BS 2785 .C297 Carpenter, W. Boyd The wisdom of James the Just THE WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST THE WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST BY THE RIGHT REV. W. BOYD CARPENTER D.D. HON. D.C.L. OXON. LORD BISHOP OF RIPON NEW YORK THOMAS WHITTAKER 2 &= 3 BIBLE HOUSE 1903 Printed by Ballantvnb, Hanson &* Co. London ^r' Edinburgh PREFACE Wise men have often told us of the snares of desultory reading. The mental discipline which accompanies continuous study is missed by those who wander from book to book. There may be, and there doubtless is, profit in wide and diver- sified reading, but it is seldom a profit, except to those who have trained the mind by systematic study. The Bible, like every other book, is only read with fullest advantage when it is studied systematically, i.e., book by book. I fear that Bible reading is too often the reading of detached texts, or of favourite and perhaps isolated passages. Choice extracts are well enough in their way, but they can never take the place of complete works ; and it may safely be said that as a man does not know literature who only knows a few ** gems " as they are called, so vi PREFACE he does not know his Bible who only knows a few texts. In the present da}', more than in any past days, the study of the Books of the Bible is needful. Only by such study can we appreciate the continuous and growing message of God's spirit in the Bible. Moved b}' this conviction, let us study one book of the Bible — the Epistle of St. James. In doing so, we take up a book, which is not an elaborate treatise, nor an intricate history ; it needs no long preliminar}' study : it is a frank, simple and earnest letter, addressed to his friends by a man of good and strong character. The Revised Version of the Epistle is printed here by permission of the University Presses. W. B. RiPON. RiPON, November 1902. P.S. — In my stud}' of this book I have been helped by many, but by none more than by Pro- fessor Joseph B. Mayor, whom I desire to thank for many happy and profitable hours. W. B. R. CONTENTS PART I THE LETTER AND THE MAN CHAP. PAGE I. The Self-revelation of the Writer . 3 II. His Philosophy of Life .... 23 III. His Thoughts about God .... 43 IV. The Writer and Those to Whom He wrote 61 PART II THE LETTER I. Life as Education 77 II. The Co-operation of Inward and Outward Forces in Spiritual Development . 104 III. The Conflict for Ideals .... 119 IV. Character Revealed in Conduct . . 138 V. Respect of Persons and Self-respect . 156 Vlll CONTENTS CHAP. VI. Faith and Works VII. True Wisdom VIII. Passion and Prayer . IX. Rule through Obedience, X. Against Presumption . XI. Patience in Spirit and in Word XII. God and Brotherliness . PAGE 176 210 241 THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus 1 Christ, to the twelve tribes which are of the Dis- persion, greeting. Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into 2 manifold temptations ; knowing that the proof of 3 your faith worketh patience. And let patience 4 have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask 5 of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not ; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in 6 faith, nothing doubting : for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and 7 tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord ; a doubleminded 8 man, unstable in all his ways. But let the brother of low degree glory in his 9 X GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES 10 high estate : and the rich, in that he is made low : because as the flower of the grass he shall pass 11 away. For the sun ariseth with the scorching wind, and withereth the grass ; and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth : so also shall the rich man fade away in his goings, 1 2 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation : for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life, which tJic Z.orrt' promised to them 1 3 that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God : for God cannot be tempted 14 with evil, and he himself tempteth no man: but each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by 15 his own lust, and enticed. Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin : and the sin, when it 16 is full-grown, bringeth forth death. Be not de- 17 ceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and ever}' perfect boon is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning. 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. 19 Ye know this^ my beloved brethren. But let GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES xi every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath : for the wrath of man worketh not the 20 righteousness of God. Wherefore putting away 21 all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, re- ceive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the 22 word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves. For if any one is a hearer of the word, 23 and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror : for he beholdeth himself, 24 and goeth away, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But he that looketh into 25 the perfect law, the law of liberty, and so con- tinueth, being not a hearer that forgetteth, but a doer that worketh, this man shall be blessed in his doing. If any man thinketh himself to be religious, 26 while he bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and 27 undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. My brethren, hold not the faith of our Lord Jesus 2 Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come into your synagogue a man with 2 a gold ring, in fine clothing, and there come in also xii GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES 2 3 a poor man in vile clothing ; and ye have regard to him that weareth the fine clothing, and say, Sit thou here in a good place ; and ye say to the poor man, Stand thou there, or sit under my footstool ; 4 are ye not divided in your own mind, and become 5 judges with evil thoughts ? Hearken, my beloved brethren ; did not God choose them that are poor as to the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to them that love him? 6 But ye have dishonoured the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you, and themselves drag you 7 before the judgment-seats? Do not they blas- pheme the honourable name by the which ye are 8 called ? Howbeit if ye fulfil the royal law, accord- ing to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour g as thyself, j^e do well : but if ye have respect of persons, ye commit sin, being convicted by the law 10 as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one pointy he is 1 1 become guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now i thou dost not commit adultery, but killest, thou art 1 2 become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as men that are to be judged by a law 1 3 of liberty. For judgement is without mercy to him GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES xiii that hath shewed no mercy : mercy glorieth against 2 judgement. What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say 14 he hath faith, but have not worlds ? can that faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and 15 in lack of daily food, and one of you say unto 1 6 them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled ; and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body ; what doth it profit ? Even so faith, if it ^ 7 have not works, is dead in itself. Yea, a man will 18 say, Thou hast faith, and I have works : shew me thy faith apart from Ihy works, and I by my works will shew thee my faith. Thou believest that God 19 is one ; thou doest well : the devils also believe, and shudder. But wilt thou know, O vain man, 20 that faith apart from works is barren ? Was not 2 1 Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar? Thou 22 seest that faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect; and the scripture 23 was fulfilled which saith, And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteous- ness ; and he was called the friend of God. Ye 24 see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith. And in like manner was not also Rahab 2 5 xiv GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES 2 the harlot justified by works, in that she received the messengers, and sent them out another way ? -^ For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead. 3 Be not many teachers, my brethren, knowing 2 that we shall receive heavier judgement. For in many things we all stumble. If any stumbleth not in word, the same is a perfect man, able to •5 bridle the whole body also. Now if we put the horses' bridles into their mouths, that the}' may obey us, we turn about their whole body also. ^ Behold, the ships also, though they are so great, and are driven by rough winds, are yet turned about by a very small rudder, whither the impulse 5 of the steersman willeth. So the tongue alsc is a little member, and boasteth great things. Benold, how much wood is kindled by how small a re ! 6 And the tongue is a fire: the world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defilcth the whole body, and setteth on fire the wheel of 7 nature, and is set on fire by hell. For every kind of beasts and birds, of creeping things and things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed by man- 2 kind : but the tongue can no man tame ; il is a 9 restless evil, ti is full of deadly poison. Therewith GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES xv bless we the Lord and Father ; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the likeness of God ; out of the same mouth cometh forth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so lo to be. Doth the fountain send forth from the same 1 1 opening sweet water and bitter ? can a fig-tree, my 1 2 brethren, yield olives, or a vine figs ? neither can salt water yield sweet. Who is wise and understanding among you? 13 Let him shew by his good life his works in meek- ness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter jealousy 14 and faction in your heart, glor}^ not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom is not a ivisdom 15 that cometh down from above, but is earthly, sen- sual, devilish. For where jealousy and faction 16 are, there is confusion and every vile deed. But 17 the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without variance, without hypo- crisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in 18 peace for them that make peace. Whence co])ie wars and whence come fightings 4 among you ? conic they not hence, even of your pleasures that war in your members ? Ye lust, 2 and have not : ye kill, and to covet, and can b xvi GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES obtain : ye fight and war ; ye have not, because j^e 3 ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask 4 amiss, that ye may spend /'/ in your pleasures. Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God ? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world - 5 maketh himself an enemy of God. Or think ye that the scripture speaketh in vain ? Doth the spirit which he made to dwell in us long unto envy- 6 ing ? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore tJie scripture saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth 7 grace to the humble. Be subject therefore unto God ; but resist the devil, and he will flee from 8 you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners ; and purif}'' 9 your hearts, ye doubleminded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep : let your laughter be turned to 10 mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall exalt you. 1 1 .Speak not one against another, brethren. He that speaketh against a brother, or judgeth his brother, speaketh against the law, and judgeth the law : but if thou judgest the law, thou art not a 12 doer of the ]aw,,but a judge. One only is the law- GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES xvii giver and judge, even he who is able to save and to destroy : but who art thou that judgest thy neighbour ? Go to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow 1 3 we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get gain: whereas ye know not 14 what shall be on the morrow. What is your life ? For ye are a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought ^ 5 to say. If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that. But now ye glory in your vauntings : 16 all such glorying is evil. To him therefore that 1 7 knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl for your 5 miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches 2 are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are rusted ; and their rust 3 shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye have laid up your treasure in the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers ^ who mowed your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth out : and the cries of them that reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived delicately on the earth, 5 xviii GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES and taken your pleasure ; ye have nourished your 6 hearts in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned, ye have killed the righteous one; he doth not resist you. 7 Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over 8 it, until it receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient ; stablish your hearts : for the coming 9 of the Lord is at hand. Murmur not, brethren, one against another, that ye be not judged : behold, 10 the judge standeth before the doors. Take, brethren, for an example of suffering and of pa- tience, the prophets who spake in the name of the 1 1 Lord. Behold, we call them blessed which endured: ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, how that the Lord is full of pity, and merciful. 12 But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by the heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath : but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay ; that ye fall not under judgement. 13 Is any among you suffering? let him pray. Is 14 any cheerful? let him sing praise. Is any among you sick ? let him call for the elders of the church ; GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES xix and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith 15 shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up ; and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him. Confess therefore your sins one to 16 another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working. Elijah was a man of 1 7 like passions with us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain ; and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months. And he prayed i^ again ; and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. My brethren, if any among you do err from the 19 truth, and one convert him; let him know, that 20 he which converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins. PART I THE LETTER AND THE MAN INTRODUCTION I SUBMIT for study one of the Epistles of the introduc- New Testament. It is short ; it is compact ; it °'^^' contains a wholesome philosophy of life ; it is full of teaching ; it is vigorous ; it is practical. Let us take it up and study it. Let us believe that some good will come from our study, if we strive to reach the living principles which find expression in it, and if we look for the guidance of that Divine Spirit who alone can give to us the moral sympathy needed to perceive these living principles. In this spirit let us turn to our book. We shall first consider the writer as disclosed in the letter. We shall then consider the letter itself. We shall thus make the letter throw light on the writer, and our knowledge of the writer will enable us the better to understand his letter. CHAPTER I THE SELF-REVELATION OF THE WRITER First, let us notice that we are not entering upon The letter. the study of a lengthy volume. This little book consists of but five chapters. It is a very short work. It would barely fill a column and a half in the Times newspaper ; it could be all printed in less than three pages of an ordinary monthly magazine. It is about as long as one of Addison's essays in the Spectator ; it is not so long as De Quincey's beautiful story of the Daughter of Lebanon. It is written by a remarkable man; it deals with matters of deep and abiding life- interest. It is worthy of study, but there are many who pass it by. People who would give considerable time and attention to a play or a poem, and show an anxious desire to master its contents and meaning, are tempted to leave this letter of St. James unread. They are under the 4 ^VISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST impression that it is long, tedious, uninteresting. I have shown that it is not long when compared with certain pieces of prose. Shall we measure its length by some well-known poems ? It is only half the length of Goldsmith's " Traveller " or his ** Deserted Village." It is about as long as Browning's " Andrea del Sarto " or Milton's " Lycidas." It contains less than three thousand words. But a letter may be tedious without being long ; and the letter of St. James has been flouted even by thoughtful and pious people. Luther called it an epistle of straw; and why should we trouble ourselves about a letter which failed to attract even pious men? If it lack the spiritual force which enables us to take an interest in the letters of St. Paul, if in spite of its brevity it is not popular among the New Testament epistles, must we not allow that it suffers from tedious- ness ? I do not think that we shall find it tedious. If we intelligently realise the personality of the writer, if we can appreciate his intellectual quaht}'^, if we can catch something of his moral spirit, we shall change our minds ; for we shall find that SELF-REVELATION OF THE WRITER 5 we have come into contact with a man of great force of character, quick to observe men and things ; shrewd, humorous, earnest, passionately philanthropic, and uncompromisingly loyal to right. He does not enlarge upon inward Christian experiences, but this is not because he has not felt them : it is because he possesses a spiritual reticence which, when it is understood, gives a depth and force to his allusions and phrases. How then shall we best realise the personality His person of the writer? We can do so by recalling briefly beJis™*^ what we know of his history; but there is another ^^^^tt '" way in which we may do this. We may gather something of his personal character and mental qualities from his own words. Few men can wholly conceal themselves behind their writings. The dramatic poet may do so ; but even so great an artist as Shakespeare is beheved to have betrayed himself now and again in his dramas ; and careful students have written essays descrip- tive of the true Shakespeare as unconsciously disclosed in his works. If the dramatist, who may be said to speak from behind a mask, runs the risk of betraying himself, other writers must run even greater risks ; and most of all the letter- 6 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST writer, who practises no concealments, and writes out of the fulness of his heart, bringing into use for illustration the objects, customs, and characters which are most familiar to him. Such a man discloses the range of his reading, the direction of his observations, the current of his thoughts. Can we cross-question this letter and form some idea of the writer's temperament and qualities ? I think we can. First, this writer is fond of nature. Natural objects — the sun, the earth, the rain, the sea, grass, fruits, and flowers have a charm for him ; he has studied them ; he delights in their colour, form, and movement ; he has noticed the pro- cesses of nature, and has derived from his observa- tion interesting and far-reaching subjects of thought. Observant as he is of nature, his keen eye has watched human life and its fashions ; he has studied the occupations and the achievements of men ; he has measured their characters, and he has tracked their thoughts through the narrow labyrinths of their conceit, their pride, their over- weening confidence, their paltry and pitiable self- deceptions. He is a man well acquainted with life and its aspects, with nature and human SELF-REVELATION OF THE WRITER 7 nature. Let us see if we can make good this view. His letter is, as we have said, a short one. He is an observer of It consists of five brief chapters, containing to- nature. gether only 108 verses; but in these five chapters we meet with eleven illustrations drawn directly and consciously from nature. Let us realise what this means by comparing this letter with the other letters in the New Testament. The eleven illustrations are scattered throughout the five chapters, i.e., there is an average of two such illustrations to each chapter, or one in every ten verses. With this in mind we turn to other New Testament writers. In his Epistle to the Romans, with its sixteen chapters and its 433 verses, St. Paul only three or four times employs a nature-illustration. In his Epistle to the Ephesians, which is a little longer than the letter of St. James, there are not more than three or four nature-allusions, none of which can be regarded as illustrations from nature intentionally employed. In the First Epistle of St. Peter, which is about the same length as the Epistle of St, James (105 verses), there are about three or four such allusions. It may be safely 8 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST said that no other New Testament writer, except perhaps the author of the Apocalypse, shows anything Hke the same responsiveness to the witness of nature. He reflects in this the spirit of his Master. He finds in Nature the ready store-house of teaching. He sees the work of the wind upon the sea — the great fickle ocean lashed into fury, and the unstable waves flung hither and thither, and he sees in it an image of the man whose spiritual purposes lack steadiness and persistency. He notes the action of the fierce rays of the Eastern sun upon the grass or the wayside flower. In the cool morning the grass looks fresh and green, and the wayside flower lifts its head in pride of colour ; but the great sun creeps surely towards its noonday throne ; the flower begins to droop ; the grass is soon parched, for the hot and moistureless wind breathes its merciless breath on vegetation. The sun ariseth with the scorching wind, and withereth the grass ; and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth. Even so is the man of wealth dried up by the very access of his prosperity. He recalls how swiftly in the dry season fire spreads in a forest SELF-REVELATION OF THE WRITER 9 (iii. 6), and quickly blasts and ruins tree after tree ; and he sees in the forest fire the image of the scandalous tongue which wrecks reputations and destroys the shelter which love spreads over men's characters. He sees the sweet consistency of nature ; the spring may be trusted, if it be a sweet-water spring, to yield sweet water (iii. 11); but man is a mass of inconsistency, and even otherwise amiable people will let their tongues spit out injury and mischief He looks round and feels secure in the fidelity of nature (iii. 12). The vine will yield grapes, the olive its berries, the fig its figs ; but man is constantly betraying his brother man by his weakness, waywardness, thoughtlessness. " Out of the same mouth pro- ceedeth blessing and cursing" (iii. 10); the man that is a kindly-spoken man to-day, to-morrow launches out words which fling ruin abroad. He wonders at the false security of man ; he marvels that beings so short-lived should be so incapable of understanding their own frailty. He thinks of the solid and stable earth, and of the fleeting crowds of men. He sees the vapour rising from the earth and dissolving into the surrounding air; it is the image of life, that " appeareth for a little lo AVISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST time and then vanisheth away" (iv. 14). He notes how slowly the harvest seems to grow. Sun and rain and soil must do their work. The farmer who knows the laws of growth patiently waits upon the seasons. Even so should faith wait patiently upon God, who knows all times and rules all seasons. Thus the writer draws from all quarters his illustrations : he has noted how nature carries on her processes ; he has learnt lessons which are open to every observant eye, and he seeks to make men learn in like manner. He has watched the wind, the rain, the sun ; he has seen the growth of grass and flower, the upspringing of the corn as it responds to the early and the latter rain ; he has stood upon the shore and seen the huge waves driven hither and thither, or battering against the sides of the great ships (iii. 4) ; he has rejoiced in nature, which gives to man re- freshment from her thrifty bosom, and yields her various fruit from olive, vine, and fig. He has gone through the world with open eyes, and has marked the processes of the heavens and the earth. The writer was clearly an observer of nature. SELF-REVELATION OF THE WRFrER ii Not less is he an observer of life and fashion. He is an observer of He draws his illustrations not alone from ordinary life and natural objects, but from things of human use and fashion. He notes the ring which sparkles on the hand of wealth (ii. 2) and the mirror before which fashion arrays itself (i. 23); he sees the restrain- ing power which man can exercise upon wild animals and creeping things (iii. 7), the horseman ruling the horse with a bridle (iii. 3; and the steersman governing the great ship with the little rudder (iii. 4). He is observant of men's characters not less He is an - , . T T .... observer of than of their powers. He recognises the relation- character, ship of various classes — the rich and the poor (i. 9, 10), the employer and the employed (v. 4) ; he notices various shades of character, and he sketches them with a few masterly strokes. He pictures ostentatious and patronising piety stalk- ing into the house of God, splendid and self-con- scious; he recalls the servile eagerness of the church officers towards such a worshipper, and he contrasts it with the haughty arrogance shown towards the shabbily dressed (ii. 2-4). He sketches the shallow-souled self-deceiver, who has clear perceptions of right, and no moral 12 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST resolution towards it (i. 22-24), ^^^^ empty talker, exuberant of religious phraseology and destitute of religious principle (i. 26, 27), the man who throws the blame of his failures on circumstances (i. 13), and the other man who throws the care of the needy upon chance (ii. 15, 16). In short, here is a writer who is observant of nature, life, and character. He is possessed of quick intellectual responsiveness to every aspect of nature's beauty and order. He knows the fashions of the world, and he notes with unerring clearness and humorous shrewdness the characters of men ; he sees their superficial goodness, their in- dolent selfishness, their vulgarity and the mischief of their untamed thoughtlessness. He can see clearly, and can speak with passionate indignation, but he has the saving sense of humour, and can laugh at the inconsistencies of men ; but he is never cynical, for his moral earnestness seeks practical improvement among men ; and his strong faith gives him confidence that at the fitting season God will accomplish His own work. Thus, from a rapid survey of this letter we can gather something of the powers and character of the writer. He is no dull, commonplace man ; SELF-REVELATION OF THE WRITER 13 he possesses mental alertness, a clear vision of men and things ; he is widely observant ; he has a capacity for laughter, for tears, and for passion ; he has a central, steadying power of good sense • he has a vigorous and sturdy faith ; and, above all, a loyal, if reticent, love of One whom he regards as his Master and whom he calls the Lord of Glory (ii. i). He has not the tumultuous en- thusiasm of St. Paul, nor the serene elevation of St. John ; but he is a clear-sighted, practical, shrewd, observant man, humorous, just, and earnest. He is a man who would be sure to fill a place which neither St. Paul, with his wide- ranging zeal and exhaustless inward experience, nor St. John, with his terse and highly-centralised philosophy, could occupy. He would be eminently the man whose good sense would fit him for a central position among men of violent views or exuberant enthusiasms, and we are not surprised to find, when we turn to history, that the writer of the letter held an honoured place in the early Christian community, and was regarded as a pillar in the Church (Gal. ii. 9). Such are some of the intellectual qualities of the writer. It will be well now to note some of 14 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST the moral traits which disclose themselves in his letter. We are struck at once by his moral courage. There is a resolute facing of facts. Life is not a pleasure garden or a place of dreams. Trouble is a stern and inevitable reality (i. 3, 12). As real as trouble should be man's religion. He has no fear of the religious charlatan ; and if he has no fear of him, neither has he patience with him. He speaks frankly and pointedly against the shallow and pretentious religion of some professed Christians. He rebukes ostentation, servility, arrogance (ii. 2-7), He does not hesi- tate to expose inconsistency He tells them that self-will and selfish desires are the cause of their want of harmony (iv. 1-5). He denounces the oppressors of the poor, and the landowners who withhold or delay the payment of wages to their labourers (v. 1-7). Whatever evil this writer sees, he bravely and clearly declares and rebukes it. This vigorous attitude is due to the sound moral quality which the writer displays, viz., his keen sense of right. He is imbued with faith in righteousness. He cannot endure crookedness, cruelty, mercilessness. Still less can he tolerate SELF-REVELATION OF THE WRITER 15 superficial loyalty to moral right; hence he is full of scorn of the religion which is on the lip and not in the life. He is passionately earnest for honesty of purpose and whole-heartedness in right. The man who pretends to be good and does no good is no good. Good wishes will not feed the hungry or clothe the naked (ii. 15, 16). Cleverness and shrewdness may be successful weapons in worldly contests, but they are not of the armoury of heaven, whose wisdom is of a nobler quality altogether (iii. 13-18). We cannot listen to his fervent words without feeling that we are in the presence of one who is an ardent believer in righteousness and in the righteous order, by which God rules His worlds. But is the writer a deeply religious man ? We His reiu may concede his moral courage and his passionate perament. devotion to righteousness, but does he reveal the deeper qualities of the religious man, the spiritual qualities, for instance, which are so evident in St. Paul ? St. Paul has clear views of righteous- ness, but the stream which bears him along is that of a strong personal affection and loyal devotion to his Lord. He would say, " I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." (Gal. ii. 20.) 1 6 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST He felt that the spiritual forces of his life were those which came to him directly from Christ — *' I can do all things in Him (Christ) which strengtheneth me." (Phil. iv. 13.) "That life which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." (Gal. ii. 20.) This ardent personal attachment is seen in St. Peter, who could write, " Whom not having seen ye love ; on whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory." (i Peter i. 8.) To St. John, the personal Christ was the very life of his own life. The knowledge of Christ was a secret power which gave fulness, reality, and permanence to all life. He tells us how our Lord said, " This is life eternal to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent " (John xvii. 3), and he makes the thought his own, when he says : " The life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and declare unto you the life, the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us." (i John i. 2.) But do we find the same clear declaration of personal love and affection in St. James ? Does SELF-REVELATION OF THE WRITER 17 he declare as these deeply spiritual writers did the great law or principle of spiritual communion ? Did he realise as they did that secret of exchanged personality which was so sacred a joy to them ? Was he transfused with the spirit of Christ as they were ? At first sight his letter in this respect sounds cold. He has none of the eifusive ardour of St. Paul ; he does not overflow with personal emotion, and fall into raptures over the love which has captivated his life. There is no utterance in the letter which is parallel to that jubilant out- burst of St. Paul, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? Even as it is written, for Thy sake we were killed all the day long : we were accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. viii. B iS WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST 35-39.) After reading this, it must be allowed that St. James' words sound cold and tame, and we are not surprised that people should ask whether the deep personal love to One who was the Life of his life finds any expression in his letter. It is easy to reply that men differ, and that as their temperaments are so will their utterances be ; and if the question asked were one of degree, it would be enough to answer that where St. Paul is ardent and exuberant, St. James is self- restrained and reticent. But the question asked is whether St. James realises in even the slightest degree the meaning of that personal love of his Lord which is so conspicuous in St. Paul. The We have said enough to show that it is ad- emotional r <-> t seif-reveia- mittcd that the temperament of St. James is not given to much speaking, to the overflow of phrases or to the affluent expression of emotions. With this admission before us, we must remember that brief outbursts of emotion from such a reticent character are more significant than the effusive utterances ot more communicative natures, A word, a phrase, even a hesitation in speech from a silent man has a value beyond the longer utter- SELF-REVELATION OF THE WRITER 19 ances of a man of many words. We are not undervaluing the eloquence of the weighty letters of St. Paul : his very exuberance of thought and feeling probably constituted his charm ; his full heart must speak, and he spoke with warm, rich, and redundant speech. His overflowing earnest- ness and his self-identification with what he expressed contributed to his influence. He must have been a very lovable man. But it is not given to every man to reach this happy harmony of thought and emotion : and the fearlessness of utterance which he exhibits is only possible to very great or very simple natures. There are others who hold a jealous guard over their feelings, and to whom it is an instinct, if not a necessity, to exercise a sort of secrecy in regard to their most sacred emotions. Such men, however, may be surprised into a betrayal of the depth of their feelings, and the strength of their affections may be revealed by a single word. There is one illus- tration of this which comes with almost startling force upon us as we read this letter of St. James. The writer has been carrying us along in his calm and self-restrained fashion, but saying what he has to say in simple, necessary words, when 2 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST he suddenly throws in an epithet, splendid and suggestive, a hint, an unfinished utterance, all the more striking because of its incompleteness. He is proceeding to warn his hearers against partiality or interested servility, against that respect of persons which is anything but a token of true respect. " My brethren," he writes, " have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect of persons" (ii. i). But the moment he has named the Lord Jesus Christ he breaks into a pregnant but incomplete phrase," Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory." So it stands in our version, but in the original the word Lord is not repeated — our Lord Jesus Christ — *' of glory." The thought seems to be, Have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ — yes, Jesus Christ our Lord I said, and such indeed He is, but He is the Lord of glory also. The thought of the splendour which belongs to his Master comes like a bright cloud before his vision as he is giving the simple counsel against respect of persons. The appro- priateness of the phrase is clear enough. Those whose faith is in Jesus Christ, the glorious Lord, need not lose their presence of mind before the tawdry splendours of the man with ring and SELF-REVELATION OF THE WRITER 21 gaudy apparel. The writer had not, Hke his namesake, seen his Master transfigured on the Mount and clad in the radiance of a glory of heavenly whiteness that no fuller on earth could equal ; but he had seen in his Master a glory so great that he could no longer be dazzled by the fictitious glories of this world. Thus the appro- priateness of the word " of glory " is clear enough ; but it is something more than the appropriateness of the utterance to the line of thought which should claim our attention, it is the self-revelation of St. James. He lets us see in what way he thinks of his Master : the single word " of glor}' " (it is one word in the Greek) is enough ; his soul is filled with the thought of his Master's glory ; it eclipses all else ; it is a glory which excels ; it is no mere exhibition of pomp ; it is the moral splendour of the love and wisdom which was pure, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy (iii. 17), This is the glory which is of heaven; in this he had seen his Master arrayed during His earthly pilgrimage ; and evermore his Master was to him the Lord of his life and the Lord who had unfolded the true meaning and the true glory of life. It is something to realise that Jesus Christ 2 2 WISDOM OF JAI\[ES THE JUST is Lord, but it is far more to realise wherein the glory of His Lordship consists. It is only those who have entered with ethical sympathy into the aims of Jesus Christ who can appreciate the nature of His glory. No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost (i Cor. xii. 3) ; but when we can do this we begin to realise how far different from any worldly glory is the spiritual glory of our Master. Only when we have His spirit can we share His view of the world and its destiny. As we grow one with Him in spirit we can share His aims, and look out upon things from the vantage ground upon which He stands. When we are with Him where He is, then and then only can we behold His glory (John xvii. 24). CHAPTER II HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE Our interest in man means our interest in life. It is one reply to the question — Is life worth living? — to realise the deep interest which attaches to all life. The story of the obscure may possess elements full of attractiveness. The conditions which brought about the obscurity of such a life are worthy of study. The conditions which led another life out of obscurity into the full light of fame, stimulate our interest. We may complain of life's monotony at times ; but when we write down the epitaph of the unkown — He was born ! he lived ! he died ! — we feel our curiosity stirred. The possibilities of man, and the possibilities of life rise before our eyes. To this or that individual life may be dull ; but on the whole life is inter- esting, and man's verdicts on life are interesting. What is the verdict of the Apostle upon our life? 24 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST The pur- We have seen enough of him to realise that he Hfe.