, which contain the ground of this exhortation, " knowing 
 this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience," (chap. i. 3.) 
 James here assumes, that a continual process of development and 
 purification is ordained in this life for faith, and such a one which 
 consists in a continual struggle. To him faith is something totally 
 different from and exalted above the ordinary governing princi- 
 ples in men, something in which resides an inner Divine power, 
 but which must stand the test in the conflict with the opposing 
 power, with all that proceeds from the flesh, from the na- 
 tural man. Now, there are manifold trials for faith, and of 
 all such, what James says, holds good. In the case before us, 
 the question is especially of the conflict with outward circum- 
 stances. Here, therefore, it must be tested, whether faith be 
 sincere, deeply-rooted in the inner life — such a faith, as, by its 
 inherent Divine power, shall be able to overcome the world. 
 But, while faith proves itself amidst these conflicts, and endures 
 in the struggle with the world, it thereby manifests its Divine 
 power, and the trial becomes a confirmation, and out of this victo- 
 rious contest faith comes forth as an enduring faith. Man 
 first learns by this to know what he has. Now, James was 
 well aware of the characters of the churches to which he 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 85 
 
 wrote, and that the notion of faith was liable to the misun- 
 derstanding which we have described. It is throughout, there- 
 fore, his great aim to counteract the isolating and externalizing 
 tendency in the Christian life. Hence, after thus expressing 
 himself, he was obliged still to add, that, even though faith 
 has proved its endurance amid outward conflicts with the 
 world, this one thing was not yet enough for the Christian 
 life. Faith was to pervade the whole life in manifold direc- 
 tions, and display its energy. Hence, after these words, James 
 adds, " but patience should have a perfect work," (chap. i. 4.) 
 Luther understood this of time, — patience should prove itself 
 as perfect by its enduring to the end. But viewed in connexion 
 with what follows, and with the train of thought of the whole 
 Epistle, the words, we think, must rather be thus understood: 
 that faith, which has proved its capacity of endurance, must be 
 accompanied by all those works which are essential to faith, by 
 those perfect works in which faith must stamp its image. 
 James, referring to the unity of the whole Christian life, de- 
 scribes the entire Christian life and conversation, every Chris- 
 tian action, as one perfect work, which it must be, in order to 
 correspond with true faith. And thus what James immediately 
 subjoins, — in which, it is presupposed that the whole of the 
 true Christian walk of life is combined with enduring faith, 
 — may rightly be understood: " That ye may be perfect and 
 entire, wanting nothing." By perfection is here meant, not 
 absolute perfection, which is never to be found in the Christian 
 life on earth, but, as often in Holy Scripture, all that pertains 
 to maturity in Christianity, to what Paul calls the manhood of 
 the Christian; as by being " entire" is meant the exclusion of 
 everything which threatens to hinder Christian life. When he 
 desires that they may " want nothing," he understands by this 
 the totality of all these qualities, powers, and capabilities which 
 are produced, when Christianity has displayed its might as the 
 leaven for the whole nature of man. Hence, therefore, sub- 
 joined to this, is something which is designed to compose their 
 minds, if they were conscious of any defect in this respect. He 
 points out to them what on their side must be done in order to 
 the attainment of what was still wanting in them. Those 
 
86 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 general expressions, which he might have used in referring 
 to the defects of which they might be conscious, he applies, — 
 as instead of the employment of general notions, he prefers 
 bringing forward the special cases of life, — to that in which 
 this particular church must or should be conscious of short- 
 coming. True wisdom is pre-eminently requisite, in order 
 to give to the whole life its right relation to the king- 
 dom of God. Wisdom or prudence, for which, in the original 
 language of Scripture, this word is used, as only that prudence 
 which is grounded on wisdom, and subservient to it, the pru- 
 dence of Christian wisdom, is regarded as true prudence. This 
 has often a prominent place assigned to it, even by our Lord 
 Himself, as of main importance. Now, as we have already re- 
 marked, there prevailed in the Jewish spirit of this church, a 
 tendency to false wisdom, a false and undue estimate of mere 
 knowledge, the presumption of knowledge and wisdom. The 
 greater need, therefore, had they to be shown that true wisdom 
 is based on humility, that it is to be acquired, not in the schools 
 of the scribes, but can be received only from the source of eter- 
 nal light. James, therefore, proceeds to write: " If any of you 
 lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men simply, 
 and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him," (chap. i. 5.) 
 They are thus exhorted, in the consciousness of their shortcom- 
 ing, only to turn themselves to God in prayer. God is describ- 
 ed as He who gives simply, i. e., from the pure love of giving. 
 The simplicity of His giving is opposed to a liberality restricted, 
 measured out by partialities. He is described as He who up- 
 braids no one with His gifts, but desires only to give more and 
 more, where hearts are found prepared to receive them. They 
 are not, therefore, to apply to such teachers as keep back from 
 them some portion of the truth, who sparingly dole out to them 
 what they do communicate, and who parade before them what 
 they owe to them; but to the love of a heavenly Father, who 
 gives without measure, and desires only to give. 
 
 James, therefore, designates prayer as the pre-requisite, on the 
 side of believers, in order to their receiving the gifts which are 
 derived from that heavenly source. This is the necessary rela- 
 tion between the communication and the reception of the things 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 87 
 
 of God. The spirit of man can here be the recipient only, as 
 it is God who alone acts and gives. The bent of the soul, which 
 renders it capable of receiving what God is so ready to grant, 
 consists in prayer. The turning to God, in the feeling of our 
 own need, and under the consciousness that God alone can and 
 will satisfy it, the longing, the earnest desire of the soul, which 
 hungers and thirsts after wisdom, is prayer. To seek truth in 
 God, and to pray, are one and the same thing. The whole life of 
 the spirit, filled with this longing, is prayer, as Christ conjoins 
 seeking and knocking in order to find the hidden, and asking: 
 "Ask, and it shall be given thee; seek, and ye shall find; knock, 
 and it shall be opened to thee," (Matt. vii. 7.) But in writing 
 to a church, so much addicted to externalizing in religious 
 things, there was the more need of a caution against it in 
 prayer, which merits the name of prayer only, when it pro- 
 ceeds from the inmost depths of the spirit; lest it should be 
 imagined that prayer, through words, without the directing of 
 the soul to God, satisfied this requirement. And this caution is 
 conveyed in the following words : " But let him ask in faith, 
 nothing doubting," (chap. i. 6.) Confidence in God is here de- 
 scribed as that direction of the heart from which prayer must 
 proceed. Faith must realise God, as Him to whom prayer is 
 addressed; there must exist a confidence that He can and will 
 satisfy the wants which are expressed before Him in prayer, if 
 prayer is to be sincere, a prayer not merely of the lips, but of the 
 heart. And James immediately adds the ground, why prayer of 
 an opposite kind is not heard : " For he that doubteth is like a 
 wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed." It is, there- 
 fore, essential to prayer, that the direction of the spirit to God 
 be firm. Where doubt exists, this fundamental character 
 is wanting. When, from the one side, the soul feels itself drawn 
 to God, and confidence in Him begins to live, from the 
 other worldly tendencies assert their influence, which oppose 
 themselves to the germinating movements of faith and confi- 
 dence. The man who is thus driven to and fro between these 
 contrary tendencies, is, therefore, compared to the wave tossed 
 by the storm. James describes him as one who is divided in 
 himself, in whom there are, as it were, two souls, who is unstable 
 
88 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 in all his ways, uncertain, not to be depended on in all his 
 actions; and, according to this general character and constitu- 
 tion of his life, so are his prayers. It is implied, therefore, that 
 prayer must be accompanied by the constant direction of the 
 whole life to God; that everything must proceed from one pre- 
 dominant disposition. Here, then, the question may be pro- 
 posed to us, How is a man to attain to the faith which is requi- 
 site for prayer? Is he to abstain from prayer, because deficient 
 in this measure of faith? But, as in the above quoted words 
 of the Lord, the indispensable condition, on the side of man, 
 for receiving what God alone can communicate, is, that he 
 knock and seek, and ask from God, we must assuredly apply 
 this to faith, which is constantly regarded as the work of God 
 in man. He, therefore, who is conscious of his want of faith, and 
 who would have more faith, and become stronger in faith, must 
 seek from God that which is wanting to him. As in the Gospel 
 history, that unhappy father who was required to trust in faith 
 for the deliverance of his son, cried out, under the conscious v»'eak- 
 ness of his faith, "Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief:" 
 so here, the consciousness of that want, which is opposed to true 
 prayer, the want of faith should lead men to pray for power to 
 believe. He who is assailed by doubt, should turn his back on 
 it, and, averting his soul from the world, which threatens to en- 
 tangle his soul in doubt, should apply himself to God, and 
 give himself to prayer. Thus, through prayer, will faith in- 
 crease, and faith, thus strengthened, will then impart to prayer 
 a new elevation and new power. A reciprocal reaction will 
 thus take place. 
 
 We have seen how James began with an exhortation to con- 
 stancy under afflictions, and how one thing led to another. His 
 thoughts are now turned to the poor, of which class the greater 
 number of these Christians consisted, and who had to suffer much 
 from the oppression of the rich; and these he consoles, saying, 
 " Let the brother of low degree boast in that he is exalted," (chap. 
 i. 9.) The Christian, instead of being cast down by the consci- 
 ousness of his poverty, and low estate according to the relations 
 of this world, should rather feel himself exalted by the con- 
 scious possession of a greatness outshining all worldly glory, of 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 89 
 
 that Divine greatness which is grounded in the Divine life, — 
 the dignity of the children of God. He speaks of this as a 
 boasting, without needing to fear any danger from self-exalta- 
 tion, for such a dignity is here meant which man owes, not 
 to his own powers and endeavours, but such as he has re- 
 ceived, without any merit of his own, from God, and which 
 God alone could impart to him. This boasting, therefore, is 
 directly opposed to all high-mindedness, all self- exaltation, and 
 is inseparable from the essence of true humility. But as this 
 dignity is not awarded to the poor, as poor, so also the rich, as 
 rich, were by no means excluded from it, although, as we have 
 already explained, riches might prove to many a hinderance to 
 the attainment of this greatness. To the rich, also, the way is 
 pointed out by which they may raise themselves to this dignity: 
 "Let the rich man boast," says James, (chap. i. 10), "that 
 he is made low;" that is to say, while he humbles himself to- 
 gether with all that passes in the world for great and mighty, 
 he gains the consciousness of the true greatness which proceeds 
 only from the perception of the nothingness of all earthly glory. 
 By becoming conscious of the vanity of his earthly posses- 
 sions, he is prepared to appropriate to himself the true riches, 
 and true greatness. Self-abasement is the way to true eleva- 
 tion. So long as the rich man presumes on his earthly riches, 
 and thinks that their possession entails the possession of the 
 true riches, the feeling of the want of higher and heavenly bless- 
 ings, of the longing for true greatness, cannot spring up within 
 him, and the feeling of this want, the desire for this true dig- 
 nity, are the necessary conditions of their participation to every 
 man. Thus the poor and the rich, among Christian brethren, 
 must be united with each other by the consciousness of like 
 dignity. James, then, represents the nothingness of riches, by 
 images derived from the oriental view of nature. Just as when, 
 in the morning, the fresh grass exists in all the brilliancy of 
 its verdure, and suddenly withers away through the scorching 
 breath of the south wind, so the rich man fades away in his 
 ways. Because the rich man has his treasure only in earthly 
 things, and has identified himself with them, so that w4iich is 
 
90 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 said of the vanity of the possessions, which are all in all to him, 
 is transferred to himself 
 
 As the sufferings of the righteous, under their oppression, 
 are ever present to the mind of James, and as he has described 
 these as trials for the confirmation of their faith, he pro- 
 nounces a blessing on the righteous and enduring servant of 
 Godj because having thus proved himself, he would attain 
 the crown of everlasting life, which the Lord has promised to 
 those who love Him, (chap. i. 12.) But how are we to connect 
 this with the caution which James, immediately afterwards, 
 gives them against attributing their temptations to God? 
 Does not he himself regard God as ordaining outward suffer- 
 ings as trials for faith? We must, therefore, distinguish the 
 different notions of trial from each other. A distinction must 
 be made between outward and inward temptation. The diffi- 
 culties which occur to man from without, may serve to rouse 
 the powers of the higher life, which slumber within him, but 
 they may also make him conscious of his weakness; they may fur- 
 nish the gate of entrance to those elements within him, which are 
 opposed to the Divine life. That which otherwise might have 
 been made subservient to the testing of his faith as to Christian 
 virtue, becomes to him, through his own fault, a temptation to 
 unbelief and to sin. Thus outward trials become inward, and 
 dangerous, therefore, to man. When Christ enjoins us to pray 
 to God, "Lead us not into temptation," this can be referred 
 only to that which is inward temptation; for His disciples, 
 amid all tribulation of the world, which ministered only 
 to the testing of their faith, were to be more than conquerors. 
 But this should be the object of their prayers, that outward 
 temptation may not become inward. Thus James passes over 
 from the one notion of temptation to the other, in virtue of the 
 connexion subsisting between the two. But in the peculiar 
 condition of these churches, he must have found a special ground 
 for that warning. This is to be explained from the same spirit 
 of externalizing which we have described in what precedes. 
 This tendency shows itself, as well in the way in which good, as 
 in the way in which evil is viewed. At no period have there been 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 91 
 
 wanting grounds for the palliation of sin, which has been regarded 
 as something cleaving to man only from without, and which men 
 have sought to explain from external causes, instead of seeking 
 the inner ground of it in the depraved and sinful bent of the 
 will. Thus it appears that many here excused themselves by 
 pleading that they were subject to a higher power, which hur- 
 ried them on to sin. The Almighty, whom no one can resist, 
 precipitated them into these temptations. To this, then, James 
 replies (ver. 13); "let no one, when he is tempted, say that he is 
 tempted of God;" for as God cannot be tempted by evil, is exalted 
 above all evil, so no temptation to sin can proceed from Him, 
 the Ploly One can tempt no one to sin. He then, (ver. 13, 14), 
 shows, that within man himself the source of temptations is to 
 be sought, and describes the gradual process of the development 
 of the sinful tendency in its progress to consummation. He 
 exhibits, as the source of temptation, the desire inherent in each, 
 through which he is enticed and drawn away; desire, as it were, 
 lying in wait for him, but yet so that he is able to resist it. It 
 gains strength only from want of that resistance which should 
 have been offered to it, while he, who might have been in a con- 
 dition to withstand it, surrenders himself to it. Still gaining 
 strength, and bringing its fruit to maturity, it generates sin, 
 and sin, having issued in act, has death for its consequence. It 
 is clear, from the connexion of the thoughts in this passage, that 
 it is by no means implied, that desire is not in itself sinful, that 
 the inclination of the will continuing sinful, even where it finds 
 no occasion to manifest itself in act, does not entail the punish- 
 ment of death, — that everything depends on outward action. 
 He means to teach this, that evil, from the first breaking forth 
 of desire, unfolds itself gradually as it advances, until overcom- 
 ing all the counter-actions of the higher life, it becomes act. In 
 this consummation, a greater intensity of sin reveals itself; and 
 when man, at an early stage, by conquering the incitements to 
 sin, might have preserved and confirmed true life within him, 
 he now, through the victory which sin has gained over him, be- 
 comes subject to death. James, therefore, warns them against 
 such falsities and delusions, as of God being the author of evil. 
 While, therefore, he led them to seek the source of all tempt- 
 
92 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 ations in their own inner man only, ^vllile he warned them 
 against the opinion, as if temptations could come from God, 
 he opposes to such a delusion the thought, that, only that which 
 is good and perfect proceeds from God. As He is the Father of 
 all material light, so is He also the Father of all spiritual light. 
 Thus in Him there can be no alternation of light and dark- 
 ness; He is the unchangeable source of light, exalted far above 
 all darkness, and nothing, therefore, which leads to sin can be 
 derived from Him. Light and all good, darkness and all evil, 
 are always severally found together in Holy Scripture. 
 
