James 1

Notes

Ver. 2. My fellow-descendants from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and fellow-believers in Christ scattered through the Roman empire or other places of the world, never be discouraged by the various afflictions which ye meet with for the trial and excitement of your grace, and the persecutions which ye endure for the sake of Christ and the gospel; but rather esteem it your honour and joy that ye are called and enabled thus to bear a faithful testimony for him, to his glory, and to your own and others' spiritual advantage; 3. Being fully persuaded in your own minds, from the infallible oracles of God and your own experience, that they are designed and managed by God for trying, proving, and rendering approved, the truth and efficacy of your faith in Christ, and your constancy in your profession; and that thereby, through the concurring influence of the Holy Ghost, there may be produced and increased in you a calm submission and persevering resignation to the sovereign will and holy providence of God in the most afflictive dispensations. 4 Let patience therefore, with the most meek, humble, composed, resigned, and cheerful frame of spirit, fully exercise itself, without any check or disturbance from your sinful passions; and persevere therein, notwithstanding the number, weight, diversity, or continuance of your troubles—that, in the issue, ye may become perfect in every grace, and be admitted to the complete holiness and happiness of the heavenly state. 5. And if any of you, under your afflictions, find a want of spiritual wisdom to direct you to judge of, behave under, and rightly improve them, let such, under an humbling sense of their own weakness, and of the insufficiency of all creatures to conduct them, by earnest prayer, in the name of Christ, apply to the God of all light and grace—who is so ready to bestow every needful blessing upon men, and who bountifully distributes his favours to all, especially to humble supplicants, without ever upbraiding them with their ignorance, folly, unworthiness, or misimprovement of former favours—for the directions of his Word, providence, and Spirit, and they shall, without fail, be granted. 6. But to obtain this gracious answer, you must present your requests with a firm dependence on Christ, and on the wisdom, power, faithfulness, and goodness of God in him, for a performance of his promises, without any staggering at them through unbelief; for he that gives way to distrust and sinful jealousies, whether God can or will perform his gracious promises or not, is altogether unsteady and restless in his principles and practice. 7. And it is quite absurd for any one who has such a diffident and fluctuating temper of spirit, which is so dishonourable to the promises and perfections of God, to expect that his unstable and unbelieving prayers shall ever bring him any important favours from God. 8. A man whose heart is thus divided between hope and despondency, or between God and the world, is always unsettled in religion, continually hesitating, fickle, and perplexed in all his thoughts, words, and actions, and so can never expect to speed in his prayers. 9-11. But as all they who are united to Christ and born of the Spirit may warrantably plead for and expect every promised blessing, let such as are poor, oppressed, and persecuted, and whose minds are brought down to their lot, rejoice and glory, that amidst their poverty they are advanced to the spiritual dignities and privileges of the new covenant, and are honoured to suffer for the sake of Christ and his gospel; and let them whose circumstances are easy or affluent, rejoice that God has given them low thoughts of themselves and all their earthly enjoyments, or calls them to part with them—as the wealthiest, the most grand and honourable, must quickly die away from whatever they have, and are often like flowers or grass in the midst of their carnal projects, prosperity, and honour. 12. But happy are they who are enabled in a Christian manner to bear losses and tribulations here for the sake of Christ; for when they have endured them with faith, patience, humble submission, and holy fortitude, they shall be graciously rewarded with that immortal and incorruptible blessedness and glory which the Lord Jesus, and God in him, has freely promised, and will certainly give at the last day to all those who, from a principle of faith in Christ, supremely esteem and delight in him, and look and long for his glorious appearance to complete their salvation.—13. Let no man under his afflictions fret and murmur, or pretend that God thereby tempts him to sin; for God is so infinitely holy in his nature and will, purposes and works, that it is absolutely impossible for him to be influenced to anything sinful, or to entice, persuade, influence, or necessitate any to commit the least moral evil. 14, 15. But when men, under afflictions or otherwise, are drawn into acts of sin, it is entirely owing to the violent and beguiling influence of their own inward lusts and corruptions, which drag them off from the ways of truth and holiness, and by the deceitful appearances of carnal ease, pleasure, or profit, decoy them into sin. And it is only when these inward corrupt inclinations have gained the approbation and free consent of the will that they produce actual sin; and when actual sin is completed, allowed of, persisted in, and indulged in impenitence and unbelief, it not only renders liable to, but will certainly issue in, everlasting misery, as its proper wages and fruit. 