^ ° looked out upon the world with observant eyes. He knew and saw men and things. He formed his own judgment, clearly and, as I think, promptly. If we can follow his thoughts and measure his judgments, we shall gain something from his experience. What is his general judg- ment on life ? It is something on this wise. The understand- ing of life depends upon the realisation of the end or purpose of life. To what end are we born ? is a question which we must answer before we can deal with that other — Is life worth living ? Now the true end and purpose of life is character. In the failure to realise this lies the secret of many human disappointments. If life be really designed for one end, and men persistently treat it as though it were designed for another, is it sur- prising that we hear the wail of the disappointed ? We may choose how to live ; we may choose our pursuits, our recreations, our friendships, our studies ; but the real end of life, as such, has already been chosen ; and life can only yield satisfaction to the man who allows his life to be governed by that already chosen purpose. That HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 25 purpose is not the gratification of desire, nor the satisfaction of curiosity, but the education of character. Let us reaUse this, and many of the N offences of life cease. Life, for example, is full of temptations. We take the word in its true and wide sense of trials, and not only in its narrower sense of influences leading to sin. Life is full of those temptations which test and try and so discipline men. If these come as agents to fulfil the true purpose of life, is their advent a cause of regret ? Ought it not rather to be a cause of joy ? This is emphatically St. James' view : *' Count it all joy, when ye fall into divers tempta- tions, knowing this that the trying of your faith worketh patience" (i. 2, 3). It is thus that he begins his letter, after he has given salutations of love and affection to his correspondents. Do we not read in the words his clear conception of the end of life ? Circumstances, however touched with pain, are yet instruments of spiritual good. They call forth those qualities which are funda- mental in all noble characters. Therefore wel- come those agents of good; count it all joy when ye fall into the midst of such trials. It is then a work of the highest wisdom thus to deal with life, 2 6 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST and thus to realise the significance of the inci- dents which befall us. But the spirit which is thus wise for life needs strengthening. The nourishment of that spirit of wisdom is from God. No man can face the trials and keep the heart strong, and the mind calm without heaven's help. Let therefore the man who understands this ask wisdom from God. If any man lack wisdom — this true wisdom of life — let him ask of God " that giveth to all men liber- ally and upbraideth not " (i. 5). The man who possesses this wisdom will be on the alert against mere surface religion. As character is every- thing, he will be wary against those specious imitations of good which belong to mere emotion, or, worse, to pretentiousness. He will sit as a guardian over himself, checking his tongue and criticising his own conduct, he will be eager to learn, he will be slow to speak (i. 19). He will know that chatter is not character (i. 26). His religion will be one whose worship is a pure life full of kindly deeds. " Pure religion and un- defiled before God and the Father is this — to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world " (i. 27). HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 27 Life, therefore is an opportunity, great and, so far as we know, unique for the development of character. Existence as it conies to each of us brings us into the midst of a divinely ordered process for the formation of character. If we sustain ourselves bravely and well, looking up trustfully to the God who gives wisdom and sends only what is good, facing life courageously, we shall win that inner skill which can transmute all incidents to good, and we shall in the end win that character, that heavenlike character, which is the crown of life. "Blessed is the man that en- dureth temptation, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life" (i. 12). St. James, however, is not a mere optimist. His verdict on the trials blind to the darker side of things. He has not of ufe. without meaning spoken of temptations : life brings things which hinder the pursuits of the highest aims. This is of the very nature of the trials we encounter. But it is characteristic of the Apostle that the hindrances to which he gives prominence are those which belong to the spiritual realm. He does not ignore the material trials of life, but they are the chief hindrances to the spirit which seeks to realise the true end of existence. 2 8 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST He finds the hindrances chiefly in those subtle, spiritual temptations which may invade and deteriorate the soul. The worst foes are those which come from within. Among these he notes the forms of unreal piety which so readily deceive men. There is a pretentious piety which makes a great show with the tongue (i. 26). There is the servile-hearted piety which is only a veneered worldliness (ii, 1-4). There is the cheap piety, which consists of good wishes, but which can never rise to the practice of consistent and kindly deeds (ii. 14-16). There is the censorious piety, which measures itself by the severity of its judg- ment of others, and believes itself good in propor- tion to its uncharitableness (ii. 13 ; iii. 1-13 ; and iv. II, 12). There is the selfish piety, which disregards the interest and the profit of others, failing to understand that the function of every noble life is ministry (iv. i, 2 and i. 26, 27). Besides these deceitful appearances of piety, there is, of course, the hindrance of rank worldli- ness which leads to unrighteousness (iv. 13-17), even to that unrighteousness which is guilty of the fraudulent oppression of the weak (v. 1-6). But if our pathway be marked by hindrances, HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 29 it is blessed also with helps by the way. The strenuous soul finds its own help. The trial of faith worketh patience. The upward look of the soul gives confidence, and faith is in itself a vic- torious weapon in the hands of the wise (i. 4, 5)- The noble self-restraint which the wise man exercises over heart and tongue becomes a source of strength. Moreover, we are not solitary travellers on the road. Around us are our brothers, one with us in aim, in confidence, in suffering (v. 10). When we face the trial, it is well to console our fears and to check our pride by remembering, as another apostle said, that the same afflictions are accomplished in our brethren. Lastly, there is prayer, the never-failing refuge of tried and tempted souls. " If any of you lack wisdom let him ask " (i. 5 and v, 16). Thus, if character be the end of life, the hindrances to the pursuit of this end must not be evaded but encountered, for thus only can the work within be perfected. Patience, moreover, sees the many helps by the way and uses them cheerfully and earnestly — and then not for our own sake alone, but for the sake of others ; for the end of life is not achieved simply by setting 30 AVISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST before us the formation of character as our aim. The formation of character is the end of hfe, but we shall best fulfil that end by setting before our thoughts that other purpose of our existence, viz., ministry. God will ripen the characters of those who seek to use their life in purity and service. We are to realise that the end of life is character, for so we shall live by faith ; but we are happiest if we set before us service as our vocation. In proportion as we forget ourselves in ministering to others, do we foster that character which most nearly resembles heaven, Now it is out of his strong realisation that character is the true end of life that the teaching of St. James on other matters gains so much force. Out of this springs what we may call his philosophy of life and the recognition of it enters into his views on two great topics, which we shall note later — man and God. What is his philosophy of life ? He counsels as we have seen a noble courage in facing the oppositions and the encounter. The storms, he says, are good. The good sailor is he who is dandled in the tempest, and has learned quietude of spirit amid the restlessness of the HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 31 waves. The good soldier is he who has known the bitterness and peril of the field. The good man is he who has been trained to confidence in trial. He avoids in his philosophy of life the extremes of indolent optimism and of angry pessimism. We are all tempted to onesidedness, and we measure life too often by our most recent experience. In health and prosperity, with a quick and even flowing blood coursing in our veins, we declare it to be the best possible world. In pain and under pressure of anxiety, we ask why we are born into this worst of all worlds. St. James faces the dark things — yes, life is transitory. It is a mere vapour which appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away (iv. 14). It is vanity, for its glory and grace wither away (i. 9-1 1). He sees clearly the jobbery which debases life (ii. 8-10), and the cruel frauds which add to its misery (v. 1-6). But in face of all these dark things — vanity and hard oppression — he cries " courage." He ventures to appeal to the experience of his hearers. They may feel that life at times is hard, but there is not one of them whose heart does not thrill with admiration of the 32 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST brave man who bears himself patiently under trial. If we can admire patient heroism, why should we murmur if the opportunity of admiring what is admirable be put in our way. " Behold," he says (v. ii), "we count them happy which endure." You cite the example of Job, his name stands for patience under trial ; you place him among the great who have borne and achieved. Out of your admiration, I draw my argument, and from it I enforce the like duty on you — " Be patient there- fore, brethren." His philosophy of Hfe is quite clear. Face things in the true spirit, and they will be contributory to good. They will turn to the strengthening and the refining, to the purifying and uplifting of character. It is the unworldliness of the Apostle's thoughts which lies at the root of his equanimity. Let our view of the end of life be a selfish or carnal one, and then out of its failures there will come annoy- ance, chagrin, or cynicism. The man who fixes his ambitions on some intellectual triumph finds his refuge from failure in a sneer. The dis- appointed intellectualist becomes a cynic. Pessi- mism in philosophy is full often the fruit of an egotistic spirit. It is at any rate worthy of note HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 33 that the New Testament which accepts self- sacrifice as the true law of existence, knows no pessimism, so true is it that he who loses his life finds it. Once reach an unworldly view of life, realise that character or spiritual progress is its real purpose, and we begin to understand that word of the Apostle — that all things may work together for good. We become one with St. James, and are ready to count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations, knowing that the trial of faith worketh patience, and patience is in a sense the architect of the soul's development. It is well, therefore, to let patience have her perfect work ; for she brings the true crown of life, which is not any dazzling halo or canonised glory, but just the perfection of our nature to its true pur- pose and use, in the completion of our character in the image of Him who made us. But are not these views of life wound up too high for man ? Does the writer truly understand man, that he urges him to count the very falling into trouble a joy ? Is not such an one living in a world of imagination, and among beings unhke those whom we know and understand ? The questions are quite natural ; and they lead c 34 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST us to ask, What were St. James' views about man His views Wise meii have counselled us against intimacies about man. with the great. If we would cherish our happy hero-worship, let us look at the hero from a dis- tance. No man is great to his valet, and it is not safe to see even the greatest and best man out of uniform. Let us be content with the splendour of the parade-ground, and not look at human nature in undress. Familiarity breeds contempt, and in no field of knowledge does contempt grow more rapidly than in our knowledge of our fellow men. To those who know men at a distance they may seem great ; to those who know them near at hand, they too often appear but villainously made and to be mere parodies of manhood. Ignorance may glorify men, knowledge teaches us to despise them. Can we class St James among the ignorant or among the knowing ? His views of life might lead us to expect from him exalted views of the courage and moral capacities of men, but this is not the case. He is singularly level- though ted and shrewd in his readings of men. He possesses a clear view of human weakness. He gives us from time to time little vignettes ol HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE :^5 character, which reveal a gift Hke that of Theo- phrastus or La Bruy^re. Let us look at one or two of these. We find them suggested by a sentence, as that in which he conjures up the image of the petulant man (i. 13), the man who flings the blame of his fall upon the order of things. "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God." No man, of course, dees say just that ; but he thinks it. Things were against him ; he had not a fair chance ; circumstances should not be arranged to put him in such an awkward position. Like an angry child, he beats the floor upon which he has fallen. He has no thought of his own indolence, self-indulgence, passionateness, or of any one of his many weaknesses which caused him to trip, or made his fall almost a matter of course. Or look at his portrait of the man who has never reached any true knowledge of himself (i. 23, 24). The world is a mirror in which a man may catch reflections of himself; the words of prophets and spiritual teachers give us clear images of ourselves ; but every one knows the man is remaining persistently self-ignorant, although the motto " know thyself" has been placarded before his eyes in the synagogue and" the market-place. S6 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST Again, what knowledge of human nature's weaknesses is expressed in his account of the reasons for the failure of prayer (iv. 1-4). It is not lack of prayer of which he complains, but lack of right aims in prayer. Men ask amiss. Their heart's desires are genuine enough, but they are hopelessly worldly. They pray — but for worldly things, for the means of satisfying their carnal wishes. We can see the class of people whom he has in mind. They are the Bubb- Dodington class, who would chronicle gratefully in their diary the answers to their prayers, when the Prince smiled upon them, or their speculations turned out well. They are unctuously thankful, and their gratitude to Providence is as vulgar as their desires. Or, once more (ii. 15, 16), do we not know the parsimonious benevolence which is full of comforting phrases, and says to the needy, " Be ye warmed and fed " ? As we read the words, we know that Joseph Surface existed before the days of Sheridan.. A writer who can, by his phrases, suggest such pictures of human character, knows some- thing of men. He is not the victim of illusions. The marvel is that he does not exhibit contempt HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 37 towards his fellow men. But there is not a trace of this. He possesses some deep conviction which acts as a saving force against the ready contempt which springs from too intimate a know- ledge of our fellow creatures — we have not far to seek for this saving force in the Apostle. Along with a clear insight into human nature, he pos- sesses a profound belief in the possibilities of man. He sees the paltry greed and the cowardly petulance of men, their easy and mean self-decep- tion, their persistent worldliness, and their shallow religion ; but he sees that man was not born to be the victim of these. In spite of all these pettinesses, and these subjugating vices, man comes from God : in God's image was he made, and into God's image he is content to grow (iii. 9). He will outline his sketch of this man or that who hugs his pet weakness ; he will draw his picture with a faithful hand, extenuating nothing ; but he will allow no malice, and at the thought of launch- ing curses against man his soul rises up in anger. Who is it that dares to let loose his tongue and curse his brother man ? Was he not made in the image of God ? His view of man is truthful. He clearly perceives man's faults — nay, he can 38 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST readily rise to indignation against all forms of unrighteous conduct ! Here lies the proof that he has not despaired of his brother men. We are only angry as long as we can hope to improve men and their condition. When hope goes, anger dies down, and we become cynically indifferent. But there is no sign of this in St. James. His heart is alive ; sympathy can fill his soul ; he can realise the contrast between what is and what might be. He is no pessimist regarding his fellow men. Seeing how weak they are, he can still hold strongly by some greater hope ; but holding by such a hope, he sees how powerful is moral evil in human life. He realises the weak- nesses of men as we have seen, but we should be mistaken if we only viewed St. James as one who saw no deeper into human nature than the pro- fessional delineator of human character, who can shrewdly sketch men's characters, but who never seeks to reach the causes which lie below the surface. The Apostle has his own view concern- ing the origin and development of the weak and inhuman characters he has noted. Sin, said Coleridge, is evil having an origin. If we can touch the origin of the conditions we deplore, we HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 39 have taken one great and important step in know- ledge. The origin of moral evil is, according to St. Views on moral James, the prevalence of unrestrained desire, evii. Things we may be tempted by, objects may attract, but the power of the temptation lies in our desires — our lusts are our real tempters. Every man when he is tempted is drawn aside of his own lust and enticed. Lust leads to sin, and sin leads to death (i. 13-16). This is what we may call St. James' pedigree of sin and death. Your death, in his view, is not, I imagine, the physical death, though ph3'sical death often results from uncurbed indulgences. There is a worse death than the death which is the common lot of all. There is a moral death : this death follows when the stifled conscience speaks no more, when the man who has surrendered himself to the guidance of desire has not only forgotten God, but has become heedless of the sorrows of his brother man, callous and indifferent to the claims of humanity. Such a man is dead indeed, for he has exiled his spirit and affections from the family of God. Who can say after such a picture that the Apostle takes only a surface view of moral St. Paul 40 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST evil ? Who does not realise that he has pene- trated the spiritual depths of human nature ? He sees clearly the working of a law which can de- moralise the soul, and he warns men that the indulgence of light desires may end in a spiritual captivity more gloomy than that of Egypt. Here we may pause for a moment to reflect. It *"<* has often been said that St. Paul and St. James St. James, teach not only different but contradictory views of Christianity. It cannot have escaped even the superficial reader that they are men of entirely different gifts, and of widely divergent t3'^pes of thought ; but they are brought together by one very strong bond — attachment — to a common Master. Jesus Christ, who is to St. Paul the one in whom all fulness dwells, is to St. James the Lord of Glory. Now all those who are brought into the discipleship of Christ become earnest after righteousness — moral evil becomes the one evil to such. Poverty, pain, and shame are trials in their view — they are not evil as sin is evil. Moral evil is the one hateful thing ; in moral weakness and wrong lies the only defilement. According to St. John, sin is impossible to the truly heavenly nature (i John ii. 4; iii. 9). He HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 41 that " is born of God sinneth not " (i John v. 18). That is as clear to him as that in God is no dark- ness at all. St. Paul cries : " How shall we that are dead to sin live an^^ longer therein ? " (Rom. vi. 2.) Similarly St. James is earnest that Christian men shall realise sin as the evil thing. There must be no casting of blame upon circum- stances (i. 13). They ought to recognise the de- moralised desires which lead to that dark thing sin (i. 14, 15), Thus the Christian Apostles are at one in their abhorrence of moral evil. But the agreement between St, Paul and St. James is even closer than this. In the view of both, sin operates as a kind of law. It is not a series of isolated acts. Wherever moral evil works, it works as a force, which shows itself in action, but which must not be confounded with the action. In St. James' view it is ill-regulated or ungoverned desire (i. 14-16) which works as a misleading force. In the view of St. Paul, desire too lies at the root of the matter. He tells us (Rom. vii. 7, 8) that he had not known sin but by the law, but when the law declared " thou shalt not covet," he realised that there were manifold desires within him which lead to sin. Both Apostles 42 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST recognise the part which ungoverned lust plays in the tragedy of sin ; both recognise that there is a method of operation in moral evil — a law of sin in our members (Rom. vii. 23). Whatever differ- ences there are between St. James and St. Paul, they are at one in their recognition of the force and shame of sin ; they are at one in that hunger and thirst after righteousness which carries their Master's benediction (St. Matt. v. 6). CHAPTER III HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD There remains yet one question for us to ask before we close this survey of St. James' teaching. We have asked, What were his views of life ? What were his views of man ? We now ask, . What were his thoughts about God ? This is the supreme question, however we may ideas of God are reach it; for the answer to it must influence our central to life feelings and ideas on many other matters. In the teaching of Jesus Christ the thought of God held the central place. It was the axle on which all human Hfe ought to revolve; it was the thought out of which all moral conduct seemed to emerge, for it was the heart of the moral law. Take it away and the commandments become, if not value- less, at least meaningless. The first and great commandment was, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, 44 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST and with all thy mind." (Matt. xxii. ^7.) The love which Christ here set forth as the pivot of all worthy obedience was a love which in His view was spontaneous. Our Lord knew enough of human nature to know that love could not be enforced : the heart with all its waywardness and foolishness was yet free. The commandment to love, however, was not unreasonable ; it did not stand as a coercive fiat : it stood, as it were, rooted in the nature of things. Those who were taught to pray ** Our Father " were taught to see in God the Fountain of their being, the author of all light, joy, and capacity ; the One whose love was the provoking cause of all other love ; the One, therefore, to whom the hearts and souls of men turned as it were by a law of their being ; God, the Father of the soul, was the only final and complete resting-place of the soul. The soul, though it knew not the meaning of its thirst, was yet, like the Psalmist's, athirst for the living God. For it there was no other refuge, and therefore the awakened spirit could cry : " Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee : my heari^ and my flesh faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and HIS THOUGHTS x\BOUT GOD 45 my portion for ever." (Psalm Ixxiii. 25, 26.) When we realise this fundamental relation between the soul and God, we feel how natural indeed is Christ's declaration that the first and great com- mandment is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God " ; for the loving of God is just the realisa- tion of what He is to us : it is the realisation that there is no true life without Him, that in Him we do most truly live, move, and have our being. It is not, therefore, a vain thing to ask what They influ- ence our are a man's thoughts of God. If God be to us a views of far-off sovereign, " wrapped in the solitary ampli- things tudes of boundless space," He will be but a misty and fearsome figure which occasionally projects the dark shadow of Hmiself across our life. If God be to us the inexorable judge who knows no mercy and can show no pity, then we shall regard Him as little other than that inevitable fate which can crush but cannot redeem us. But if God be the joyous, active, loving, wise, and just being, who has placed us in the world, because He loves us, for our good, making it a world of education, and enabling us through the very vicissitudes of things to climb up into His likeness ; if He be the God who not only makes a goal for us, but 46 ^VISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST seeks to co-operate with us in reaching that goal, then He is one with whom we can have personal relationship, and the realisation of Him in His wisdom and goodness is as new strength to our life. St. James' It is then well to ask What are St. James' IboutGod. thoughts about God? If I mistake not, St. James' thoughts about God range themselves in three groups — God is light ; God is righteous ; God is love. We do not, it is true, find these statements in so many words, but the drift of St. James' teaching on the subject will be found, as we proceed, to be embodied in these three propositions. God is We feel that we are not overstating St. James' position in this case. He does not, like St. John, declare at once God is Light (i John i. 5), but he does give utterance to the remarkable and incon- testable saying, " Every good gift and every perfect boon is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no varia- tion, neither shadow that is cast by turning" (i. 17). He who is the Father of lights is Him- self a light which knows no change, and where He is no shadows fall. The shadows which drop light. HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD 47 across our pathway and which cast obscurity upon our minds arise from our position in this world ot trial. The shadows are where we stand, and not where God is. It is true enough that there are dark things in the world which are very real to us, and which are meant — shall we say ? — to be realised by us. Some of these we can understand. We can, for instance, understand that suffering may subserve good ; and we know that the discipline of hardship strengthens and consolidates character. But there are other phenomena which appear to us as viola- tions of moral order. At times it seems as though God tolerated evil, and as though the laws of the world worked in favour of the bad. The faith of St. James lifts him above this plane of thought ; he believes that in the presence of God there dwells a light in which all dark things are absorbed ; or rather, that could we be trans- ported to the platform of heaven every shadow cast by the unstable things of earth would dis- appear. The shadows are here, where we are : in the centre of all things, by the throne on which God sits, there are no shadows. In other words, St. James teaches what St. John teaches 48 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST — that God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all (i John i. s). Naturally, at first sight, this seems to be more speculative than practical. It may be true that there is a sunlit centre of all things which is free from shadow, and touched by no darkness at all ; but such a place is far removed from us : from the nature of the case it is inaccessible to us who are creatures of time and space, doomed to live amid the ever-shifting lights which create ever- lengthening shadows as they move. Does it help us very much to be told of that noontide spot which can never be invaded by darkness ? But to think thus is to forget the form in which St. James has put his thoughts. To him, indeed, God is Light, and from His presence all darkness is banished. But he does not suggest this arid truth as the ground of comfort. He is clearly trying to make his disciples realise and rest upon the character of God. He is dealing with the case of the man who is inclined to throw the blame of his failures upon God : " Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God." Let such a man look into his own nature, and search there for the causes of failure. He will find that not HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD 49 God but desire has been the tempter. Looking within, a man will find strenuously tempting desires ; looking above, he may realise that God, from His very nature, can give forth good and only good. The good which God gives may be misused by man, but it is not therefore any the less good. He gives the lights which rule the day and the night. Whatever beautiful, pure, and brilliant power shines on the world, is a gift of God ; and more, is, if rightly understood, the pledge of His goodness. It is to the changeless goodness of the divine character that St. James leads us back. The sunlit and shadowless centre of all things is not mere cloudless splendour ; it is unsullied good. The security of man does not lie in the greatness of God, still less in any barren truth which may be advanced about Him : it lies in the character of God. We can rest secure, because He is what He is : He is good in His very nature, and therefore it is inconceivable that He should tempt any man to evil. God being God, man may feel sure that the laws of life's game are fair and just. The light in which He dwells is no mere dazzling splendour: it is the light of goodness, truth, right, justice. Thus it is D So WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST back to the fundamental ethics of existence as guaranteed by the Father of lights that St. James goes when he wishes to assure men that they will meet with fair play in the experiences of life. We thus get to the second group of thoughts about God which St. James sets forth. God is light ; He is essentially goodness : it follows, therefore, that He is righteous. God is This is, if we measure it truly, only an appli- righteous. cation or aspect of the divine goodness. When we speak of God's righteousness, we are thinking of the application of goodness to the conditions of the worlds beneath His sovereignty. Let us notice the strong hold which St. James has upon this idea. St. James has been called the last of the pro- phets. We catch echoes of the older prophets in his thoughts and expressions ; but perhaps still more we can recognise a prevailing tone in his letter which makes us feel that he has the same spirit which breathed in Isaiah and Amos. Like these mentors of ancient Judah and Israel, St. James is saturated with the conviction of God's righteousness. We open his letter once more and we begin to read. Early in his letter he tells HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD 51 us that the very purpose of our existence is to fulfil the righteousness of God. Thus he counsels patience, moderation, caution in utterance, the avoidance of the angry, tumultuous spirit (i. 19, 20) ; and as the sufficient reason for not encou- raging the angry spirit he says, it worketh not the righteousness of God. "Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." In the next chapter we see how deeply he realises the significance of the divine righteous- ness ; it demands not a mere external conformity to commands, but an inward harmony with the spirit of which all laws are the expressions. To fail in one point is to fail in all, because the failure betrays the lack of a spirit in harmony with the spirit of eternal and governing righteous- ness. " For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all " (ii. 10), In the same strain, he insists on righteousness as a practical thing (ii. 15-25); and more striking is the way in which he asso- ciates righteousness with wisdom. The heavenly wisdom is not successful in ingenious speculative theories, still less is it worldly cleverness, or a 52 AVISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST practical dexterity in the management of affairs which so often passes for wisdom. The true and divine wisdom consists in the possession of those ethical quaUties which bring man into harmony with the righteous order of God. The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without variance, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for them that make peace (iii. 17, 18). Lasth', his perception of the righteous rule of God finds expression in his indignant protest against the oppressive frauds of the rich. As he sees the impunity with which such high-handed tyranny is carried on, the prophetic spirit in him takes fire ; his vision becomes clear ; he sees that the eternal order of righteousness cannot be defied for ever; he sees that, unrecognised by the selfish oppressor, the unfailing justice of God draws near. " The judge standeth before the doors" (v. I- 10). As we weigh these passages we understand how fully persuaded the writer was of the change- less justice of the Almighty, how truly his soul is filled with the faith that God is righteous. HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD 53 There is no explicit statement of this truth God is love, made by St. James ; and we might at first sight be disposed to doubt whether his teaching impHed such a view of the divine nature, and his tone of thought, it might be said, is severer than that of the Apostle of love : he sees the law of right and justice : he is full of a prophet's wrath against all unrighteousness : but does he apprehend the deep and all-embracing truths of the divine love ? First, let us understand what we mean by love. No New Testament writer thinks of love in a merely setimental wa}^ ; to none of them is love a kind of flabby fondness. Love to them is an urgent and earnest force, which never lowers its ideals for the sake of winning the affections of its object ; it is a spirit which seeks only and can only seek the real and abiding good of those it loves. It is a spirit, therefore, which can display itself in severe guise ; it can arm itself with the rod ; it is ready to scourge forth invading wrong from the sacred precincts. We can easily satisfy ourselves of the truth of this view. St. Paul and St. John alike accept love as the essential basis of the divine character and of the Christian character. If St. Paul does not say frequently, as St. John 54 WISDOM OK JAMES THE JUST does, God is Love, he yet realises that the security of the soul lies in the love of God ; from that nothing can separate us; none of the trials and dangers of life can part us from that great love which holds its children safe (Rom. viii. 39) ; but this love of God can burn like fire. St. Paul recognises that there is a fire which shall try every man's work of what sort it is (i Cor. iii. 13) ; he is persuaded that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God (i Cor. vi. 9, 10). Similarly, the apostle who so often reiterates that God is Love, is earnest to warn us that as God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all, so