 From this general thought, James again passes on to apply 
 to himself and his readers, how they owe it to God alone, that 
 the Divine light has arisen upon them, and through this, a new 
 life been imparted to them. Thus he goes on as follows, (ver. 
 18): "Of His own will begat He us, with the word of truth, 
 that we should be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures." Here, 
 in James also, as in Paul, we recognise antagonism to Jewish ex- 
 ternalizing. He presupposes in Christians a moral transforma- 
 tion from within — he regards the word of truth, the Divine 
 power of the Gospel, as the instrument through which this new 
 and higher life has been effected. He also describes this as a 
 result, independent of human merit, which all owe to Him, 
 from whom all good things proceed. He designates, also, 
 this moral transformation as a new creation, and those in 
 whom this creation had first been effected as its first-fruits, 
 since from them it shall unceasingly extend, until it attains its 
 consummation in a world glorified and pervaded throughout 
 by this Divine principle of life. But it is always the peculiar 
 characteristic of James to pass at once from the general to the 
 particular — a characteristic which is grounded partly in his 
 own spiritual individuality, and partly in what he perceived to 
 be the special practical wants of those to whom this Epistle was 
 addressed. He knew how ready they were to rest in general 
 notions^ without applying them to their own lives. It was al- 
 ways his desire to lead them to do this. Therefore, he at once 
 proceeds to argue how the Divine word, received into the heart, 
 must manifest itself as the generative principle of the new cre- 
 ation. And even this truth he does not view in its naked uni- 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 93 
 
 versality, but immediately passes on to that special application 
 of it, which is most opposed to the views prevalent in these 
 churches. We have already remarked how eager each was to 
 assume the office of teacher, how much disposed they were to 
 talk, and how little to act, how easily this led them on to pass 
 judgment on others, and brand them with heresy, and how all 
 their passions found herein their nourishment. Against this, 
 therefore, he warns them, saying, (ver. 19), *' Wherefore, 
 my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to 
 speak, slow to wrath." There is such a thing as self-willed 
 silence, and such a thing as self-wdlled loquacity. He who is 
 inclined to be indolent and passive, to be silent where he should 
 openly utterly his sentiments, should be exhorted not always to 
 maintain his silent humour, but to speak when he is called on 
 to speak. But because James had to deal with those in whom 
 the opposite fault predominated — with those who were wanting 
 in the calmness, patience, and humility, which listen before 
 speaking, he must have recourse to the opposite exhortation. 
 In order to warn them against the temptation to anger, which 
 may easily be given through such precipitate talking, he tells 
 them (ver. 20) that passionateness is least of all suited to ac- 
 complish the work of piety ; " For the wrath of man worketh 
 not the righteousness of God." From this particular, he again 
 returns to the general thought from which he started, at the 
 same time closely connecting both w^ith each other. As passion 
 allows not the word of God, which is the generative agent of the 
 new creation, to penetrate more and more into the inner man, but 
 rather expels it from that seat, he exhorts them to purify them- 
 selves from all wickedness, from all the deformities of the inner 
 life, which are fostered by passion, and in meekness, to suffer 
 the word ingrafted in their inner man, more and more to de- 
 velope its power within them. "Therefore," (chap. i. 21), be- 
 cause, namely, anger is opposed to the righteousness of God, and 
 nourishes everything evil within them, "lay apart all fiithiness 
 and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the 
 word ingrafted in you, which is able to save your souls." 
 James is addressing those in whom the foundation of their sal- 
 vation had been already laid ; but he presupposes also that they 
 
94 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 can only then partake of salvation when they continue building 
 on this foundation, and yield themselves more and more to the 
 word, which they have once received, in order to experience in 
 themselves its purifying and glorifying power. 
 
 Having ever before his eyes the faults to which his churches 
 are liable, he again and again returns to warn them against 
 the semblance of externalizing. He exhorts them not to be- 
 lieve that they have enough in the mere knowledge of the word, 
 and, in the exercise of the understanding with its contents. 
 He warns them against deluding themselves, as if, thereby, they 
 responded to what he had just said, as if by this they had received 
 the word into their life, and were already Christians. This 
 was the main thing, that they practised the word in their 
 lives. Herein must its power, working from within, and em- 
 bracing the whole life, display itself " Be ye doers," he says 
 to them, (chap. i. 22) " of the word, and not hearers only, 
 deceiving your own selves." He uses a comparison, to give 
 greater distinctness to his meaning. He compares him who 
 apprehends the word with the understanding only, without ap- 
 plying it to the life, to one who has seen his image in a glass, 
 and then, going from it, straightway forgets how he looked. So 
 one who has a mere superficial acquaintance with the word of 
 God, who has learned to know the true form of his life in rela- 
 tion to the requirements of the law of God, a light indeed has 
 arisen upon him, as to what he is and should be; but, turning 
 himself again from the word of God, and carried away by the 
 stream of life and its various passions, he forthwith forgets all, 
 like the man who has seen his image in a glass, and all has 
 been in vain for him. " For if any be a hearer of the word, 
 and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural 
 face in a glass, for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and 
 straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was," (chap. i. 
 23, 24.) 
 
 With him who thinks to have done enough with the mere 
 superficial contemplation of the word of God, and in whom 
 knowledge and action conflict with each other, James contrasts 
 the man who has looked into the depths of the Law of God, 
 and lives in the meditation of it. He here distinguishes the 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 95 
 
 law of the letter in its outwardness, from the law written 
 within by Christianity, the law of the spirit received into the 
 higher life. This he calls the perfect Law, in opposition to the 
 Mosaic law, viewed outwardly, which, as a law of the letter, 
 could bring nothing to perfection, and leaves everything as it 
 finds it. He calls it also the law of freedom, inasmuch as it 
 frees the man, whose inner life has been assimilated to it, in 
 opposition to the bondage of the letter. To this law, no one 
 can be related as a mere outward hearer. He who has appro- 
 priated, as the perfect law, the law of liberty, is constrained from 
 within to manifest it in his life. " But whoso looketh into the 
 perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a 
 forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be 
 blessed in his deed," (chap. i. 25.) 
 
 But how does this harmonise with Paul's statement, when he de- 
 clares, "do this, and thou shalt live," " he that doeth these things 
 shall live in them," to be the characteristic of the Law; and, on the 
 other hand, " the just shall live by his faith," to be the charac- 
 teristic of the Gospel? Here, it is true, there would be a con- 
 tradiction, if James were speaking of the Law in the same sense 
 as Paul, as if he meant, that, through the works of the Law, a 
 man could merit salvation. But James is far from doing this. 
 He is speaking of the Law as it is made to live within a man 
 through faith in Christ, of the Law, as it is unfolded by Christ 
 in the Sermon on the Mount, and which presupposes and in- 
 volves faith. In this respect, then, he says, and says rightly, 
 that, in the practice of this law, we must feel ourselves blessed, 
 and can only thus partake of the blessedness which Christ im- 
 parts to the faithful. His meaning is the same as that of Christ, 
 when, at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, He says, 
 " Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I 
 will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock." 
 Paul, also, would assuredly have agreed in this. It is in har- 
 mony with the Pauline mode of teaching, that he only can ex- 
 perience in himself the Divine power of faith and can be saved 
 through faith, who displays it in his life; for, in his mind, faith is 
 the principle which transforms the whole life from within, even 
 *' that faith which worketh by love," as when he says, " If I had 
 
96 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not 
 charity, it profiteth me nothing," (1 Cor. xiii. 2.) James then 
 again passes from the general to the particular, and applies 
 what he has said of practice in the life, to an individual case, 
 which he prominently brings forward, making his selection ac- 
 cording to the peculiar circumstances and faults of these 
 churches. In writing to another church, he would have chosen 
 other examples. " If any man among you seem to be religious, 
 and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this 
 man's religion is vain," (chap. i. 26.) James, who proceeds 
 upon the Christian principle, that the worship of God must em- 
 brace the whole life, calls, therefore, that, a fantastic, false and 
 vain worship of God, in which the moral defects, which before 
 preva:iled, still continue to exist; as in application to this 
 particular church, those excesses of passion, that want of go- 
 vernment of the tongue. Of those who still continued thus to 
 live, and yet presumed on their worship of God, James says 
 that they deceived themselves, and that their religion was vain. 
 As with such, he now proceeds to contrast the true worship of 
 God which manifests itself in the life, so also he again brings 
 forward those peculiar characteristics, in which such worship of 
 God reveals its agency, and which were selected with an eye to 
 the circumstances of these churches. To visit the fatherless and 
 the widow, to protect them against oppressions from the arro- 
 gance of the rich, this is the true, pure service of God. " Pure 
 religion, and undefiled, before God and the Father, is to visit 
 the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep 
 himself unspotted from the world," (chap. i. 27.) He does 
 not mean that outward, often fixlsely-understood opposition to 
 the world, which would hinder Christians from furnishing, in 
 their own persons, the true salt and true leaven to the world, 
 and which would render that active mingling with the world 
 impossible, which James, in this epistle, everywhere requires. 
 He means the keeping ourselves inwardly unspotted from the 
 world, so that, whilst outwardly engaged in its concerns, we 
 yet guard against all defilement from its impure elements, and 
 remain exalted above the world, pure from it in all our dealings 
 with it. There are, therefore, two requirements essential to the 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 97 
 
 true service of God, and which are always found together, — 
 conflict with the evil that is in the world, the active exer- 
 cise of love, and, at the same time, the being inwardly un- 
 spotted from ail the ungodliness which prevails in the world. 
 The former can only prosper in connection with the latter. 
 
 We have already spoken of the contrasts presented between 
 the greater number of the poor, and the much smaller of the 
 rich in these churches. The differences and inequalities which 
 are grounded in natural relations and arrangements were not to 
 be abolished, but rendered less perceptible by Christianity; 
 these were intended to be reconciled by the common bond of 
 love, and to furnish an occasion for the exercise of the Chris- 
 tian spirit of love. If the first Christian enthusiasm, although 
 upon this nothing is to be decided with certainty, called forth 
 for a passing moment an actual community of possessions, this 
 must be regarded as natural only to this early standing-point, 
 when the feeling of the communion of the Divine life power- 
 fully expressed itself, to the entire absorption of all peculiar 
 differences. But such a state of things could not continue. 
 After the first enthusiasm of felt communion in that higher 
 Divine life which had appeared in humanity had its sway, and 
 supplanted every other feeling, the inequality which is grounded 
 in nature must again come forth, and the distinctive qualities 
 of individuals be recognised. The disposition only should en- 
 dure, which made all of one heart and one soul, and which 
 rendered the property of each the common property of all, by a 
 love which provided for the wants of all. But herein consisted 
 the fault of these churches. The differences of rank and pro- 
 perty receded not before the consciousness of the common higher 
 Christian dignity, but the latter must rather yield to the for- 
 mer. Against such an unchristian aristocratic feeling, therefore, 
 he says, " My brethren, I would ye did not combine the faith in 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect to persons," 
 (chap. ii. 1.) Here is designated the contradiction, in which such 
 a tendency, which estimates believers according to those earthly 
 privileges, stands with faith in Jesus as the Lord of glory. To the 
 man who recognises Him as such, the one dignity of belonging 
 to Him must be so great, that all the earthly priveleges of per- 
 
 p 
 
98 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 sons must appear as utterly vain in comparison. His glory, to 
 participation in which all believers are called, far outshines all 
 the glory of the world. He then carries that reproach more into 
 detail: " for, if there come unto your assembly a man with a 
 gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor 
 man in vile raiment ; and ye have respect to him that weareth 
 the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good 
 place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under 
 my footstool : are ye not at issue with yourselves — and are ye 
 not become judges according to evil thoughts?" (chap. ii. 2-4.) 
 The Greek word which we have here translated " to be at issue 
 with yourselves," denotes a state where hesitations, doubts, mu- 
 tually conflicting thoughts spring up in the soul, as in the case 
 where the simplicity of faith is corrupted, where heterogeneous 
 considerations and worldly thoughts arise, and oppose them- 
 selves to the one thing which should be paramount to Christians. 
 Thus are meant here, those extraneous worldly considera- 
 tions opposed to the Christian point of view, — which judges that 
 all who stand in the Christian communion should be honoured 
 as partaking the same dignity, — according to which, one receives 
 an unfounded pre-eminence, while from the other, the respect 
 due to him as a member of this community is withheld. These 
 are evil thoughts. He then shows further, from the history of 
 the propagation of Christianity at this period, from living ex- 
 amples, how much opposed to the Christian standing-point was 
 such a rule of judgment. He appeals to the fact, how to the 
 poor of this world, the highest dignity of the Christian calling 
 had pre-eminently been imparted — how they were called to the 
 greatest riches in faith, and made heirs of the kingdom of 
 Heaven ; and these poor, whom God, through the calling of the 
 Gospel, had placed so high, they were guilty of despising. 
 " Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor 
 of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He 
 hath promised to them that love Him? But ye have despised 
 the poor," (chap. ii. 5, 6.) We must here remark, that when 
 James designated the kingdom of God as one promised to those 
 who love Him, this love of God, in his mind, is without doubt 
 to be understood as connected with faith. It is Christian love 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 99 
 
 "which is meant, and which presupposes the Eevelation of the re- 
 demptive love of God in Christ, and the consciousness of this 
 love, received through the Holy Spirit. With those poor, 
 among whom especially this calling had found acceptance, 
 he contrasts the rich who oppressed Christians, who dragged 
 them to judgment, if not on account of their faith, yet through 
 extortions practised upon them, and who blasphemed that holy 
 name by which Christians are called, "Do not rich men oppress 
 you, and draw you before the judgment-seats? Do they not blas- 
 pheme that worthy name by which ye are called?" (chap. ii. 6, 7.) 
 Those rich, we think, are here meant, who were the opponents 
 of Christianity. James appeals to experience, that, while the 
 poor were more open to receive the Gospel, the arrogant rich 
 showed themselves the enemies of Christ and Christianity. It 
 is possible, indeed, though not so appropriate to the antithesis, 
 that the rich, who called themselves Christians, were meant, 
 and by blaspheming the name of Christ, the injury done to 
 this name by their walk of life. 
 