16. Beware therefore, my dear brethren, lest any of you apostatize from the truth of the gospel, or indulge such abominably erroneous, blasphemous, and injurious conceptions of God or his ways, as if he could do anything to promote or encourage sin. 17. On the contrary, everything that is naturally, morally, or supernaturally good, every blessing of creation, providence, and grace, and nothing but what is good, proceeds from this infinite, eternal, and unchangeable Fountain, Author, and Bestower of all light, knowledge, holiness, and happiness, grace or glory. 18. And we believers have the most endearing proof of his being the Fountain and Author of everything holy and useful; for not on account of or by any wisdom, power, or merit in us, but merely of his own impartial grace and compassion, by means of the gospel, he has implanted vital principles of grace in our hearts, and thus begotten us to a lively hope of an everlasting inheritance, that we might be rendered his most excellent creatures, consecrated to his service, and a pledge and earnest of his converting multitudes to his Son. 19, 20. Wherefore, my Christian brethren, according to your character and obligations, as new creatures, be always attentive to what he declares in his Word concerning himself or his ways, and never be rash in your thoughts or speeches concerning God and his ways of providence or grace; or even in turning preachers, and giving your views of difficult passages of Scripture: and never, no not in disputing for gospel truths, indulge a wrathful and passionate treatment of such as differ from you; for unguarded heat and intemperate passion, proceeding from pride, selfishness, and impatience of contradiction, are so far from serving God's righteous cause, or recommending to others the method of justification through the imputed righteousness of Christ, or the practice of righteousness which God's law requires, that they render men incapable of speaking aright for him, and prejudice the minds of others against what is really true and good. 21. Wherefore cast away with abhorrence all these corrupt affections and overflowings of malice, which are exceedingly sinful, and render your souls unfruitful in anything good; and with all humility, modesty, and submission of your understandings, consciences, hearts, and affections to the authority of God in his Word, cordially embrace it with faith and love—that being, as it were, vitally united with your souls, it may, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, be instrumental in conforming your hearts and lives more and more to its own holy likeness, and in efficaciously nourishing you up in grace, till you arrive at the complete possession of the heavenly blessedness. 22. And that it may have this happy effect upon you, see that it influence you to practise its excellent and holy principles in your lives; and never delude yourselves, or cheat yourselves out of your eternal happiness, by giving it a bare hearing, assent, or place in your notions. 23, 24. For, let your pretences be what they will, if you merely hear the truths of God, and do not by faith and love reduce them to practice in your whole conversation, ye can only have some notions and transient convictions of your guilt, depravity, danger, and need of Christ and his grace, and will quickly lay aside your concern, and go on in your impenitence, unbelief, and wicked practices as before. 25. But if you accurately search into the gospel revelation, in which our spiritual deliverance from the broken law and ancient ceremonies is so clearly manifested and perfectly bestowed, and heedfully persevere in the faith and practice of it, living in the exercise of every grace and discharge of every duty answerable to it, ye shall have great happiness at the end of your Christian course. 26. And remember that, if you make ever so much pretence to, show of, or talk about religion, yet, if you indulge yourselves in profane and abusive language, or in railing against, reviling, censuring, or slandering your neighbours, and flatter yourselves as if zeal for God would justify your proud, passionate, bitter, and injurious words, your religion is all a mere farce, and will never do you any real service. 27. Pure religion, that is unmixed with human inventions, or with carnal principles, motives, and ends, and which is according to the law and influence of God, and is exercised as in his sight, and with a view to his glory, disposes and engages Christians to be tender, kind, and compassionate to the needy and distressed, in doing all they can for the relief and comfort of poor fatherless children and destitute widows, and to behave in a holy and circumspect manner, free from the pollutions of this evil and insnaring world, that they may not bring any shame upon their conscience, and disgrace upon their hopes or character, by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, or the pride of life.