if we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth (i John i. 5, 6). Love, as the apostles under- stand it, is a purifying spirit. If God is a con- suming fire, the love of God also burns like a fire in Christ-like souls and burns up all unworthy desires. " To this end was the Son of God " — and in Him also the love of God — " manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil." (I John iii. 8.) Practical love becomes the test of Christian character. " Let us not love in word, neither with the tongue ; but in deed and truth. HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD 55 Hereby shall we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. " (i John iii. 18, 19.) We need not seek further. We have said enough to show that love is no mere senti- ment in the thoughts of St. Paul and St. John. They are at one with St. James in insisting that love shall show itself in action. They who con- ceive thus of Christian life and the action of love in it, think of God as the light which will endure no darkness, and of the divine love as a flame which will burn up all that is alien to itself, and thus purify and elevate all that is heavenlike in the souls of men. Thus St. Paul, St. John, and St. James are at one in their realisation of the stern element which characterises divine love ; but does St. James recognise, as the other apostles do, that love lies behind this stern quality ? Let us look at the words of St. James when he speaks of God. He writes as one who is persuaded that God is the God of Charity. " Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction " (i. 26, 27). Can we read this without feeling how completely St. James realises the loving fatherli- 56 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST ness of God ? In the divine thoughts the truest Christian worship is this ministration of love to the needy. Is it too much to say that he views God as the Father of Charity ? The sight of the fatherless must awaken in the breast of those who know God the recollection of the fatherliness of His nature. Is not this saying in another form that God is love ? And when we ask how far, according to St. James' thought, this divine love reaches, we find the answer that it embraces all. God, according to St. James, claims a fatherhood as wide as His lordship. If His kingdom and lordship are over all, so is His fatherhood, for so we find him writing with strong and unqualified words in chap. iii. 9, when he is censuring those who curse their fellow men. "Therewith {i.e., our tongues) bless we the Lord and Father ; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the likeness of God." He sees in all men the mark of their parentage : all are sheltered by the love of Him who is Father of all, and all should be sheltered from the venom of a brother's tongue. Are we not right in sa3ang that St. James, like St. Paul and St. John, realises the great and immortal truth that God is Love ? HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD 57 There is a practical conclusion to which we are Life i led. It is a matter of some moment that we should see things through the proper medium. The most beautiful landscape seen through coloured glass may seem crude, garish and un- natural. All seems infected that the infected spy, As all seems yellow to the jaundiced eye. The man of an avaricious temperament sees everything through the medium of his own covetousness : he cannot see things in their true proportion ; they take distorted shapes ; the most beautiful things appear to him deformed, as the human figure is made ludicrously misshapen when seen in a convex mirror. What medium can be found that will register things aright, and enable us to see ourselves, our lives, and our fellow men as they truly are ? How can we avoid the false impressions which are not only painful, but which become the sources of so many false judgments? For this, it is needful that we should view everything in God. \'iew life through the medium of self, and we find it disappointing; our expectations are not 58 AVISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST fulfilled, our dreams vanish in thin air, our self- love is wounded, and we become one of the many who cry that life is a snare, a delusion, a freak, a cheat. But let us change the medium. Let us view life in God, then it is an experience which comes to us^ and which is accompanied by a purpose. When we view life through the medium of self, we measure its success by our fortune. When we view it in God, we measure it by our character. We esteem its value, appraising it by a moral not a material standard. Then the changes which befall us, the unexpected joy, the thwarted wish, the unsought friendship, the broken dream, the sorrow that pierces the heart, the human kindliness which revives it, all minister to our growth, all work for good ; their co-operant influ- ence produces the harmonious result which God sees now and which we shall see hereafter. Life is no longer incomplete ; we shall not image it as a shattered column, but as an edifice upon which the hand of God's skill can lay the topmost stone amid the shoutings of those who rejoice in its beauty. It is thus that St. James views life. He sees that it is short and that to covetous natures it will vanish as a vapour; but HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD 59 when he sees it in God, he sees the structure of the soul which is rising behind the scaffolding of life's experiences. Seen through the world- medium, it dissolves as a cloud ; seen in God, it is the building of a city which abides through the eternal years as all things that partake of the divine nature must. View man also in God. To view man outside God is to create despair ; it produces a whimsical cynicism, which is half bitterly contemptuous because of man's littleness or meanness, and half- humorously pathetic because of the brevity of human life : men seem to be but cardboard figures in a cardboard pageant ; ludicrous, because their colouring and airs are so magnificent and they themselves so unsubstantial. But let us change the medium, let us view man in God ; then we recognise him as the offspring of divinest wisdom and divinest love. Can we scoff any more, as we realise that beneath the transient robe of his bodily frame there is a character which may be moulded through the experiences of sorrow, failure, joy, and triumph into something noble, into a being capable of courageous endeavour, patient endurance, heroic self-sacrifice, devoted 6o WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST and uncomplaining service in spite of reproaches, obloquies, misunderstandings ? Thien the squalid trappings of life may conceal souls that are grow- ing in saintship, and the very least and obscurest of the sons of men may be ripening into the glorious liberty of the children of God. This is, I think, one lesson from St. James' teaching. It is because he sees life and men in God that there- fore he can be indignant without being contemp- tuous ; he can preach patience without leading to despair, and without ignoring the trials of the present, he can forecast the splendour of the future. CHAPTER IV THE WRITER AND THOSE TO WHOM HE WROTE We have glanced rapidly at the views of St. James upon one or two important mutters, and the time has come for us to follow more carefully the course of his letter, and see how he seeks to instruct and help his fellow Christians. We open his letter, and we are brought to a pause upon the threshold. We read, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting." These words are very simple, but we pause, because we ask ourselves who is this James, and to whom is he writing ? Let us endeavour shortly to answer these two questions. We have seen what manner of man he was, we have recognised his love of nature, his shrewd and humorous interest in his fellow men, his reticent but passionate attachment to his Master, 62 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST and his unhesitating confidence in the power of right; but we have said nothing about his personal history, we have made as yet no attempt to identify him with any of those who bore the name of James in early Christian days. But before we attempt to answer the question, " Who is this James ? " a preliminary caution is needed. Truth more No doubt an answer to such a question is full than the messenger, of interest ; it satisfies our curiosity, and it gives, perhaps, some added personal attraction to our study of the letter, if we can call up historical facts about the writer. But it is well to remember that the ethical and spiritual value of the letter is one thing, and the historical or critical interest is another, and we ought to be able to separate these aspects from one another. It is too much our habit to judge what we read by the name of the author rather than the author by the book we read. We accept as good what comes to us bearing a familiar name: thus we think more of the name than of the good. We should rather invert the process, and ask first, Is it good ? and then, Who wrote it ? — instead of making our judgment upon good or bad vacillate till we are TO \^'HOM HE WROTE 63 led captive by an author's name. Does it seem that in saying this we are disparaging overmuch the authority of great names ? If it should seem so to any, let me recall Christ's indignant expos- tulation — "Wh}' even of yourselves judge ye not what is right ?" (LuivC xii. 57.) Let me recall, also, the fact that Jesus Christ was ever earnest that men should concern themselves about truth, rather than about the sources of truth. Though He came down from heaven, and was the supreme revealer of the Father to men, yet He sought to turn aside the questions of curiosity. He would not answer him who asked, " Whence art thou ? " {John xix. 9.) He knew that those who sought truth would grasp truth, and that those who grasped truth would soon find out whence the truth came (John xviii. ^y) ; while He also most sadly knew that those whose minds were set upon knowing the source of truth too often missed the truth altogether. His principle was ever that an earnest moral affection for what was true and good soon led to a solution of questions of origin. " My teaching is not mine, but His that sent me. If any man willeth to do His will, He shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether 64 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST I speak from myself." (John vii. \y.) In the spirit of the same principle He refused to satisfy the Scribes and Pharisees respecting His authority ; and threw them back upon their consciences and the relation of their consciences to the righteousness proclaimed by John the Baptist. It is, therefore, no trifling matter to settle with ourselves the relationship between truth and authorship. There is a radical ethical difference between the man who accepts truth because of authority and the man who accepts authority because of truth. The writer In our study wc have followed the method of the of the message. latter man : the truth has been first with us, and we can now gain an added interest, but not a greater ethical force, to our study by asking. Who was this James ? The most probable answer (though in this case probability cannot even suggest approximation to certainty) is that the writer was that James who was known as the " brother of the Lord." We must not confuse him in our minds with one of those brothers James and John, the sons of Zebedee, whom our Lord named Sons of Thunder. The writer we have to deal with is one who, TO WHOM HE WROTE 65 without having been one of the twelve, yet reached a position of great influence among the Christian society at Jerusalem. He is the person whom St. Paul tells us he saw at Jerusalem when he spent a fortnight there in a.d. 38 — three years, as he tells us, after his conversion. He went up to Jerusalem, and stayed with St. Peter, but he saw no other apostle except James, the Lord's brother (Gal. i. 18, 19). This is the same James to whom St. Peter sent word after his escape from prison, as we read in Acts xii. 17, a chapter, be it noticed, which opens (verse 2) by telling of the martyrdom of the other James, the brother of John. There are two other references to James which we must notice. The 15th chapter of the Acts tells us of an important conference or council which was held at Jerusalem. The subject under discussion was practically the position of the Gentile converts in the Christian Church. It met, as it seems, under the presidency of James, and it is he who closes the discussion and sug- gests the resolution which was finally agreed upon. One thing will become clear from the narrative, if we now turn to the second reference to James, which deserves notice. The passage is E 66 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST in Gal. ii. 11-14. In it St. Paul narrates the troublesome character of the influence of certain people who came to Antioch from Jerusalem. The}' caused division ; they set up a fence 01 prejudice between Jewish and Gentile Christians. They were what have been called Judaisers — i.e., they insisted that Jewish customs or ceremonial ordinances ought to be observed by Gentile converts ; in other words, the Gentile Christian was to conform to Jewish religious observances. Out of this arose the first conflict for freedom in the Christian society : the decision on the apparently small questions of eating and drinking involved the whole future of the Christian society. These Judaisers held James in high esteem and reverence : they were intimate with him, they came to Antioch under the sanction of his name. They are described by St. Paul as those who came from James. This does not, of course, mean that James approved their action at Antioch, but it does imply that they belonged to the group of Christians at Jerusalem to whom James was a central and leading figure ; and it may well have been that, animated as they were by a fanatical spirit, and consequently unable to realise the TO WHOM HE WROTE 67 deeper principles of action, they reckoned upon his sympathy in their sturdy Judaism. At any rate, he was one whose judgment would have weight with them and with men of their school of thought. They were Jews who held everything Jewish, the injunctions of the ceremonial as well as those of the moral law, as sacred. Their con- fidence in James arose not out of the fact that he was a Jew, but out of the fact that he was a devout Jew, who, brought under the Christian teaching, had not flung aside his Jewish habits and customs. This was the man who presided when the subject of the status of Gentiles in the Christian Church was formally discussed. We can realise the interest and, indeed, anxiety with which the result of the debate was awaited by Jewish and Gentile Christians and their respec- tive sympathisers. To those whose sympathies were strongly Jewish it would seem that the dignity and authority of divinely appointed ordinances were at stake ; the law had been given by Moses, and here were men who were planning to set it aside. Their feelings were akin to the feel- ings with which men who have been brought up to believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible 68 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST hear of the results of modern criticism ; or to the feelings of those who have been taught to believe that the Christian Church has one fixed pattern, when they are told that the work of the Spirit is independent of stereotyped forms. To such men the question in dispute appeared to be whether tlie new society was going to be loyal to God or not. But to those whose sympathies were Gentile, the question was whether they were to accept along with the spiritual teaching of Christ a series of national and local traditions. To such it was a question of freedom. To us who look back upon it, it was one of many conflicts, ever recurring in the world's history, between formalism and spirituality. Hisstrongr The result of the discussion at Jerusalem influence. (Acts XV.) was a step towards freedom. Pro- bably the decision was the best which at that time could be arrived at. Violent changes pro- voke reactions, and violent measures were skil- fully avoided by the council. The attitude of the extreme Judaisers, who insisted that Gentile converts should submit to the Jewish custom of circumcision, was repudiated ; on the other hand, on the question of meats, an authoritative wish, TO WHOM HE WROTE 69 hardly amounting to a formal injunction, was ex- pressed that Gentiles should conform to the Jewish custom. This decision was substantially the judgment of James, whose words were : " My judgment is that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles turn to God ; but that we write unto them, that they abstain from the pollution of idols, and from fornication, and from what is strangled, and from blood." (Acts xv. 19, 20.) This judgment could only come from one who realised the paramount importance of the spiritual bond among men, because only such an one could have consented to set aside so sacred a rite as circumcision. On the other hand, the judgment could only have proceeded from one also who not only realised the importance of conciliating the Jewish party in the Church, but who, to a certain extent, sympathised with their views. This will be more evident if we notice that in the circular letter which embodied the views of the council, the things enumerated by St. James, pollution of idols, fornication, things strangled, and blood, are described as " necessary " things (Acts xv. 28). We know that St. Paul would never have described 70 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST these things as necessary ; his judgment on things offered to idols was characterised by greater freedom ; to him it was a matter within Christian Hbert}', to be modified by motives of considera- tion for weaker brethren (i Cor. viii. 1-13). Thus to a certain degree, Jewish S3mipathies reveal themselves in the judgment of James on this matter, and these are even more distinctly' evident in the letter which embodied the judgment. The hand which drafted the letter emphasised the necessity of a certain conformit3- to Jewish custom. This emphasis, though stronger than the tone of St. James's speech, ma}' be due perhaps to St. James himself; for in the close of his speech, he gave as his reason for advising conformity to Jewish custom, that " Moses from generations of old hath in every city them that preach him, being- read in the synagogue every Sabbath." Clearl}' what was passing in his mind was the importance of not alienating or shocking the multitudes of Jews who were to be found in every part of the empire. A Jewish Christian like St. James would, in the early days of Christianity, be anxious to draw all Jews just as they were into the faith of Christ ; and while assured that Christianit}' was TO WHOM HE WROTE 71 for tlic Gentiles also, he would fain avoid — nay, he would sensitively refuse to accept — any rapid or revolutionary change in customs which had become religiously sacred. There is, therefore, in the decision of the council the mingling of the two elements : one, the recognition of the domin- ant value of the spiritual tie ; the other, the application of a cautious common sense to a very difficult and delicate matter. The reader of the Epistle of St. James will feel that the writer of that letter displa3's both of these qualities. He is emphatic in his insistence upon the spiritual aspect of things (iii. 13-18); he possesses also that clear and sound sense which is of more value than genius in moments of crisis. Such, then, as far as we can guess, was the writer of this letter. The next question we ask is. To whom did he To whom he wrote. write ? Much has been written on this subject ; but we need not linger over the answer. Some have held that those who are addressed were Jews ; others, that they were professedly Chris- tians. It does not seem to me to be needful to set aside the simple and plain meaning of the 7 2 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST writer's own words. He tells us that he writes to the twelve tribes of the dispersion, and I am quite content to take his word for it. There is no ground, that I can see, for not giving to these words their obvious interpretation. In the early days of Christian preaching, the Christian society was the expression of a religious movement among the Jews. The sense of nationality was still strong. The believers in Christ were Jews : they thought, spoke and felt as Jews ; they 3'-earned to make their compatriots sharers of the new hopes which Christ had awakened within them ; they still adhered to Jewish customs ; they still frequented the syna- gogue, and went up on solemn occasions to the Temple at Jerusalem. It would not occur to a Christian of this period to do otherwise than address his countrymen collectively on a matter which was near to his heart, and which was bound up, as he believed, with the best hopes of Israel. Later, separation and division arose ; and Chris- tian writers distinguished between Jews and Gentiles, between believing and unbelieving Jews. Of course, if we give a late date to this letter of St. James, the form of his address to the twelve rO WHOM HE WROTE 73 tribes of the dispersion becomes a difficulty, but not otherwise ; and seeing that the language of this address is an integral part of the letter, and that no critic has challenged it as the addition of a later hand, the address itself becomes a very strong argument for the early date of the letter. For the rest, it only needs to be remembered that partly owing to transplantations after con- quest, and partly owing to the commercial instincts of the race, Jews were widely scattered in all parts of the world. Thus colonies of Jews were to be found in Upper Mesopotamia, in Babylon, in Egypt, in Syria, in Asia Minor, and in Rome. The list of places given in Acts ii. 9-12 illustrates how far they had been dispersed and from what distances they came to be present at the feasts at Jerusalem. It is interesting to note that the faults which St. James censures in his letter are many of them faults to which the Jews as a race are specially liable. These we shall touch upon in due course. PART II THE LETTER CHAPTER I LIFE AS EDUCATION Ch. i. 1-5 We may now turn to the description the writer gives of himself. This is what we read, " James, a servant (Greek : bondservant) of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ." He is, in his own view, a bondservant. This is the word by which St. Paul describes himself when writing to the Romans and to the Philippians ; it is the word, too, which meets us in the openings of the Book of Revelation and of the Epistles of St. Jude and of 2 Peter. Those who realised the freedom which had come to them in Christ were glad to describe themselves as bondslaves of God and of Christ. But it has been asked. If the writer of this Spiritual Epistle could rejoice in the title, the brother of more than the Lord, and could thus, whatever the signifi- ^'"''^'p- cance of that phrase, claim special kinship with the 78 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST Lord and Master of the Church, why is he con- tent with describing himself simply as a bond- servant ? The answer Hes in the extraordinary fraternal enthusiasm which prevailed in the early Christian society : we know that this enthusiasm led them to have all things in common ; personal ownership was lost sight of in the claims of the community (Acts ii. 44-47). In the same way the ties of the flesh were absorbed in those of the brotherhood. These human ties were not harshly broken as they were under the hard legalism of Pharisaic religion (Mark vii. 10-13) : they were lifted into a higher plane; they were seen to be tokens and symbols of more enduring bonds. In such times of spiritual exaltation the sense of earthly things grows less. St. Paul will no longer boast of his tribe, lineage and educa- tion ; St. James will not dwell on the glory of his earthly lineage, or vaunt himself great because he is of kin to Christ after the flesh. These things, sweet and precious as they are, have been lost in the joy of the spiritual relationship, they pale before a glor}' which is eternal. This line of thought involves no mere figure of speech : it was the dominant line of thought among men who LIFE AS EDUCATION 79 were spiritually enlightened. Knowledge of Christ in the spirit was more than any knowledge of Him in the flesh — "Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know Him so no more." (2 Cor. v. 16.) This was the language of St. Paul ; and it was the echo of Christ's own words. " The flesh profiteth nothing : the words that I have spoken unto you, are spirit, and are life." (John vi. 63.) In- deed, it was ever this spiritual aspect of thipgs which Christ insisted upon. Spiritual affinity was more than blood relationship. He reverenced ties of blood : He would not tolerate the breaking of bonds which God's providence had created. Men were bound to accept and fulfil the duties which accompanied domestic and social relation- ship, but these ties brought duties rather than rights ; they were precious only in so far as a divine call and obligation were seen in them. Mere physical kinship, however, conferred no spiritual capacity : the divine judgment dealt only with a man's spiritual character. Those whose lives were in harmony with God's thoughts were more truly blessed than those who could claim blood relationship with the Christ of God. 8o WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST Those who heard the word of God and kept it were more blessed than His own mother (Luke xi. 27, 28) ; more truly akin to Him than the members of his own family were those who did the will of His Father in heaven (Mark iii. 31-35)- As we read these reiterated and emphatic words of Christ, we no longer wonder that the men who shared His spirit never thought of giving prominence to their family kinship with Him. To do the will of God : to exhibit the spirit of their Master : this was enough : all else belonged to that passing Hfe which was but as a vapour : the boasts and glories of earth faded, the word of the Lord endured. It was more to be bond- ^ servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ than to be brother of the Lord after the flesh. Union with Jesus Christ was not ensured by blood relationship, but by spiritual affinity. The practical reflection upon all this is obvious. The unspiritual mind is always yearning after some link with the divine, other than the link of spiritual affinity. This unspiritual mind finds a place in all of us at times ; and it is the fertile cause of pagan ideas among so-called Christian LIFE AS EDUCATION 8i people. It is, if we reflect, only a manifestation of the indolent wish to secure divine help with- out personal moral harmony with the divine. We know that God is great : we know that we need His aid ; if we can secure it without spiritual conditions, we escape the yoke, which our weak nature needs but resents. Hence, if we can get the divine power on our side without troubling ourselves about the state of our hearts and the disposition of our spirits, we shall have found a way easy to follow. If we can partake of the gift of Christ by an action or by a ceremony, it is far simpler than examining our hearts and testing our lives. Thus it happens that popular religion is so largely a crude paganism disguised under Christian names and forms. It is to be feared that the frequent communions which are urged upon people as duties are too often thoughtless communions. If our hearts are not one with Christ, if we have no desire for what God pro- mises, and no love for what He commands; if our spirits are not set wholly and completely upon His service ; if we are not one with Him and He with us, then, though we take the sacred symbols of His love, we have no real communion with F 82 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST Him. In these hasty and busy days, when thought is increasingly difficult, and leisure for meditation and prayer is hard to command, it is more imperative than ever that all faithful spiritual teachers should remind their people of the mockery of religious forms without spiritual participation. We have need to go back to the sober directions of St. Paul. " Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup." We have need to recall the grave and Apostolic wisdom of our forefathers, who fenced the Holy Table against superstitious and shallow wor- shippers. " Ye that do truly and earnestly repent, and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life — draw near." But from this deeper and more spiritual aspect of fellowship with Christ, crude and needless notions of some material and inevitable blessing turn our thoughts. The spiritual conditions of God's blessing are forgotten. Yet these spiritual conditions are indispensable. Repentance is the realisation of how far our hearts have been alien- ated ; taith is the swinging of the heart back into harmony of aim and purpose with God ; com- LIFE AS EDUCATION 83 munion needs the sharing of the spirit of Christ ; and it is the Apostle's word that — " If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His." Do not these thoughts suggest to us how shallow our religion has often been ? Do we not realise that our whole idea of what the Christian faith means needs to be revolutionised, if we are to share in the spirit of those men who, beyond all other privilege and title, delighted to describe themselves as the bondservants of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations. — Ch. i. 2. Thus abruptly does St. James plunge into the Joy in trial, heart of a difficult matter. The question how to meet trial has long exercised men : St. James answers it almost before he asks it. He has no doubt as to the temper in which it should be met. According to him, joy is the fitting frame for us when we encounter vicissitudes, pain or sorrow. We notice that St. James does not shirk the problem of trial. He is no shallow optimist, who ignores painful facts. He boldly admits that 84 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST manifold temptations are to be expected in life. The word he uses shows how widely his eye has ranged over the field of human existence. He speaks of life as full of many and varying "temptations" — a word which means more than merely afflictions and more than mere temptations to do wrong : in it he includes everything in life which befalling us demands the bracing up of our moral energy to endure or to resist. The word " to tempt " has come to mean to endeavour to mislead a person and so to encompass his fall : it is generally now employed in an evil sense ; but the word which St. James uses, and which it is difficult to translate by any other word than temptation, primarily only means to make trial of, to search into ; it is nearer in thought to the word "attempt," which leaves the issue of the effect uncertain. Man is to be regarded first as . untried ; the diverse temptations are the environ- i,ng trials which come to put him to the proof. As there are evil men in the world, so there are temptations which are designed to bring about a man's fall : evil natures seek to lead men into evil : such are tempters in a bad sense. But the incidents and accidents, as we call them, of life LIFE AS EDUCATION 85 are not arranged with any such evil intention ; they are rather such things as are common to man, and they are but experiences which test man's moral quality. t-,, As waves and storms serve to test the sea- Like joy in adven- going qualities of a ship, as rain and flood test ^^'^^' the stability of a house (Matt, vii.), as the perils and stratagems of war test the soldier, so these temptations of life put men to the proof. We may succumb to them ; tested we may be tempted ; the ship may founder ; the house may fall ; the soldier may flee, but there is no sinister purpose in storm, or flood, or battle ; there is value in all ; they work experience ; they test, and testing they set a stamp of approval upon all that endures ; by revealing unsuspected weakness, they point out the way of improvement to him who fails. We begin now to catch the writer's sturdy philosophy of life as we reflect upon his words. " Count it all joy." That is just what we do not think of doing. It is natural and easy to dwell upon the pain, the worry, the inconvenience, the irritation of the many trials of life. They are not fixed and constant ; we cannot prepare our- selves against them as men who know that they 86 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST can only be assailed from one quarter ; they come from all sides ; they spring up in unexpected places and in unforeseen ways. Thus, repeatedly assailed, it is no wonder that men should be in heaviness, or " put to grief in manifold tempta- tions " (i Pet. i. 6). It is, as I have said, easy to dwell upon the variety, and fatiguing incessancy of life's troubles. Men have spent their eloquence in describing them. '* Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward." Sorrow, predestined sorrow, waits him at every turn. Before the beginning of years, There came to the making of man Life with a gift of tears, Time with a glass that ran. Like Hamlet, every one has felt at times "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." So clear and widespread is the fact, and so easy is it to enlarge upon the fact that we weary of the commonplace reiteration of complaints. But here we reflect that it is cowardly to spend time in lamenting the inevitable. Wisdom bids us ask how should the ills of life be met ? What spirit is most consonant with manhood, when confronted with acknowledged and inevitable ills ? LIFE AS EDUCATION 87 It is in its answer to this question that Chris- ■'^^JJj[^^''*" tianity rises so high. Stoicism could counsel a proud equanimity, and at times achieved a sort of noble disdain. Buddhism sought to get rid of the cause of suffering by stifling some of the best emotions of the human heart. Both sought to reach an unruffled calm, bred of an indifference, which was either pride or lack of feeling. Chris- tianity meets the problem by calling forth a triumphant spirit, based on invincible confidence. No faith struck with so firm a hand the note of joy in the midst of trouble. " We glory in tribu- lation," said St. Paul (Rom. v. 3). Count it all joy when ye fall into manifold temptations, writes St. James. Do not both disciples lead our thoughts back to their Master ? Christ had never concealed from His disciples the truth that tribulation awaited them. "In the world ye have tribulation ; " but He gave them the right to confidence. The world, which teemed with tribulation, was a world despoiled of all power to harm. It was a vanquished world. " Ye have tribulation ; but be of good cheer ; I have over- come the world." (John xvi. 33.) What we ought to realise here is the funda- «8 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST mental view of life which these disciples of Christ took. They were living in a world which did not belong to the powers of evil ; whatever strength evil had was a broken strength ; the force of evil, however great in appearance, was inherently weak. Evil in its nature was decay And in a moment can wholly pass away. Believing this, St. James could say, " Count it all joy." He employs the part of the verb, which implies that we are to keep on continually reckoning, as faith can reckon, that there is in trial an inherent reason for joy ; tribulation is fraught with possibilities which make for keener joy. Note, he does not say that trial is in itself joy ; he does not deny that trial is troublesome, but he says that we may and ought to reckon it as bringing reasons and opportunities of gladness. There is labour, fatigue, and not unfrequently pain, in sustained effort, in the strained muscle and in the labouring breath, but there is also a joy in contending, a thrill of gladness which springs from even enforced exertion. Realise the moral victory and the spiritual strength which LIFE AS EDUCATION 89 may come to one who, conquering circumstances, gains mastery over self, and we shall see the reasons for joy which accompany the presence of manifold temptations. Realise, further, the love which the servant of Christ bears to his Master, and we shall know the secret joy which is theirs, to whom it is given " not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer in His behalf" (Phil. i. 29). Knowing that the trial (or proof) of your faith worketh patience. — Ch. i. 3. The way in which St. James takes certain things Reasons for joy in trial. for granted is significant. Wliat another might labour to prove, he assumes to be admitted. In this verse, he takes for granted that " faith " is the fundamental condition of the religious conscious- ness. This fact the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews states with a clear emphasis. " It is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen." It is the necessary condition of soul which arises in every man who has formed any genuine conception of God. " He thatcometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a re- warder of them that seek after Him." (Heb. xi. 6.) 