 He objects against them, how much such a mode of acting con- 
 tradicts the essential fundamental character of the Divine law 
 of love. With him, also, love is the fulfilling of the law : " If ye 
 fulfil the royal law, according to the Scripture, Thou shalt love 
 thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well : but if ye have respect to 
 persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgres- 
 sors," (chap. ii. 8, 9.) But he had to do with those who, addicted 
 to externalizing from every quarter, made a quantative distinc- 
 tion estimated according to an outward measure, even among the 
 transgressions of the Law, which their minds were incapable of 
 grasping in all its majesty and severity, and who could bring 
 themselves to believe, they could satisfy the requirements of the 
 Law by such a measure. To them such a mastery of the selfish 
 element, as displayed itself in the preference shown to the rich, 
 and in the contempt of the poor, appeared no very heavy sin. 
 He must, therefore, direct their attention to this, that the Law, 
 as the entire exposition of the Divine will, of Divine holiness, de- 
 manded unconditional obedience; that through such only can we 
 be justified, and that in every single transgression the whole law 
 is transgressed : "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet 
 
100 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 oiFend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not 
 commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now, if thou commit 
 no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of 
 the Law," (chap. ii. 10, 11.) We must, therefore, in the sense 
 of James, apply to the particular case in question this principle 
 thus: Whosoever suffers himself to be determined, if only in this 
 one mode of acting, by the selfish principle, which is contrary to 
 the Law of love, he has thereby transgressed the whole Law. He 
 has violated it, in reference to its import, the exhibition of the 
 Divine will, in which every moment is of equal consequence, 
 and in reference to the principle of the feeling, where selfish- 
 ness is opposed to love. Are we, therefore, to assume that 
 James supposed that, in judging of those who sin, and of the 
 sinful actions committed, no difference of degree can exist"? 
 By no means; but obedience to the Law and its requirements 
 may be regarded from two points of view, — it may be regarded on 
 its ideal side, and it may be regarded in its manifestation, and 
 between these a distinction must be made. Where the question 
 is of the whole severity of the principle of obedience in all its 
 requirements, and where of the different relation of the men's 
 actions to this principle, although all must acknowledge them- 
 selves guilty before the Law, yet in so far a difference of degree 
 may exist, according to the greater or less measure, in which 
 the higher nature of man asserts its freedom and power, or the 
 corrupting element of self-love more shows its predominance. 
 James, certainly, could not mean that any one, even among 
 Christians, perfectly responded to the demand of the Law. 
 The higher his conceptions of the dignity of the Law, the 
 more he combated the customary measure of externalizing and 
 isolating, the less could he entertain such a view. And his 
 expressions, immediately following, testify directly against 
 it. He presupposes, that however different the actions of men 
 may be, all must still appear guilty before the Law. But as 
 Christ teaches us to pray, " forgive us our trespasses, as we for- 
 give them that trespass against us," so he exhorts, that, conscious 
 of the sin still cleaving to us, we should make ourselves worthy 
 of the mercy of God, by a display, on our parts, of gentleness 
 and compassionateness. Christians should speak and act under 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 101 
 
 the conviction, that they themselves need Divine mercy. Thus 
 should gentleness in speaking and acting be the involuntary 
 expression, that they are animated with this consciousness. 
 Thus shall mercy triumph over the severity of justice. Erom 
 this side, therefore, he calls the Law, by which Christians are 
 judged, a law of liberty, because they no longer stand under 
 the yoke of a law which makes salvation dependent on uncon- 
 ditional obedience, which no one can render, but are referred 
 to a law which, in the consciousness of the forgiveness of sin 
 received, and in confidence in the mercy of God, is more and 
 more fulfilled in the free obedience, not of fear, but of love. 
 '' So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the 
 law of liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy 
 that hath showed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judg- 
 ment," (chap. ii. 12, 13.) 
 
 As James, on all occasions, separates appearance and reality 
 from each other, and combats those tendencies which put forth 
 the semblance for the substance; as he argues against a professed 
 knowledge of the Law, which has no correspondence in the life, 
 and against all pretended worship of God, not evincing itself in 
 works of love; so, from the same point of view, and from the 
 same connexion of ideas, he argues against faith which does not 
 show itself in corresponding good works : " What doth it profit, 
 my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not 
 works'? can faith save him?" (chap. ii. 14.) James, be it remarked, 
 does not say, if a man hath faith, but, if he "say he hath faith." 
 He is speaking of a pretence of faith, not of sincere faith; and 
 of such a faith which manifests its insincerity by a want of good 
 works, he declares that, through such, salvation cannot be at- 
 tained. Paul also regards good works as the necessary fruits 
 of true faith. A pretended faith destitute of these, he would 
 not have considered a justifying faith, would not have applied 
 even the name of faith to it. The meaning of James be- 
 comes more clear by the example he adduces, when he compares 
 that faith which is destitute of ^vorks, to a feigned love, 
 expressing itself merely in words, and not in deeds, as he 
 says, " If a brother or a sister be naked, and destitute of daily 
 food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye 
 
102 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those 
 things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit? 
 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone," (chap. 
 ii. 15-17.) If, then, James calls the faith which is without 
 works, a dead faith, it could not surely be his view, that works, 
 which are but the outward manifestation, made faith to be liv- 
 inof, that in these the life of faith subsists: but he must have 
 presupposed, that true faith has the principle of life within 
 itself, from which works must proceed, and which manifests 
 itself in works. The want of works was, to him, therefore, a 
 proof of the absence of life in the faith, which, accordingly, he 
 calls a dead faith. He then introduces another, who argues from 
 his own point of view with one, who pretends to have faith 
 without works, in order to prove to him, how the one cannot 
 subsist without the other : " Yea, a man may say, Thou hast 
 faith and 1 have works; show me thy faith without thy works, and 
 I will show thee my faith by my works," (chap. ii. 18.) James, 
 therefore, says, — for he only makes another say what he himself 
 would have said, — to him who boasts of his faith, although he 
 is without works, that he should endeavour to prove how faith 
 could subsist without works. To him, to James, it would be 
 enough to prove from his works the faith which animated them, 
 and in the power of which he had performed them. As a proof 
 that such a faith without works is utterly meaningless, he al- 
 leges the faith of devils. Faith in God, in the true sense, can 
 only exist where He is consciously acknowledged as the Highest 
 Good, and where the whole life is referred to Him — the faith 
 which involves a communion of life with God, and is something 
 not merely intellectual, but also practical. But the conscious- 
 ness of dependence on an Almighty Highest Being forces itself on 
 lost spirits against their will; from this dependence they would 
 willingly sever themselves, but they cannot. It is a conscious- 
 ness in which they are merely passive, in which their own free 
 acquiescence, and the spontaneous surrender of the spirit, have 
 no part. It is a faith, not of the heart, but of the mere intellect, 
 where God exhibits himself only in antagonism with the spirit, 
 which separates itself from him, where God the Almighty is view- 
 ed only as the object of fear to the spirit alienated from Him, 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 103 
 
 and which, earnestly desires not to be constrained to acknow- 
 ledge Him. '•' Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest 
 well: the devils also believe, and tremble," (chap. ii. 19.) Be- 
 cause by the Jews, Abraham was put forth as the representative of 
 faith in the one God in the midst of generations tending to Idola- 
 try, and because the great significance belonging to Abraham 
 was placed by them in his circumcision, James then proceeds 
 to show that this faith meant something very different from 
 the inoperative faith of the understanding in the one God, 
 and that it manifested itself in the devotion of his whole 
 life to God, and that Abraham evinced the sincerity of his 
 faith in the work of self-denial, when in love to God and 
 trust in Him, he showed his readiness, in the most confiding 
 submission to His will, to deny all the feelings of nature, by the 
 sacrifice of all that was dearest to him to God. He who would 
 follow Abraham in faith, and through his faith would become 
 righteous before God, must also prove his faith in such works of 
 self-denial. " But wilt thou know, vain man, that faith with- 
 out works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by 
 works, when he had offered Isaac his son on the altar?" (chap, 
 ii. 20, 21.) Thus might he say, that faith and works must 
 have here co-operated. But how co-operated? To the justifica- 
 tion of man before God, so that Abraham only after the perfor- 
 mance of such works could appear righteous before God? Had 
 James meant this, then he must have assumed, that God knows 
 man only as he appears outwardly, and consequently he could 
 not have recognised the omniscience of God, who sees the inward 
 parts, and who knows man's heart before its issues are manifest- 
 ed. As it is certain he did this, so then also must he have been 
 persuaded that to the eye of God the faith which afterwards 
 proved itself in works of self-denial, already appeared as sincere, 
 as justifying faith. But arguing from the point of view of hu- 
 man consciousness, and having regard only to the outward aspect 
 of the thing, he so expressed himself, that faith and works must 
 co-operate towards justification. Thus, also, when he says, that 
 faith is made perfect in works, he could not mean, that works, 
 which are but the outward manifestations, are the perfecting of 
 faith, but only, that faith exhibits itself as sincere, as perfect 
 
104 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAME«. 
 
 in these works — tlie evidence of faith in action. " Seest thou 
 how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made 
 perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith, xibraham 
 believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness, and 
 he was called the Friend of God," (chap. ii. 22, 23.) And' in 
 the same sense he then says, " See, then, how that by works a 
 man is justified, and not by faith only," (chap. ii. 24.) With 
 the example of Abraham he associates also that of Eahab. Here, 
 too, in opposition to the false Jewish point of view, which 
 would have justified this Heathen only through an inoperative 
 faith in the one God, he insists, that this faith must evince itself 
 by works proceeding from a heart which despised all worldly 
 considerations for the glory of God. " Likewise, also, was not 
 Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the 
 messengers, and had sent them out another way 1" (chap. ii. 25.) 
 And he concludes the whole development of his argument with 
 these words, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith 
 without works is dead also," (chap. ii. 26.) In this comparison, 
 the faith which is without works answers, as we see, to the dead 
 body uninformed with the spirit; only the point of comparison 
 is not sharply enough defined. It cannot be so understood as 
 if the works correspond with the spirit j for the spirit is the in- 
 ward animating principle; but works are only the outward mani- 
 festation, that which is generated from the soul within. Works 
 would rather answer to the agency of the body animated by the 
 spirit. The meaning, therefore, is this: the want of works is a 
 proof that the faith is a dead faith, destitute of the animating 
 principle, and to be compared, therefore, with, a dead body. 
 
 James next passes on to a topic apparently very different 
 from the preceding, but yet, when more exactly considered, 
 closely connected with it; for the same tendency, which pre- 
 sumes on mere knowledge and discussion of the Law, or an 
 ostentatiously paraded faith, which has no correspondence in 
 the actions, leads men also lightly to assume the office of teach- 
 ing others, and to speak much in the congregation, without an 
 inward call to this. Against this fault James warns them, (chap, 
 iii. 1), " My brethren, be not many masters." He grounds his 
 warning on the greater amount of responsibility they incurred 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 105 
 
 who assumed to lead others: "Knowing that we shall receive 
 the greater damnation." The reason, why in those churches, 
 teaching was made so light of, was to be found in the want of 
 self-examination and self-knowledge, with which all the vices 
 rebuked bj James were connected. From the superficial moral 
 judgment which followed only the outward appearance, they 
 had no knowledge how to regard, as they ought, the weight 
 and importance due to words. They did not consider that 
 speaking also is an action to be judged of according to a moral 
 standard, and that sin can be committed as much by the im- 
 moral use of language, as by any other action. To this danger 
 James directs their attention; he shows how hard it is to observe 
 the true measure, and exercise true self-command in speaking, 
 and that ruin may proceed from a single word, and by these 
 considerations he would stir them up to be more conscientious in 
 their desire to stand up to speak. He who well weighed the 
 responsibility and the danger, would not be able so easily 
 to decide to speak. Thus he says, (chap. iii. 2), " For in many 
 things we oiFend all. If any man oifend not in word, the 
 same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole 
 body;" i. e., he who always exercises self-command in the 
 use of words, will be capable also of exercising self-command 
 in other directions. He then illustrates, by many examples 
 drawn from life, what power this apparently insignificant 
 member can exercise, and how much depends on the govern- 
 ment of the tongue, (chap iii. 3-6), " Behold we put bits in 
 the horses' mouths, that they may obey us, and we turn 
 about their whole body; behold how the ships, which, though 
 they be so great, and are drawn of fierce winds, yet are they 
 turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the gover- 
 nor listeth; even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth 
 great things. Behold, how great a forest a little fire kindleth; 
 and the tongue is a fire;" i. e., as a spark can set a whole forest 
 in flames, so a word uttered by the tongue may cause much 
 mischief. " As a world of unrighteousness, the tongue is among 
 our members, defiling the whole body, and setting on fire the 
 whole course of nature, and is itself set on fire of hell." He 
 means to denote by this, that as the fire of hellish passion in- 
 
106 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 flames the tongue; so also from the tongue, this fire spreads 
 itself over the entire life. James then proceeds to show how vain 
 is man's mastery over the world, when he who aspires to domin- 
 ion over it, is himself enslaved to the world by his passions. 
 How ignominious, when man who seeks to govern the whole 
 animal creation, is unable to bridle his own tongue ! " For 
 every kind of beasts and of birds, and of serpents, and of things 
 in the sea, is tamed and hath been tamed of mankind ; but the 
 tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly 
 poison," (chap. iii. 7, 8.) From all sides James assails the spirit 
 of hypocrisy in religion, and ' therefore the affectation of piety 
 in our language, when the expression of the praise of God is 
 found associated with a hateful cursing of men in whom we 
 should reverence the image of God. He brings this inner con- 
 tradiction to light, and sees in it nothing but inveracity, when 
 he says, " Therewith bless we God, even the Father, and there- 
 with curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. 
 Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My 
 brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send 
 forth, at the same place, sweet water and bitter? Can a fig- 
 tree, my brethren, bear olive-berries? either a vine, figsl So 
 can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh," (chap. iii. 
 9-12.) Thus James points to the fundamental thought which 
 formed the basis of his whole Epistle ; that everything, namely, 
 depended on the feeling which gave the direction to the whole 
 life; the recognition of which principle was the furthest removed 
 from the tendencies which he combats from all quarters. 
 