Ver. 2. Temptations—trials and tribulations, ver. 3, 12; Lu. 8. 13; 22. 28; 2 Co. 8. 2. This joy in 'temptations' is perfectly consistent with the petition, 'Lead us not into temptation;' for while it is the believer's privilege to pray for exemption from trial before it comes, it is his duty to submit to it when God actually sends it; and, moreover, to rejoice in it as an additional evidence of God's fatherly love, He. 12. 6, and an instrument employed by the Spirit for his advancement in grace, 2 Co. 4. 15, 16, and increase of glory, 2 Co. 4. 17. C.

Ver. 10. Made low in his own estimation—having been enabled to form a just estimate of the fading nature, and brief and uncertain tenure, of all earthly possessions. C.

Ver. 13. When he is tempted. The word 'tempted' here refers not to those trials by poverty or persecution (ver. 9) that arise from Providence, as means of growth in grace, but to those solicitations to sin that arise from an evil heart, and tend to perdition, ver. 14. Both are indeed temptations, but they arise from different sources, and have different ends. C.

Ver. 17. Variableness. An astronomical term descriptive of the varying positions and aspects of the heavenly bodies at different seasons of the year.—Shadow of turning, either the sun's apparent annual turning at the tropics, or the daily turning of the shadow on the dial.—Note, While time is thus measured by changes, God is the Lord; he changes not. Jesus is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever! C.

Ver. 21. Filthiness. The original is applied to the production of ulcers—emblematic of offensive and infectious conversation or example.—Superfluity of naughtiness—the overflowing of a malicious spirit, in which the unregenerate live 'hateful and hating one another.' C.

Ver. 25. The perfect law of liberty. Rather, 'the perfect law—that of liberty.' A reference most probably to Ps. 19. 7, where the word 'law' signifies, not the Mosaic law, but the whole doctrine of revelation. From comparing this passage with Jn. 8. 32, 36; Ro. 8. 21; 2 Co. 3. 17; Ga. 5. 1, 13, 'the law of liberty' will be found to be a name for the whole gospel revelation, because Christ has therein declared us free from the Mosaic ordinances and the wrath and curse of an offended God.—Note, The term 'law' is employed to signify the gospel revelation by the figure antanaclasis, or allusion. See S. Glassius, p. 929, &c., and Carson on Fig. of Speech, p. 80. C.

Reflections.—God takes care of his people, be they scattered how or where they will. Their tribulations for his name's sake may be great, but should be joyfully borne, as they shall be overruled for the trial and improvement of their present grace, and for the enhancement of their eternal glory. All the fulness of this world is but a fading portion when compared with the exalted and immortal blessedness of humble Christians. Great is the need of spiritual wisdom to direct our behaviour under our diversified trials; and infinite the mercy that our heavenly Father is so ready to grant it if asked. But, alas! many, by their unbelief and inconstancy, hinder the success of their own prayers. Great is the folly of charging our sins on God, who is infinitely and unchangeably holy. Regenerating grace and everything good comes from God's loving kindness, and ought to redound to his praise and honour; but all evil comes from ourselves. What need, then, have we to mortify our lusts, and to watch against our pride, passion, and hard thoughts of God!—With great humility, reverence, and faith, ought we to hear, receive, and improve his Word. And with deep concern should we guard against deceiving our souls in matters of eternal consequence. We have to do with a God who requires truth in the inward parts. It is not high pretences, but a renewed heart and holy life, that can evidence us to be real Christians. And an unruly tongue, disregard of the poor, or attachment to carnal persons and things, may prove us graceless amidst the most splendid glare of a high profession.