90 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST ■ ^ What therefore is put to proof by trial is just the condition of the soul in its relation to God. If a man's confidence in higher principles gives way at the onset of evil, or in the presence of trouble, he can have but little faith in his principles. If we surrender our trust in the God of Right and Truth, because afflictions befall us, our trust must have been poorly rooted. " If thou faint in the day of affliction, thy strength is small." Tests a In the view, then, of St. James, trial was a test man s moral of uiau's Hioral quality ; the various temptations which beset men put to proof their faith in the Eternal Goodness, i.e., in God. It is not in the first instance, in his view, our courage, our energy, our endurance which is tested by trial, but our faith. To him, confidence in God, in the Judge of all the earth, who would do right, is the basis of the religious character. This is quite as we should expect. St. James was a Jew, and to all devout Jews, i.e., to all those Jews who had learned the lesson, taught by history, and enforced by Pro- ^ phets, laith in God was the first element of religion. The Pharisee and the ceremonialist had obscured this, and had weakened the ethical force of religion in consequence : but those who LIFE AS EDUCATION 91 waited for redemption in Israel had reached the ethical platform to which prophets like Amos and Habakkuk had led the people. Faith was to such no mere reliance on a Faith is faitli in powerful deity who had taken Israel under his •''s:i»t. patronage. Faith was the conviction of the triumph of righteousness, because it was the con- viction of the unswerving righteousness of God. Faith, therefore, was no feeble expectation of help ; it was the giving out of a moral sympathy towards the Being who was essentially righteous and towards the order of that kingdom which He ruled in righteousness. There was thus a strong- moral element in faith. Faith had ceased in such minds to be the foolish confidence that God would at all costs and without conditions save Israel ; there were conditions of righteousness which were inspired by the most rudimentary conception of righteousness. This being so, favouritism was impossible ; this being so, great privileges meant great responsibilities. " You only have I known of all the nations of the earth " was the prophetic statement of Israel's privileges ; " therefore I will punish you for your iniquities " was the natural sequence in the prophet's mind. 92 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST Now wherever this primary conception of the righteous God and the righteous order exists, trial and temptation are not treated as though the righteous order had failed : they are recog- nised as tests or proofs of our confidence in the impregnability of the righteousness of the divine will. They put us to the proof, whether we can maintain unshaken our confidence in the eternal victory of right in the midst of trial. Those who know what it is to fall into manifold temptations can best appreciate the magnificence of Job's victorious cry : " Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," or (R.V.)wait for Him (Job xiii. 15). It is not too much to say that only those who possess a very deep love of righteousness can reach the high confidence of such a faith. Is it not true that only the soul which lives much wUh God — walks with Him as the sacred writer ex- presses it — can gather that inward moral strength which enables it to move triumphantly through the snare-strewn field of temptation ? Is it not true that to him to whom righteousness is a supreme reality, doubt of its ultimate victory appears like sin ; and every failure of confidence in the eternal strength of right is deplored as LIFE AS EDUCATION 93 weakness ? We find this expressed by Tennyson {Doubt and Prayer) : Tho' Sin too oft, when smitten by Thy rod, Rail at "BUnd Fate " with many a vain " alas ! " From sin thro' sorrow into Thee we pass By that same path our true forefathers trod ! And let not Reason fail me, nor the sod Draw from my death Thy living flower and grass, Before I learn that Love, which is, and was, My Father, and my Brother, and my God ! Thus the initial force of the rehgious character is faith, and it is this faith which is put to the test by trial. As we continue our study, we shall see the Character a product. importance of realising the moral quality of this elementary faith. Character is a moral product, and character can only be built up out of moral materials. It is a fitly proportioned assemblage of moral qualities. In its earliest stage it must possess some moral quality out of which it can grow into higher conditions. The elementary moral quality will call to itself, as it were, some other moral quality to help its growth. This is what St. James expects. The reason why the religious man can reckon it joy when he falls into manifold temptations, is that he knows something 94 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST '^ of the law of character growth, or moral evolu- tion. Count it all joy, he says, knowing, or recognising the simple law, that the proof of your faith worketh patience. Patience is the outcome of genuine faith when it is put to proof. Trial is never barren, save in barren souls. Where a true and living faith exists, fruit will spring forth after trial. Patience The moral quality which St. James selects as builds ^ J J character. ^|^g f^j-g^ pi'oduct of trial or tested faith is patience. Patience is the indispensable quality for all success. Hence we are told that genius is patience. Patience is not, however, to be under- stood as a kind of passive endurance ; there is an active element in patience, a quality which lays hold upon the opportunities which trials bring. There is, if I may use the word, an inventive power in it ; for it, like necessity, is a productive power. Philo called it the queen of virtues. It holds a place among the moral qualities of the soul, enumerated by St. Paul and St. Peter. St. Paul places it between tribulation and experi- ence, or probation as the Revised Version ex- presses it (Rom. v. 3, 4). In the list given in 2 Peter i. 5-7, patience holds the fifth place : LIFE AS EDUCATION 95 faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance preceding it, and godliness, brotherly love, and love following it. It is indispensable in the architecture of character. If we were to give it a place in the work of character-building, we might call it the clerk of the works; but speaking of the ladder of Christian virtues which rises from earth to heaven, we call patience the stage or platform whence we may ascend towards higher things. Without patience no achievement is possible ; with it, none need be despaired of. Can one say less who remembers our Master's words: "In your patience, ye shall win your souls" ? (Luke xxi. 19.) And let patience have its perfect work. — Ch. i. 4. The little word " its " is in italics, and has no Power of corresponding word in the original. There is no article or pronoun. We might translate the passage thus : " And let patience have a perfect work." But whichever way we take the words, they tell us that we must treat patience as though it possessed an active ^nergy, and we must allow it a free hand, as we say. There is much special 96 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST wisdom in this precept. In the life of the soul we often injure ourselves by a spirit of restless interference with what I may call natural pro- cesses. I have heard a prayer, sometimes prayed, which seems to me a mistaken one ; the prayer is that we may perceive in ourselves the fruits of Christ's redemption. I am not very sure that I understand what it means, but the last thing that single-minded souls perceive is the progress of those inner changes which are making up the character. All wholesome growth is unconscious. The attention of the boy is upon outward things, upon his cricket or football ; the development of his frame in vigour and strength takes place without any personal consciousness. It is with growth as it is with time. We only take note of it by something which tells us of its advance. We know time only by its flight. We know growth only by some external fact which reveals to us what changes have, all unmarked by us, been going on. This is the healthy condition of things. Self-consciousness is the parent of many weaknesses ; spiritual self-consciousness pro- motes a morbid religionism. Let us leave the processes of spiritual growth alone. Let us give LIFE AS EDUCATION 97 a free hand to the agents and instruments which are at work. God-consciousness, not self-con- sciousness, is the mainstay of healthy souls. God-consciousness keeps us from timid and im- patient self-interference. So St, Peter counselled ( I Pet. ii. 1 9). " This is acceptable if for conscience of (so it is in the margin of the Revised Version) God a man endureth griefs, suffering wrongfully." Here is patience being allowed a perfect work ; here is patience being given its freedom of action, because the gaze of the soul is upon God. It is in the moral recognition of God that the spirit of the suffering man is sustained. If we give patience this free hand, patience will do the needed work without our help. Patience is an expert builder of character; but the restless spirit spoils her work. Patience only asks the right and freedom of going on. Patience is thus an expert agent in the soul, bringing an inner strength, leaving grief free to work that softening result, which can only come when sorrow and patience co-operate in an experience. Here is the paradox. If thy soul be strengthened with patience, sorrow shall soften thy heart. If ihy soul be weak and irritable, sorrow will harden G 98 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST thee. Be firm towards thyself in sorrow, so will thy heart grow tender to those who suffer. Be tender towards thyself, and thou wilt grow in- different to the sorrows of others. If this paradox be true — and who does not know that it is ? — then there is indeed reason for leaving patience free to do her work ? This principle underlies Tennyson's words — Steel me with patience ! soften me with grief ! It is the man whose soul is armed with patience who will win the softening influence of grief. Tears, like gentle rain, will make ready the soil of the heart. Patience works slowly, and loves best to work unnoticed, but her work is a sort of magic, for she puts in man's hands a power of self-emancipation. Thus writes Milton, in " Sam- son Agonistes " — Patience is more oft the exercise Of saints, the trial of their fortitude ; Making them each his own deliverer, And victor over all That tyranny or fortune can inflict. That ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing. — Ch. i. 4. The final The ambition of moral completeness is common purpose j^j^^^jjg ^^^ Testament writers. It is the outcome LIFE AS EDUCATION 99 of their belief that there is aii ideal pattern to which man must ultimately grow. Just as Moses was shown in the Mount the pattern according to which he was to make all things, so is there a divine image to which man is to grow, and in growing to which he fulfils his true destiny. But the attainment of this destiny may be thought of in two ways — the attainment of maturity and the attainment of completion. Thus man reaches maturity when he attains his full age ; he reaches completeness when he attains his true and natural growth. St. James uses two words to express his thought. Perfect, and entire. The first of these refers to ripe or full growth or maturity ; in the natural world — sheep, for instance, are de- cribed as " perfect " in contrast to those young and dependent upon their mothers ; they are those who can, as we say, fend for themselves. We may recall the reproach in Heb. v. 12-14, uttered against those Christians who remained in a state of childish backwardness : the writer tells them that they are like babes who still need to be fed with milk. Having uttered this reproach, he gives the exhortation (Heb. vi. i) — " Let us press on unto perfection " — where the perfection is 100 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST clearly that perfection of growth which is equiva- lent to the mature capacity of using their own powers. The second word ** entire " is a word used to express the absence of any flaw or blemish ; for instance, the sacrificial lamb was to be a lamb without blemish ; it was to be complete in all its parts and members ; it was to be neither deformed nor defective. Thus the two words express completeness of capacity as well as freedom from deformity or defect. The ideal set before us is of one who is sound in frame and complete in limbs and members ; and as if to emphasise, even more exactly the perfection of the ideal, St. James adds, " lacking in nothing." We realise that the standard set before his readers by St. James is nothing short of the true divine ideal ; his words are only an elaboration of the words of his Master : " Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt. v. 48.) To attain to this became the Christian ambition. The ambition for possessions was changed into the ambition of becoming better. To be was more important than to have. Wealth was no longer the measure of worth ; it was character. And character was no longer a vague LIFE AS EDUCATION loi ideal; it was character, mature, vigorous, com- plete, an all-round character, which was desired. It was character whose growth was contributed to by the careful development and government of all parts of man's nature. The body in subjec- tion, as St. Paul said (r Cor. ix. 23-27); the mind filled with noble thoughts; the affections set upon things above ; so that the Apostolic prayer might be fulfilled. " And may your spirit, soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (i Th. V. 23.) We may question, as earnest people have at all times questioned, whether this maturity and com- pleteness is expected of Christian people here and now, or whether it is an ideal, which they can only hope to attain when they are delivered from the bondage of the flesh. Such questionings, however natural, are, I am inclined to think, not very wholesome. To answer them either way is to court misapprehension, and to invite tempta- tion. If we say, Not here or now can we attain this maturity, then on such a reply our indolence relies, and finds in it an excuse for relaxing dili- gence. If we say, Yes ! here and now, then I02 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST pride and self-deception dispose us to lower the standard of the ideal, and claim to have achieved more than has been really won. Does not the true answer run on this wise ? Rest assured that those who have reached the highest measure of Christian maturity are just those who will most keenly realise how far they fall short of the ideal 1 Was it not the great and unfalteringly earnest Apostle who wrote — " Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect : but I press on, if so be that I may apprehend that for which also I was apprehended by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself yet to have appre- hended." (Phil. iii. 12, 13.) In proportion as we are self-satisfied we are failures. This is for human beings a safe rule. The sculptor was saddest at heart when he saw no fault in his work. He took his satisfaction as a sign that his ideal, and so his self-criticising power, was desert- ing him. The old Puritan Lightfoot wrote wisely — " They least have the spirit who boast of the spirit." There is then a very simple lesson left to us. Keep the highest ideal before you : it will raise you, and it will humble you. Is not this what LIFE AS EDUCATION 103 Jesus Christ is constantly doing to the world ? What noble ranges of character and conduct has He not set before us ? What splendid possibilities has He not opened to the weakest people and the most obscure lives ? And yet, how truly His character rebukes those who bear His name from age to age. Christian society to-day, as it realises how little the spirit of Christ really inspires human life, must acknowledge with St. Paul — " We count not ourselves to have appre- hended." Happy will it be, if it can enter into the Apostle's resolve. " One thing I do, for- getting the things which are behind, and stretch- ing forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." (Phil. iii. 13.) CHAPTER II THE CO-OPERATION OF INWARD AND OUTWARD FORCES IN SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT (Ch. i. 5-12.) Ch. i. 5-8. But if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not ; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting : for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord ; a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. 9-12. But let the brother of low degree glory in his high estate ; and the rich, in that he is made low : because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun ariseth with the scorching wind, and withereth the grass ; and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth : so also shall the rich man fade away in his goings. It is not well to read any book of the Bible as though it were a series of texts. There is a thread of connection which we ought to look for if we are to grasp the writer's meaning. Some of those who have commented, and commented well, upon this letter of St. James, have, I think, mi.ssed this INWARD AND OUT\VARD FORCES 105 thread of connection ; and have in consequence described the letter as a series of disjointed pre- cepts. It is true that at the end of the letter we meet with a number of instructions more or less isolated. But in the early part of the letter a definite purpose animates St. James. When we realise this purpose, the Unks which connect one part with another become clear. The principle of connection is more psychological and experimen- tal than logical and argumentative. We shall see this if, before considering the passage (i. S~^^) in detail, we seek the undercurrent of thought. First, then, St. James has expressed (i. 2-5) Retrospect of the his belief that life is education ; he has also argument, affirmed that patience is needful if the full value of this education is to be won. The end of human discipline is likeness to God (i. 4). So our Lord taught. If we read the closing verses of the fifth chapter of St. Matthew, we shall see how fully this thought filled Christ's mind. He says, " Exercise love, that ye may be sons of your Father which is in heaven ; " for indeed this is your destiny, the very end for which you were created and to which you are called. "Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly io6 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST Father is perfect." (St. Matt. v. 43-48.) Like- ness to God is the goal to which Christ points ; and His disciples teach the same. Thus St. Paul urges his hearers to " put on the new man, which after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth." (Eph. iv. 24.) Similarly St. James teaches. The end of trial is " that ye may be perfect " (i. 4). It is ever that pattern of character which resembles God which is the ambition of Christian souls. To attain to any perfection or maturity, patience is needed. For instance, when a great purpose is achieved by effort, patience is one of the quali- ties which ensures success ; or, again, when that ripeness which is the perfection of growth is looked for, patience is needed, even as the hus- bandman waiting for the precious fruit of the earth is patient over it (v. 7). When man works towards an ideal, he needs patience ; when he waits for the operation of nature's laws, he needs patience ; and when the soul of man would reach to likeness to God, it must take the way of patience also. Compare 2 Peter i. 6, where patience immediately precedes " godliness " in the evolution of the qualities of the soul. INWARD AND OUTWARD FORCES 107 Now for all true growth two co-operating forces are required. For the growth of the plant we need the seed and also its environment of soil, sun, and shower. For the growth of character we need the disposition of the soul and the provi- dences of life. In the opening paragraph St. James declares that there is an ideal or perfect- ness towards which human character should grow. In the next paragraph (i. 5-8) he describes the inward disposition which is a pre-requisite of such a growth. In the third paragraph (i. 9-12) he touches on the environing circumstances, the pro- vidential vicissitudes of life. Thus in verses 5-8 he may be said to describe the condition of the seed : in verses 9-12 he describes the influence of circumstances, the powers which in life play the same part as shower and sun play in the world of natural growth. If we keep the idea of soul- growth before us, we shall understand the con- nection of the two paragraphs. We seem to hear St. James saying — character, lofty character, even likeness to God, is the true end of existence. All the circumstances of life, if rightly understood, are designed to help forward that end, just as rain, storm, and sunshine make for the ripening io8 WISDOM OF JAINIES THE JUST of the harvest. But the sun and rain ripen aUke the tares and the wheat. Therefore it is needful that the soul should possess that disposition which will be sure to ripen into godlike character. In verses 5-8 he gives his view of what the dis- position of the soul ought to be in order that it may ripen aright. In verses 9-12 he gives a picture of the influences under which ripening takes place. In other words, these two para- graphs stand related to one another as the inward and outward forces which are concerned in spiritual development. We shall take these two paragraphs succes- sively. First our thoughts are turned (ch. i. 5-8) to the need of inward power. The inward " But if any of you lacketh wisdom." All of us th"soui ^^^^ ^^ times our want of wisdom. The perplexing (sense of question how to act for the best has often shown depend- ence), us the need of sage counsel. The wisdom de- sired at such times is wisdom for a special event. Is not, however, wisdom for life more important than wisdom for one set of circumstances ? Do we not realise that one of the best gifts which could be bestowed upon us would be that gift of wide and general wisdom which would make us INWARD AND OUT^VARD FORCES 109 skilful and prudent in the conduct of our lives ? It is this general wisdom which St. James has in mind. What he has just written about patience and the trials of life leads him to remember the common human need of that larger wisdom which enables a man to guide all his life-aflfairs with discretion (Ps. cxii.). But the first step towards this wisdom is self- knowledge — i.e., the consciousness that we lack wisdom. On the ocean of life we are like the Breton fisherman : we realise that the sea is so great and our boat is so small, and therefore we betake ourselves to God, for the sea is His and He made it. The first step in the larger wisdom is the realisation of our dependence upon God. We may well compare this with the principle laid down in the Book of Proverbs, " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." There are indications in our epistle that St. James was familiar with that old book of life-counsels ; but we can see that he has moved forward, and taken a step above the level of that ancient Jewish wisdom. He lives in a more sunny atmosphere. He does not speak of fear as the first step in wisdom. Whatever truth there may be, and no WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST doubtless is, iii this old wisdom, St. James has taken a step beyond it. He says to the soul con- scious of its lack of wisdom that its security lies in the character of God. Man, aware of his want of experience, and distrustful of self, may turn with confidence to a God whose property is ever gracious generosity and ready helpfulness. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him." Do we not feel that the man who wrote these words has caught the spirit of his Master's teaching ? Do we not hear the music of Christ's words making melody in his soul as he pictures the ungrudging liberality of the Father God ? Those gracious words of Christ come irresistibly to our memory: "Ask and it shall be given you ; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you. ... Or what man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask him for a loaf, will he give him a stone ; or if he shall ask for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him ? " (Matt. vii. 7-1 1.) " He INWARD AND OUTWARD FORCES in giveth to all men liberally," writes St. James. " He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust," says Jesus Christ (Matt. v. 45). We are prepared by these thoughts for St. The inward forces (con- James' caution to him who asks for wisdom. " Let fidence in him ask in faith." St. James would have his hearers realise the bounteous character of the Heavenly Father : he takes his stand on the char- acter of God. He started with the view that life properly understood and properly met is educa- tion ; it can only be so on the supposition that a divine wisdom and love guides all. Man can only enter into the possession of true wisdom by enter- ing into fellowship with the God of wisdom. He does this when he throws himself unhesitatingly upon the guidance of God. He first realises his dependence on God; he then realises that to benefit by the operation of the Divine Order of things he must enter into fellowship with the Divine wis- dom ; he must share the spirit of Him who governs all things in heaven and earth : to do this is to possess a portion of the unfailing wisdom. But naturally and necessarily the condition of this fellowship is faith. Since how can he enter into 112 WISDOM 0F£- JAMES THE JUST partnership with the wisdom that rules the world unless he believes in that wisdom ? Or to put it in another way — how can he enter into the spirit of the Righteous Ruler of all unless he believes in righteousness ? Faith in the ultimate triumph of right — or, better still, faith in right itself — is faith in righteousness ; and this is the entering into the spirit of God, for to have this faith is to share the spirit of Him who sitteth on the throne judging right. Turn the thought the opposite way ; let a man begin to lose faith in right ; let him become the victim of a plausible expediency or let him become influenced by self-interest ; let him allow the intrusion of any thought or desire which lessens his confidence in right ; and he of neces- sity paralyses his power of approach to God in prayer ; for he has fallen out of harmony with the spirit of righteousness. This will be the clearer to us if we remember that wisdom in St. James' view is not mere cleverness or adroitness, or the nimble sagacity based on three-score years' expe- rience of the tricks of men, but a wisdom ethical in quality — a wisdom of purity, peacefulness, mercifulness {cf. iii. 17) — in other words, a wis- dom based on righteousness, and so involving INWARD AND OUTWARD FORCES ii3 belief in goodness as a guide to life. To possess this is to enter into the spirit of God : to doubt this goodness is to fall out of harmony with that spirit. To ask for such a wisdom while we dis- believe in its value is to contradict our own prayers. There is therefore a certain steadiness of soul needed for successful prayer : no man can truly pray who does not love the thing which his God commands. Hence, all wandering desires move man from this steadfastness of soul, and, being hindrances to perfect communion, they are obstacles to real prayer. From this principle it follows that a lack of real and full-hearted desire on our part paralyses prayer at the outset. We do not pray our prayers unless we truly wish the thing we pray for. The divided heart does not pray. This state of soul is glanced at by St. James' words, "Let him ask in faith, nothing doubting." There must be no manner of doubt. Doubt concerning the character of God, or dis- belief in righteousness, vitiates all prayer for the establishment of right, and similarly, the doubt- fulness of a divided soul enfeebles prayer. How often we pray for the things we know we ought H 114 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST to desire, but as we pray our poor weak worldly hearts cry out against our prayer being answered ! When such a condition of heart prevails, our whole inward being is disorganised. Its coherence is broken up ; our passions, like winds, lash our souls into storm. He that is divided in desire is like a surge of the sea, wind-driven and shaken as a fan is shaken. The word used expresses the movement of a fan. A man so uncertain cannot win the ear of heaven. Let not that man — such a man as that — think that he shall receive anything of the Lord (i. 7). Such a man is no true servant of righteousness. He is not whole-hearted ; he is not single-minded. He is, to use the word of St. James, a double-minded man. Perhaps " double-souled " would express the thought more clearly to modern ears. Double-minded is often used to mean a person who has a sinister object in . view ; who is seeking definitely some selfish end, while he is plausible enough in virtuous or flatter- ing speech. But there is no vacillation of soul in such double-mindedness. Such a man is wholly and strongly set upon his own objects. The double-minded man whom St. James has in mind is the man whose moral nature is enfeebled by INWARD AND OUTWARD FORCES 115 the vacillation and double-hearted condition of his own soul. He would fain serve God and mammon. He would do right, and yet would wrongly win. His feet will move from the doomed city, but, like Lot's wife, his eyes are looking back with wistful regret. Such men are the Reubens of life to whom all excellence is denied (Gen. xlix. 4). His heart is vacillating; his conduct is uncertain. He is the double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. God wants not such servants. He wants rock-like men who can stand four square to all the winds that blow. He wants single-minded men whose souls are illumined with the certainty of right. He wants men whose sympathies are unalterably with righteousness. Such men are invincible — win their petitions — for those who live in the divine thought, and whose hearts love the divine com- mandments are invincible in prayer.' " If," said Jesus Christ, " ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you." (John xv. 7.) I have tried to show that the paragraphs in the The ex= /• \ ,. . . , rr^ ternal passage (1. 5-12) are not disjointed. The sequence forces in of thought will be clear to those who have so develop' realised the earnestness with which St. James has "'®"*- ii6 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST urged whole-heartedness on his hearers. Man ought to be hke Jerusalem, a city at unity in itself. He should possess individuality, the mys- terious and impressive coherence of soul which belongs to men of purpose. He should be, not driftwood, but an actor in hfe's strife; he should be a voice, not an echo ; he should be the slave of no desire, still less the victim of many conflict- ing ones. Some supreme dominating principle should govern his life. We consent to this view when we think of what true manhood is, when we realise man's capacity and the dignity of character which is open to him. But we recognise still more the necessity for some strong individuality of character when we remember the nature of those external circumstances which try and test men. To these St. James now turns (ch. i. 9-21). He touches on the vicissitudes of life in a brief and illustrative way. He takes poverty and wealth ; he pictures the rich man who has fallen upon evil times ; and he indicates the stead- fastness of soul with which such vicissitudes should be met. Such trials were common enough at a time when followers of Christ suffered the loss of all things for their Master's sake. The INWARD AND OUTWARD FORCES 117 power of Christianity then showed itself in the unconquerable joy which characterised Christians in the midst of such trials. St. Paul counted all things — which he once valued — as worthless compared with what he won and found in Christ (Phil. iii. 7, 8). The note of joy meets us in the New Testament, yet we know something of what these writers endured — loss of wealth, loss of social position, the scorn of friends, the bitter hostility of foes. Life was not easier to Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Barnabas, when they threw in their lot with Christ. But they could rejoice in whatever lowering of pres- tige or lessening of means came to them in con- sequence of their faith. This joy in spite of cir- cumstances shows a condition of mind higher than that of stoical pride ; for pride of this quahty tends to cynicism ; but in joy there is no cynicism. The secret of the Christian joy in earthly vicissitude lies in the complete revolution of their views of life. The light of heaven transforms the whole world. When it shines men see things no longer in shadow, but as they truly are. The really valuable things are the ethical and spiritual. A man's life does not consist of the abundance of ii8 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST the things which he possesses. A man's hfe is nearness to God, likeness to his Father in heaven. All that makes for this is good. The turning wheel of fortune can bring nothing but good. Patience will work experience, and experience hope. All things will work together for good, therefore all can be met with joy. The loss of wealth is nothing to him whose riches are things spiritual, and whose treasure therefore is of a kind outside the reach of earthly change. The rich man in St. James' day did meet with humiliation. He felt it, as men must feel change, but he had a compensating joy in the access of inner peace. He could realise the beatitude of the poor, for he measured riches by spiritual affinity with God ; he measured life by service. Earthly means were only of secondar}^ importance, valuable only as means of service. Therefore the soul in xvhich Christ dwelt could strike the note of gladness whatever fate or fortune came. His song, like the song of a lark, was sung close to the gate of heaven, and poured forth from a heart rich with spiritual joy and strong in the inspiring sense of the love of God. CHAPTER III THE CONFLICT FOR IDEALS Ch. i. 12-19 The paragraph of the letter, to which we now come, is contained in chap. i. 12-18. First let us read it, and observe its drift, and its bearing on the general thought advanced by St. James. The passage runs thus in the Revised Version : 12. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation : for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to them that love him. 13. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God : for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempteth no man : 14. But each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. 15. Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin : and the sin, when it is full grown, bringeth forth death. 16. Be not deceived, my beloved brethren. 17. Every good gift and every perfect boon is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning. 18. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures. I20 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST The drift Such is the paraoraph. Let us notice its drift. of the r- o r passage. St. James regards the man who has endured temptation as happy. Trial is capable of bring- ing a blessing ; in it lies the road which leads to the winning of the crown of life. Trial tests the stuff that is in a man. It is a revealing power; it discloses the strength in the strong, the weak- ness in the weak. The weak man blames circum- stances for his failures : the strongman examines and blames himself. The weak man says, " I am tempted of God," or, " Why does God allow this ? " In saying this, he shows that he mistakes himself, and misjudges God. It is not in God's nature to tempt men to evil ; but it is in man's nature to be led astray by desire, and desire in- dulged opens the way to the kingdom of death. Herein lies one of the dangerous self-deceptions by which weak men surround themselves. Be not deceived, therefore says St. James (i. i6), but realise that you live in the kingdom of God, the kingdom of light, for God is the Father of lights, and from Him every kind of good comes ; in Him is no shadow ; but only light and only good (i. 17). Nor is His a quiescent goodness, remaining passive at some inaccessible centre of THE CONFLICT FOR IDEALS 121 light. His goodness is active; it goes forth with quickening energy, freely, of His own will. The Christian life, and the power which is in it, is an evidence of this truth, for to Him we owe our realisation of the true life, which should be lived by the Sons of God. " Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth" (v. 18). This quickening energy of the divine goodness reveals that God has a purpose in view. He is good ; He diffuses good ; and He calls men to His side that they may become witnesses of good and for good. His aim in manifesting the power of a regenerate life in Christians is that they may bear witness to what all men are called to be. He brought us forth that we might be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures, the earnest and token of what the general harvest of the world will be. As we drink in this teaching of St. James, we can realise how full His heart was of one great truth. Life is education ; at least, it becomes a wholesome and happy education to those who allow it to be so. In the field of nature harvests are determined not by the weather only, but by the qualit}^ of the seed ; and it is the same with The crown of life. 122 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST life-results also. If we possess the strong and courageous heart of faith ; if we are believers in righteousness and goodness ; then the vicissitudes of life will bring their benediction ; we shall emerge the stronger for trial ; the crown of life will be ours. But if we give way to a weak petulance, blame circumstances, and ignore the influence of our own foolish and selfish desires, we shall become blind to the goodness which is educating us, and we shall miss the goal of exist- ence; we shall fail to bear witness to that higher life, to which all men are called as the sons of Him who is not the author of darkness but the Father of light. The section may now be considered in detail; it falls into four natural divisions. " Blessed is the man that endureth temptation " (v. 12). Like his master, St. James gives us a beatitude. If we examine the beatitudes of the New Testament we shall find one common feature. None of them refer to material wealth or worldly prosperity. They come to us in a great variety of forms ; but they are all united in this that happiness lies in character, not in circumstances. The poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the THE CONFLICT FOR IDEALS 123 pure in heart, the peacemaker, are the liappy. Some indeed refer to earthly circumstances, to sorrow, to persecution, to temptation, but in each of these instances, it is not the mere outward circumstances which constitute the blessing ; it is rather the temperament or character shown in trial or persecution or sorrow, which finds the benediction. The only exception, and this is but superficial, is the beatitude, " Blessed are the3' that mourn." At first sight this seems to deal merely with sorrow as a common circumstance of life, and to leave the ethical condition out of view. But the power to mourn is clearly not to be limited to the personal experience of sorrow ; for every one mourns when sorrow comes ; but those who have lofty ideals and kindly hearts mourn, even when their own lot is happy, because like their master, they can feel for the sorrows and deplore the sins of the world. The true-hearted find reasons of mourning beyond their own homes. In all the beatitudes of the New Testament, the ethical basis of real life is either implied or expressed. We find this to be true in the beatitude here. It is not the man who meets temptation who is 124 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST blessed; it is the man who endures; it is the man who stands at his post, bearing himself with patience and courage to the last, who is blessed. His benediction is not evident at once. In the eyes of the world, sometimes in his own eyes, his lot is far from happy. Like St. Paul, he may feel himself set forth as a spectacle of suffering before the eyes of the world ; afflictions, necessities, stripes, imprisonments, may be his portion (2 Cor. vi. 4-10). These things in themselves are not elements of happiness ; they are hard to bear ; they are at the time they befall us, as the writer of the Hebrew says — not joyous but grievous (Heb. xii. 11); but afterward the blessing comes ; afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that have been exercised thereby (and the words may be noted as an excellent commentary on the beatitude of St. James). It is upon the exercised soul that the blessing falls ; it is when the man that has endured has shown his quality, and comes forth tested and " approved " that the reward comes. The reward is the crown of life. There are two words for crown ; one is Stephanos, the other the Greek equivalent for the word diadem. In THE CONFLICT FOR IDEALS 125 Archbishop Trench's view, the diadem was the kingly crown, while Stephanos was the wreath of the conqueror; but Professor Mayor has cited passages which show that Stephanos was used in the septuagint for the kingly crown : thus the golden crown of the King of Amnion is called Stephanos (2 Sam, xii. 30). If this be so, the idea of royalty as well as that of victory may be associated with the word Stephanos, the word used here by St. James. The notion of victory is clearly present ; the whole passage suggests the enduring courage and resistance in the con- flict with temptation, but there is room for the idea of kingship also ; the man who is victor wins the wreath of victory, but the man that has endured, and comes forth tested and approved enters into the true sovereignty over himself ; this is the kingship to which all Christian people are called ; they are priests, who present them- selves as a living sacrifice to God (Rom. xii. i); they are kings who in self-surrender find them- selves, and so enter with possession of their own kingdom. When Dante had climbed to the summit of the hill of Purgatory, where he van- quished the passions which like rebels had 126 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST - dethroned him, he was crowned with crown and mitre, the symbols of self-mastery and self- sacrifice, which according to St. James are the true service and worship of Christian life (i. 27). Thepowei-s 13. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God : for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempteth no man : 14, But each man is tempted, \vhen he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed, 15. Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin : and the sin, when it is full grown, bringeth forth death. — Ch. i. 13-15. The man described here throws the blame of his failure upon God. ** I am tempted of God." It is like saying : " The fault is not mine, but God's." St. James does not mean that the man says crudely, " I am tempted of God," as though the immediate temptation to which he was exposed was directly God's doing. He pictures the man as saying that the blame of the temptation, if traced back to its ultimate source, belongs to God. He uses a preposition which expresses not the near and visible, but the remote and unseen cause of the temptation. Professor Mayor illustrates the difference by reference to the story of the THE CONFLICT FOR IDEALS 127 fall. Eve was the near and immediate cause of Adam's fall, but Adam endeavours to make God responsible. " The woman whom thou gavest to be with me." The woman gave the fruit to Adam, but then God gave the woman. It is then the habit of excusing self by throwing the blame on circumstances, on destiny, on the nature and order of things, which St. James is here rebuking. It is a common habit enough, and one into which all of us readily fall. It is modern ; it is ancient ; it is universal ; it is, as we say, human nature. It was noticed by the wisdom of other times. Man falls through his own folly, but he puts the blame on God. Such is the reflection we meet with in Proverbs xix. 3. " The foolishness of man subverteth his way, and his heart fretteth against the Lord," i.e., he murmurs against the divine order, though it is his own folly which has caused him to fall. The Septuagint version boldly expresses this, render- ing it " in his heart he blames God," or alleges God to be the cause of his misfortune. This unhealthy attitude of mind St. James denounces ; and for his denunciation he gives two reasons — the nature of God, and the nature of man. 128 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST I. This casting blame upon God shows igno- rance of the divine nature. " God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempteth no man." The sentence expresses a supreme principle, and a necessary inference. 1 he principle is — God cannot be tempted with evil. His nature is, by hypothesis, essentially good : He is unsusceptible of evil. St. James returns to this view in verse 17; it is clear that this is to him an aphorism of faith ; it is a truth which lies in the nature of things. To think otherwise is to deny God. Once admit that God is open to the influence of evil, and the whole conception of the righteous order of things becomes a dream ; a God who is susceptible of evil is a dethroned God. His sovereignty is the sovereignty of goodness. From this it follows that He Himself tempteth no man. How can the all good one, whose very nature is essential good- ness, lay Himself out to lead men into sin ? To think this is an impossibility. " Per la contra- dizion che nol consente." " By contradiction absolute forbid," as Dante says (Inf. xxvii. 120). The goodness of God is the ultimate guarantee of THE CONFLICT FOR IDEALS 129 hope, faith and right. In the stainless purity of His character Hes our security. If saints can give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness, struggling men may take courage also, since God's purity is not against us, but for us in our conflict with evil. It is madness to throw away this sheet anchor of faith. This anchor holds ; it saves from shipwreck ; it can never be a cause of disaster. If we fall it is because other causes are at work. These, according to St. James, arise from man himself. We thus reach the second reason. 2. The nature of man. " God made man holy," says the ancient writer. If the principle of the inevitable and invariable goodness of God be true, it follows that man's sin is not from God. It comes, says St. James, from man's lust. " Each man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust " (i. 14). Observe St. James does not say that desire in itself is evil ; the sin, according to him, comes in at a later stage. Desire, when uncontrolled or ill-regulated, becomes the cause of sin. To this root the evil has been traced by the best philosophy, and by the noblest religions. Buddhism saw this truth, but saw in desire, not X 130 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST a power which might be disciplined, but a force which must be annihilated. Every desire must be quenched ; only in a passionless state could peace be found. " From lust comes grief, from lust comes fear; he who is free from lust knows neither grief nor fear." So writes the Buddhist (Dhammapada Ch. xvi.). But he also says, " From love comes grief, from love comes fear ; he who is free from love knows neither grief nor fear." The Chris- tian teacher does not labour to suppress love, but to enlarge its channel and to purify its current. He knows that desire is not bad in itself, but only bad when it becomes the master, instead of the servant of its Lord. The lineage of sin and death is set forth by St, James (i. 15). He sees the stages; the im- pulsive stage, in which lust draws man aside; this is followed by the wilful stage ; the will is brought into co-operation : then follows the death stage, when the will is led captive, and sin is deliberate. Compare Christ's parable of the un- clean spirit, and the house left empty, swept and garnished. Compare also the gradations of wrong indicated in the descending circles of Dante's, THE CONFLICT FOR IDEALS 131 "Inferno"; the sins of impulse, lust, gluttony, greed, come first ; then the waters of discontent are passed, and City of Dis is reached ; the circles then disclose the punishment of those whose sins are more and more deliberate, designed and crafty. The passage in which Milton works out the pedi- gree of sin should, of course, be read. St. James pictures lust as the Delilah, leading the soul astray. Lust, says the Buddhist, is the Mother ; Ignorance is the Father. The death which follows depends in each case upon the direction of the desire. Bodily decay, disease, death, follow the dissolute life. But there is also a state of psychical death which is the position of those who become slaves of other lusts. The greedy and avaricious soul finds death in the decay of humane feelings. Covetousness is cruel in its indifference. Witness Dives, unob- servant of Lazarus at his gate. 16. Be not deceived, my beloved brethren. The 17. Every good gift and every perfect boon is from above, changeless coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning, The solemn injunction "Be not deceived" seems 132 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST to point to the inevitable law which works in the spiritual world. St. James traces the pedigree of sin ; it is a series of sequences : the result follows as a matter of course. It is well to observe that the law of development operates in both direc- tions — towards death and towards life, towards evil and towards good. Thus sin has a tdos or end towards which it tends ; so also has virtue ; sin is matured in action ; faith is matured also in action (ii. 22). The law of sequence works in Christian experience towards some consistent end. Tribulation worketh patience, compare Rom. v. 3. We can, therefore, realise the force of the caution " Be not deceived." Men deceive themselves by imagining that they can pursue a certain course and escape the consequences ; such a thought is folly, St. James tells us. He is at one with St. Paul. *' Be not deceived ; God is not mocked : for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." (Gal. vi. 7.) The law works, though men sleep dreaming deceitful dreams. The dragon teeth when sown spring up as armed men. The whirlwind is the harvest of the wind. The evil works evil : but also the good works good. Not only disease, but health THE CONFLICT FOR IDEALS 133 also is infectious. If out of the bad comes the bad, from the good can come only the good. Thus we are brought back by a natural sequence of thought to God, the good one, whose nature no evil can touch — to God, who is the source of good and only of good. Every good gift and every perfect boon is from above (i. 17). The words gift and boon here might be rendered all good giving and every perfect gift is from above ; thus covering every aspect of the beneficence ; the giving is good ; the gift is perfect — i.e., good and fitting. The giving and the gift are put, as it were together ; when so joined the wisdom of the beneficence is seen. God gives liberally (i. 5) but He also gives according to measure : He graduates His gifts to suit men's needs. Thus He is the author and giver of all good things. All skill, genius, insight power of utterance and gift of imagination, as well as all the sweet graces of the soul, are from above. God is the Father of Lights, and every kind of illumination which brightens human life is derived from Him. St. James fixes his thought upon another aspect of the good which comes from God. The illustra- 134 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST tration of light carries him forward in his thought. Light as it is seen in the material world is not always constant ; it appeared (we must put our- selves back into the thoughts of the first century, and forget for a moment modern science) that the sun was variable in its gift of light ; now it gave light and warmth with long and unstinting hand ; again, with shortened days and scantier heat, the sun's gifts came grudgingly ; to the ancients this seemed to indicate variableness ; indeed, we know that under the influence of nature worship, men feared, as the days of winter shortened, that the fire-god was about to withdraw his gifts altogether. With God, says St. James, there can never be variableness; His goodness is constant. With Him, too, there can be no shadow — like that arising from the inconstancy (as the ancient thought) of nature. Change brings shadow, with God is no change, and therefore no shadow. " I am the Lord ; I change not " was the prophet's witness (Mai. iii. 6) ; with it we may compare the Christian confidence in Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day and for ever (Heb. xiii. 8). Modern knowledge has endorsed the thought of this constancy, by revealing to us that even the THE CONFLICT FOR IDEALS 135 apparent changes in nature are the expressions of an unchanging order. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, The that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures. — earnest of realised Ch. i. 18. ideals. God is the author of all good. Is witness needed ? The spectacle of Christian lives fur- nished such ; but with the practical bent of his mind, St. James throws into this statement the suggestion of the Christian duty and calling. God gives good gifts, but He gives them for good. On man devolves the responsibility for the use of gifts. He gives for a purpose; the Christian is called to fulfil a divine purpose. There is a call. The inward divine life is from God. " Of His own will He brought us forth " (i. 18). The life-power is His. The following passages should be compared: John i. 13 and I Pet. i. 3. The instrument of this new life is declared by St. James to be the word of truth. This is quite in harmony with the teaching else- where — St. Peter speaks of being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through 136 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST the word of God. (i Pet. i. 23-25.) With this should be compared Matt. iv. 4, John vi. 6^, and 2 Cor. V. 17, and i. 21 of our Epistle. But all divine force is directed towards an end. Nothing is purposeless in God's universe. If He gives fire to the heart of the sun, it is that the sun may radiate light and heat. If He gives the fire of a regenerated life to the hearts of His children, it is that they may give light. God does as men With candles do — not light them for themselves. The light given by Christian lives is, according to St. James, a witness, or a prophecy to the world. Christians are designed to be a kind of first-fruits of God's creatures. The first-fruits are indications or specimens, to use a commercial word, of the harvest. When the first-fruits are brought in, men can realise the kind of harvest which is at hand. St. Paul alludes to this — if the first-fruit is holy, so is the lump (Rom. xi. 16). The prophet Jeremiah describes Israel as " holiness to the Lord and the first-fruits of his increase " (Jer. ii. 3). There is thus always a looking forward to some great future implied in THE CONFLICT FOR IDEALS 137 the image of the first-fruits. For this reason Christ is called the first-fruits of them that slept (i Cor. XV. 20), and Christian hearts are said to possess the first-fruits of the spirit, an earnest and pledge of the fuller life of the spirit among all when the revealing of the sons of God takes place (Rom. viii. 23). The first-fruits were offered to God to show that all the harvest was God's. Christians thus are first-fruits and they are those who live as God's children, and, so living, make constant affirmation that all men are God's children. To be thus witnesses of God's claim upon all, of God's power and spirit available for all, the new life of the spirit was conferred upon regenerate souls. Thus there is a true, real, and inspiring purpose set before them. The position of the possessive pronoun His ("His creatures") is unusual. The emphasis lies in the thought that all creatures are God's, His creation. His posses- sion, and that they only fulfil their true life in being His. CHAPTER IV CHARACTER REVEALED IN CONDUCT Ch. i. ig-end Drift of the -j^j^jr writer has led us on to realise that our passage. caUing is to be living messages of hope to man- kind. Trial works good ; it trains character ; it develops and reveals the heaven-like qualities oi which man is capable. To give expression to these in life is the Christian calling. We arc called to be first-fruits, earnests, and evidences of what all may become. If we are thus called to shadow forth, both in life and character, hints of the ideal life and the ideal character, it behoves us to translate our calling into reality. Hence the advice : Express in living and practical fashit a the divine purpose, revealed in your calling. Be eager therefore to learn ; be slow to speak, for chatter is not character. Avoid unreality in speech and in sentiment. Be neither arrogantly desirous of setting others right, nor get emotion- listen. CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 139 ally greedy of much hearing. Check the thought by learning to listen : check idle listening by practical obedience. Be real, and let the best expression of your worship be a character, pure and benevolent. Be pitiful, loving messengers of God to men as your Master was. Such is the summary of St. James' teaching m the closing verses of Chapter i. We must now follow out the teaching of these wisdom verses more in detail. "Ye know this (or know silent and ye this), my beloved brethren. But let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath : for the wrath of man worketh not the righteous- ness of God " (verse 19). Ye know this — the Greek word is only used here and in two other places in the New Testa- ment, viz., Eph. V. 5 and Heb. xii. 17, Its force seems to be, " this is evident." The point need not be laboured. But, as a practical result of your recognition of your calling — let every man be a learner. Swift to hear — the thought rises out of the writer's declaration that the recognition of their calling was awakened by the word of truth (verse 18). The general attitude of mind is to be I40 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST that of learners. The more keenly we realise that we are called to manifest God's kingdom, the more naturally shall we be ready to learn. There are some who are " ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim. iii. 7) ; but there are insincere learners ; they are laden with divers lusts, and so misled by desire. Compare Christ's declaration that social ambition hinders the apprehension of truth (John v. 44). Slow to speak. The one duty follows the other. The man who is wishful to learn gains also the habit of thoughtfulness, and is not likely to be rash or impatient in utterance. Reckless speech denotes a thoughtless nature. Hence the reflec- tion of the wise man (Prov. x. 19), " In the multi- tude of words there wanteth not sin," or that other 3'et more significant utterance (Prov. xiii. 3), " He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life."; The relation between speaking and hearing has been the subject of many proverbs and sayings, the most often quoted of which is perhaps the quaint one of Zeno, that we have two ears and but one mouth that we may hear twice as much as we speak. CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 141 ** For the wrath of man worketh not the Especially if it be true righteousness of God." This thought rises natur- wisdom, ally from the preceding. The rash and reckless speech runs the risk of wounding; it is likely to provoke animosity. Words kindle wrath, as sparks spread fire. Moreover there is a magic ind binding force about words. The word once spoken binds the speaker. What is half believed before it is spoken becomes often wholly believed by the speaker when once he has put it into words. Obstinacy ties him to his speech, and not only obstinacy, but the charm and deceptiveness of the uttered word invest the thought with an air of truth, making it seem real, as the sketch-plan of a house appears to be a building, though it is not yet more than a picture. Thus calmness and reflectiveness not only help truth but check the passionateness which hinders good. We may compare Christ's distrust of even well-intentioned zeal, in the word He spoke about the tares in the field. The master would not let his eager ser- vants attempt to gather up the tares, lest, he said, "Ye root up the wheat also." So little does the indiscriminate passion of man work the righteous- ness of God, 142 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST It is well to note that St. James takes it for granted that the Christian aim is to work the righteousness of God. What this righteousness is, we need hardly doubt. It is that righteousness which is greater than that of scribes and Pharisees {cf. St. Matt. V. 20). It is a righteousness which is of the soul; it is the righteousness which wor- ships right, and truth ; it is the righteousness which goes deeper than a punctilious regard for ceremonial, or even than a correctness of outward living; it is the righteousness which so realises the righteous order of the universe that it can resist the temptation to do evil that good may come, which seeks good but only by right means. In it there must be a desire to love the right, reverencing it too highly to do it violence. In other words there must be a disposition which is itself harmonised with right. This leads the writer to recall those qualities which interrupt this harmony. " Wherefore putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls " (verse 21). The re- The word here rendered sickness (icaKm) has ceptiveness of wisdom. CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 143 a certain elasticity of meaning. It may be used in a wide, general, and inclusive sense, signifying that viciousness of soul, which is the matrix of all kinds of vice. In this sense it is regarded by Cicero, who would not translate it by the Latin word vialitia, but used vifiositas, a coinage of his own, explaining that malitia was the name of one special vice, but viiiositas included all. The word therefore has a tendency towards a large meaning, but it is also used with a sense of the special direction of the vicious disposition, the special direction indicated here is that of the disposition to work harm to others. The writer prepares us for this in the previous verse. The wrath of man falls away from the divine purpose, i.e., the seek- ing of the good of others ; it runs towards harm- fulness ; it loosens the vicious dispositions, and turns them in the channels of malice. It is the opening of the flood-gates of that ill spirit which runs counter to the dictates of humanity and fair play. It thus is like the overflowing stream which carries down with it alike foulness and danger. Such is the filthiness and overflowing of wicked- ness. The remedy against this unholy activity of evil lies in cultivating the docile and receptive 144 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST spirit. We are told freely to give, but it is only those who have freely received that can be trusted to give freely. Christianity is the most active and missionary religion : it teaches us to give, to spend, to diffuse light everywhere; but it is also the religion of continuous receiving. We are to abide in Christ ; His words are to abide in us. Our hfe is indeed to be one of untiring activity, but it is also a life hid with Christ in God. It is Hke a tree bringing forth fruit, but it does so, because it is planted by the rivers of waters. It is a life of distributive energy because it is one of constant receptiveness. This thought St. James expresses by saying that the remedy for the ill-working of the evil is to be found in receiving with meekness the engrafted, or im- planted word, which is able to save your souls. The word is to be received, and turned as it were into a part of our own nature. As food is turned into energy of body, so is the word to be received. We recall the familiar words of the collect, " read, mark, and inwardly digest," and so transform into living force the word which we read. It is God's word, but it is to become our word. It is the divine thought realising itself in us. It is to be CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 145 ours so that it is no longer an alien but an assimi- lated power and element, and yet it is God's, for it is from Him. Here again we touch that paradox of the spiritual life which is a mystery so simple that we may miss its truth. The divine thing is mine, yet not mine ; it is the " I yet not I " of the apostle. It is that divine power which is not of me, and which yet can make me most truly my- self; for it is able to save my soul. The saving of the soul is the bringing it into the order of God and so setting it that it may grow up unto God. The soul is saved when it is rescued to be what God meant it to be, and so rescued from all things which hinder its divine calling. St. Peter speaks of this salvation of the soul as the end of faith (i Pet. i. 9). The soul is saved when it gives itself to God in complete confidence, living by Him, accepting His way and receiving Hisv/ord ; for the soul is saved when it is set free from the destructive forces which sin lets loose upon it ; it is saved when it surrenders itself to the divine order. If man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God, then we can understand that this word, im- planted or engrafted, is powerful to save the soul. K 146 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers onl}', delud- ing your own selves. For if any one is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror : for he beholdeth himself, and goeth away, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But he that looketh into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and so continueth, being not a hearer that forgetteth, but a doer that woi'keth, this man shall be blessed in his doing (ch. i. 22-2^,. Be prac- tical to avoid self- deception. Self- deception through thought- lessness. The section is characteristic of St. James' prac- tical genius. He has been counselling the docile and receptive attitude of the soul. There is an activity which he dreads ; it is the activity born of passion and w^rath ; but there is an activity which he desires. The repression of the active impulses of evil must not be followed by indo- lence, the self-deceiving indolence which imagines that hearing good things is an evidence of real goodness. To hear is ever the call to action. Therefore be ye doers, not hearers, deceiving yourselves. He gives an illustration. The man beholds his face in a mirror ; he goes away and forgets what he has seen. The illustration is of a man's habit, not a woman's. The man gives a glance and goes ; what he has done leaves no trace behind ; CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 147 he knows no more of himself than he did before. The word of God shows man his own image. The mirror is held up to nature. But of what use is this if man forgets ? The mirrors of the ancients were of polished metal, of silver or of a mixture of copper and tin. The illustration, therefore, of the reflection seen in the mirror may be used in two ways. The reflection was by no means perfect ; the mirror, therefore, sometimes was used to represent imperfect knowledge. So St. Paul (i Cor. xiii. 12), who employs it as the later Rabbins. St. James uses it to illustrate the opportunity of knowledge which the word of God, like the mirror, offers. The illustration carries on his thoughts. The opportunity may be used. A man need not be content with a casual careless glance. He may look ;- he may bend over and carefully scrutinise the image which he sees. The word is used of Mary and John at the sepulchre (John xx. 5 and n), and compare also I Pet. i. 12, "Which things angels desire to look into." Such a scrutiny expresses the wish to seize and appropriate truth. The mirror is the perfect law of liberty. Such is St. James' descrip- tion of the word of God. Even the psalmist claimed 148 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST perfection for the law of the Lord (Ps. xix. 7), but the true perfection of the word as a mirror for human life is seen in Christ's teaching (Matt, v.- vii.); for there, indeed, is the significance and moral value of human actions clearly set forth ; there also is the law of freedom set forth, for there the difference between conduct enforced by an outward law, and conduct the offspring of a law written within, is brought into vivid contrast St. James in using the whole phrase " perfect law of liberty " reiterates his Master's words. '* Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven " (Matt. v. 20, cf. Matt. XV. 18-20). St. James while deprecating idle hearing does not approve a formal and slavish obedience. The man who gazes into the mirror of truth is to be in downright and honest earnest. He must look, see and keep on translating knowledge into duty. Christ uttered the same thought. ** If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples," are His words (Johnviii. 31, 32), where the whole discourse is of honest earnestness and consequent spiritual freedom. "Ye shall know the truth, and CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 149 the truth shall make you free." The freedom comes to the honestly obedient ; it is freedom from slavish principles of action ; it is freedom from self-deception. There is a saying of Rabbi Chanaanah which has been well quoted to illus- trate St. James' teaching here. There are two crowns, one of hearing and one of doing. " Whose works are in excess of his wisdom, his wisdom stands. Whose wisdom is in excess of his works, his wisdom stands not." With which we may again compare Christ's profound saying which teaches how obedience or the earnest spirit which wills to obey may be the revealer of truth. "If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching whether it be of God." (John vii. 17.) This is the man who receives the benediction of knowledge. It is such a man, earnestly examining truth and careful to turn it into practice, whom St. James declares will be " blessed in his doing." Not observe, in his deed, but in his doing. The point is not the success of the action but the blessing which comes to the honest doer, whether the special act is successful to human eyes or not. It is thus in keeping of God's commandments there is great reward. The beatitude descends ISO WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST upon the faithful doer; he gains in force and dignity, in steadiness and nobihty of character. Thus, as his Master in the Sermon on the Mount, St. James teaches that the beatitude is spiritual ; the coherence and integrity of character won in fidelity stand firm against opposition. Like the house in storm and flood, it stands the test. It fell not, for it was founded on a rock. Herein the secret of that strength of character, which is so universally praised and yet so seldom seen, is unfolded. The Latin poet could admire The man of firm and righteous will, No rabble, clamorous for the wrong, No tyrant's brow whose frown may kill, Can shake the strength that makes him strong. (Hor. Odes, Bk. iii. 3.) The source of such rare and admirable strength lies open in the Gospel. If any man thinketh himself to be religious, while he bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain (i. 26). ^^^^- Here the Apostle gives another source of self- deception "^ ° through deception. The man who hears (verse 22) may much talking. deceive himself, but so also, and perhaps more CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 151 readily, may the talker. The man described is the man who seems to himself and possibly also to others to be a religious man, perhaps by virtue of his ready tongue. St. James is developing in an example his caution, " Be swift to hear, slow to speak." Chatter is not character ; words are not actions, but plausible tongues take in both speaker and listener. Here the man literally thinks that he is religious. The word here used alludes to religion in his external aspect, i.e.^ as worship, e.g.^ one mode of worship contrasted with another. The word, in fact, expresses the general form or ceremony of worship, the outward garb of religion, so to speak. We may paraphrase, if any man thinks himself to be a diligent observer of the offices of religion, while he bridleth not his tongue, &c. The image of the bridle is used here by St. James and again in iii. 2 ; in both cases it is used in reference to the tongue. The man who is master of his tongue is master of himself is St. James' thought in the later passage. The need of tongue mastery rises to his mind here. It was a natural thought and image of the student of the Old Testament. " I will keep my mouth as it were 152 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST with a bridle, while the ungodly is before me," said the writer of Ps. xxxix. (verse i). The bridle was for the horse and mule which had no understanding (Ps. xxxii. 9). Man should bridle himself, or at least have the wisdom to pray for God's guardianship. " Set a watch O Lord before my mouth : keep the door of my lips." (Ps. cxli. 3.) The empty talker deceives himself; his religion is vain, profitless. Religion should be of service ; it should yield some real and abiding good. According to the teaching of Christ it should bring advantage to the world ; for service is the law of Christ, as love is the spirit of His law. Hence a religion which is content with empty talk serves no true end. It does no good to man, it yields no fruit to God. Profitlessness, we must remember, is condemnation in the king- dom of God. " Ye did it not " is the accusation we read in Matt. xxv. 45. Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world (i. 27). Religion Thus the Way is prepared for what follows : according- to Christ. What is the true worship of the Christian ? It CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 153 is service. To serve man is a divine service. Pure religion and undefiled ; the two adjectives are often found together. Does one express the inward and the other the outward purity ? There is a purity of purpose and intention as well as a purity of conduct. The mere chatterer, the shallow religious talker is often an egotist, he is nearly always self-conscious. Real inward desire to render to God what is His does not show itself in noise or in outward display of religiousness. It is the reverse of the Pharisaic religion which imposes on man's admiration, and of the Pagan religion which thinks it will be heard for its much speaking. The true religion is not that which satisfies the test of man's observation ; it must come under the eye of God, it must be before God and the Father — real, sincere, unostentatious, earnest to do what God's love desires should be done. The world's verdict is valueless; it knows not the heart. God sees and knows. Our religion to be abiding must be a religion in His sight — real to meet His response who before all temples prefers the upright heart and pure. What then are the tokens of this real religion ? The answer is service, not talk, not angry dis- 154 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST cussions about faith, nor controversies about ritual, but practical, loving service. It is to visit. St. James uses the same word as his Master employed (Matt. xxv. 36, Sick and ye visited me). Can we doubt that the whole thought of the Apostle is the echo of Christ's teaching in that wonderful chapter ? There our Lord showed that that religion was faulty which had no inward love (Matt. xxv. i-i 3), which lost the opportunity of using its gifts for good (14-30), and which failed to show the common kindliness of life (31-46). Of the common kindlinesses of life, St. James selects the care of the fatherless and widow. This is in harmony with the precepts of the law. In Deut. xxvii. 19 a curse is declared against those who trouble the widow and fatherless. Our Lord denounced the Pharisees, because they devoured widows' houses (Luke xx. 47). These unprotected ones were believed to be under God's special care ; for He was the Father of the fatherless and judge of the widow (Ps. Ixviii. 