 Having controverted the false faith which is unaccompanied 
 by works, James proceeds, also, to impugn that knowledge and 
 wisdom in Divine things, which is not manifested in the life by 
 corresponding actions. He requires of all religious knowledge, 
 that as, issuing from the life of God in the soul, it should 
 evince itself in a mode of life determined by it. " Who is a 
 wise man, and endowed with knowledge among you by it? Let 
 him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness 
 of wisdom," (chap. iii. 13.) As meekness was the virtue 
 most opposed to the faults of the churches to whom this Epistle 
 was addressed, so he insists on it; thus rebuking the passionate 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 107 
 
 conduct of those who sought to assert their claims to know- 
 ledge, as the characteristic of true wisdom and of true know- 
 ledge. "But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your 
 hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth," (chap. iii. 14.) 
 It is the inward disposition of the heart, which, according to 
 him, betokens true knowledge and true wisdom, which comes 
 down only from Heaven, issues only from the Divine life, and 
 must display its Divine character in the life. The contrary 
 wisdom is derived from a sensual, not from a Divine principle. 
 All evil, everything opposed to the Spirit of God and the 
 Divine life, is frequently described in Scripture by the flesh. 
 When taken in this general sense, this epithet is appropriated, 
 even to the spiritual element in man, to the reason, the soul, in 
 so far as they are not rendered subservient to the Spirit of 
 God, but seek to assert themselves as self- subsisting powers, 
 independent of God, and therefore in antagonism to God; all 
 this is involved in the notion of the flesh, in that Biblical sense. 
 It is not exclusively referred to what we call flesh, the sensuous 
 faculty of perception in the more restricted meaning of the 
 term. From the flesh, understood in this sense, is differenced, 
 according to the language of the Bible, that which is desig- 
 nated as the sensual, the spiritual, in so far as it is not 
 devoted to God, but to the world. Beason, however developed, 
 still remains in the sphere of the sensual. Of this James is 
 here speaking. And this to him is the same as that which 
 works in the spirits fallen from God. " This wisdom descend- 
 eth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For 
 where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil 
 work," (chap. iii. 15, 16.) He then particularises and de- 
 scribes, though still with special regard to the arrogant 
 assumption of wisdom common to those churches, yet in a 
 manner, which has important practical lessons for all times, 
 those qualities which should ever accompany true wisdom. 
 " But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then 
 peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and 
 good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy," (chap. 
 iii. 17.) The first characteristic of the wisdom which cometh 
 down from above, which he mentions, is purity, i. e., the being 
 
108 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 pure from every worldly stain; then the love of peace,— the 
 truly wise man, therefore, does not obstinately adhere to his 
 own opinion, nor excite controversy with others upon it; next, that 
 it be gentle, easy to be entreated, i. e., that it be ready to hear 
 others also, to be itself instructed, to acknowledge its own error, 
 and acquiesce in the better. All this testifies of victory gained 
 over self-love. Further, he ascribes to the wisdom which de- 
 scends from above, that it is full of mercy and good fruits, i. c, 
 therefore, that knowledge is inseparable from action. We have 
 epoken above of what James understood by that state of mind, 
 in which we are at issue with ourselves. This, also, he excludes 
 from genuine wisdom. He requires inner unity of soul, as- 
 sured conviction, so that the soul be not driven to and fro, by 
 extraneous considerations, and by conflicting doubts. James's 
 meaning is hardly to be described in one word. The notion of 
 impartiality and simplicity is most in accordance with it. 
 Lastly, wisdom should be without hypocrisy. 
 
 Antagonism to the controversial spirit peculiar to this arro- 
 gant assumption of wisdom, being the predominant feature in 
 the teaching of James, he now insists especially on this, — that 
 everything Christian prospers only in peace and harmony: 
 " And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that 
 make peace," (chap. iii. 16.) The fruit of righteousness is a 
 notion, to be understood differently in the sense of the Bible. 
 By this may be denoted the blessing, which righteousness 
 brings with it, — the fruit for eternal life. But by the same 
 expression may be denoted, also, the fruits of righteousness in 
 the works, which these fruits produce; and although the ex- 
 pression is true in both cases, the latter is the meaning of 
 James; and he means to say, that which proceeds from right- 
 eousness, everything truly good in our actions which we sow, 
 can prosper only where there is peace, and among those whose 
 actions aim at peace, — where nothing but strife exists, nothing 
 truly Christian can flourish. 
 
 This, then, leads him to speak generally of the causes of the 
 many controversies in the churches. The ground of these he 
 finds in unsatiable desires, which allow none to be content. 
 "From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 109 
 
 they not hence, even from your lusts which war in your mem- 
 bers?" (chap. iv. 1.) James, here, like Paul, presupposes an 
 inner conflict in man, — the conflict between the flesh and the 
 spirit. As Paul calls the power of sin, " the law in the mem- 
 bers," inasmuch as the body exhibits man, as he is out- 
 wardly, and, in so far as in it the dominion of sinful desires is 
 displayed, so James speaks of the lusts that war in their 
 members. The movements of the higher spiritual nature, 
 which are found even in the unregenerate man, are the only 
 means of opposition, from his point of view, to the might of 
 these sinful desires ; but these are too feeble to secure a victory 
 over that opposing power. In the seventh chapter of the 
 Epistle to the Ptomans, Paul describes this conflict as leading to 
 no decisive result, and leaving man in irreconcilable discord. 
 But it is otherwise with the Christian, with the regenerate 
 man; yet even in him there still subsists the same antagon- 
 ism, only with this difference, that the higher spiritual nature 
 of man has been strengthened by a Divine life communi- 
 cated to it, through which it is empowered to overcome the 
 opposition of those sinful desires. But conflict is the con- 
 dition of victory, and failing this condition, the ungodly ele- 
 ment gains strength more and more, until it may at last suc- 
 ceed in altogether quenching that higher life. To this conflict 
 James exhorts them, and warns them against the danger which 
 threatens wherever this is neglected, as was the case with many 
 .in these churches. Many were here to be found, as is evident 
 from the rebukes of James, who, although calling themselves 
 Christians, were still far from the character of regeneration, 
 and in whom, the relation between these two contrary tenden- 
 cies in no respect differed from that which is found in those 
 who belong altogether to the world. To them, therefore, he 
 says, " Ye lust," namely, after earthly goods, which ye would 
 use in the service of your lusts, " and have not; ye kill, and de- 
 sire to have, and cannot obtain," (chap. iv. 2.) Luther has 
 translated this by " ye hate," and, according to the sense, not 
 without ground ; for James can hardly nfean to speak of the 
 prevalence of murder, literally understood. But he, doubtless, 
 designedly chooses the most forcible expression, in order, with 
 
110 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 the greatest possible severity to designate this sin, which ever 
 remains the same, in all forms of its manifestation. There- 
 fore, he puts murder, which is the acme of the expression of 
 hatred and envy. For the desire to remove their object out 
 of the way, is involved in the notion of hatred and envy. The 
 desire that such a one might not exist, lies at the bottom of 
 such feelings. The mode of self-love, which here finds its 
 expression, sees in the existence of another the barrier from 
 which it would be freed. Although, therefore, this has not 
 issued in act, and the power of higher feelings has been exer- 
 cised to avert such a consummation, yet this lies at the bottom 
 of such a disposition, and the Divine word discovers in the 
 hidden germs of the heart, that which, when consummated, 
 becomes the object of general abhorrence. Christ, therefore, in 
 the Sermon on the Mount, teaches, in opposition to the mere 
 outward view of the Mosaic Law, " that whosoever is angry 
 with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the 
 judgment," i. e., of condemnation, (Matt. v. 22.) And the 
 apostle John says, (1 John iii. 15), " Whosoever hateth his 
 brother is a murderer." 
 
 As already in the beginning of his Epistle, so again James 
 here refers them to the Source of all good, from which alone 
 they could obtain the satisfaction of all their needs. The 
 ground why all their endeavours ever failed of their end, and 
 involved them in more strife through the clashing of their 
 selfish interests, he finds in this, that they would create for 
 themselves what should be sought only from God, in lowly 
 submission to His will. He directs their attention to the 
 want of prayer, which can alone procure a blessing on their 
 labour, as the ground of all their vain endeavours and their 
 disputings. In these churches, then, there were not want- 
 ing those who, together with every outward performance in 
 religion, combined a certain kind of prayer, which, however, 
 he describes as incapable of producing fruits, not being the 
 true prayer of the heart, and not proceeding from the right 
 direction of the soul to God, — a prayer of earthly desire only, 
 which would make God the minister of its wants; for they 
 sought from God merely that which they might use in the 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. HI 
 
 service of their earthly lusts. " Ye fight and war, yet ye have 
 not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye 
 ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your own lusts," 
 (chap. iv. 2, 3.) He ever comes back to the one fundamental 
 evil in them, the co-existence of many external religious ex- 
 ercises, with a direction of feeling altogether allied to the world. 
 As in the Old Testament, the union of the people with God 
 is exhibited under the image of a marriage, and falling away 
 from God, under the image of adultery ; so, therefore, James 
 addresses them, in so far as they claimed to be worshippers of 
 God, and yet served only the world, as adulterers. He directs 
 their attention to this, — that God demands the whole heart of 
 man, that it must not be divided between God and the world, 
 that either the love of God or the love of the world must be 
 the animating principle, and that a devotion to the world, as 
 the end of their endeavours, the love of the world, which 
 seeks its highest good in it, cannot subsist without a direc- 
 tion of the soul at enmity with God. As the Lord Himself 
 says, " Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." *' Ye adulterers 
 and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world 
 is enmity with God 1 whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of 
 the world, is the enemy of God," (chap. iv. 4.) James reminds 
 them, in general terms, of the declarations of Holy Scripture, 
 which everywhere testifies of the incompatibility of these two 
 directions. " Do ye think," he says to them, " that the Scrip- 
 ture speaketh in vain? The spirit which dwelleth in you 
 is a jealous spirit," (chap. iv. 5.) This spirit, he means to 
 say, cannot tolerate any other spirit beside it; where it predo- 
 minates, the love of the world is necessarily excluded. " But," 
 he immediately adds, by way of consolation after this warning, 
 *' He giveth more grace," (chap. iv. 6), than that already 
 imparted, larger and yet larger measures of grace, where only 
 the one fundamental condition is fulfilled, — the entire devotion 
 of the heart, the humbly receiving mind. Thus he adduces the 
 passage from the Proverbs, " God resisteth the proud, but giveth 
 grace unto the humble." Although those to whom this epistle 
 was addressed, were far from the arrogance of unbelief, they were 
 yet wanting in humility, in the ever-present consciousness of de- 
 
112 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 pendence on God, and of being nothing, and being able to do no- 
 thing without God. This defect showed itself in the too great 
 confidence reposed in earthly possessions and on human means. 
 The absence of humility ever lies at the bottom of the prevailing 
 love of the world. James, therefore, inculcates upon them, 
 that God withdraws His gifts and aid from the proud, because 
 they are without the necessary condition, which the creaturely 
 spirit must have in order to receive every communication 
 from God the Creator; but where humility is found, there 
 is the heart fitted to receive all the gifts of God's grace. To 
 those who palliated their sins by pleading the irresistible 
 temptations of Satan, or the Avant of God's Divine grace, he 
 says, it was their own fault, if they believed they were neces- 
 sitated to yield to the assaults of the devil, or that the grace of 
 God was withheld from them. Everything depended on the 
 direction of their own will; they had only to humble them- 
 selves before God, to turn themselves to Him in the feeling of 
 their needs, to resist the Evil one, who has power only over 
 those who surrender themselves to him, and God would impart 
 Himself to them, and the power of sin would be forced to yield 
 before them. " Submit yourselves, therefore, to God : resist the 
 devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and 
 he will draw nigh to you," (chap. iv. 7, 8.) The inward feeling 
 and the outward manifestation, James views together as one. 
 Purity of the heart, in its detachment from every worldly im- 
 purity, must reveal itself in the purity of the outward life. 
 Instead of this order, James, who always prefers to particularise 
 and express his meaning in sensuous images, puts the keeping 
 the hand clean from everything sinful which it might serve 
 as the instrument of sin, and from the purity exhibited in the 
 outward demeanour, would have us infer the inward purity 
 of heart. '' Cleanse your hands, ye sinners ; and purify your 
 hearts, ye double-minded," ye that are divided between God 
 and the world, (chap. iv. 8.) The Greek expression he uses, 
 denotes the notion of a man, who has, as it were, two souls 
 within him, who is destitute of the true unity of the inner 
 life, which can proceed alone from the all-determinating 
 direction of the soul to God ; of a man drawn to and fro, be- 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 113 
 
 tween a leaning to God and a leaning to the world. Such a 
 state of feeling stands in direct opposition to the sanctification 
 of the heart, which James requires; for true sanctification is 
 ever grounded in this, — that but one soul dwell in man, that 
 love to God be the one animating principle. It is incumbent 
 on him, therefore, to charge those, who were absorbed in worldly 
 pleasures, that they must become conscious of the vanity of 
 these pleasures, and of their miserable condition. He must 
 seek to evoke in them godly sorrow, the pains of repentance, 
 as the ground of true joy, — that joy in God, which is found in 
 those who, having died to the world, have entirely devoted 
 themselves to Him; as Christ, in the Sermon on the Mount, of 
 which we find so many traces in this epistle, teaches, " Blessed 
 are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted." "Be afflicted, 
 and mourn, and weep : let your laughter be turned into mourn- 
 ing, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the 
 sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up," (chap. iv. 9, 10.) 
 James, therefore, comprises everything in self-humiliation be- 
 fore God, as the condition of all true exaltation derived from 
 God, in accordance with the declaration of Christ, " He that 
 exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself 
 shall be exalted." In this passage, James describes an action 
 of the spirit, a process which cannot be the object of outward 
 perception, though indeed this inward action must reveal itself 
 in the conformation of the whole life. He speaks, therefore, of 
 humiliation before God, as of something which can take place 
 only between God and man. Such a relation is here denoted, 
 in which man can place himself to God alone, and not to any 
 creature. He who is conscious of such a relation to God, who 
 has this for the key-note of his soul, will, from this very con- 
 sciousness, be far from placing himself in any similar relation 
 to man. Because his whole life is thus rooted in the consci- 
 ousness of dependence on God, he will thereby be preserved 
 from all slavery to man. 
 
 The want of humility displayed itself in the propensity to pass 
 judgment upon others, in two ways. He who judges another 
 is far from self-humiliation before the Holy Law, from compar- 
 ing his life with this standard, and acknowledging, how great is 
 
114 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 the gulf between his own life and the requirements of the Law. 
 Therefore, James says, that such a one makes himself a judge 
 above the Law, — a lawgiver, instead of applying the Law to 
 himself, and acting according to it. He says, that such a one, 
 while speaking against his brother, speaks against the Law 
 itself, inasmuch as he contradicts the law which accuses 
 him in his act of judgment. Further, the absence of self- 
 humiliation before God, shows itself in such a one, because he 
 forgets that he himself, and he whom he accuses, equally depend 
 on the one Judge, who alone can bestow blessedness and misery. 
 He puts himself in the place of the supreme Judge, when he 
 presumes to anticipate His judicial sentence. " Speak not evil 
 one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother 
 and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth 
 the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the 
 law, but a judge. There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save, 
 and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?" (chap, 
 iv. 11, 12.) 
 
 The antagonism between the pride of the worldly mind, and 
 the essence of true humility, having led James to administer 
 sundry rebukes against this form of evil existing in these 
 churches, he now fastens on a particular point, which, how- 
 ever, stood closely connected with the former false tendency, — 
 that secure confidence in the arm of flesh, through which they 
 were led to reckon on future days, without one moment's con- 
 sideration of the uncertainty of human life, and in virtue of 
 which they formed plans of earthly gain for the future, as if 
 that future were certified to them. James, therefore, consider- 
 ed himself bound to remind those who were forgetting them- 
 selves in the concerns of the world, of the uncertainty of every- 
 thing human, and of the dependence of the whole life on the 
 will and guidance of God. " Go to, now, ye that say, To-day or 
 to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a 
 year, and buy, and sell, and get gain; whereas ye know not 
 what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even 
 a vapour, that appeareth for a little time^, and then vanisheth 
 away. For that ye ought to say. If the Lord will, we shall live, 
 and do this, or that," (chap. iv. 13-15.) It is evident that 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. ] 1 5 
 
 James, in saying this, did not mean to urge upon them the 
 necessity of the continual expression in words of such a condi- 
 tion. Such modes of speech might easily become mere forms, 
 and these churches were prone, as a consequence of their 
 whole tendency, to reduce everything to mere form. James, as 
 we have already learnt, prefers to use a special case instead of 
 a general thought, and so here also, instead of generalising on 
 the uncertain and dependent condition of the whole earthly 
 life, he expresses himself in words adapted to designate this 
 general thought in its application to a particular case. From 
 the particular, he then again passes on to the general, while he 
 assails their whole false confidence on the world and self. " But 
 now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil," 
 (chap. iv. 16.) His exhortation is concluded by reminding 
 them, that the acknowledgment of the truth here expressed is 
 not enough, but that all depends on their personally realising 
 in their lives the truth thus acknowledged, — the point, how- 
 ever, in which these persons were chiefly defective. " Therefore, 
 to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is 
 sin," (chap. iv. 17.) 
 
 James, then, turning to the rich, who were utterly absorbed 
 in earthliness of mind, addresses them thus, '' Go to now, ye rich 
 men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. 
 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. 
 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be 
 a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire, Y'e 
 have heaped together treasure for the last days," (chap. v. 1-3.) 
 James denotes three kinds of riches, viz., the garnered fruits 
 of the field, apparel, gold and silver. All these, he means to 
 say, these rich accumulate to no profit. As their unused trea- 
 sures of gold and silver are devoured by rust, so this will be a 
 witness in the judgment against them, — their guilt being ap- 
 parent from this, that that w^hich should have been used for the 
 advantage of others, they have suffered by unuse to be corrupt- 
 ed. The rust will gnaw their own flesh, while they are re- 
 minded by their own fallen condition and the judgment now at 
 last impending over them, how, instead of laying up enduring 
 treasures, they have heaped up for themselves the fire of Divine 
 
116 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 judgment, in the treasures which they have suffered to become 
 the prey of rust. He then depicts the oppressions which the 
 righteous poor had to endure from the rich, whom we are not 
 to understand as belonging exclusively to the Christian Church. 
 " Behold," he says, (chap. v. 4, 5), " the hire of the labourers 
 which have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back 
 by fraud, crieth : and the cries of them which have reaped are 
 entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived 
 in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished 
 your hearts, as in a day of slaughter." That is to say, as the 
 ox is fattened, which is to be led to the slaughter, so have ye, 
 by your devotion to the service of your lusts, and by enjoy- 
 ing yourselves in all security, made yourselves ripe for the im- 
 pending judgment: "Ye have condemned and killed the just; 
 and he doth not resist you," (chap. v. 6), — the patient resigna- 
 tion of the righteous contrasted with the arrogance of the 
 oppressor. 
 
 James then addresses himself to those Christian brethren, 
 who had to suffer much from the rich and powerful. He 
 exhorts them patiently to endure all manner of wrong, to wait 
 in resignation, for the appearance of the Lord himself, to re- 
 deem His own from all evil, and to manifest Himself as the 
 righteous Judge over all. It must here be considered, that 
 this last time was then expected as nigh at hand. Such an 
 expectation was natural to the apostolic age. Christ Himself re- 
 fused to give any revelation as to this point of time. The deciding 
 on this point of time. He said, His Heavenly Father had reserv- 
 ed to Himself alone, and that even the Son could determine 
 nothing upon this. But the longing of the apostolic church 
 " hasted unto" the manifestation of the Lord. All Christian 
 time appeared only as the point of transition to the eternal, 
 and thus, as something passing quickly away. As the wanderer 
 contemplating in the distance the end of his wanderings, over- 
 looks the windings of the road, and believes his goal already 
 near, so was it then, when the eyes of men were directed to 
 that termination of all earthly development. This is also James's 
 point of view, when he says, "Be patient, therefore, brethren, 
 unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 117 
 
 for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience 
 for it, until he receive the early and the latter rain. Be ye al- 
 so patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord 
 draweth nigh," (chap. v. 7, 8.) James, to whom, as we have 
 already seen, that mode of viewing nature in which the oriental 
 delighted was familiar, transfers to history, the laws of natural 
 life, the progress of whose development is gradual. As the 
 fruit only gradually ripens, and the husbandman must patiently 
 wait for the rain at the beginning and end of sowing, so it re- 
 quires the same enduring patience, to wait for the ultimate, 
 gradually preparing term of the development of the history of 
 the Earth. In this sphere, also, everything has its appointed 
 issue, and that precipitate impatience must be guarded against, 
 which, not waiting upon the different stages of growth, seeks 
 at once to secure the last. 
 
 James next proceeds to speak of the conduct of Christians 
 towards each other, recommending that long-suffering which 
 leads to mutual forbearance. They were not to accuse one 
 another, nor invoke God against each other, but to leave the 
 judgment upon everything to God, and not to desire to forestall, 
 by their mutual condemnations, that Judge who soon will ap- 
 pear. The language of James reminds us of the words of the 
 Lord, in the Sermon on the Mount, " Judge not, and ye shall 
 not be judged." " Grudge not one against another, brethren, 
 lest ye be condemned: behold, the Judge standeth before the 
 door," (chap. v. 9.) He then places before them the examples 
 of the prophets, as models of endurance, especially the example 
 of Job, in whom, after he had passed through all the trials of 
 his patience, God's mercy so conspicuously revealed itself. 
 " Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the 
 name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of 
 patience," (chap. v. 10.) This train of thought, doubtless, is 
 implied in these words, — in the name of the Lord these men 
 spoke, and yet suffered so much, and for the sake of the Lord. 
 If, then, the prophets, whose dignity was so great, since they 
 were commissioned to speak in the name of the Lord, suffered 
 such things, how should we expect anything else? " Behold 
 we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the 
 
118 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord;" i. e., the end 
 brought about by the Lord, the issue, which the Lord gave to 
 all those temptations : " that the Lord is very pitiful, and of 
 tender mercy," (chap. v. 11.) 
 
 James then passes on to particular exhortations, all of 
 which, however, are opposed to faults connected with the main 
 shortcomings of these churches. As Christ, in the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount, spiritualises and glorifies the whole Law, 
 turning everything from the outward to the inward, and from 
 the particular to the totality and unity of feeling, — as He, abolish- 
 ing and yet fulfilling the Law, abolishing it according to the 
 letter, and fulfilling it according to the spirit, — transformed the 
 commandment, Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath-day, into 
 the higher, Every day shall be to thee holy; so he transformed 
 the commandment, Thou shalt keep thy oath sacred, into the 
 higher, Every word spoken as consecrated to the Lord, having 
 Him before thine eyes, shall be sacred to thee. What an oath 
 is to others, every word should be to the Christian, and, hence, 
 among true Christians, an oath is superfluous ; each regards his 
 word as sacred, and all have such mutual confidence, that the 
 word of each will have this authority among them. So should 
 it be in all true Christian churches, in which all are known 
 to each other as true Christians. In these churches, however, 
 the depraved habit of the Jews had been admitted, that inas- 
 much as words had not with them the force they ought to 
 have, — a fault easily found in connexion with their general 
 loquacity, — many asseverations were needed to procure for 
 their words a weight which they had not in themselves. If 
 they scrupled to use the name of Jehovah often, more dis- 
 guised formulas of oath were substituted, the violation of 
 which cost them fewer pangs of conscience. Against this, then, 
 James speaks, when he says, " But above all things, my bre- 
 thren, swear not; neither by heaven, neither by the earth, 
 neither by any other oath : but let your yea, be yea ; and your 
 nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation," (chap. v. 12.) That 
 is to say, their yea and their nay should be enough, instead 
 of any other assurance, and that they exposed themselves to 
 condemnation, when their mere word was insufficient, and 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 119 
 
 an additional asseveration was required to procure credence 
 for it. 
 
 James, now, imparts some general instructions most opposed 
 in their nature, to the worldly-mindedness of these churches, 
 and to the contrariety between certain actions of worship, and 
 the life, in other respects, w^hoUy devoted to the world. For no- 
 thing can be more opposed to such a tendency, than the re- 
 quirement, that the feelings of Christians, equally in suffering 
 and in joy, should pass into prayer. Through this, suffering 
 and joy should be sanctified and glorified. In suffering, the feel- 
 ing of pain should be changed into prayer; from God help 
 should be sought in prayer, and strength to endure sorrow and 
 to be resigned. And in joy, the heart should be disposed to 
 praise God. and to thank Him, to whom we owe all our bless- 
 ings. The common element, therefore, equally in sorrowful and 
 in joyous feelings, should be the direction of the heart to God. 
 And since life is an alternation of joy and sorrow, the whole 
 life will thus become one prayer. " Is any among you afflicted 1 
 let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms." 
 
 As James here refers everything to prayer, as the soul of 
 Christian life, so he applies it to sickness. In this case there is 
 a call for mutual intercession, in the name of the Lord. As 
 the presbyters act in the name of the whole church, and as 
 every member was conscious of membership in the church, and 
 of his need of their sympathy and intercession, and of his being 
 able to reckon upon them; so individuals, in their sickness, 
 were to summon the presbyters of the church ; and these were 
 to pray for them. With this was joined a symbolical action, 
 which obtained in many churches of the East, though it never 
 was universally prescribed, viz., the anointing with oil, an usage 
 which Christ Himself sometimes adopted in healing the sick, 
 as a sensuous sign of healing and sanctifying power. If it 
 were according to the will of the Lord, the sick man would re- 
 cover his bodily health ; but in all cases, spiritual refreshment, 
 the renewed and strengthened consciousness of the forgiveness 
 of sins would be imparted to him. But spiritual strengthening 
 must also at that time have reacted on the body. " Is any 
 sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; 
 
120 ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 
 
 and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the 
 name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the 
 sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have 
 committed sins, they shall be forgiven him," (chap. v. 14, 15.) 
 James, we thus see, ascribes the power specified, not to the 
 anointing with oil, but to the prayer of faith. As he regards 
 the presbyters as organs, acting in the name of the church, 
 so he places all other Christians in such relation to each 
 other, as members of one body, that they pray for one another 
 in bodily and spiritual need, confess their sins to each other, 
 and pray to God for the forgiveness of each other's sins. He 
 ascribes great efficacy to the prayer of brotherly love : " Confess 
 your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye 
 may be healed," (chap. v. 16); whether it be, that James here, 
 as in the previously mentioned case, considers spiritual and 
 bodily healing as connected with one another, or that he has 
 in his mind merely spiritual healing. " The effectual fervent 
 prayer of a righteous man availeth much," (chap. v. 16.) He 
 then recalls to their minds the examples of the efficacy of 
 prayer derived from the Old Testament. But because the Jew- 
 ish mind, with its usual tendency to externalize everything, 
 inclined to remove these holy men of ancient times to a vast 
 distance from itself, and to regard them more as objects of ven- 
 eration and admiration, than as examples for imitation ; James 
 reminds them, that those men were frail men like themselves, 
 and that God's power could even now work through the weak; 
 an application which must be the more admitted, since that 
 which the Old Testament would have viewed as the gift and 
 privilege of only a few, had been made common to all by 
 Christianity, in virtue of that priestly and prophetic dignity 
 which belongs equally to all. " Elias was a man subject to 
 like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might 
 not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three 
 years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heavens 
 gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit," (chap. v. 
 17, 18.) 
 
 An exhortation, not to cast off, in an unloving spirit, those 
 who had fallen into errors in their moral and religious devel- 
 
ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 121 
 
 opement, but to interest themselves in them, and seek to recall 
 them to the truth, is a natural transition from his incitements 
 to mutual prayer in spiritual and bodily need; an exhortation 
 peculiarly needed, where an inclination to brand others as 
 heretics was evinced. *' Brethren, if any of you do err from 
 the truth, and one convert him ; let him know, that he which 
 converteth the sinner from the error of his way, shall save a 
 soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins," (chap. v. 
 19, 20.) To save a fallen brother from that spiritual death 
 to which he has exposed himself, is thus described by James as 
 the greatest work of love. To detach a man entirely from the 
 sinful direction of his life, and restore the Divine life in its 
 essence within him, is more than to excite him to repentance 
 for a particular sin, and pave the way to the attainment of the 
 forgiveness of that sin. Many sins, into which his earlier di- 
 rection had thrown him, are thereby amended. This explanation 
 of the words seems most suitable to the context. If, however, by 
 the sins of which he here speaks, we prefer to understand, not 
 the sins of another, but his own sins, the sense would then be; 
 that by a love which shows its zeal in the salvation of the soul 
 of another, he may amend many sins, into which, through the 
 frailty still adhering to him, he has fallen, because love out- 
 weighs all else, and is more than any other quality adapted 
 to overcome the still remaining evil; as the Redeemer says, 
 " He to whom much is forgiven, loveth much." If the passage 
 be so explained, the amending his own sins is not to be regarded 
 as dependent on this result; for this falls not within the power 
 of man — through whom nothing can be gained — even be- 
 cause this result is entirely independent of his feelings. The 
 zeal of love, which is instrumental in converting another, is 
 that through which a multitude of sins is covered. Thus the 
 Epistle concludes in the spirit of love, which breathes through- 
 out it from the beginning, and which is to be recognised in the 
 whole agency of James. 
 
ON THE 
 
 COMING OF THE LORD, 
 
 AND ITS SIGNS. 
 
THE 
 
 COMING OF THE LORD, 
 
 AND ITS SIGNS. 
 
 The Lord rebukes the blindness of the Pharisees, who marked 
 the appearances of the atmosphere and the visible heavens, in 
 order to determine beforehand the weather of the coming day, 
 but regarded not the great signs of a deeply agitated period, so 
 as to discover that a great day of the Lord was drawing nigh, 
 for the salvation of those who would accept it with lowly hearts, 
 and as a judgment on those who, devoted to the lusts of the 
 flesh, or given up to the delusions of a vain and empty arro- 
 gance, showed themselves incapable of receiving the proffered 
 salvation. A similar aspect of things has often since then pre- 
 sented itself, and will doubtless often present itself, till the final 
 decisive day of the Lord dawn on the world. Before the Lord 
 shall come for the last time, to execute the last sifting of His 
 Church on earth, and to consummate His kingdom. He often 
 comes in the Spirit, to breathe new life into her when dead, and 
 to eject from her whatever manifests itself as unsusceptive of this 
 new life; but the healthy and watchful eye is needed rightly to 
 interpret these signs of tiie times. The inexhaustible source of 
 all errors and misapprehensions is to be found in the heart of 
 man. As the eye of the body, when unimpaired, can perceive 
 everything presented to it from without, in its right character, 
 — as, on the other hand, when diseased, it sees nothing clearly 
 or distinctly, so also is it with the eye of the spirit, in relation 
 
126 ON THE COMING OF THE LORD, 
 
 to those things which are spiritually discerned. Hence it is, 
 that the Lord declared to the blinded Pharisees, who, with eyes 
 to see, yet saw not the greatest sign which ever appeared among 
 men, and always required new signs, that because the light that 
 was in them was darkness, all, therefore, without them was also 
 darkness. (Luke ii. 35.) The direction of the inner faculty of 
 perception determines also the manner in which external objects 
 and appearances act upon us, and are perceived by us. Thus 
 it happens, that as, when given up to delusion in the inner 
 sense, the signs of the times which point to the coming of the 
 Lord are disregarded by us, or mistaken and misunderstood, so 
 also, even that which was intended to undeceive us, is so inter- 
 preted according to our own prepossessions, as that we may find 
 in it a confirmation of the delusion which overmasters us. 
 