5). The outflow of the godlike spirit would go in the direction of kindness, and on behalf of those who specially needed help. The second feature of real religion is personal stainlessness. To be CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 155 unspotted from the world is not to retire from its duties, its pursuits or even its joys; it is to enter into these with an unworldly spirit. Worldliness, as St. John tells us, lies not in things but in the spirit with which things are approached. It is not the eye, the flesh, the life that are wrong; it is the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life (i. John ii. 16). These are not of the Father. It is in this way that the friendship of the world makes alienation from God, as St. James says later on (iv. 4). If his heart is tuned by heaven, a man may pass untainted through the world, the things which harm others will not harm him (St. Mark xvi. 17, 18). Pure religion is a thing of the spirit ; it is the spirit which loves noble, pure, and kindly things. It is the spirit which was seen in Christ and which He still confers on His chosen. CHAPTER V RESPECT OF PERSONS AND SELF-RESPECT General drift of passage. Ch. ii. 1-13 If character is more than circumstances — if the real significance of life is to be found in the de- velopment of the moral capacities of our nature, then the possession of more or less of this world's riches is in itself a matter of no moment. Riches or poverty, like all other circumstances, may be used as agents in man's moral discipline, but of themselves they have no real value, any more than a graving tool has artistic merit ; their value, like that of the graving tool, lies in the use to which they can be put. The mere possession of riches does not give a man any right or title to esteem : the lack of them offers no ground for contempt. There are only three grounds of respect which are legitimate — man- hood, moral worth, and responsible office. Faith recognises these, and recognises no other. Those RESPECT OF PERSONS 157 who have this faith will, therefore, show no fawning or servile attitude towards riches, no contemptuous disregard of the poor. Such a respect of persons is at variance with the postu- lates of enlightened faith. " My brethren, hold not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ [the Lord] of glory with respect of persons." — Ch. ii, i. Another suggested rendering puts the sentence Against respect of in the form of a question — " My brethren, do ye persons, in accepting persons, hold the faith of our Lord Jesus [the Lord] of glory." This form gives incisiveness to the expression of the thought, but the thought is in any case quite clear. "You are those who have identified yourselves, in thought, spirit, and life, with the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are sharers of His per- ception of the true proportion of things. You recognise His glory, which was not a glory of this world's riches ; for He had not where to lay His head. As those, therefore, who realise wherein true glory consists, be not foolish and attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable : ye cannot serve God and mammon : ye cannot hold the faith True grounds of respect. 15S WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST /of Christ when you show by your actions that it is mammon that you really worship. We must bear in mind that the picture which St. James gives is of a man who is simply a rich man. There are, as I have said, three grounds which justify our respect to our fellow men. We should respect manhood in all — seeing that man is God's offspring, made in His image, capable of His likeness, and a sharer with ourselves in the drama of existence. In such respect all, whether rich or poor, should share our respect. We should respect moral worth in man, because wherever this exists man is helping forward his brother man. We should respect responsible office and position in man, because wherever such is held the man is clearly set apart of God's providence to be a helper and a servant of his fellows. If the rich man possessed moral worth, he might be honoured for his character but not for his wealth. If he held responsible position, he might be respected for his office. This is the true Christian law of respect. Manhood is to be respected. Honour all men. Moral worth is to be respected. " Hold such in honour," said St. Paul of Epaphroditus, whom he described as a RESPECT OF PERSONS 159 fellow worker and fellow soldier, who " for the work of Christ came nigh unto death " (Phil. ii. 25-30). Similarly, he bade the Thessalonians to respect the loyal and whole-hearted labourers among them, and " to esteem them exceeding highly in love for their work's sake" (i Thess. V. 12, 13). Responsible office is to be respected. The civil magistrate and the church officer are to be honoured as ministers of God's service (Rom. xiii. 1-7; I Thess. v. 12). But mere riches confer no title to respect. Hence we can understand St. James' caution. The kind of T T 1 1 • 11 'T^i • 1 • respect to He had noticed the scene. Ihe rich man coming be avoided. into the Christian assembly, sumptuous, pompous, expecting and exacting attention ; his gold ring glittering on his finger ; the evidence of his wealth ostentatiously striking the eye. He had seen the wordless adulation of the eager and hurrying church officials who rushed forward to conduct him to a conspicuous seat. The scene jarred upon his Christian sense of proportion ; it seemed to him to betray a lack of appreciation of the true grounds of respect ; and the more so from the contrast which the treatment of the poor man afforded. The man in vile raiment comes in. Its incon- sistency with Christian ideas. 1 60 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST For him any place is good enough. He may stand, or if he sits at all, it can be at some official's footstool—*' Stand thou there, or sit under my footstool." We need only to contrast the spirit here dis- played in this scene with the spirit which arises from the Christian recognition of the essential facts of life. What is it that constitutes the glory of life ? What are the things which ought to provoke our homage ? As a Christian man, St. James starts from the common ground of brotherhood — " My brethren," he says. In his address he appeals to what Christ had sanctioned and sanctified — " All ye are brethren." This bond in itself is so great and significant that minor distinctions go down before it. From this follows that great law of service, the fulfilment of which is, as Christ declared, the way of greatness. Christ, who was the Lord of Glory, had not where to lay his head, but His glory remained un- dimmed ; it rested not in circumstances but in Himself. Where he was the true Shekinah dwelt. Nay, He was, in the fulness of loving service, the true Shekinah : we may compare the words of Simeon ben Jochai who speaks of " the RESPECT OF PERSONS i6i Lord of the Serving Angels, the Shekinah." The world indeed saw no beauty that it should desire Him ; the reason being that they looked for glory of another sort — the vulgar glory which startles and dazzles, the glory of the gold ring and splendid apparel — not the glory of fellowship, service, and love. The men whose souls were fed with covetousness could only deride (Luke xvi. 14) the spiritual glory of Him who came '* not to be ministered unto, but to minister," Some glimpse of the higher glory was given to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration ; then there diffused itself into revealing light the glory which at other times was veiled in the life of service. If such was His glory, how incongruous in a Christian assembly was the respect of persons described by St. James. " Have not," says St. James, " the faith of our Lord with respect of persons." The faith here, though in- cluding Christian conceptions, is mainly the ethical spirit which has apprehended and appro- priated the principles of Christ. It is a question of inconsistency; there is a line of conduct which is radically incompatible with Christian ideas. L 1 62 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST Verges 2-4. For if there come into your synagogue (or assembly) a man with a gold ring, in fine clothing, and there come in also a poor man in vile clothing ; and ye have regard to him that weareth the fine clothing, and say. Sit thou here in a good place ; and ye say to the poor man. Stand thou there, or sit under my footstool ; are ye not divided in your own mind, and become judges with evil thoughts? Thejudg- It has been questioned whether the synagogue inspired by o^ assembly is the Jewish synagogue, or a woridii- specially Christian assembly. The Christians, as we know, frequented the Jewish synagogue : there the first witness of Christ was given. In Antioch of Pisidia St. Paul preached in the synagogue on the invitation of the synagogue rulers (Acts xiii. 14, 15). But the probability is that the assembly here mentioned is the Christian assembly. At any rate, St. James gives directions as though the Christians to whom he wrote had power to alter the evil practice. In the Christian assembly such -^ -servile partiality to the rich should not be shown. ;/ His objection, moreover, is based on a clear view of what human character ought to be. There are lines of conduct which show instability of character, lack of a central governing principle. In showing deference to the accidents of life rather than to its essentials men exhibit a divided RESPECT OF PERSONS 163 mind : there is lack of that single-mindedness which makes integrity. Compare St. James' con- tempt for the double-minded (ch. i. 8): insta- bility of character is its accompaniment. Further, where this instability exists, the power of clear judgment is impaired. Such was our Lord's; declaration: the singleness of purpose brought' light. (Matt. vi. 22-24.) Such is St. James'' view : the double-hearted man becomes a judge with evil thoughts, his power of discerning truth is weakened, his brain is confused through the divided allegiance of his heart. It is worth noting how the effects of a wrongly centred spirit spread through the whole nature. Where the heart-principles are wrong all else is likely to go wrong also. This is the reason why Christ and His Apostles insist upon the import- ance of a truly centralised nature. All will come right if the heart be right. If this be not right, little else is likely to be. Little things, moreover, show much ; and character shows itself in the smallest things. "All things exist in the man," says Emerson, " tinged with the manners of his soul. With what quality is in him, he infuses all nature that he can reach." Where the character i64 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST is a God-centred one there character is, to use again Emerson's words, with a difference, " the moral order seen through the medium of an in- dividual nature." Verses 5-10. Hearken my beloved brethren ; did not God choose them that are poor as to the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to them that love him ? But ye have dishonoured the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you, and themselves drag you before the judgment seats ? Do not they blaspheme the honourable name by the which ye are called ? Howbeit 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 of persons, ye commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors. The royal The Writer makes a strong appeal, based upon law applies , 1 t t 1 to all. ^ very natural sympathy. He commences the appeal by again using the title " brethren," for it is a natural brotherly sympathy which he seeks to arouse. He reminds them that there is a special message and unique tenderness for the poor in the Gospel. To neglect or to despise the poor is to miss the spirit of the Gospel. Whatever view we may take of the social teaching of Christ, there can be no doubt that His heart went out with RESPECT OF PERSONS 165 special sympathy towards those who were placed at a disadvantage in life. He longed to convey to such the assurance of the Father's love, and to fill the hearts of the sad with hope. " To the poor is the Gospel preached." Further, He regarded the poor as possessing at least the advantage of greater spiritual responsiveness than the rich. " How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God ? " It is in this sense that " God chose the poor in this world to be rich in faith." Notice the hint of the reversal of the world's judgment. There are some whom the world calls poor whom yet God may deem rich. The Gospel brought into use the light of a judgment which is very different from the judgment of the world. Since such light came, life and the meaning of life are better under- stood. Thus for us the aspect of things is altered. The royal For example, the world looks upon things seen, "^I'^il deeming these the most enduring (2 Cor. iv. 18): Christ reverses this and is right. The world j' places wisdom in the intellect : Christ places it in 1 the moral nature (i Cor. i. 27; iii. 19; Matt. xi. 25 ; James iii. 17). The world places wealth in i66 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST material possessions : Christ places it in spiritual capacity (2 Cor. viii. 9; i Cor. iii.21-23; Eph.i. 18). So here the poor may be in a nobler sense rich, being rich in faith : such look forward to an ampler and more splendid inheritance than the world can give ; they are " heirs of the kingdom which God hath promised to them that love Him." This heirship follows kinship or sonship. Where there is spiritual affinity there will be a spiritual inheritance. To share the spirit of Christ is to share His kingdom, His throne. The first feature of this sonship is a kind of poverty. It is the sense of one's having nothing and being nothing ; as Christ made himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, so does the Christ-like man cease from self, become poor as having nothing of his own. This perhaps suggests the reason why the poor in this world are spoken of as rich in faith. Their power of realising the sense of personal emptiness is perhaps readier than that of the rich man. These poor to whom Christ opened so wide the gate of the Kingdom are those whom, ac- cording to St. James, Christian people have despised. Their richness in faith, their kinship RESPECT OF PERSONS 167 of the Kingdom, is recognised in the Christian society ; and yet, says the Apostle, " ye have dishonoured the poor man." The spiritual opportunities of the poor having The , , , r^ T ^ J. oppressions been touched upon, bt. James, as a contrast, of the rich. describes the action of the rich. " The rich drag you to the judgment seat, and blaspheme the honourable name by which the Christians were called." He accuses the rich of oppression. To whom does he refer ? Does he mean the rich and powerful who used their place and wealth to persecute the Christians who were for the most part poor ? Or does he mean that Christian men possessed of wealth sometimes acted harshly and unjustly by the poor? The reference later on (ch. V. 1-6) to the injustices from which the poor suffered at the hands of the rich leads us to think that St. James has in mind, simply without thought of need, the oppressions practised by the rich. He is thinking of the legalised exactions and inconsiderate conduct of wealthy men. Pro- bably however, at the time, issues were confused, and accusations against a man's faith might be used to gain some material and financial advan- The divine law the safe one. 1 68 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST tage over him. The flash of indignation which lights up the Apostle's utterance is due to what he had seen and heard. The world, and the powers of the world, its wealth and its authority, must have appeared to Christian people as forces united against them. The struggle between the faith of Christ and the power of the world seemed unequal ; it was not always fairly carried on : issues were confused at times : personal animosity and personal greed may frequently have combined with bigoted hatred of the new faith. Further, the rich having more to lose may have been the first to apostatise in times of persecution. Speaking generally the Christian society had more to fear than to hope for from the rich. Many blasphemed the honourable name, i.e., the name of Christ, either by persecution, or by apostasy, or by their inconsistent and oppressive conduct {cf. Rom. ii. 24; 2 Pet. ii. 2 ; i Tim. vi. i, and Titus i. 16). Verses 8-10. Howbeit if ye fulfil the royal law, accord- ing to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well ; but if ye have respect of persons, ye commit in, being convicted by the law as transgressors. From the strain of indignation, St. James RESPECT OF PERSONS 169 passes to that tone of quiet and temperate judg- ment which is his wont. It is illustrative of the true balance of his mind that he recovers himself so easily, and adopts a calm impartiality of tone. He has expressed himself in hot wrath against the men who misused their position and riches ; but though he can be indignant against the rich, a man is not to be hated or treated with disrespect merely because he is rich. The very principle which declares the man to be more than his circumstances should lead us to ignore alike the riches and the poverty of men in our demeanour towards them, seeing that respect is due to all. The royal law says love is due to all. If this is the principle which leads men to show respect to rich as well as to poor, it is well. If it be a servile admiration of riches, apart from manhood and apart from character, it is ill : it is worse than ill, it is sin ; and those who are guilty of it are convicted by the law — the law of brotherly love which claims respect for all — as transgressors. This law, this royal law, stands ever at our side : it watches and judges our actions. It acts as accuser and judge. It convicts us of wrong- doing when, from a cringing and selfish spirit, lyo WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST we show respect of persons, thus lowering the love we ought to have for the needy. Its clear, level standard, " love thy neighbour as thyself," at such times, marks us out as transgressors. The law of Verses lo-i 3. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, liberty as g^j^^ y^j. gtyn^big jn one point, he is become guilty of all. applied. ^^°^ ^® '•^''•'- said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou dost not commit adultery, but killest, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as men that are to be judged by a law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to him that hath shewed no mercy ; mercy glorieth against judgment. Violation of To be guilty in one point is to be guilty of all. principle is breach of It souuds harsh and strained; but it becomes code. clear and inevitable when we realise the unity of law. Divine law is not a series of isolated enact- ments ; it is the concrete expression of a certain spirit. Human law is built up of experiences and difficulties ; one part may be without relation to another ; yet even human law by degrees assumes a kind of organic unity. Divine law from the first possesses this unity; since it is not formed out of precedents, but is the application of a great principle to life. If we remember that our Lord reduced all laws to one law, we shall RESPECT OF PERSONS 171 realise how guilt in one point is guilt in all. To commit adultery is to violate not simply the seventh commandment, it is to break the principle which underlies the whole ten ; it is a violation of the law of love ; every breach of any com- mandment is such a violation. The man who pricks a balloon only damages one segment of silk, but he causes the fall of the whole balloon. So each disregard of a commandment evidences a spirit out of harmony with the spirit with which all law is filled. This feeling that there is a great underlying principle of life, by which man should be ani- mated, finds expression elsewhere. St. Paul calls the principle faith, and consequently tells us that " whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Rom. xiv. 23). If a man does all, but omits one, said Rabbi Jochanan, he is guilty of all. The same thought has place in the Stoic idea that virtue was the art of life, all virtues being equal. St. James, moreover, carries the thought beyond Contra- that of law considered as an organic whole, or the divine mere embodiment of some principle, tie takes '^'^^''^cter. the law back to the lawgiver. The law is the expression of God's will. "He that said, do not 172 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST commit adultery, said also, do not kill." The violation of law shows lack of harmony with the mind of the law-giver. The moral law is the expression of the divine nature. Its essential principle is love, for God is love. The command- ments are like broken lights of the one central beam, which is love. To sin is therefore not ■ merely to break one commandment ; it is to act ;out of harmony with God. We bring ourselves by sin into variance with the original order of things, with God Himself, Life is the realisation of a great unity. To be outside the unity of nature is to be outside the true life. One wrong- is therefore all wrong. The one wrong makes us transgressors ; those who sin have crossed the sacred line which separates concord from discord, as one false note breaks all harmony. Hence the apostle appeals to Christ's people to act as though they realised the great and pre- valent law of life. " So speak ye and so do as men that are to be judged by the law of liberty." Law in one aspect appears as a restraint upon liberty ; it restricts freedom of action. This is its aspect when men regard their life as outside RESPECT OF PERSONS 173 all order ; but if life's highest fulfilment be con- tinuous activity in harmony with the order of our being, then the law which sets forth that harmony is the law of liberty, not of bondage. When law is regarded as a series of command- ments, and so of negations of desire, law then seems to hamper, but when law is felt to be the i, very expression of what our nature requires and desires, then it is the very avenue of liberty.^ The realisation of the need of harmony between ourselves and the whole order of things, or rather between ourselves and the God of order, sets law in a different light ; it then unfolds to us outlines of the ideal, because we see not the dry code but the spirit of which the commandments are but examples. Then we cannot bear to be out of harmony with that spirit ; the principles enshrined in law are dear to us and sacred. We are free men desiring for ourselves what is noblest and best. Thus should we speak and act as those who know the judgment of this law of liberty, and who therefore feel every deviation from the law of love as a missing of the ideal, a failure in life's aim, a wrong against Him who gave us life and the capacity of love and service. The royal 174 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST law is the law of love, and therefore also is it the law of liberty. Its code of honour is more exquisite than a mere legalist can understand ; its demands are deeper and its judgments severer, because love which is the tenderest of passions is the sternest also, even as God who is love is also a consuming fire. Puts man Thc thought of the severity thus rises in St. outside the , . , t, t i • • i realm of Jamcs mind. ' Judgment is without mercy to °^^' him that hath showed no mercy." We think of the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matt, xviii. 21-35); we recall the condemnation of the last day which is ever against those who put love ; far from their hearts (Matt. xxv. 32-35). Those who so act have forgotten the source of their being, the Father of the spirits of all flesh. Sons act in the spirit of their Father. Mercy glorieth over judgment, because it is akin to the earlier law of love. Those who understand this are hard on themselves and gentle in their judgments upon others. They realise the failures of their own spirit, its deviations from the loving temper : therefore they are hard on themselves, judging themselves by what love would do and require. For the same reason they are tender towards RESPECT OF PERSONS lys others — not judging by the letter, but hoping all things in the spirit of love. The application of this to the question of respect of persons is clear. The Christian man judges himself by a severe test ; he would hate to find himself governed by a lower spirit than that of love, and therefore would he hate to find him- self acting under worldly or vulgarly servile motives. Love would take all men to its em- brace, heedless of the ring or of the vile raiment. To find oneself the slave of the earthly shadows of wealth, or contemptuous of any whom God has made, would be to discover reasons of self- abhorrence. For in the loving soul a large piti- fulness should ever dwell, and the weaker and more miserable a man is, the dearer should he be to the heart which knows the love of God. CHAPTER VI FAITH AND WORKS Ch. ii. 14. What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say that he hath faith, but have not works ? Can that faith save him ? Summary. We havc to recall the principles which St. James has developed in the course of his letter, if we would rightly grasp the meaning of the present passage. Superficially considered, St. James' teaching has been thought to contradict St. Paul's. // St. Paul is the ardent advocate of faith ; works, he says, are nothing : the disposition of the soul is everything. St. James advocates action and con- duct : sentiment or otiose assent is nothing. But St. Paul and St, James are one in their view that the Christ-born soul should show to men the exemplar spirit. St. James regards such souls as those called to exhibit the true type of humanity to men : they should be " a kind of first-fruits of His FAITH AND WORKS 177 creatures" (ch. i. 18). St. Paul does not speak differently : the Christian man is the man in whom the Spirit of God dwells : such seek to fulfil the life of the exemplar : they walk not after the flesh but after the spirit (Rom. viii. 4-9). Such spirits would feel that a violation of the law of love would be out of harmony with the Spirit of Christ ; they would test themselves not by their actions merely but by the spirit which the actions disclosed. The ultimate test is not the deed but the spirit of the deed. In this St. James agrees : it is the servile spirit shown to the rich man in the Christian assembly which he rebukes. He acknowledges that love and kindness are due to all, be they rich or poor. But in his strong, free way he hates un- reality ; he hates the deference which is not the genuine self-respecting deference of man to man, but the self-interested deference of the snobbish nature which in its soul worships wealth ; he hates lack of genuineness in such matters. He hates, equally, the unreality which is content with an indolently acquiescent creed — the faith which is not incorporated into the heart and the life, which is outside the man, and therefore inoperative in the life of the man. The true man of Christ grasps M 178 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST the heart of things : external circumstances are of no moment : the man and the character of the man are everything. All men should be treated according to the law of love (verse 15). Religion, if real, cannot dwindle into a mere sentiment or an opinion. It is a conviction of the true order of life, a belief in it, and a love of it. Hence religion can no more be divorced from life than the breath from breathing, the blood from its flowing, the heart from its beating. The heart beats because it is a heart. That is its function. So faith is a living power of the soul (verse 17). It is seen in the way a man acts : faith is such a heart-grasp upon the divine nature as implies sympathy with the divine nature. It will go out, as God's nature does, in beneficence and love (verses 15-17). It must do so, as light streams from the sun, and as the waves of the ocean beat upon the shore. It is thus a self-revealing power. Like love, it cannot be hid (verses 17-20). The history of faith ex- hibits this, as the stories of Abraham and Rahab show (verses 20-26). FAITH AND WORKS 179 Ch. ii. 15-17. H a brother or sister be naked, and in lack of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled ; and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body ; what doth it profit ? Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. The apostle carries his argument into illustra- Faith a TT- ..i-i r-.> •• moral force. tion. His principle is that faith is an active power. He had asked what was the use of a man talking about his faith, if it never came forth into action. Like Shakespeare, he would say, If our virtues go not out with us, 'Twere all as one as though we had them not. This is the appeal to the practical judgment ; thereupon he pressed the question farther. A faith which does not show itself in action is useless to mankind. It is useless also to the possessor, A man may have such a barren faith, but can that faith save him ? or, we may put it, can faith of that kind save him, a man of that sort ? From this the argument passes into illustration. He pictures the brother or sister naked or desti- tute : he pictures them met with good wishes but given no help. What good is there in good wishes ? Like good intentions, they do not pave the road to heaven. The illustration recalls the i8o WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST vivid scenes described by our Lord in Matt. xxv. 31-46. Here are the needy unhelped and un- ministered to. This is one of those many passages in this short epistle which shows us how far the teaching of Christ had sunk into the writer's spirit. After his manner, St. James gives a touch of irony to the picture. The good wishes are so sympathetically expressed. There is no passing by on the other side : the professed Christian on this occasion is one who completely realises the whole position ; the indigent one needs food and clothing and shelter and warmth : there is no doubt about the fact. The position is recognised, but the obligation, which, according to Christ's teaching, this knowledge creates, is passed on to another. He speaks in this wise : " I am sure, my dear friend, that you sadly need help ; there are plenty of people who will be able to help you : I do sincerely trust that you will receive the food and clothing you need." What profit is there in those empty, hypocritical good wishes ? This is a barbarousness worse than the barbarousness which does not perceive need ; it augurs a harder heart to come and look upon the wounded man and then go on, than to pass by on the other side. FAITH AND WORKS i8i Is it not a harder heart still which can look at misery and loudly pity it, mocking it with good wishes ? This is the hypocrisy of faith. It realises God's will that the needy should be cared for, but never realises that itself should be the instrument of that will. The true soul is ready to play, as Browning says, " not the helpless weakling," but " the helpful strength, That captures prey and saves the perishing. Sluggard arise : work, eat, then feed who lack ! {The Eagle — Browning.) " What does it profit ? " asks St. James. What good lies in empty words ? What profit to either him that hears or him that speaks ? To the one, the words are mockery ; to the other, the fatal source of some fresh self-deception. " Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself." It proves itself to be dead, because no living force is displayed ; it proves itself dead as the fruitless tree reveals its own uselessness. Whatever out- ward show it may for a while maintain it is dead in itself. It lacks the living inward force. The faith is dead in itself — not only is the body of religion dead in this case, but the faith, the very heart of religious life itself, is dead ; it has ceased to beat. I 82 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST Ch. ii. iS-20. Yea, a man will say, Thou hast faith, and I have works : shew me thy faith apart from thy works, and I by my works will shew thee my faith. Thou believest tha God is one ; thou does.t well : the devils also believe and shudder. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith apart from works is barren ? Known by In his argument the writer now puts a practical fruits. aspect of the question before his hearers. The faith which does not reveal itself in action cannot prove its own existence. To say " I have faith " is cheap and easy, but not convincing. Christ said, ** By their fruits ye shall know them " (Matt, vii. 20), but how are they to be known without fruit ? To boast of faith, but to show no practical result, is vain and valueless. Far better is the man who was going about doing good, but not boasting of his faith ; such a man's actions proved his faith. The argument is taken a step farther. Belief may be orthodox, while the character is evil. Merely to believe in one God, or that God is one, may be an empty intellectual assent — so entirely inoperative in the life that the spirit displayed in it may be positively malignant. As far as intel- lectual assent to an article of belief is concerned, this may be shared by demons, who perceive the FAITH AND WORKS 183 truth, and accept the truth, but only as an uncom- fortable fact. " The devils believe and shudder." We may now revievi^ the aspects of valueless faith as set out by St. James. Faith which cannot \ rise to an act of Christian kindness (verses 15, 16) is dead in itself. But if you claim that you still have faith, you are powerless to prove it, except by works. Call it faith if you please ; it is a barren thing, and a barren tree is a tree which fails of the purpose of its existence. If you still claim that you have faith, perhaps you only mean belief in an intellectual assent to an article of faith ; but this again is valueless in the sight of heaven ; it is but a barren thing, working no moral good in the character. God has no place for barren things in His kingdom. (Compare John XV, 6 ; Luke xiii. 6-9.) The teaching of St. James here is full of warn- ing. It is so easy to deceive ourselves, and to confuse good wishes with goodness, sentiment with fact, and orthodoxy with living faith. The belief that "God is one" was the pride of the Jews, " Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord," words drawn from Deut. vi. 4, was the announcement of that portion of the law which iS4 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST the Jew was expected to recite morning and evening. This fact gives emphasis to the teaching of St. James. Of what use was orthodoxy of behef, even if regularly recited day after day, unless life was influenced by it ? Here, too, we recall the fact that our Lord cited this expression of belief, as a preface to His declaration of the first and great commandment. The first is. He said, " Hear, O Israel ; the Lord our God, the Lord is one ; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." J j (Mark xii. 29.) Our Lord thus supplied the corrective to barren orthodoxy. It was vain to hold the empty faith that the Lord was one, unless that faith carried with it such a deep, real, and intense attachment to God as must colour and govern the whole life. In its ultimate analysis true faith involves love. Bede is right in the distinction he draws — between believing a person, i.e. what he says — and believing a person, for what he is ; which is believing in a person. We may believe certain things to be true ; we may believe a person because he is an authority; but to believe in a person implies some sympathy and FAITH AND WORKS 185 affection, some partnership, as it were, in his nature. In this last alone is true faith. This is the faith which St. Paul extols ; it is confidence in the character of God ; it is a spiritual grasp upon what He is ; it is a trust which can rejoice in tribulation ; it is a faith which works by love. None other is the faith which St. James insists on, only he approaches the question from the other side. St. Paul insists that we should first secure the seed, the good seed ; all else will follow, growth, flower, fruit. St. James starts at the other end, and says, " No fruit, therefore no growth ; no growth, therefore no life ; no life, therefore no source of life; no seed." The Apostle Paul is the sower selecting his seed ; St. James is the farmer visiting and inspecting his plants. St. Augustine puts the difference between the genuine and the surface-belief thus, " What so great a thing is it, if thou sayest, Christ is the Son of God ? Peter said it and was answered, * Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona.' The devils said it and heard, ' Hold your peace,' The word is one and the same ; but the Lord tests not the flower, but the root," On which we may note i86 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST that Simon Peter's faith was deeper than a faith of earth, of flesh and blood ; it was a faith of spiritual attachment. That orthodoxy may co-exist with malignity of character we know too well, We all have known Good kings who disembowelled for a tax, Good popes who brought all good to jeopardy. Good Christians who sate still in easy chairs And damned the general world for standing up. We need not wonder that St. James should break out into expostulation. "Wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith apart from works is barren ? " The man thus addressed is, of course, imaginary or typical. He is a vain man — i.e., empty (the word is the equivalent of Raca) (Matt. v. 22). The man is empty as his religion is profitless. His character is empty ; his faith is idle, or barren. The word used here is the same used in 2 Peter i. 8, where after the powers of Christian life — faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly love, love — have been enumerated the writer says. Where these abound, "they make you to be not idle, nor unfruitful." It is against a strengthless, worthless. FAITH AND WORKS 187 lifeless form of faith that St. James enters his protest. Ch. ii. 21-26. Was not Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar ? Thou seest that faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect ; and the scripture was fulfilled which saith, And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness ; and he was called the friend of God. Ye see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith. And in like manner was not also Rahab the harlot justified by works, in that she received the messengers, and sent them out another way ? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead. St, James now turns to the past, and from the inustia-i tions of Story of Israel selects two examples as test cases this prin- ciple, of his position. One is a case drawn from the chosen people ; the other example is from the circle of the world outside. Abraham is the Hebrew type he selects ; Rahab is not of Israel. The case of Abraham. He gives Abraham the title, " Our father," common among the Jews (com- pare Luke xvi. 24 and Rom. iv. i). The case is a conclusive one to the Jew. The life and conduct of Abraham, the father ot the race, thus consti- tuted a final appeal. We realise the weight of his name in Jewish thought as we read the New Tes- i88 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST lament. St. Paul makes him a turning-point in his argument (Rom. iv. i and Gal. iii. 7). The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews devotes no fewer than fourteen verses in his great historic picture of the power of faith to the case of Abra- ham (Heb. xi. 8-21). The power of the very name of Abraham made it natural, I had almost said indispensable, that St. James should be able to show that faith in Abraham's case was no inert sentiment or dead orthodoxy, but a living and active force. He takes the incident of the sacrifice of Isaac. It could have been no dead or otiose thing which led to such an act of self-surrender as this. Abra- ham showed faith in going forth from his country (Heb. xi. 8-17); in his confidence that Isaac would be born (Rom. iv. 17-21) ; but the sacrifice of Isaac is felt both by St. James and the author of the Hebrews to be the climax test. It was the giving up of what he loved and cherished and in which he saw the earnest of a great future. Such an action, St. James says, shows faith co-operating with works, and works establishing faith. St. James touches an important truth. Doing perfects theory ; action completes faith : FAITH AND WORKS 189 What to thought a doubt may prove, That an action may remove : Thus by doing you shall know What it is you have to do. Compare John vii. 17. Translate ''thought " into "action" and you get "conviction." Inaction, disposition and will are united. Action alone is not enough. Sentiment or disposition alone is not enough. Both must combine. Right disposition must express itself in right conduct. Then the whole nature is brought into play. A man so ani- mated and so acting for right is in sympathy with the divine purpose : he may be called, as Abraham was, the Friend of God. The reference is to Isaiah xli. 8, and perhaps 2 Chron. xx. 7. The name Khalil Allah, the friend of God, or more shortly El Khalil, has among the Arabs practically super- seded the name Abraham. The case of Rahab. It is as if St. James, wish- ing to estabhsh the general truth of his argument, passed from the crucial Jewish case of Abraham to the familiar case of an outsider like Rahab. Her faith, too, showed itself in action. She was con- vinced that the righteous God was with Israel, and her conviction displayed itself in active service ' she hid and protected the lives of the spies. We I90 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST should read the expression of her faith given in Joshua (ii. 9-13). The conclusion drawn by St. James is : " As the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from work is dead." One would have thought that works, deeds, were the embodiment of faith, faith being the animating principle of the action. But St, James reverses this. The image, however, becomes clear if we recall the dead orthodoxy of which we spoke. He called it dead, for it showed none of the signs of life ; there was neither breath nor movement. In contrast to this he places faith, like a living and active thing — the trust and con- viction which follows God, and works for God — a power which cannot be inactive because it is alive, and is known to be alive because it is active. CHAPTER VII TONGUE WISDOM AND TRUE WISDOM Ch. iii. i-end, St. James set before his hearers a lofty con- Tongrne wisdom ception of Hfe. He saw that men were in danger and true of mistaking the accidents of hfe for its reahty. He noticed how much men valued the mere raiment of existence while the abiding powers of life were neglected. Of what use would life be to men if they thus snatched at the shadow of things and missed the substance ? Under the influence of this thought, he urged men not to think over much of wealth and poverty, not to mistake sentiments for actions, or emotions for character. In the same spirit he now warns them against the snares of talk, the small ambition of setting everybody right. Thus he attacks the evils which follow the uncontrolled use of the tongue. To this the whole of the third chapter of his Epistle is devoted. 192 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST We may summarise it thus : Drift of the Eagcrness to teach, and the empty talk to chapter. which this desire leads are not good. If character is the end of life, and the purpose of religion, we must needs be careful lest the opportunity of volubility destroy robustness of character. In short, chatter is not character, and chatter in- dulged in dissipates the energies which might be applied in developing nobility of character. A bridled tongue shows a strong character ; for the tongue often outruns thought, and can defy the will. Be therefore good herdsmen of your speech. Let will and wisdom guide. The un- curbed tongue is like a fire. It is a fierce untamable thing. Out of it may flow evil as well as good. It is like a spring which now gives forth poison, and now gracious and health- giving waters. It is needful to get at the sources of the spring. Wisdom, true wisdom should be at the back of our life. Wisdom, not mere intellectual power, but wisdom of an ethical sort. Wisdom, which is a healthy evolution of harmonised qualities, fortifies character and controls talk. It is a wisdom of self-restraint, TRUE ^VISDOM 193 which is meek and not ambitious of the pernicious brilliancy of talk which so often leads to envy and strife. It is a wisdom in which qualities of purity and mercy lead on to righteousness and peace. The principle insisted on is a very simple one. He who would use the tongue must be the master of the tongue. This is hard, for a tamed tongue means a tamed man. Bridle the mouth, and 3'OU bridle the man. Here St. James intro- duces a wealth of illustration. The bridle (ver. 3) ; the rudder (ver. 4) ; the fire (ver. 6) ; the wild beast (ver. 7) ; the strange fountain (ver. 11); the fig, the olive, the vine (ver. 12). In verses 13-18 he gives the picture of the beneficent influences of true wisdom. Be not many teachers (iii. i). There is here a Tongue mastery- touch of quiet humour. Do not many of you is true become teachers. Do not be a mob of teachers. ™*^ ^'^^ The ambition of being called Rabbi (cf. Matt, xxiii. 8) is glanced at. To teach requires aptness, fit- ness, not merely impetuosity of tongue. And after all this eagerness to teach is not wise, for teaching increases responsibility. Be not many teachers N 194 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST knowing that we shall receive greater (heavier) condemnation. Our Lord had reminded the teachers of His day that they would receive greater damnation (Mark xii. 38-40; cf. Matt. vii. 15 and xxiii. 14). Professor Mayor quotes Pirke Aboth : ** Not learning, but doing is the groundwork, and whoso multiplies words occasions sin." (C/ Prov. X. 19.) " For in many things we all stumble " (ver. 2). The arrangement of the words causes ambiguity. The meaning is, " we all of us much and often- times offend." The final word "all" implies the frequency and the enveloping character of the of- fending, we are often and all-offending; as we some- times say, " you are all wrong ! " The test of the man, however, is the tongue. Not only is the tongue the source of evil to others, and therefore the teacher accepts great responsibility, but the ability to govern the tongue is a test of character, an evidence of self-control. " If any man stumble not in word, the same is a perfect (Jtclcois) man, and able also to bridle the whole body." On the power of the tongue we may compare Christ's words, "By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." (Matt. xii. TRUE WISDOM 195 Sy ; cf. Matt. XV. 1 1.) Tongue mastery is complete master3^ It is like the mastery over the ship which he has who holds the rudder. It is, if not the possession, the sign of the possession of the key of the situation. Ch. iii. 3. — Now if we put the horses' bridles into their mouths, that they may obey us, we turn about their whole ody also. The use of the word " bridle " starts an image The in the writer's mind ; he follows up the thought, thrt^ongue. and his imagination seizing on other illustrations, he is led to depict the good which comes from a governed tongue, and the evil which may be wrought by the reckless one. We have the good set forth in two illustrations — the horse and its bridle, and the ship and its rudder. The horse and its bridle. There is a certain quaint touch of humour in reminding his hearers that they put bridles into the mouths of horses. Can man who puts a bridle into his horse's mouth put none into his own ? The force of the illustration, however, lies in the fact that when the bridle is in the horse's mouth, the whole body of 196 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST the horse is under control. It is the power of government, so to speak. It is the same with the rudder of the ship. The huge mass of the ship obeys the rudder. Without this power of govern- ment, the ship is at the mercy of the wind and wave. " Behold, the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by rough winds, are yet turned about by a very small rudder, whither the impulse of the steersman willeth " (ver. 4). The rudder is not only the power of government; it is the means of safety. It and it alone carries the ship in safety through peril of storm. The rule over the tongue in like manner implies the power to govern the whole nature. The parallel is com- plete : the tongue, like the rudder, is small ; like the rudder it can do great things. So " the tongue, also, is a little member, and boasteth great things " (ver. 5). Self-government thus occupies a high place in St. James' thoughts. He likes a well- centred man; he dislikes the double-minded man, unstable in all his ways (i. 8) ; he dislikes a passion- driven man, or a tongue-ruled man. He desires to see in Christian men the dignity of self-control ; he wishes them to show themselves royal in the world, bearing themselves with the dignity of the TRUE WISDOM 197 well-skilled rider, or experienced helmsman. To be at the mercy of one's tongue is to betray the lack of this self-government, and so, to lose natural dignity. It is worse. It is to be the source of evil. He turns, therefore, to the evil which may be wrought by the ungoverned tongue. " Little ! " he seems to say, "did I call the tongue little ?" Yes, but little things may work great mischief. "Behold how much wood is kindled by how small a fire " (ver. 5). A spark may set a whole forest ablaze. "And the tongue is a fire" (ver. 6). The illus- trations of this are beyond number. Who starts a rumour may undo a kingdom ! Who repeats heedlessly an imperfectly heard sentence may ruin a life by destroying a reputation ! We may recall the School for Scandal, with its crowd of gossips, ready maliciously to interpret, as Pope says, Motions, looks and eyes ; At every word a reputation dies. No wonder the Apostle likened the tongue to fire, /3;sdiich cruel, inexorable, and irresponsible, turns the fairest growths into a wilderness of ashes. A fire is the tongue, yes, more — " the world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the tqS wisdom of JAMES THE JUST wheel of nature, and is set on fire by hell " (ver. 6). It is the unruly tongue which is thus described. The tongue may play a noble part ; it may be set on fire by a heavenly fire (Acts ii. 3, Is. vi. 6, Jer. V. 14) ; it is well to remember this, for the lesson which the contrast suggests. Fire moves ; it seizes on all and reduces all to dust ; it is fierce and destructive. The phrase " the wheel of nature " supplies a vivid image ; the fire spreads from the axle to the outermost edge, and thus makes a revolving circle of flame, carrying destruction in all directions. This indicates the disastrous power of the tongue upon human society. The little Kosmos of the tongue inflames the great round of human existence. " Their tongue," said the Psalmist, " goeth through all the world " (Ps. Ixxiii. 9). " It is set on fire of hell." We can picture this quiet, self-restrained Apostle, listening to the viperish tongues, and feeling that only hell could start them on their wicked and wanton course. " Hell — Gehenna." The image of Hinnom rises before him. He seizes upon it. Only from the worst sources can this riot of destructiveness arise ; it is not only wild, but it is ruthless and malignant. TRUE WISDOM igg Ch. iii. 7-13. For every kind of beasts and birds, of creep- ing things and things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed by mankind ; but the tongue can no man tame ; it is a restless evil, it is full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we the Lord and Father ; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the likeness of God : out of the same mouth Cometh forth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth the fountain send forth from the same opening sweet water and bitter ? Can a fig-tree, my brethren, yield olives, or a vine figs ? Neither can salt water yield sweet. St. James has said that the man who tamed his The tongue cannot be tongue was a " perfect man " (ver. 2), now he tamed, says, "The tongue can no man tame." All kinds of creatures, he reminds his readers, have been tamed by mankind. This is an interesting state- ment ; it shows that the custom of taming animals was common in St. James' da}'. We must not take the statement too literally, or interpret it to mean that every creature or kind of creature had been tamed. The writer rather means that broadly speaking the nature of all creatures is open to man's control. This as a general state- ment is true. The exceptional aspect of the case is stated in Heb. ii. 8: "We see not yet all things put under him (man) " ; the words are r- comment on Ps. viii. 6. " Thou hast put all things 200 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST under his (man's) feet." In the verse before us however St. James, to heighten our sense of the uncontrolled character of the mischief-making tongue, points to the taming of wild animals, not as a new thing, but as a well-known fact. The nature of the beast, he says, is tamed by the nature which is human, but no one is able to tame the tongue — " no one of men." In other words the discipline of the tongue is beyond man's power. Men may refrain their tongue while others are at hand (Ps. xxxix. 1-4); prudence, self-interest, even the desire to avoid offence, may enable a man to be silent, but at the last the fire will burn, and he will speak with his tongue. The sacred writer thus agrees with the classical writers who called the tongue cffrena — unbridled. I It is, says St. James, a restless evil; malorum fecunda parens — the prolific parent of ills. It is, says our writer, full of deadly poison, and our memories are carried back to the complaint of the Psalmist : " Adder's poison is under their lips." (Ps. cxl. 3.) " They go astray . . . speaking lies; their poison is like the poison of a serpent." (Ps. Iviii. 3.) Restless is the evil tongue, restless like a wild beast, like the lion roaring for his prey, TRUE WISDOM 201 restless for fresh mischief, unhappy till it has found new material for gossip. How full of evil it is must be measured not alone by the words spoken, but, as Professor Mayor reminds us, by the echoes which words evoke. " However a man may learn to control his own tongue, these echoes are beyond all human power." We recall Shakespeare's picture of Rumour entering painted full of tongues and crying : Open your ears ; for which of j'ou will stop The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks ? I, from the orient to the drooping west, Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold The acts commenced on this ball of earth ; Upon my tongues continual slanders ride, The which in every language I pronounce. Stuffing the ears of men with false reports. Flenry IV., 2nd pt. The tongue is not only mischievous, but it puts to shame the manhood of its owner. One feature of manhood is consistency. Respect grows for a life animated by principle and therefore consistent and coherent. But the tongue works inconsis- tency ; now it blesses God ; now it slanders God's image — man. Here is the weakness of a divided character. In all nature we expect to find the 202 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST fulfilment of some clear end or purpose. We expect from the spring, water of a consistent ^ quality ; from the vine, grapes ; from the fig-tree, figs. Our expectation, founded on experience, is an expectation of fidelity in nature. We do not look for variableness in fountain or tree. It is not the function of salt water to yield sweet, or of the fig-tree to yield olives, or of the vine, figs. These things are faithful and true to their nature. But man's tongue appears to be "to one thing constant never." In reckless irresponsibility, it is equally facile in blessing and cursing, and this being so its benediction and its curse are equally worthless, for they betray an unbalanced, incoherent nature. Where nature sets the example of fidelity to purpose, these things, these inconsistencies of speech, these outbursts of passion and ill-humour, are unworthy in our God- made human nature ; " these things ought not so to be." The latent appeal is to the heavenly source of our being. The argument is from the true divine relationship between God and man ; it is common in the Bible, especially in the New Testament. Man is made in the likeness of God, i.e.^ he is capable of moral resemblance to his TRUE WISDOM 203 maker. His blood is not to be shed, because he is made in God's image (Gen. ix. 6). Compare Prov. xiv, 31, xxxii. 2 ; Luke xi. 13; Matt. xxv. 34-45 ; I John iv. 20. The inconsistency St. James rebukes is an inconsistency in the man himself who blesses God. To bless God implies some participation of God's spirit, since how can he bless God who has no sympathy with God, and how can he have sympathy with God's nature who curses man whom God made and loves. (Compare Numb, xxiii. 8.) Ch. iii. 13-18. Who is wise and understanding among you ? let him show by his good life his works in meekness of wisdom . But if ye have bitter jealousy and faction in your heart, glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom is not a wisdom that cometh down from above, but is earthly, sen- sual, devilish. For where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile deed. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without variance, without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for them that make peace. St. James makes an appeal to those possessed The appeal to wisdom. of wise and understanding spirits. He is earnest for practical and real religion ; he desires a religion of deeds not words ; a faith held in a true 204 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST spirit, not dependent on worldly weapons. Hence he compacts his thoughts into the above appeal. The fiery, talkative method is not the method of Christ ; the Spirit of Christ is a controlling spirit ; it perfects man by its all-dominating influence. Where it dwells, man will show by his good life his works in meekness of wisdom. At this point St. James touches the difference between religion and philosophy. Men have asked whether in the conduct of life religion or philosophy is to prevail. All agree that for life wisdom is needed ; but what is wisdom ? Is it an intellectual force or a moral disposition ? True wisdom, says St. James, is a moral basis of action, not a speculative theory ; it is a disposition of the soul, not a doctrine of the mind. In dealing with this question St. James keeps in view the contrast between words and deeds. " Let him show by his good life, his works " (verse 13). Let also the moral basis of his action be right. Let it not spring out of faction and jealousy, but be seen in meekness of wisdom. All affect wisdom : jealousy and faction have their policy, which if it be wisdom at all is a wisdom from beneath, which calls into play all the base TRUE WISDOM 205 elements of our nature, and is " earthly, sen- sual, devilish." The word rendered " strife " in the Authorised Version and " faction " in the Revised is allied to the idea of a hireling. The aroma of this hireling-idea clings to the word. The spirit of faction is largely the hireling spirit ; there is a good deal of self — self-interest or self-glorification in it ; it works from the lower, not from the higher motive. If this ill spirit works in you, says the writer, glory not. Don't think that zeal for your cause or your party is always good zeal or a cause of glory ; it is often treachery to truth. Lie not then against truth by this factious spirit. The teaching reflects Christ's teaching (Matt. vii. 1-7), where our Lord rebuked the zeal of those who were eager to set a brother right, but forgot the beam in their own eye. Whatever wisdom may be pretended by such Contrasted impetuous zealots, " Not is this (such is the order of the words) " the wisdom descending from above." On the contrary it is earthly, not heavenly. Further it is sensual (psychical) not spiritual. Compare Jude 19, " Sensual, having ^ | not the spirit," and i Cor. ii. 10-14. "The i/ 206 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST natural (psychical) man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God." The contrast is between the wisdom which teems with passion and the wisdom which is in harmony with the spiritual order. But according to St. James it is worse than earthly and sensual, it is demoniacal. By yielding to the lower, men sink towards the lowest. There seems to be a downward gradation ; the earthly impulse becomes a passionate eagerness, and this becomes transformed into a demoniacal deliberate- ness. Compare the parable of the seven spirits more wicked than the first, where sins of impulse develop into sins of choice (Luke xi. 24-26). Where such evil forces are let loose, the result is "confusion and every vile deed." There is confusion ; there is no safe standing place ; the word (confusion) is used of the unstable man (i. 8), and of the restless and unquiet tongue (iii. 8). God, says St. Paul, is not a God of confusion (the same word is used (i Cor. xiv. 33) but of peace. His is a world of order not of chaos ; men may rest securely where he rules, but the evil forces described upset the order and make for instability. St. James gives (verse 17) as a contrast the picture of the true wisdom. It is first, pure. - TRUE WISDOM 207 This is natural, because purity of soul is the window through which men may see God (Matt. v. 8), and to know God is the highest wisdom, seeing that He is our very Hfe (John xvii. 3). Then peaceable. St. James follows His master's order (Matt. V. 9). The pure heart sees God ; the peaceable disposition is seen to be the Son of God. Gentleness follows ; the word is something more than gentle, it suggests the forbearance of the nature which is great enough not to push and struggle for its rights. It is the true " sweet reasonableness" of Matthew Arnold. It is gracious considerateness in a judge, as we see from its use in Acts xxiv. 4. Self is out of sight where this gentleness is ; it is the disposition of the gentle- man with his self-restraint, forbearance, and magnanimity. " Easy to be entreated," it is not hard and stiff" ; it is prompt to hear, ready hearted; not resenting authority where authority exists ; not viewing every superior as an enemy. " It is full of mercy and good fruits." The tongue was likened to the serpent, discharging poison (iii. 8). The heavenly wisdom is charged with a secret power, but it is mercy which flows from it. It is lull, not of venom, but of kindness, of good fruits. 2o8 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST It is, moreover, free from all ignoble doubt and self-deception; it is "without variance" — an ambiguous word — St. James means, I think, that it is without the dubiousness of unworthy hesi- tation, it is whole-hearted. It is large-minded, and merciful, and it is free from the vacillations which arise when men, ordinarily right-minded, find that their interests are involved in their judgments ; it avoids, therefore, inconsistencies of conduct. It is also "without hypocrisy." As it is free from unworthy doubt, it is free also from that self-deception which believes that it is governed by right, when it is supporting wrong. It possesses a clear and unfeigned spirit. Compare I Pet. i. 22, I Tim. i. 5. St. James closes with a picture of results. Confusion and evil-working resulted from the influence of the lower wisdom. The heavenly wisdom has its harvest, viz., righteousness; that is, a result which is not chaos, but stability and order. Right must be sought righteously. Good sought by an evil wisdom ends in evil ; for right may be done wrongly. Those who possess the heavenly wisdom have faith in the divine order ; they will not be impatient, or take short cuts, TRUE WISDOM 209 breaking God's laws ; they have their Master's example (Matt. iv. 8-1 1). To such the harvest comes at length. They may sow, often in tears. To them comes the first fruit, "peace for thenv who make peace." It is sown ; and therefore^ not reaped at once. Like the light which is sown for the righteous, it will come forth by the law which nourishes good and destroys evil. All which is not God-planted will be rooted up. ■ Earthly wisdom may win an immediate result ; for earthly things are made ; heavenly things grow, they are the product of law and of time ; but for this reason also they are abiding, because they belong to the great order of the things unseen, which, though often unrealised, unappreciated, and unappropriated by men, are yet eternal. iCHAPTER VIII PASSION AND TRAYER Ch, iv. 1-6, The con- ( In stud3'ing this chapter we must bear in mind the text \ initial thought of the Epistle, The end of life's discipline is character : the circumstances of life may become instruments to this end. If we accept them with this view, in other words, if we have faith in the ultimate purpose of God and in His love, then all things work for good. This means that we accept His will, and endeavour to identify ourselves with His purpose. Whoso does this abandons the spirit of bargain which so enters into the fibre of false religion. Contentment with what God orders follows, for how can faith be dis- contented without ceasing to be faith ? Content- ment does not strive for unlawful mastery or for the acquisition of anything against God's will. But when the soul does not possess this spiritual PASSION AND PRAYER 211 quality, but is set on earthly gain, then discord (iv. i) arises out of angry desire: confusion and violence follow (iv. 2). Prayer in any true sense ceases : it is inverted : it becomes the effort to make God will what we will : it knows not " Thy will be done " (iv. 3). We fall into the camp of worldliness which is at war with God (iv. 4, 5) : yet Me is ever ready to help, and He is gracious to those who seek Him in lowliness and love (iv. 6). Whence come wars and whence come fightings among you ? Come they not hence, even of your pleasures, that war in your members ? — Ch. iv, i. In commencing a fresh passage, St. James fre- The impo- tence of quently uses the friendly address, " Brethren " or passion. "Beloved Brethren" (i. 2, 16, 19; ii. i, 5 ; 14, iii. I, 10, 12 ; iv. II ; V. 7, 9, 10, 12, 19), but in the present instance he omits it ; yet it is to be noticed that after this omission, he uses the tender phrase " Brethren " with greater frequency than before. His earnestness led him to severity, and in the reaction of feeling he becomes more tender. The evil which St. James speaks of is the evil of feuds. He traces these to their origin : he appeals to the reasonable judgment of his hearers. Is he 212 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST not right in attributing this evil to selfish love of pleasure ? Whence come wars and fightings ? Is it not obvious that these outward conflicts have their cause within : the war between the love of right and the love of pleasure, between flesh and spirit as St. Paul would describe it, is the occasion of unbrotherly strife — prolonged feuds (wars) and sudden outbursts (fightings). There is no need to prove the harmony of St. James' view with that of His Master and his brethren in teaching. The higher impulses are choked by the lower : the lower like ill-growths war against the good seed : so Christ teaches (Matt. xiii. 22). Fleshly lusts war against the soul (i Pet. ii. 11) : such is St. Peter's view. (Compare Titus ii. 12, iii. 3, and i John ii. 16.) Desire indulged breeds discord. It breeds also disappointment. Notice the re- frain, if we may so speak, in the Apostle's utter- ance : " Ye have not " : " ye cannot obtain " : " ye have not " — no real satisfaction results from the uncurbed desire or the violence and quarrels to which it gives rise. This becomes clearer if we arrange the words of verse 2 thus : PASSION AND PRAYER 213 Ye lust, and have not. Ye kill, and covet, and cannot obtain. Ye fight and war : ye ha\-e not. The desire is strong, but it is unsatisfied. Violence follows : desire grows in ardour, but still fails of satisfaction ; then under the tyranny of desire scruples go to the wind. In this analysis St, James shows a knowledge of human nature. Desire disappointed runs to violence, but still no satisfaction is reached, even though, like Ahab, ^ we have killed and taken possession. We have but whetted the edge of passion : with a stimu- lated passion of acquisition, we lose the capacity of satisfaction. The initial mistake lies in the false idea that satisfaction can come through posses- sion : not what the hand can grasp, but only that which can hold the heart, can satisfy. "There is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee," was the Psalmist's cry. In God, not in earth, is satis- faction. It only is found by those who enter into fellowship with God. Hence St. James rightly God alone says, "Ye have not — because ye ask not." Yet to ^^^'■^^"s^e -' ' '^ from vain ask is not enough. Communion with God means, if desire, it is to be real, some community of spirit with God. i If the mind is set on vain pleasures, and prayer is 2 14 WISDOM OK JAMES TPIE JUST the desperate resource of one who wishes to make God the procurer of his wishes, then no answer can be expected. Prayer is not pra3'er, unless we recognise the divine wisdom, and identify ourselves with the divine order. We must desire the things which God commands. " Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss that ye may spend it on your pleasures." Twice St. James refers to the promise, " Ask and ye shall receive." ** Ye have not, because ye ask not," he says. He means ** Ye have not, you have forgotten Him who said, 'Ask and ye shall receive.' The promise seems perhaps untrue to you, for you may plead that you ask and receive not. But your asking is not a true asking." There is a change in voice, between the first " ask " and the second. There is a suggestion of self-reflec- tion. " You ask, and not without a certain earnest- ness, but you may ask earnestly yet wrongly." Prayer thus may fail, because it lacks resignation to God's will, or because it is degrading a spiritual vehicle to carnal ends, or because it is charged with a spirit wholly alien to God. The man who would pray aright must be one who has mastered Christ's words — " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." To such a man all things are PASSION AND PRAYER 215 possible — "All these things shall be added unto you." We must realise how vitiating is the influence of the self-seeking spirit, if we are to understand the Apostle's exclamation : *' Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God. Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God." God is the true master of the soul. To attach the soul to anything less is to be unfaithful to a sacred bond. The image is common. Israel was married to God (Is. Ivii. 3-9 ; Jer. iii. 20 ; Ezekiel xvi. 30- 38; Hos. i. and ii.) : the bride is the Lamb's wife (Rev. xxi. 9). (Compare Eph. v. 25-33, Rom. vii, 2-4.) The idea which is illustrated is that the heart and soul belong to God. He loves us, but our love wanders away from the true Lord of the soul. We can never fulfil our function without Him. Our lives will be barren of God : we shall bring forth no fruit to Him. (Compare Matt. vi. 24, xiii. 22.) The sixth verse presents some difficulty. The authorised version seems to suggest that the words, " The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to Envy," are a quotation from the Scripture, " Do ye think that the Scripture saith in vain the spirit that 2i6 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST dwelleth in us," &c. ? But the word translated saith is rendered in the revised version speaketh. If we end the sentence with words " speaketh in vain^^ we get a question quite coherent with what goes before. The sense then would be : " There is a feud between the world-spirit and the heaven- spirit : there can be no compromise between the spirit whose afliection is for the world and the spirit whose affection is for God : " the Scripture is clear and firm on this principle ; and " do ye think that the Scripture speaketh in vain ? " If this be the drift, as I think it is, of the passage, then what follows is natural enough. There can be no com- promise between the world-loving and the God- ' loving spirit ; and moreover the spirit is revealed in the life : do you think then that God, who desires a good and true life, will implant in us an evil spirit of envy, the parent of strife and hate ? " Doth the spirit which He made to dwell in us long unto env5ing? " In His " But He giveth more, or a greater grace." So will i* - _ . . . . T T • peace, far from giving such a spirit, He gives a nobler and a greater one, a spirit which is free from the selfishnesB which is at the root of envy, a spirit PASSION AND PRAYER 217 of humility ; for liumility lies at the root of pro- gress, it is the gateway of power and of honour. ** God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble." Thus St. James brings us to the threshold of heaven. In one sense his letter ends at this point ; for the residue of the Epistle con- sists of certain practical precepts, necessary and valuable indeed ; but tlie argument, if we may use the word in a loose sense, ends with the intro- duction of the need of humility. In reaching this, he shows us, as I have said, the gateway of heaven. "Heaven," said the sage, "is character," Christ and His apostles endorse whatever of truth lies in the phrase. There is no heaven apart from character. " Myself am Hell," said the Fallen Angel : in what we are lie the germs of happiness or misery, our heaven or our hell. Only when we are in harmony with the divine order, which is but the divine will expressed in law, is happiness possible. Conformity to His will is in itself joy; for thus we fulfil our true selves. St. James has insisted on this ; he has taught that God's ways in purpose and in providence are good : that to encounter life's vicissitudes in this faith is to win character, and thus to realise 2i8 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST the true self. But this heaven which is closed to the proud is open to the humble. Humility alone can realise that God's will is best. Humility alone finds the foot of the ladder which goes up through darkness to God ; so Christ taught, saying, " Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." CHAPTER IX RULE THROUGH OBEDIENCE Ch. iv. 7-12 We must now follow the precepts with which He resists ' '■ who SUD- the letter closes. The first rises naturally out of mits. the mention of humility. Be subject therefore unto God ; but resist the devil and he will flee from you. — Ch. iv. 7. Be subject : it means — range yourself in *^ rank at God's command. Being then in the ranks of God, you stand opposed to the wicked one. The relation between submission to good 1 and resistance to evil needs noticing. He best f resists who first submits. We rule by obeying/ nature's powers. We find evil stripped of power when we realise, as only those who have sub- mitted themselves to it can realise, the power of Sfood. 2 20 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST For good like beauty, has a magic power and, like truth, it will prevail. So poets have sung. Oh, how can beauty master the most strong And simple truth subdue a\'enging wrong. And their song is true, for good is eternal, for God is good. We should compare the tempta- tion and victory of Christ (Matt. iv.). Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. — Ch. iv. 8. The Apostle asserts that there is a corres- pondence between God's attitude to us and ours to Him. As in a mirror the reflected figure draws nigh to us as we draw nigh to the mirror, so as we draw near to truth, does truth draw near to us. The principle is common in the Bible. God is to us as we are to Him. This principle is as true as the other that God is better to us than we are to Him. This only means that though His goodness is be3'ond our conception, yet our per- ception of His goodness depends upon the good- ness of our perception. If we draw near, i.e., if our hearts go out to Him, He meets us, like the father in the parable. He sees afar off the return- ing footsteps and runs to meet His erring children. (Compare 2 Chr. xv. 2 and xxiv. 20.) RULE THROUGH OBEDIENCE 221 The drawing near must be with the heart {Is. , xxix. 13, 14 ; Matt. xv. 8). Hence St. James con- tinues : Cleanse your hands, ye sinners ; and purify your hearts, ye doubleminded. — Ch. iv. 8. The inner springs and the outward instruments of action must be clean and clear. The heart ^' must be single ; the warnings against the divided heart are frequent (i. 8 ; Hos. x. 2 ; Matt. vi. 23, 24, and xiii. 22). In this last passage, Christ pictured the failure of fruit because of the divided affections —the cares of this world and the lust of other things. In these passages we hear the echo of Isaiah's woe (xxix. 13, 14). Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep ; let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.— Ch. iv. 9. The exhortation recalls the prophet's cry (Joel True re- i. 13, 14). It is like a call to special humilia- p^" *"'^** tion and fasting. The word translated " Be afflicted " occurs only here in the New Testament. It is a word employed to denote the undergoing of hardships. It is not a call to a fictitious or forced sorrow, but to a serious self-discipline : it recalls St. Paul's declaration that he kept his body in subjection. The call is to serious- 222 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST ness and earnestness. Joy and laughter are in tliemselves harmless, but there is a time for everything. When evil was rampant, and the spirit of strife and of selfish greediness revealed a deterioration of moral tone, it was a time to face facts, not to laugh them away : to take up life y seriously, to keep severe watch over self; to forego idle laughter and empty joy. The word rendered " heaviness " is ^unique ; it occurs nowhere else in the Bible ; it expresses the idea of one who, like the publican, scarcely dares to , look up (Luke xviii. 13). It prepares us for the exhortation which follows : Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall exalt you. — Ch. iv. 10. St. James here, as St. Peter ( i Pet. v. 6), echoes his Master's words (Luke xviii. 14; c/". also xiv. 11). The suggestion of the downcast eye fitly prepares the way for this reference to the closing words of the parable of the Publican. The thought of the exaltation of the lowly occurs in the Old Testa- ment in Hannah's song (r Sam. ii. i-io), but in Hannah's thought, the triumphant fact that the lowly have been exalted and the proud abased is uppermost rather than the spiritual principle. RULE THROUGH OBEDIENCE 223 The exaltation which Christ has in mind is not associated with a half worldly-minded triumph over an enemy, but with that inward spiritual elevation which fills the soul when it comes into harmony with the will and thought of God. Cf. " He shall be great in the sight of the Lord." Similarly in passages like Job. xxii. 29 and Prov. xxix. 23, the motive of prudence is felt to mix with humility. Such humility is not that of love's ready self-surrender for service sake. It is only> in Christ that we reach the pure ideal of humility^ (2 Cor. viii. 9 ; Phil. ii. 7-9 ; Heb. ii. 9 and xii. 2) ;' for the only true humility is the humility of love. ■ Speak not one against another, brethren. — Ch. iv. 11. This speaking is not quite identical with speaking A&ainst ., r 4.1 ..1 1 •<- ■ c '"^"' there- evil 01 one another, tliough it may sprmg from fore the same spirit. It is more like what is called q^^'"**^ " running a man down " : it is the spirit of envious disparagement, the judgment of prejudice, not of truth. St. James says that this disparagement or judgment of a brother is a disparagement or judgment of the law. The law is, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thj'self." To violate this law is to act as though the law were a mistake. We become in effect critics of the law. We 224 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST abandon the position of those who desire to keep the law. In making ourselves judges of men, we make ourselves judges of the law. The very power of understanding the law depends (as Prof. Mayor reminds us) on obedience (John vii. 17). Without obedience we lack the capacity of criticism. There is an irony characteristic of St. James in the passage ; but characteristically also St. James drops into deep solemnity. " One only is the lawgiver and judge." He is judge with power; He is "able to save and to destroy." We should compare St. Paul's rebuke of those who judged their brothers (Rom. xiv. 1-13), and note that, like St. James, he thinks of the God who is able to save ; over the man judged by others St. Paul throws this shield (verse 4), '* The Lord hath power to make him stand." Such is the power of Him who, as St. James says, is able to save. On the usurping of God's right of judgment compare Prov, xvii. 5, and the apposite passage from Clement, quoted by Prof. Mayor : " If 3^ou seek to benefit the good only and not the bad, you undertake to perform the office of a judge, and not of kindness." (Clem. Hom. xii. 26.) CHAPTER X AGAINST PRESUMPTION (Ch. iv. 13-17 and Ch. v. 1-3) We now reach the caution against presump- Against presump- tion. We must remember that the dispersion of tion. the Jews resulted in the fact that the Jew had friends or relations in almost every land. This and their commercial instinct made them travellers. The words of St. James conjure up the picture of the eager and sanguine trader sketching out his commercial tour. He maps out, as we say, the places he will visit. He indicates with his finger on the sketch-plan this or that town which he will visit ; he announces the length of his sojourn in one city or another. All is so full of the spirit which ignores the providence of God that St. James breaks into rebuke : Go to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get P 2 26 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST gain : whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. — Ch. iv. 13, 14. It is not the making of plans which He rebukes, it is the forget fulness of God. The Angel of death, we read, told Rabbi Simeon, that death's office was to slay those who. boasted what they were about to do. How should frail man boast, whose life is a vapour, evanescent as the breath or smoke {cf. Ps, cii. 3), seen for a moment, then gone. Glorying in The aggravation of the boasting is seen in the shame. total absence of misgiving. " Ye glory in 5^our vauntings," says the apostle. There was a lack of that secondary conscience which creates misgivings when the power of the primary conscience has been deadened, and its moral sensibility impaired. Such men glory in their boasting when they are full of reliance on their smartness, cleverness, skill, or luck. They are not only sanguine, but insolently confident of their success. The apostle closes his expostulation with reminding them that sin lies in this conduct. Sin is not merely an act done ; it is an act omitted ; it is more, it is the setting aside of moral monitions. When a man falls away from all high and reverent habits, AGAINST PRESUMPTION 227 and ignores the known rule of right, he sins. We may compare the same principle as expressed by our Lord (Matt. xxv. 31-46) and by St, Paul (Rom. xiv. 23). St. James has rebuked the presumption which Against a subtler ignores the providence of God. He now proceeds presump- to rebuke the presumption which assumes that God's laws will not work. When we become self-centred, all manner of evils flock around us ; and the chiefest of these is the blindness which betra3^s us. We talk as though we could com- mand time and events. We plan out our affairs and boastfully anticipate our success. This inflated egotism ignores man's frailty and God's providence. "Ye know not what shall be on the morrow." The same egotistic spirit blinds us to the working of the divine laws, having first blinded us to simple human duty. Selfish greed breeds indifference to the well-being of others. Lazarus at the gate is forgotten. The lawful dues of the poor are left undischarged. Selfishness accumu- lates and grows hard-hearted, not at first through cruelty, but through pre-occupation with its own interests. Hence arises also its blindness to the inflexibly righteous order of God's world, and the 2 2S WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST presumption which imagines that the laws of this order will not work. St. James sees the misery which this hardness and blindness of the worldly spirit inflicts upon men, and against it he delivers the impassioned rebuke with which this chapter opens. Go to now, ye rich ; weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you, — Ch. v. i. It has been asked whether the rich men thus addressed were professed Christians or not. I am inclined to leave the question unanswered. St. James seems to me to look out upon the world and its evils with a wide and general regard. The spirit of his Master possesses him, and he opposes evil wherever he sees it. Whether the rich were followers of Christ or not, the prophet- heart in him is stirred, and he writes under the influence and conviction of eternal right. There were rich men, though not many perhaps in the Christian societ}' (i. id, ii. 2 ; r/. i Cor. i. 26). The worldly spirit had shown itself among the followers of Christ (iv. 13), and this must have had a place in St. James' thoughts ; but, like the prophets, he treats the matter in a wide, universal manner. Wherever and among whom- AGAINST PRESUMPTION 229 soever the worldly spirit reigns, the law of God is inflexible and eternal. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small. It is to be noticed that St. James first announces The doom of the the doom and then proclaims the sin. Miseries selfish. are ready to fall upon these selfish rich. Even already the tokens of doom are discernible. " Your riches are corrupted ; " the word is used of corn which has lost its vital force ; "your garments are moth-eaten ; your gold and your silver are rusted." The apostle expresses vividly a simple truth. It is the vice of accumulations that they so often remain profitless. All things are for use. What- ever we have which cannot be turned to use had better be parted with. Why should we hinder it from accomplishing its end ? If service is the law for all things {cf. Is. Iv. 10), we are storing up condemnation for ourselves if by hoarding we thwart the purpose of any gift. The riches, like seed, might have been sown for good. The unused garments might have clothed the naked ; the gold and silver brightened by use. The rust, i.e.^ the evidence of the unused wealth, is in itself your condemnation. The rust of them shall be for a 2 30 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST testimony against you ; and more than a testimony, it shall be a torment ; it " shall eat your flesh as fire." The torment comes when men realise the hell which they have prepared for themselves, as Dives found his torment in the consciousness of the ministry which he had failed to accomplish. His wealth might have been used for Lazarus. He realises that only Lazarus can cool his fiery lot, and he thirsts for the lost opportunities (Luke xvi. 23, 24). All are treasuring up some- thing — ^joyous and refreshing memories (Luke xii. 21), or terrible and heart-eating reproaches i (Rom. ii. 5). This thought St. James expresses : "You have laid up treasure in the last days." The cruelty St. J amcs, after this vivid declaration of doom selfish. enlarges on the sin which called for it. Behold, the hire of the labourers who mowed your fields, which is of j'ou kept back by fraud, crieth out : and the cries of them that reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth (verse 4). The labourers are the labourers in the field : the word is specially used of husbandmen. The principle dealt with is, however, universal. The labourer is worthy of his hire. Delay of payment AGAINST PRESUMPTION 231 is a species of cruelty, especially to those who, being dependent upon daily wages, have not command of credit. The law of Moses required prompt payment. "At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it ; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it : lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee." (Deut. xxiv. 15 ; cf. Jer. xxii. 13, Malachi iii. 5.) He who hears the cry of the defrauded is the Lord of Sabaoth (an expression used in the New Testament only here and in Rom. ix. 29) ; the reference to the stars or hosts of heaven indicating the range of the divine power and the countless messengers ready to fulfil His will. The sin of this fraudulent dela}^ is aggra- vated by the ease and comfort in which these rich men lived. Ye have lived delicately on the earth and taken your pleasure (verse 5). This self-indulgent, easeful life deadened the humane feelings. We may compare St. Paul's judgment about the influence of pleasure, "She that giveth herself to pleasure is dead while she liveth " (i Tim. v. 6). This deadness of heart is 232 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST pictured elsewhere under the image of the heart waxen gross as the overfed wax gross (Matt. xiii. 15 ; c/; Ps. Ixxiii. 7). " Ye have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter," St. James hkens them to greedy tyrants : they are hke men who knew that there was ample to be had and no resistance to be made. But as the picture grows under the writer's hand it assumes another significance. These self-indulgent men are as those who are fattening for slaughter. The double thought is still in St. James' mind ; the inward spiritual injury arising from the self-indulgent life in the decay of all better feelings, and the outward doom which awaits those who are being kept for the shambles. As a comment on the passage, we may recall what Josephus tells us befell such men in the siege of Jerusalem ; for he narrates that those whose bodies showed no sign of privation were tortured to make them disclose the wealth which they were suspected of concealing. Such men, therefore, were in sorry case whether they deserted the city or remained in it. AGAINST PRESUMPTION 2t,z Ye have condemned, ye have killed the righteous one ; he doth not resist you. — Ch. v. 6. The sins of the rich hitherto have been expressed in general language : it is a system of fraudulent heedlessness and cruel heartlessness which the apostle demands, but here suddenly we have words which seem to point to a particular fact : the singular number (" the righteous one ") is used. Who is this righteous one ? Is St. James thinking of his Master ? Is Christ the righteous and unresisting one wlio has been killed ? Wc recall the picture of meekness (Is. liii. 7, 8 ; i Pet. i. 19, 20), and we can imagine that St. James by a natural turn of thought sees in the case of Christ the concentrated type of the hostile evil spirit, the filling up of tlie measure of wrong (St. Matt, xxiii. 29-36). Or are the words an interpolation ? Their abruptness gives colour to the thought. If an interpolation, were they added to the letter by a faithful admirer and friend of St. James after the apostle's death ? The " righteous one " was, as we know, the epithet applied to St. James. " The righteous one prayeth for you " are the words attributed to the priest, who tried to save him. If the words are not an interpolation they are curiously anticipatory. CHAPTER XI PATIENCE IN SPIRIT AND IN WORD (Ch. V, 7-12) Counsels of Sx. James passcs from denunciation to words of consolation and counsel. The sufferers needed support. He gives it in one word — patience — the remedy is patience. Everything brings its fruit in good time. Earth's order teaches patience : the harvest is certain, and not far off. Let that patience be shown not only in dull endurance, but in brotherly consideration. Patience is a mark of saintliness now as it was of old, as the case of Job shows. " Be patient." The word might be rendered long-tempered, as if in contrast to short-tempered : it is not the word corresponding to that rendered patience in ch. i. 3, 4, which gives prominence to the enduring qualit}' ; the word here brings out the idea of the temper shown in endurance. SPIRIT AND THE WORD 235 " Stablish your hearts," adds St. James; and rightly, for unstable hearts are ever impatient ; steadfastness is indispensable in trial (iv. 8, i. 8 ; I Thess. iii. 13; i Pet. v. 10 ; 2 Pet. iii. 17). The encouragement of this patience and steadfast- ness is given in the thought : " The coming of the Lord is at hand." He saw signs of coming change : the existing order could not last long. The great crisis must come. Looking back we may realise that to the men of that day the fall of Jerusalem was a coming of the Lord in judg- ment. Patience was the remedy, but must evince itself in a kindly self-restraint. " Murmur not, brethren, one against another, that ye be not judged ; behold, the judge standeth before the doors." The word for " murmur " is used of in- articulate utterances, the testy sounds which betray irritability, or the moans and sighs which express how much we suffer, or wish to let others know that we suffer. If in ch. iv. 1 1 St. James cautioned his hearers not to speak against one another, he now cautions against the murmuring spirit. Even for the dissatisfied and querulous spirit there is judgment. As we murmur we know not how near is the judgment of our discontent. Readiness Illustra- tions of patience. 236 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST is now or never. The man who is going to get ready is never ready. Readiness in fact, in the true Christian meaning, is the possession of a certain disposition, which being a quality of character cannot be put on at the moment. Raiment or uniform can be put on quickly and at command, but spiritual readiness is a matter of the soul, is the result of habit, a product of soul- culture. The oil cannot be bought in the hour of emergency. The loins must be girt ; the lamps ready ; the heart must be habituated to the dis- position of Christ. "If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his " (Rom. viii. 9) : no other will be ready to recognise the coming Christ (Matt. xxv. 1-14; Luke xii. 35-40). The illustrations given by the writer to enforce the lesson of patience are taken from nature and history. The illustration from nature is that of the farmer who waits confidently for the harvest, relying on the constancy of divine laws. No less confidently should he who believes in a righteous order wait for the manifestation of God's rule of right. The illustration from history and literature is an appeal to the past. Men have suffered, men have endured, and we who look back crown them SPIRIT AND THE WORD 237 with our homage. "Take, brethren, for an example of suffering and of patience, the prophets who spake in the name of the Lord." Christ referred to the persecution of the prophets (Matt. xxiii. 29-30). Tlie writer of the letter to the Hebrews gives us a splendid list of patient worthies of the past (Heb. xi.). Those who look back on the heroes who encountered suffering think of them as happy ; for they have endured to the end ; they are to us as men who have con- quered. " We call them blessed which endured " (verse 11). St. James had spoken of this bless- ing at the beginning of his letters (i. 12); he reverts to it now : then he spoke of the blessing as a promise ; here he speaks of it as a fact. He is speaking in the spirit of his Master. The beatitudes spoken by Christ (Matt. v. 10-12) may have become proverbial among his followers. His example had enforced and illuminated it (i Pet. ii. 20-24). The case of Job is brought forward as a kind of classical example, with the view not only of noting his patience, but also of bringing out the thought of the triumphant end. Ye ** have seen the end of the Lord, how that the Lord is full of pity, and merciful." It is not quite the material 2 38 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST reparation, as it were, made to Job, of which St. James thinks ; but the broad fact that God who tries men does not overtry them. His mercy and pity iinderhe and overtake all trials. Ch. V. 12. But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by the heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath : but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay ; that ye fall not under judgment. Swearing fhe precept is our Lord's. He laid down the in relation to truth. principle, " Swear not at all." (Matt. v. 33-38.) His teaching was in contrast to the prevailing practice, which based itself on the saying, *' Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shall perform unto the Lord thine oaths." The oath was common, but in making an oath the Jew avoided the use of the sacred name of God {cf. Lev. xxiv. 10-16). " If a man swear, let him not swear by God, but by the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, the heavens " (Philo). Christ, followed by St. James, taught — Swear not at all. St. James introduces the precept with a special emphasis, "Above all things swear not." The reason for this emphatic tone is perhaps to be found in the temp- SPIRIT AND THE WORD 239 tations to which the Jews were exposed, and of which this epistle gives us hints. The Jews had commercial instincts; they journeyed; they traded; they would be tempted sometimes out of jealousy of a successful rival to disparage him (iv. 11): they would be tempted to build too much on their own skill and ability, filling their minds with visions of success (iv. 13-17); they would be tempted in their success to forget the claims of the poor and weak (v. 1-7). Equally when failure came they would be tempted to murmur, while in all their trade bargainings they would be tempted to strong asseverations and impressive oaths, and the truth spoken was sometimes in inverse proportion to the vehemence or strength of the oath. Against this tendency, St. James says, as his Master did : " Let the simple truth be enough ; don't embroider it with oaths by heaven or by earth." The strong oath not infrequently marks the untruthful nature. Language which betrays this passionate wish to convince the hearer may betoken the consciousness of untruth. Swear not at all — not by the sacred name which Christ's no Jew invokes, nor yet by any of the lesser oaths which Jews indulge ; let simple truth suffice. Christ 240 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST in enforcing this precept reminded his hearers that they could not change the things, even the smallest, by which the}^ swore (Matt. v. 36) not even the hair of their head could they make black or white. Does He not by this remind them that things are just what they are, and that no swearing will make them dififerent, and even so should truth be regarded as a thing which remains true in spite of hard swearing ? He who looks upon the unchanging order, and the firm throne of God will be content that truth should speak her own language, and will let yea be yea, and nay, na3\ ' Let your word be as good as your bond, your statement sufficient without summoning heaven and earth to witness to your truth. Exercise self-restraint in utterance. Passion and self-interest, the greed of the eager trader will tempt you to garnish your speech with oaths, and will thrust you over the sacred boundary' of truth ; so let your yea be yea, and your nay, na}^ lest you fall under judgment.* We may note how once more he refers to the snares of the tongue. (Compare iii. 1-12.) CHAPTER XII GOD AND BROTHERLINESS Ch. V. 13 — end. The apostle, though taking what might be God the ,, , .... . ,.p ,. , , changeless called an optimistic view of liie (1. 12) does not refuge, deny the painful experiences of life. He touches, as he closes his letter, on some of these experiences and points to fit remedies. Briefly his mode of remedy and relief is to turn to God (v. 13-end). Is any among you suffering ? let him pray. Is any cheerful ? let him sing praise. Is any among you sick ? let him call for the elders of the church ; and let them pray over him.^Ch. V, 12, 14. One test of disposition and character is found in the answer to the question : Where does a man's heart turn in the time of urgent soirow or joy ? Where the treasure is, there the heart turns ; where the home, there fondly turns the Q 242 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST untravelled heart. The man whose dwelling is in God (Ps. xci. i, 2) turns to God. In need and sickness many turn Godward who do not turn to Him in joy. The true test, therefore, is not where does instinct or necessity drive us but where at all times do we habitually turn ? Therefore St. James cites both sorrow and joy and says that in both the heart should turn God- ward ; praise no less than prayer is natural to the godly man. In verses 14, 15, we meet a passage which has played a conspicuous part in con- troversy. It runs thus : Use of oil. Is any among you sick ? let him call for the elders of the Church ; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord : and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up ; and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him. The writer had just pointed to prayer as suiting the time of sorrow. He now takes a case of sickness; here too, he says, it is fitting to resort to prayer, but let it be prayer in which the whole body can join. ' Let the sick man call for the elders of the Church and let them pray over him.' Thus far all is simple. The man is sick : prayer GOD AND BROTHERLINESS 243 will help him. When two or three are gathered together, Christ, who healed and helped men, will be in the midst of them. But as we read further, the passage becomes difficult. The obscurity lies in the words, "Anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." We must keep our minds free from controversial questions, which belong to a much later date. We must weigh the passage as it stands, and not allow our minds to be confused by later controversies. The elders are to be called to the bedside of the sick man. Whatever takes place is to take place under their guidance. The early Church possessed gifts, as we know. The indiscriminate and unregulated exercise of these gifts caused confusion. Hence St. Paul's attempt to regulate them and to impress upon the Christian intelli- gence and conscience the principle of general service and edification which ought to govern their use (i Cor. xii.-xiv.). As St. Paul dealt with gifts — like the gift of tongues — St. James deals with the gift of healing. He would check anything like a tumultuous rush of eager, perhaps excited, brethren into the sick room. It is in harmony with his calm and sober nature that he should give this 244 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST injunction. The methods of noisy and perhaps credulous zealots do not command his sympathy. He believes in prayer, and he gives it the first place in his precept ; but even here he wishes a sober order to be observed. He does not think that disorder is essential to devotion. Perhaps he distrusts these gifts in some cases ; at any rate, he feels that quiet and earnest prayer may be as efficacious. Further, he will neglect no means. Let the sick man be anointed with oil. This is in accord with the medical light of the time, which deemed there was a healing virtue in oil. We read (Josephus : "Wars of the Jews," i. 33-35) that it was used by the doctors in Herod's last illness. " The physicians thought proper to bathe his whole body in warm oil." Other testimonies to the medicinal value of oil meet us in Pliny and Galen. It was used by the disciples of Christ (Mark vi. 13) when they healed the sick. It is, therefore, quite clear that a widespread belief in the healing powers of oil existed, and there can be little doubt that it was in consequence of this belief that the oil was used. Supersti- On the other hand, it must be borne in mind fdrows ^^^^^ ^^^ belief in the healing virtue of any specific GOD AND BROTHERLINESS 245 in those days was comparatively unintelligent, it was more like the faith of simple and unedu- cated people in certain old women's remedies. There was little scientific medical knowledge abroad. The line which divided the employment of a remedy from the use of a charm was very slight, and little discrimination would popularly be made between medicine and magic. Hence it easily happened that what was once used as a simple remedy might later be only used as a charm. Conditions change and knowledge grows ; new remedies may be discovered, but old traditions linger, and belief in the magical properties of certain drugs and simples continues. It would appear from the after history that this happened in the case of oil. Once it was a remedy recommended by the Contrast with most intelligent physicians, such as they were ; extreme but soon the magical notion superseded the medical. St. James suggests that in the case of sickness, both prayers and remedies should be employed. In the age of Chrysostom certain superstitious notions prevailed, for St. Chr3'sostom speaks of oil taken from the tombs of martyrs as a remedy for drunkenness. The love of the 246 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST magical is apparent here, and later it expressed itself in the mediaeval practice of extreme unction. For in extreme unction no idea of the medical properties of the oil finds place ; because in the Catechism of the Council of Trent, by Pope Pius IV., we read : " Nor did its efficacy arise from any natural virtue peculiar to oil ; its efficacy is mystical, having been instituted to heal the maladies of the soul, rather than to cure the diseases of the body " (Cat. of Council of Trent, translated by Prof. Donovan, of Maynooth, p. 298). The difference between the practice of extreme unction and the directions given by St. James is quite evident. With St. James the oil is for the bodily healing, with the expectation of recovery ; in extreme unction the oil is for spiritual healing, and is generally used when hope of recovery is abandoned ; when, to use the language of the Catechism referred to, the " malady is such as to excite apprehensions of approaching dissolution " (p. 299)- And the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up ; and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him. — Ch. v. 15. (^.OD AND 13R0THERLINESS 247 It is evidently of bodily healing that St. James Faith and healing, not speaks. The word "save" has in Christian faith- parlance become so closely identified with spiritual experience that it is difficult to reconcile the mind to its wider sense ; but it is used frequently in the New Testament of bodily healing. It is thus used of the woman with the issue of blood (Matt. ix. 22); of Bartimaeus (Mark x. 52); the disciples use it in the hour of bodily peril : " Lord, save us," is their prayer in the storm on the lake. It is used by St. James here in the same sense. The words, " The Lord shall raise him up," leave no doubt on this point. The spiritual aspect he keeps distinct : see next clause. The passage con- sidered fairly affords no basis for the practice of extreme unction or for the theory of faith-healing, as it is called ; since clearly it is bodily healing which St. James has in view, and this bodily heal- ing he does not expect without the use of means. The apostle does not leave the spiritual con- dition of the sick man out of sight. " If he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him." The action here described is viewed by Professor Hort as expressing the fellowship of the whole body of believers. The sick man belongs to the brother- 248 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST hood : his ilhiess, it is taken for granted, will awaken the full sympathy of all. He is visited by those who are "expressly called not simply ' the elders,' but ' the Elders of the Ecclesia,' in this, as in other ways, the vehicles of the sympathy of the whole brotherhood ; and where again the reality of this fraternal relation is at once tested and strengthened not only b}^ mutual intercession, but by mutual confession of sins " (Ecclesia, p. 221). St. James thinks of sickness and also of sins. We know how closely he keeps to his Master's teaching ; he recalls, no doubt, how his Lord spoke to the paralytic of sin, saying to him first, " Thy sins be forgiven thee," and afterwards, "Rise up and walk." This incident of the Gospel always appears to me to suggest that the paralytic owed his illness to his sinful life. It was not sin generally which Christ was thinking of, but the sins which had brought this sufferer low. May not the same thought be in the mind of St. James? He introduces the thought hypothetically ; " If he have committed sins." We know St. James' view of sin generall}^, " In many things we all stumble " (iii. 2). If his thought here were of sins generally, he would hardly speak hypothetically; GOD AND BROTHERLINESS 249 but if he is teaching, as we suppose his Master did in the case mentioned, of special sins, the " if" which he uses is quite natural. Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. — Ch. v. 16. All is mutual and brotherly. There is no foun- Confession, dation here for the practice of auricular confes- sion, as it is called. This is acknowledged by Cajetan. The custom of private and auricular confession finds no sanction in the primitive or Catholic practice. " These opinions," as Hooker says, "have youth in their countenance: antiquity knew them not " (Eccl. Bk. vi. ch. iv. 14). The great change in this matter was made as late as I2i5,at the Fourth Lateran'Council/at the dictation of Pope Innocent III. Then confession of sins once a 3'ear was declared to be obligatory. Prior to this, confession and absolution had been excep- tional, i.e., necessary only for the regaining of communion by those who had been excommuni- cated. The new decree treated all as though they were excommunicated. That which was necessary for regaining communion was made necessary for y 250 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST retaining it. But this discussion has strictly no place here. What St. James suggests is mutual and brotherly, not official or sacredotal. It is to prayer that this mutual acknowledgment is to lead. It is prayer which leads to healing. We may note here that even in the exceptional cases where abso- lution was deemed necessary, the absolution was in the form of a prayer. This precatory form, which still obtains in the Eastern Church, con- tinued till the thirteenth century, when the indi- cative form was introduced in the Latin Church. Power of The thought which fills St. James' mind as he closes his letter is the power of prayer. It is good and helpful by the sick bed : it is helpful in the healing of the diseases of the soul : it is good where it is united : it is good when it is the prayer of one righteous man. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working (verse 16). Professor Mayor quotes a fine saying of Rabbi Jehuda : " Poenitentia potest aliquid, sed preces possunt omnia." Penitence can do something, but prayer can do all things. prayer. GOD AND BROTH ERLINESS 251 More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. The prayer, however, must be real and earnest. It is not mere suppHcation unaccompanied by true, inward desire. The word rendered "in its work- ing" (Revised version) stands last in the sentence ; but I am disposed to think that it does not refer so much or exclusively to tlie results of prayer as to the energising force which works through and out from the true prayer. There were half possessed men in the first century — the mediums as we would call them to-day ; and it is thought by some that St. James refers to those who are known by the name ' energumens ' : the word he uses is the same. There is an energising divine force in true prayer, as there is a counterfeit energising power in the manifestations which degrade. The spirit helpeth our infirmities (Rom. viii. 26, 27) with an ener- gising force substituting God's will for our own will — being thus victorious in the soul that it may become victorious in the world. (Compare Gen. xxxii. 28.) The example of Elijah is cited by St. James. He throws, in the caution which strengthens also his argument, " Elijah was a man of like pas- sions with us." Wild views of Elijah were held. He 2 52 WISDOM OF JAMES THE JUST was in effect viewed as an exceptional being. St. James dwells on his simple humanity ; he was weak as we are, and yet his prayer avajiled ; for faith is reliance on God, and God is near to all. " It rained not on the earth." There is the touch of Oriental exaggeration or of poetical completeness here. The drought was only partial. " Three years and six months," is the period given by St. James ; it was the accepted tradition (see Luke iv. 25 ; cf. Rev. xi. 6). The story of the coming again of the rain is given in i Kings xviii. Regene- ^'■- J^^^^s closcs with a passage which sets before rating: ^g jj^g Wide good which can be achieved by simple influence. ° j ^ influence. Men are not only individuals : they are centres of influence. So a bad man is a bad influ- ence. To turn a man from evil to good is to transform an evil influence into a good one. It is like transforming a stream of poisonous water into one of fertilising and refreshing power. It is not only therefore that good is done to the man, but good is also done to the world. The soul is not only saved from the death towards which it is rushing ; but in addition a multitude of sins is covered, GOD AND BROTHERLINESS 253 My brethren, if any among you do err from the truth, and one convert him ; let him know, that he which converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins (verses 19, 20). " If any do err from the truth." It is not here a question, of course, of truth in the sense of mere orthodoxy of opinion. The errors and heresies to which Apostles refer were more serious than matters of opinion : heresies were reckoned with works of the flesh ; practical iniquities, as Jeremy Taylor says, were ranked with it. The erring from the truth was the slipping away from the life of Christ, who was the truth. The recovery of such an one was a recovery into the ways of light. The true life was a life in love. To walk in love was to fulfil all right. To lapse from this was to become a source of sorrow and danger. To restore the lapsed was not only to save a soul, but to benefit mankind. THE END BS2785 .C297 '"he wisdom of James the Just, Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 1 1012 00014 0691