 From this danger the study of God's word preserves us, while 
 it holds before us the mirror, in which we may know ourselves 
 as we are, while it enables us to discover the causes of self- 
 deception in our own inner man, and while it leads us rightly 
 to understand the coming of the Lord in the Spirit, and its pre- 
 cursory signs. Assuredly the reading, and even frequent reading 
 of this Word, whose appointed end it is, to be such a light 
 to us amid the darkness of the world, is not in itself enough. 
 As History, in so many melancholy instances of human aberra- 
 tion, teaches, here too much depends on the eye of the spirit 
 with which Scripture is read. Those who, even unconsciously, 
 sought only themselves in Scripture, found also themselves only; 
 destitute of that humble mind which renounces itself in order to 
 receive ingenuously the spirit of Scripture, their knowledge led 
 them to interpret it only in subserviency to their master delu- 
 sion. The Pharisees of all times search the Scriptures, and 
 think therein to have the road to eternal life; but they are not 
 brought, through the testimony of these same Scriptures, to 
 Christ, who alone can give eternal life; for their heart is far from 
 the word of God. (John v. 38-40.)* 
 
 ■ It should not surprise us, if, in the interpretation of Holy Scripture, 
 a far wider divergence has arisen, than could ai'ise in that of writings of 
 a different nature intended to communicate knowledge to the understand- 
 ing. Rightly to enter into the meaning of Holy Scripture, partly, there 
 
AND ITS SIGNS. 127 
 
 Only when we seek truth and light with ardent desire and 
 prayer at the Eternal source of all light and truth; when, with 
 a heart hungering and thirsting after righteousness, of which 
 we feel ourselves destitute, we come to the word of God, in order 
 that He, who alone is able, may impart that for which we hun- 
 ger and thirst; when sighing under the yoke of bondage, which 
 we all more or less bear, we long for the freedom of the sons of 
 God, which the Son of God alone can confer; only then, with 
 this sober self-consciousness, this feeling of need, this mind 
 
 is required the mind capable of receiving the things of God, without 
 which they must remain as a closed sanctuary; partly, also, there are 
 manifold stages in the development of that feeling, and, therefore, mani- 
 fold stages in the development of the religious life proceeding from it. 
 To this multifariousness the word of God should condescend, in order, in 
 various transitions, to train mankind to the unity of the Divine life. The 
 diversity of views which must result from this, is neither accidental, nor 
 in itself an evil; but testifies of the riches deposited in Holy Scripture, and 
 of that wisdom which has adapted them according to the requirements of 
 the religious education of human nature in its vast multiformity. Angus- 
 tin excellently describes this relation of Holy Sci'ipture to the religious 
 development of man, when he says, in his Confessions (lib. iii. § 9), " Ilia 
 erat, quae cresceret cum parvalis," in order to lead them on by degrees, 
 and to reveal itself to them in its ever-increasing vastness, according to 
 the measure of their growth. The same Augustin says that God has so 
 accommodated Holy Scripture, that the truth should be found in it, in 
 forms as diverse as the diverse natures of men: " Deus unus sacras lite- 
 ras vera et diversa visuris multorum sensibus temperavit," (Confess, lib. 
 xii. § 42.) And he prefers, certainly not unjustly, that exposition of the 
 truths of religion, which presents no one-sided, exclusive tendencies, but 
 in which every one able to receive the truth may find that one side of it 
 adapted to his peculiar needs. " Ego certe, si ad culmen auctoritatis ali- 
 quid scriberem, sic mallem scribere, ut, quod veri quisque de his rebus 
 capere posset, mea verba resonarent, quam ut veram sententiara ad hoc 
 apertius ponerem, ut excluderem, ceteras, quarum falsitas me non posset 
 offendere." All the declarations of Holy Scripture, indeed, have their 
 definite, simple sense, which reason, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, must 
 deduce from the meaning of the woi'ds, from the connexion in which they 
 are found, and from the relation which occasioned them; but there are 
 various stages which conduct to the knowledge of this one truth, various 
 beams, in which the light of this one truth is wont to refract itself in 
 reference to the divei'sity of the minds which strive after it. Because 
 
128 ON THE COMING OF THE LORD, 
 
 averted from ourselves and turned to the Lord, from whose 
 Spirit we desire to be instructed, shall we make the word of 
 God the lamp of our life, and be preserved, through its instru- 
 mentality, from the many and manifold delusions of our own 
 minds, and learn more and more to understand ourselves, the 
 signs of the times, and the coming of the Lord announced by 
 them.* 
 
 When we compare our own with the preceding ages of the 
 Church, we cannot fail to recognise the signs of such an im- 
 pending coming of the Lord in the spirit, to impart a new 
 glory to the kingdom of God. As the Apostle Paul, in writing 
 of the final decisive epoch of God's kingdom on earth, declared, 
 that the dominion of evil and of Antichrist must first attain its 
 culminating point, ere the Lord revealed Himself to destroy all 
 that is opposed to Him, by the breath of His Almighty Spirit, 
 so is this also fulfilled in every new period of the development 
 of God's kingdom, each of which, in its own manner, prefigures, 
 
 then Scripture must thus become the point to which these so different 
 interpretations annex themselves, there has hence arisen the notion, that 
 a perpetual external authority was indispensable in the Church, to deter- 
 mine with certainty the meaning of Scripture, and to guard its interpre- 
 tation against the exercise of such ai'bitrariness. But this was to mis- 
 take, on the one hand, the essential character of that unity which is 
 grounded on the word of God, and Tof which man is to be made conscious 
 through reason, as the oi-gan of the Holy Spirit; on the other, that cha- 
 racter of multifariousness necessary in the religious development of man- 
 kind; and to ascribe the training of the church, in the whole, and in 
 individual souls, which can only be the work of God, and which He has 
 reserved to His living Spirit, to the dead and deadening letter, and to 
 transform the work of God into the work of man. Augustin's remark 
 upon this is very beautiful: "In hac diversitate sententiarium concordiam 
 pariat ipsa vex*itas," (Confess, lib. xii. § 40.) 
 
 • It is admii'ably said by Augustin, who, after more than ten years of 
 wandering and self-conflict, found at last the truth, which imparted 
 the long and fruitlessly sought satisfaction and peace to his spirit: " Si 
 Veritas non totis animi viribus concupiscatur, inveniri nullo pacto potest. 
 At si ita qu?eratur, ut dignum est, subtrahere sese atque abscondere a 
 suis dilectoribus non potest. Amore petitur, amore quseritur, amore 
 pulsatur, amore revelatui*, amore denique in eo quod revelatum fuerit, 
 permanetur." (De Moribus Ecclesite Catholicse, lib. i. § 31.) 
 
AND ITS SIGNS. 129 
 
 through the spiritual coming of the Lord and its precursory 
 signs, that final epoch. By the conflict with the kingdom of 
 Antichrist, — under which collective notion is understood, every- 
 thing which, in hostility, either open and declared, or disguised 
 under the garb of hypocrisy and dissimulation, is opposed to 
 the course of the pure Gospel — is announced the approaching 
 coming of Christ, who by the might of His Spirit will extir- 
 pate the whole power of Antichrist, and in antagonism to it, 
 reveal Himself in new glory. Thus the one Divine foundation 
 upon which the church of Christ is built, was for a long period 
 covered with " hay and stubble," and rendered almost irrecog- 
 nisable; then the Spirit of the Lord manifested Himself in the 
 purifying fire of the Reformation, to consume every extraneous 
 element which adhered to that foundation, and purged from these 
 alien accretions, that one foundation emerged with a brightness 
 and a glory, such as had not been seen for centuries. Then 
 appeared a time of a new and glorious out-pouring of the Spirit 
 of Christ, and consequently a renovated and glorious age of the 
 Church; but this too, like all the forms in which the Church 
 appears on earth, was in some degree transitory. The end of 
 that conflict, which shall endure till the consummation of all 
 earthly things, was not yet, but again and again it must be re- 
 newed. A period of corruption once more intervened, while 
 the one Divine foundation was again covered with " wood, hay, 
 stubble," and it was moreover forgotten, that nothing built on 
 the foundation, whether it be of gold, or silver, or precious 
 stones, is to be compared in value with the foundation itself, 
 this being the alone immutable thing, and alone able to sub- 
 sist, when the whole superstructure reared upon it falls to ruin. 
 Thus were men to be taught by repeated experience, that the 
 Divine foundation, concealed under so much extraneous matter, 
 and hindered from emitting its beams with all their inherent 
 glory, out-shining all earthly brightness, might thus be ob- 
 scured, yea even fail to obtain recognition. The consciousness 
 of the real character of this " wood, hay, stubble" having once 
 been attained, all proved unable to sustain the fiery trial of a 
 sifting and critical age. But after the nature of the super- 
 structure had been discovered, as neither suitable to so precious 
 
1 30 ON THE COMINa OF THE LORD, 
 
 a foundation, nor adequate to the fiery trial, and when, therefore, 
 this had been torn down, the minds of men did not at once ob- 
 serve their natural bounds, — for every human power once 
 evoked to conflict, too easily degenerates into license, until in 
 the conflict itself, it learns its true measure, — but only when 
 these had been overstepped, were they led by the discipline of 
 experience to make this discovery. Thus, then, it happened, 
 that together with that, which had been formed of " wood, hay, 
 and stubble," that also which had been formed of gold and 
 precious stone, was rejected, and at length even the Divine 
 foundation itself was denied recognition. This, however, was 
 the stone, which, though despised by the builders, would yet 
 attest itself as the " head-stone of the corner," by which the 
 whole edifice is constantly supported, and without which it 
 must collapse — the rock unshaken amid all storms and tem- 
 pests. And as soon as men, driven by these very storms and 
 tempests, again take refuge on this rock, and begin to gather 
 themselves upon it, a new coming of the Lord in the Spirit, a 
 new glorification of the kingdom of God is at hand; for whenever 
 that Divine foundation is apprehended with new and ardent 
 longing, then shall new Divine power infallibly issue from it, 
 and pervade all who adhere to it. 
 
 The one universal and necessary preparation for the coming 
 of the Lord in the Spirit, ever remains the feeling of need, 
 which He alone is able to satisfy, although this may be excited in 
 manifold ways, and from very different sides, and may, there- 
 fore, express itself under various forms, even as our heavenly 
 Father knows how to draw, in ways as diverse as their charac- 
 ter and condition, His children estranged from their heavenly 
 home to the Son who alone can conduct them back to it again ; 
 whether, that from the feeling of bodily distress. He generates 
 that of spiritual; whether, that the spirit of man, impelled by 
 the consciousness of its Divine origin, after having long and 
 fruitlessly sought peace and satisfaction in the systems of this 
 world's wisdom, and attaining even by the results of its experi- 
 ence, to the feeling of what is wanting and needful for it, is at 
 last constrained to seek that which God has hidden from the 
 wise and prudent, but revealed to babes, (Matt. xi. 25); or 
 
AND ITS SIGNS. 1 ol 
 
 whether, that, in a still shorter way, the immediately awakened 
 consciousness of sin and guilt, which he, who thinks to have 
 fulfilled all the commandments, (Matt. xix. 20), must share 
 with the publicans, and the malefactor on the cross, causes the 
 sinner to find his Redeemer. It ever is and remains the feeling 
 of need, which, from the first appearance of the Gospel, forms 
 and has formed, equally in particular centuries, races, and 
 nations, as in the hearts of individuals, the necessary prepara- 
 tion for receiving the Lord. 
 
 This was shown in the condition of the Jewish people, when 
 the Lord first appeared among them. Outward afiiictions had 
 excited in many the feeling and consciousness of inward misery; 
 those, whose faith had been confounded by the controversies of 
 sects on the right meaning of Holy Scripture, longed for in- 
 struction in Divine truth, in which they could rest their con- 
 fidence. As they groaned under the yoke of the Law and of 
 Pharisaic ordinances, under the hard commandments of those, 
 who, while they laid intolerable burdens on others, themselves 
 touched them not with one of their fingers, so they longed 
 more or less consciously for Him, who could free them from this 
 yoke, and impart rest and peace to their souls. Hence Holy 
 Scripture, (Matt. ix. 36), compares such to a flock without a 
 shepherd, which, scattered abroad, and deprived of a guide to 
 places of pasture, sinks down, faint and exhausted. To these 
 the Lord announces Himself as the new Shepherd, whose voice 
 is recognised by His sheep, who came to reunite all in one 
 flock, and who will lead them in safety to places of pasture, 
 where they shall be fully satisfied. Thus He promised the 
 kingdom of Heaven to those, who felt their inward need, and 
 who longed to be delivered from it; thus he invited those, who, 
 repelled by the arrogant masters of Israel, groaned under the 
 yoke of the Law, to Himself, the meek and lowly, that in Him 
 they might find rest unto their souls, and receive His easy yoke, 
 — gentle and easy, because faith in Him, after it has first heal- 
 ed the wound of the contrite heart, and imparted the peace of 
 Heaven through the forgiveness of sins, to the conscience 
 tortured by the feeling of guilt, kindles the heavenly flame of 
 holy love in the now calmed heart; and love, desiring nothing 
 
1 32 ON THE COMING OF THE LORD, 
 
 but what the Law demands, there flows from it a free and joy- 
 ous obedience. All this is true also in another respect, — even of 
 the heathen. Through the consciousness of the vanity of their 
 idolatrous worship, through the awakened longing after an 
 unknown God, whom they ignorantly worshipped,"^ through the 
 felt experience of the unsatisfactoriness of all philosophy, which, 
 presuming in its pride to reveal the things of God, became 
 foolishness; through all this they were prepared for faith in 
 Him, who was made to them from God, " wisdom, and righteous- 
 ness, and sanctification, and redemption," (1 Cor. i. 30.) 
 
 In a similar manner was the coming of the Lord in the 
 Spirit prepared at the time of the Reformation. The Church, 
 which should bear only the easy and gentle yoke of her Lord, 
 having sunk under the hardest and most galling slavery of man, 
 and become, under a spiritual garb, subservient to earthly pas- 
 sions and desires, the evils generated by such a bondage, must 
 first attain their utmost pitch, in order that men's minds — as 
 actually happened in a still greater extent in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury — might be constrained to feel this slavery as a slavery, 
 and to long for deliverance from it. Then it was thought to 
 heal the evils of the Church by various measures of human 
 wisdom, in the projection and execution of which, the most 
 
 * Beautiful is the testimony of a Father of the church, who, from tlie 
 point of view of Christian consciousness, could look back on the religious 
 frame of mind in the heathen world, and which he himself had long 
 shared. Tertullian, in his Apologelicus, (c. 1 7,) says to the heathen : Et 
 haec est summa delicti nolentium recognoscere, quem ignorare non pos- 
 sunt. Vultis ex operibus ipsius tot ac talibus quibus continemur, quibus 
 sustinemur, quibus oblectamur etiam quibus exterremur? Vultis ex 
 animse ipsius testimonio comprobemur? Q,use licet carcere corporis 
 pressa, licet institutionibus px'avis circumscripta, licet libidinibus ac 
 concupiscentiis evigorata, licet falsis diis exancillata, cum tamen resi- 
 piscit, ut ex crapula, ut ex somno, ut ex aliqua valetudine, et sanitatera 
 suam potitui*, Deum nominat, hoc solo nomine, quia proprio Dei veri. 
 Deus magnus, Deus bonus, et quod Deus dederit, omnium vox est- 
 Judicem quoque contestatur ilium : Deus videt et Deo commendo, et 
 Deus mihi reddit. testimonium animse naturaliter Christianse ! Deni- 
 que pronuntians haec non ad capitolium, sed ad Deum respicit. Novit 
 enim sedem Dei vivi, ab illo et inde descendit. 
 
AND ITS SIGNS. 133 
 
 learned, the most important and powerful among the Christian 
 nations of Europe co-operated ; but all the vast efforts of a cen- 
 tury, at the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, ultimately 
 succumbed to the yet greater might of an enemy who showed 
 himself too crafty, and who, from each half-defeat, soon re- 
 covered strength again. Because they had not expelled the 
 evil spirit from the Church through the might of the Spirit of 
 God, because they sought gently to spoil the house of the strong 
 man and rob him of his treasures, without first binding the 
 strong man, and thus breaking his power; all was, therefore, 
 vain. The unclean spirit, which they supposed to have ex- 
 pelled, again returned with new and greater power, and took still 
 firmer possession of his house, which stood open and ready to 
 receive him; for it had not been transformed into a temple 
 of a mightier Spirit, to whom the unclean spirit must have 
 yielded. Thus must man be taught by experience, the vanity 
 of all external attempts at Reformation, until the Lord himself 
 come to renew from w^ithin, by the Almighty power of His 
 Word and Spirit, the life of the Church. Furthermore, after 
 the consciences of men had been taken captive under the yoke 
 of the Law, and new Pharisaic ordinances, this state of bondage 
 must attain its acme, in order that men, from their own ex- 
 perience, might discover, that the righteousness, which avails 
 before God, and accords with His requirements in the consci- 
 ence, cannot be acquired through the works of the Law, and 
 that, thereby, they should be the better able to understand and 
 estimate what is the grace of Redemption. Thus the peculiar 
 character of the Gospel, in its antagonism to a new form of the 
 bondage of the Law shone forth at the time of the Reformation 
 in new glory and power. The contemplation of the sign of 
 our own times, compared with those of previous ages, and of 
 the foregone providences of the Lord with His Church, leads 
 us to expect similar results from an impending new outpouring 
 
 and revelation of the Spirit of Christ 
 
 That coming of the Lord which impresses a peculiar charac- 
 ter on the great epochs in the development of the Church, is not 
 prepared merely by the great spiritual movements in the bosom 
 of the Church; but as the kingdom of God is the all-subordi- 
 
] S-t ON THE COMING OF THE LORD, 
 
 nating end of the whole history of man, so also all the 
 great events in the history of nations are mediately or immedi- 
 ately related to the coming of the Lord, as preparatory to it; 
 whether it be, that great revolutions in the history of^nations, 
 in which the judgments of God reveal themselves, tend to rouse 
 men from spiritual sleep, to evoke in them the feeling of higher 
 needs, to excite and further those great preparatory spiritual 
 movements within the Church, as was the case in the great pe- 
 riod of the first manifestation of the Lord on earth, and as we have 
 partly ourselves experienced even in our own times ; or whether 
 it be, that these events open a road for the more rapid and uni- 
 versal propagation among other nations of that which the 
 Spirit of the Lord works in a particular nation, in order to 
 pave the way for the fulfilment of the promise of the Lord re- 
 garding that which shall precede His great coming — the spread- 
 ino- of the Gospel among all nations of the earth. As, at the 
 time of the first appearance of the Lord, it was the result of the 
 great co-operative events of many past centuries, that, in a con- 
 siderable part of the earth, the outward wall of partition be- 
 tween nations was removed, and that especially an unusual 
 communication between the East and the West was brought 
 about, through which the heavenly light which had risen in the 
 East might easily and rapidly be spread among the nations of 
 the West; so those events which issued from the great migra- 
 tions in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, — at first destruc- 
 tive, but destructive only to that which, through its own fault, 
 fell beneath the judgment of God — contributed to obtain new 
 ground for the propagation of the Gospel among men.* The 
 
 * These are the words of a man who, from what he himself beheld in 
 the beginning of that irruption of the nations through which the Koman 
 empire was overthrown in the West, thus, about the middle of the fifth 
 century, expressed himself— the author of the work, De Vocatione 
 Gentium. As he perceived, what we have above remarked, that the 
 vast extent of the Roman empire necessarily prepared the way for the 
 more o-eneral and rapid propagation of Christianity, so he also discovered 
 that the overthrow of this empire would necessarily lead to the same re- 
 sult. With regard to the first he says, (lib. ii. c. 16): "Ad cujus rei 
 efiectum credimus providentia Dei Romani regni latitudinem pnepara- 
 tam, ut nationes vocandoe ad unitatem corporis Cbristi prius jure unius 
 
AND ITS SIGNS. 135 
 
 very weapons, as an ancient writer expresses himself, by which 
 the world appeared to be destroyed, became, in the hands of 
 God, the instruments of grace. Where the eye of man saw only 
 death, the germ of a new life was given through the Church; 
 amid the work of desolation and destruction, the germ of a 
 new creation of Christianity, which should continue to develope 
 itself throughout coming centuries. And such, perhaps, may 
 be the bearing, in our days, of the regeneration of that race* to 
 which we owe the communication of all the elements of human 
 and Divine civilisation, and in which the Gospel first assumed a 
 peculiar and distinctive character, and which, being again per- 
 vaded by the spirit of the Gospel, may become an instrument of 
 great spiritual blessing for the nations of the East who have 
 so long been estranged from the heavenly light — a consumma- 
 tion for which we earnestly implore the Lord, whose finger has 
 revealed itself so apparently in the recent history of this people; 
 and such of the access opened up to the Christian world to 
 those regions which once were the seat of flourishing churches, 
 and which may again become yet more influential in spreading 
 the Gospel in a great portion of the ancient world ; all this may 
 form part of that plan which is destined to pave a way for the 
 further emission of light, which shall issue from a new revela- 
 tion of the Spirit of Christ. As alas ! through the guilt of men, 
 that which was begun in the spirit comes to nought in 
 the flesh, so also is it often, that what human powers have com- 
 menced in the interest of merely earthly ends, is made, in the 
 counsels of God, to subserve the higher aims of His kingdom. 
 So may the presentiment be cherished, that the vast means for 
 the furtherance of human intercourse, through which space is 
 deprived of its separative power, will one day be made subser- 
 
 consociarentur imperii." With regard to the second, (c. 33) : " Effectibus 
 gratiae Christianae etiam ipsa, quibus mundus adteritur, arma famulan- 
 tur ;" and then exclaims with enthusaism, " Ita nihil obsistere Divinae 
 gratiae potest, quominus id quod voluerit impleatur, dum etiam discordiae 
 ad unitatem trahunt, et plagae in remedia vertuutur, ut ecclesia, unde 
 metuit periculum, inde sumat augmentum." 
 
 * An allusion to the liberation of Greece. This discourse was de- 
 Uvered in the year 1830. — Trans. 
 
136 ON THE COMING OF THE LORD, 
 
 vient to far higher ends than those for which they were first 
 invented — to unite the nations of the earth in the communion 
 
 of the kingdom of God. The times of the coming of Christ in 
 
 history always prove to be those in which the glorified Son of 
 man, sitting at the right hand of God, reveals himself through 
 special judgments and signs in the outward destinies of nations, 
 as He himself predicted, when He collected all these signs in 
 the inner and outward history of mankind, in His last dis- 
 courses, which treat of the tokens of His second advent. And 
 this coming of the Lord, in all its manifold relations, is to be 
 compared to the shining of lightning from the east towards the 
 west. 
 
 The times, in which such an advent of the Lord announces 
 itself, are deemed by Him especial gifts of grace; but heavy 
 also is the responsibility of those, whom in such periods He 
 deigns to employ as His instruments; and great are the dan- 
 gers and temptations incident to them; for of universal ap- 
 plication! s that saying of the Lord, " Unto whomsoever much 
 is given, of him much shall be required," (Luke xii. 48.) The 
 more a servant can gain for his Lord by the faithful employ- 
 ment of the talent committed to his charge, the more does he 
 increase his responsibility by failing to use or by misuse. 
 Where the longing for the Redeemer preceeds from a deeply felt 
 need, but is unaccompanied by clear knowledge, it becomes ex- 
 posed to many and various delusions, when it is met by that 
 which pretends to be, but is not Christ, and by those simulations 
 of His appearance and the revelation of His Spirit, which are 
 rather directly opposed to the Spirit, whose mode of operation 
 they counterfeit. When the powers of Heaven display a more 
 than common fulness of their agency, forthwith also the powers 
 of hell begin to stir, in order to mar and destroy the Divine 
 work; and the danger is then the greatest, when, exhibiting 
 themselves under the counterfeited appearance of the powers of 
 Heaven, they imitate the work of God; when the angels of 
 darkness seek to practise their deception, disguised under the 
 garb of angels of light; when that which is natural and un- 
 godly assumes the appearance of the Divine; when great things 
 according to outward seeming, are wrought in the name of the 
 
AND ITS SIGNS. 137 
 
 Lord, which, however, do not proceed from His Spirit, are not 
 therefore truly performed in His name, and which He himself 
 will not acknowledge. What the Lord, with voice of warning, 
 declares of the dangers and temptations of the time of His 
 second advent, (Matt. xxiv. 5, Luke xvii. 21, xxi. 8,) is, in this 
 respect, applicable to each and every period of His coming 
 in the Church. So was it in the first age of the Lord's appear- 
 ance. When the fire, which He kindled among men, spread 
 mightily in their hearts, forthwith there arose also many and 
 various commixtures of the impure earthly fire of passion and 
 fanaticism, with the sacred flame of evangelical enthusiasm. 
 Already the apostles Paul and John saw this admixture in its 
 process of formation; they saw the germinating of the Anti- 
 christian with the Christian, and warned the Church, both in 
 their epistles and in their oral teaching, of still greater dangers 
 impending; and, in the ages immediately subsequent to the 
 apostolic era, the most heterogeneous intermixtures of the 
 Christian and the worldly spirit, the most various imitations of 
 the Divine by the natural, — and hence so many different sects, 
 each of which thought and pretended to have the true Chris- 
 tianity — developed themselves from the fermentation engen- 
 dered by the appearance of Christ in human nature. There 
 was a repetition of kindred phenomena, when, after the Diet 
 at Worms, the pure word of evangelical truth, brought to 
 light by Luther, began to spread itself in mighty force, and to 
 engage and penetrate men's hearts; forthwith also the breath of 
 an impure spirit began to mingle itself, with an evil taint, in 
 that which originally proceeded from the Holy Spirit. The 
 same phenomena we see renewed even in our own days. There 
 is a proverb, one of those pregnant sayings which have proceed- 
 ed from the depth of the German mind, " Wherever God builds 
 a temple for himself, the devil builds himself a chapel close by." 
 Hence, therefore, because so much contamination and corruption 
 always threaten the work of God, and because the ungodly ele- 
 ments are most destructive when they blend themselves with 
 the Divine, the voice of the word of God exhorts us so empha- 
 tically to " watch and be sober." 
 
 Although, then, to him, who, in the light of the Word of 
 
138 ON THE COMING OF THE LORD, 
 
 God, has discovered the interfusion of the Spirit and the flesh, 
 of the godly and the ungodly, first, in his own inner man, and 
 then in the whole historical development of human nature, 
 this phenomena cannot be a matter of astonishment, but such 
 rather as he would have anticipated, from those indications 
 which the Lord gave in the parable of the wheat and the tares; 
 yet it frequently happens in those times of movement, which 
 prepare or introduce a new creation, that men, either because 
 they have not yet attained to that self-knowledge, and, there- 
 fore, also to that mode of understanding history ; or because, 
 carried away by the overmastering impression of the present 
 moment, they forget the oft-tested results of experience, per- 
 ceiving the corrupting and disturbing influences of the irre- 
 ligious factor on society, are led to mistake the originally 
 Divine element from whom this movement proceeded. Some- 
 times those, who are altogether destitute of the faculty of 
 understanding what proceeds from the operation of the Spirit 
 of Christ, avail themselves of those extraneous accretions 
 of the operations of that Spirit, in order to represent that 
 which actually proceeds from and reveals Him, as something 
 merely human or irreligious; sometimes those, who, when 
 the first revelations of God's hand impressed their minds, 
 formed for themselves, from a want of Christian self-know- 
 ledge, exaggerated hopes and expectations, seeing these de- 
 ceived by the result, become perplexed and confounded as to 
 that by which the coming of the Lord is prepared and pre- 
 figured or revealed, and at last even deny what is Divine in the 
 great movements of the time. Thus, in the first era of Chris- 
 tianity, such appearances furnished a seemingly well-grounded 
 cause for many of the accusations of Heathens against Christi- 
 anity. And when, simultaneously with the pure evangelical en- 
 thusiasm, from which the first movements of the Reformation 
 proceeded, manifestations of a destructive and licentious fanati- 
 cal spirit, and vehement partizanship showed themselves, then 
 those, to whom, from the commencement, the Reformation 
 had appeared only as a revolt from the original Divine foun- 
 dation of the Church, and who had predicted beforehand the 
 worst consequences from it, saw their prophecies fulfilled. In 
 
AND ITS SIGNS. 139 
 
 these results they sought to show the characteristics of that 
 corrupt self-seeking spirit of innovation and revolt, from which 
 they were eager to derive the whole work of the Reformation. 
 Others, who had at the beginning recognised in the Reforma- 
 tion the operations of a true evangelical spirit, now lost their 
 confidence in the whole cause ; and, because appearances were 
 not in accordance with their hopes, grounded in a defective 
 knowledge of human nature and of history, finally renounced 
 it.* 
 
 But when we have placed our hopes not on man, and on 
 what issues from man, but on the Lord alone, and on His 
 Word and Spirit, when we constantly bear in mind, that only 
 what comes from Him and returns to Him, and only in 
 so far as it abides in communion with Him from whom it 
 proceeded, has the eternal promise of victory, but that every- 
 thing human must fall and perish, that the glory may be 
 to Him alone; then, firmly grounded in this hope and this 
 consciousness, all those painful experiences shall not prevail to 
 confound us in our path in the work of the Lord in our own 
 days, and in our love to everything connected with this work. 
 Love, combined with clear knowledge, will be strong enough 
 to prevail over all offences. Mindful of the dangers incident 
 to the intermixture of that which proceeds from God, and 
 that which proceeds from the natural man, we shall pray the 
 Lord for the spirit of sober thought and reflection, that we 
 be not carried away by the impression of everything which 
 makes a great sensation under the garb of the Divine, nor by 
 the excesses of a zeal, which, although proceeding from the fire 
 of love, has become too much the slave of a passion which seeks 
 its own, and that we may not be led to believe every spirit, 
 but to try the spirits whether they be of God, (1 John iv. 1); 
 but, at the same time, we shall pray to Him, that He suffer 
 not our love to grow cold, so that we may acknowledge and 
 embrace whatever, even among all these corruptions, proceeds 
 from His Spirit and confesses His holy name, so that we may 
 
 * The manner in which an Erasmas of Eotterdam, a George Vizel, a 
 Bilibald Pirkheiman expressed themselves on the work of the Reforma- 
 tion, may serve as an iUustx'ation of what lias been said. 
 
140 ON THE COMING OF THE LORD, 
 
 not fall into tlie dano-er, while seekino: to avoid and banish 
 what is not God's, of mistaking and quenching the movements 
 of His Spirit, and of uprooting with the tares the good wheat 
 also, and so that we may be fitted, by a sober and considerate love, 
 to try everything in every spirit, and from all to appropriate 
 and further the good, (1 Thess. v. 19-21.) 
 
 But in order to be preserved from delusion through false 
 spirits from without, the great preliminary requisite is, that we 
 be instructed how to separate the true and the false spirit in 
 our inner man ; the examination of our own spirit must 
 first precede our examination of that of others. If, in our 
 own heart we have discovered, and by God's grace overcome the 
 invisible enemy, who continually and everywhere threatens the 
 greatest dangers to the kingdom of God, the victory over all his 
 inveiglements from without will be easy to us. This most 
 dangerous enemy is that self-love, which mingles itself with love 
 to that which is God's, and with zeal for the cause of the Lord, 
 and which imperceptibly impels us, while we think only to 
 show our ardour for the glory of God, to seek ourselves in His 
 cause. If we have experienced what heavenly blessings are, if 
 we have tasted of the joys of the world to come, it may then 
 cost us little to reckon sensual blessings as nothing compared 
 with heavenly gain. It may be easy to us to despise what is 
 usually called honour with the world, especially when it is 
 weighed against the honour which is to be found with God. 
 We may be prepared to take upon us disgrace for the name of 
 the Lord; but it may still consist with all this, that under the 
 dominion of a self-love, more refined and secret, and therefore 
 the more dangerous, we seek to assert ourselves, and may with- 
 al still be far from following the Redeemer in the spirit of gen- 
 uine humility and self-denial. The love of self, which rules 
 over us, ensnares us, it may be, no longer through the charms 
 of earthly blessings and worldly honour; it connects itself with 
 the movements of the Divine life; it exchanges the worldly 
 for the spiritual garb; it entices us by the semblance of a 
 higher glory; and here the conflict with self-love becomes so much 
 the harder, because it has spread its delusions over the hidden 
 depths of the inner life, and we flatter ourselves how much we 
 
AND ITS SIGNS. 141 
 
 labour and suffer for the cause of the Lord. That the kingdom 
 of the Lord come, is not the alone desire of our heart, but this 
 especially, although we ourselves be unconscious of it, that this 
 kingdom come through our instrumentality, that it come in the 
 manner, in which we, according to the notions which proceed 
 from our spiritual individuality, have devised. It is not our 
 wish that Christ be all in all, according to the different pecu- 
 liar spiritual natures of men, all of whom God has so variously 
 created for His own glory, which multifariousness must there- 
 fore also find its place in the new creation; but we seek to make 
 that form, which Christ has assumed in us in conformity with 
 the specialities of our own nature, everywhere and in all, the 
 predominant; thus, therefore, our own shadow is cast on the 
 highest and the holiest of our inspirations, and there exacts 
 homage. In this one source of delusion originate various kinds 
 of self-deception, and various hinderances which oppose the 
 coming of Christ. 
 
 With the same mind that was in the Apostle Paul (Phil. iii. 
 12-14), w^e should constantly remember, that we have not yet 
 attained the end of the heavenly calling, that we are still far 
 from that perfection, that glorification after the likeness of 
 Christ; forgetting what lies behind, we should ever press for- 
 ward for the heavenly prize set before us, strive to become 
 more and more like to Christ, and to be more and more purified 
 from whatever in our inner man is opposed to the image of our 
 Redeemer; and at the same time we should know, that only 
 when this one condition is attained, shall we, maintaining the 
 position the Lord has assigned us for the development of His 
 kingdom, spontaneously effect that which He designed to work 
 through us as His instruments. If instead of this, we direct 
 our eyes without only, as if we ourselves were already perfect 
 members of the kingdom of God (1 Cor. iv. 8), and seek our 
 glory in working great things for the cause of the Lord, and 
 producing great events, while we desire to stand high with our 
 gifts of grace and our labours for the Lord, we are then easily 
 seduced by the brilliant and imposing delusions which self-love 
 paints before us. Instead of allowing the Lord himself alone 
 to work, who, according to his Divine wisdom, orders times and 
 
J 42 ON THE COMING OF THE LORD, 
 
 seasons in the gradual preparation for His coming, we desire, 
 with impatient and self-seeking zeal, to anticipate Him, and 
 while working for Him alone, as we imagine and pretend, but 
 not in His name and His Spirit, but in our own name and our 
 own spirit, we do but mar His work by ours. We do not allow 
 the mustard-seed time, through its inner vegetative force, and 
 according to the law of its growth, to develope itself into the 
 tree, which is destined to spring from it. For it is with the 
 word, which we should only sow and leave to work, " as if a 
 man should cast seed into the ground, and should sleep and 
 rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up he 
 knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of her- 
 self; first the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn 
 in the ear," (Mark iv. 20-28.) The word of the Lord warns us 
 against this empty joy of "doing many and great works," against 
 this seductive straining after great events exciting attention, 
 through which a human spirit, noisy and bustling, but without 
 the power to transform the inner soul of human nature, so easily 
 insinuates itself, instead of the genuine Spirit of Christ, which 
 lowlily, gently, and unobtrusively effects the mightiest results, 
 without much noise and parade, and all the more deeply and 
 thoroughly, the less, at first sight, it is to be discovered, (Matt, 
 xii. 19, 20.) When the seventy disciples, whom the Lord sent 
 out in order to test their capacities for the vocation, for which he 
 had destined them, returned to Him full of joy, that, in His 
 name, they had done great things, that in His name they 
 could cast out evil spirits, He warned them, while He promised 
 them yet greater works which they should produce through 
 His Spirit triumphant over all evil, at the same time of the 
 most dangerous of all temptations, to make these great works 
 the occasion of vanity, and to estimate these particular sen- 
 suously perceptible demonstrations of power higher than the 
 highest, to which everything should be subservient, and to 
 which everything should be referred, — the hidden possession of 
 heaven, the hidden life from God, common to all who are made 
 partakers of this kingdom. " In this rejoice, not that the 
 spirits are subject to you; but rather rejoice, because your 
 names are written in heaven," (Luke x. 20.) He says, (Matt. 
 
AND ITS SIGNS. 143 
 
 \ii. 22), that many would one day set forth their claims as those 
 who had done great things in His name, who had prophesied, 
 had cast out evil spirits, and done many miracles in His name, 
 whom yet He never will acknowledge as His own. And the 
 Apostle Paul teaches, that if one had such power of faith that 
 he could move mountains, but yet had not charity, he was no- 
 thing, (1 Cor. xiii. 2.) He who rejected those who pretended to 
 have wrought miracles in His name, acknowledges, on the other 
 hand, as His own, those who had done truly in His name, with 
 a feeling directed to Him alone, the most apparently insigni- 
 ficant offices, in that spirit which regards all the good per- 
 formed by it as not its own, and in the fervour of a love which 
 so renounces everything pertaining to self, that the left hand 
 knows not what the right hand does, (Matt. vi. 3; Luke ix. 
 48.) From this feeling the mightiest deeds have at all times 
 been wrought for the kingdom of God, even as Luther began 
 the great work which the Lord gave him to do, without the 
 design of doing anything great, without himself foreboding 
 the result of his labours, rejoicing only in the certainty which 
 had been imparted to him, that his name was written in the 
 Book of Life, and constrained to proclaim what filled his 
 heart, without considering the eifect to be produced by it. 
 Whereas many were seduced to rejoice in what God had wrought 
 through them, or in the gifts He imparted to them, that they 
 might be the instruments of His will; hence they became 
 strangers to that lowly direction of the heart to Him from whom 
 alone every good and perfect work proceeds, and thus from the 
 communion of His Spirit; and the consequence at length was, 
 that they substituted the work of their own spirit for the work 
 of the Lord. 
 
 This false, self-seeking zeal, intermixes itself, as in labouring, 
 so also in suffering, for the cause of the Lord, when we seek our 
 own glory and pride ourselves in bearing odium for the Lord's 
 sake. If, instead of avoiding, with Christian self-command, 
 everything which might, through our fault, give occasion that 
 the name of the Lord be evil spoken of by those who know 
 Him not, — if, instead of condescending, in the spirit of love 
 
144 ON THE COMING OF THE LORD, 
 
 which becomes " all things to all men," to the infirmities of 
 those whom we are called to gain for the Gospel, — if, instead of 
 so regulating our life, and accommodating ourselves wuth Chris- 
 tian wisdom and prudence to the times, in order that as much 
 as lies in us, we do what is acceptable even in the eyes of 
 men, (1 Cor. x. 32), — if, instead of thus continually bearing 
 our cross, in a manner less visible indeed to man, and known 
 only to the Lord who seeth the secrets of the heart, we surrender 
 ourselves to all the movements of a vehement self-seekinsf zeal, 
 and to everything, to which our feelings and passions, not purified 
 and constrained by the spirit of love, hurry us along, — and if, 
 then, we glory, when the cause of the Lord which we serve, 
 incurs an ignominy which we might have avoided by watching 
 over ourselves in the lowly and sober spirit of love, then we 
 glory in an odium which we do not properly bear for the Lord, 
 but for our own selves, who have marred and debased the work 
 of the Lord, In this manner, even in the first ages of the 
 Church, as we have above hinted, much prejudice was done to 
 the cause of the Gospel by those, who, carried away not by the 
 fire of love, but by the frenzy of natural feeling and passion, 
 and the fanaticism generated therefrom, sought out every occa- 
 sion to excite the rage of the heathen and cause them offence, 
 everything which must expose the cause which they professed 
 to their hatred and mockery. But if they met with the suffer- 
 ing which they courted, in order to glory in it, whether before 
 men, their brethren in the faith, or before the Lord, it was not 
 a martyrdom in His name, but one of which Paul speaks in 
 these words, " And if I give my body to be burned, and have 
 not charity, it profiteth me nothing," (1 Cor. xiii. 3.) 
 
 This infusion of self-seeking zeal always hinders the realisa- 
 tion of that unity, which the coming of Christ, where it is not 
 impeded by human idiosyncrasy, necessarily brings with it, — 
 the unity of the kingdom of God, whose essence is, that all be- 
 come one flock under one shepherd. This unity attests its 
 Divine character in this, viz., that all minds in their manifold 
 variety are not forced from without under the yoke of one 
 dominant form, or necessitated to sacrifice their individuality; 
 
AND ITS SIGNS. ] 45 
 
 but that, according to the laws of Divine, and, at the same time, 
 natural development,"* according to the laws, which God Him- 
 self, who is at once the Creator and the Renewer of nature, 
 has deposited in it, the higher unity unfold itself spontane- 
 ously out of this very multifariousness, through the might 
 of the Spirit of Christ, who is One, and of the One commu- 
 nion of life, which proceeds from Him and is rooted in 
 Him. Nothing which is grounded in the essence of Nature 
 as it is created by God, shall be destroyed ; like the seed-corn 
 which falls on the earth, everything dies only to arise in a 
 higher form of life. But as the Spirit of Christ, where He 
 begins to reveal Himself anew, can only gradually purify the 
 life of a corrupt age, and gradually evoke, from the individual 
 characters of those whom He has purified and transformed, the 
 Unity which He designs, so, therefore, the very manifestations 
 of manifold antagonisms proceeding from the various and dif- 
 ferent tendencies of those, who have been apprehended and 
 appropriated by Christ, and who can gradually only be led by 
 Him into perfect obedience, and gradually only be altogether 
 pervaded by His Spirit, are signs of the commencement of 
 new life in the Church. But self-seeking zeal will not re- 
 cognise this. Heated by any impatient and precipitate fer- 
 vour which comes not from the Spirit, but from the flesh, it 
 cannot wait until Unity, thus gradually overcoming and re- 
 conciling differences, develope and reveal itself from within. 
 It will seeinstead of believe. And what is the result of this 
 impatient zeal, thus forestalling the work of the Lord? In- 
 stead of all uniting on the one foundation, which is Christ, — 
 instead of each seeking only faithfully to perfect the form, 
 which Christ has assumed in him according to the peculiarities 
 of his nature, and that special course of training prepared for 
 him by the Lord, — instead of each walking only according to 
 the measure given to him, — and instead of committing it to the 
 Lord, who alone is able to further and supplement and con- 
 summate everything, and conduct it more and more to the 
 
 • For the antagonism between the Divine and the natural is through- 
 out the work of sin, and it is the aim and end of i-edemption from sin to 
 abolish this antithesis. 
 
146 ON THE COMING OF THE LORD, 
 
 unity of maturity in Christ; instead of tliis, each desires to 
 assert that form, in which Christ has appeared to him, and 
 which he has assumed in himself, as that in which Christ can 
 alone reveal Himself. Hence, therefore, he fails to recognise 
 the one Christ, where He appears in another fashion, and in 
 impugning this diverse manifestation, assails Christ Himself; 
 and thus through self-will he scatters, where he should gather 
 with Christ in love, — divides where Christ would unite, — hin- 
 ders, as far as it is in his power, the realisation of the spiritual 
 unity, which He aims to effect, and in which alone Christ can 
 come; and labours not toward the coming of Christ, but that 
 of human spirits, who have made their own but one member of 
 the one indivisible Christ, (1 Cor. i. 13), that they themselves 
 may have the pre-eminence where only Christ shall be all in all. 
 That this last result may be attained, and everything averted 
 and banished which opposes this great end, to this should the 
 dissemination of the Word of God contribute. Then only does 
 it effect the purpose for which it was destined, when Christ 
 himself more and more gains the dominion in all, and becomes 
 all in all through the might of His Word and Spirit, subjecting 
 and transforming all to Himself. To labour for this, is, there- 
 fore, the great and holy vocation of the Society,* the anniver- 
 sary of whose foundation we are assembled to celebrate. Thus 
 may we join in fervent prayer to the Lord, that He, through 
 the power of His Word, will subordinate to Himself everything 
 human, which aspires to acquire authority against Him, with- 
 out Him, collaterally with Him, or even under Him, and bring 
 all to the obedience w^hich true liberty bestows, — that He him- 
 self may come in the Spirit to overthrow the dominion of every 
 human spirit, which opposes itself to Him, or seeks to make 
 itself independent of Him, and which, under the garb of free- 
 dom, brings only bondage, and to establish His kingdom alone, 
 to impart true peace amid controversy, and to produce Unity, 
 where men, in seeking to assert their own, divide. 
 * The Prussian Bible Society. 
 
 POINTED BY ANDREW JACK, EDINBURGH. 
 

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