02.01. Chapter 1 - Verse 16
James 1:16. Do not err, my beloved brethren. The apostle having disputed the matter with them about God being the author of sin, he dissuadeth them from this blasphemy. There is no difficulty in this verse. Do not err, μὴ πλανᾶσθε, do not wander; a metaphor taken from sheep, and sometimes it noteth errors in practice, or going off from the word as a rule of righteousness, as it is said, Isaiah 63:17, ‘We have erred from thy ways;’ sometimes errors in judgment, or going off from the word as the standard and measure of truth, which we most commonly express by this term ‘error.’ My beloved brethren.—Dealing with them about an error, he dealeth with them very meekly, and therefore is the compilation so loving and sweet. This verse will afford some points.
Obs. 1. It is not good to brand things with the name of error till we have proved them to be so. After he had disputed the matter with them, he saith, ‘Err not.’ (1.) Loose slings will do no good. To play about us with terms of heresy and error doth but prejudice men’s minds, and exulcerate them against our testimony. None but fools will be afraid of hot words. Discoveries do far better than invectives. Usually that is a peevish zeal that stayeth in generals. It is observable, Matthew 23:13-33, our Saviour denounceth never a woe but he presently rendereth a reason for it. ‘Woe unto you, for ye shut the kingdom of heaven;’ and again, ‘Woe unto you, for ye devour widows’ houses,’ &c. You never knew a man gained by loose slings. The business is to make good the charge, to discover what is heresy and what is anti-Christianism, &c. (2.) This is an easy way to blemish the holy truths of God. How often do the Papists spread that livery upon us, heretics and schismatics. They ‘speak evil of things they do not know,’ Jude 1:10. When men are loath to descend to the trial of a way, they blemish it: Acts 24:14, ‘After the way which they call heresy we worship the God of our fathers.’ Men condemn things suddenly and rashly, and so often truth is miscalled. If matters were dispatched by arguments rather than censures, we should have less differences. The most innocent truths may suffer under an odious imputation. The spouse had her veil taken from her, and represented to the world as a prostitute, Song of Solomon 3:1-11. The Christians were called Genus hominum superstitionis malificœ,1 a wicked sort of men, and Christianity a witchery and superstition.
1 Tacit. Anual., lib. 15.; Sueton. in Nero, cap. 16.
Use. Oh! then, that in this age we would practise this: Be less in passion and more in argument. That we would condemn things by reasoning rather than miscalling. That we were less in generals, and would deal more particularly. This is the way to ‘stablish men in the present truth.’ In morals, the word seldom doth good but when it is brought home to the very case. Thunder at a distance doth not move us so much as a clap in our own zenith; that maketh us startle. General invectives make but superficial impressions; show what is an error, and then call it so. Truly that was the way in ancient times. At first, indeed, for peace’ sake, some2 have observed that the fathers declaimed generally against errors about the power of nature, not meddling with the persons or particular tenets of Pelagius and his disciples; but afterward they saw cause for being more particular. Loose discourses lose their profit. Blunt iron, that toucheth many points at once, doth not enter, but make a bruise; but a needle, that toucheth but one point, entereth to the quick. When we come to deal particularly with every man’s work, then the fire trieth it, 1 Corinthians 3:13. I do the rather urge this because usually ungrounded zeal stayeth in generals, and those that know least are most loose and invective in their discourses.
2 See Usser de Britann. Eccl. Primordiis, p. 221.
Obs. 2. We should as carefully avoid errors as vices; a blind eye is worse than a lame foot, yea, a blind eye will cause it; he that hath not light is apt to stumble: Romans 1:26, first they were given up, εἰς νοῦν ἀδόκιμον, ‘to a vain mind,’ and then ‘to vile affections.’ Some opinions seem to be remote, and to lie far enough from practice, and yet they have an influence upon it; they make the heart foolish, and then the life will not be right. There is a link and cognation between truth and truth, as there is between grace and grace; and therefore speculative errors do but make way for practical. Again, there are some errors that seem to encourage strictness, as free-will, universal grace, &c.; but, truly weighed, they are the greatest discouragement; and therefore it hath been the just judgment of God that the broachers of such opinions have been most loose in life, and (as the apostle Peter maketh it the character of all erroneous persons, 2 Peter 2:1-22.) vain and sensual. The apostle Paul presseth strictness, and our work the more earnestly, because God must work all, Php 2:12-13. Well, then, beware of erroneous conceits; your spirit is embased by them. Men think nothing is to be shunned but what is foul in act, and so publicly odious. Consider, there is ‘filthiness in the spirit’ as well as ‘in the flesh,’ 2 Corinthians 7:1; and a vain mind is as bad and as odious to God as a vicious life. Error and idolatry will be as dangerous as drunkenness and whoredom; and therefore you should as carefully avoid them that would entice you to errors, as those that will draw you to sin and profaneness; for error, being the more plausible of the two, the delusion is the more strong: natural conscience will smite for profaneness. Many, I am persuaded, dally with opinions, because they do not know the dangerous result of them: all false principles have a secret but pestilent influence on the life and conversation.
Obs. 3. Do not err; that is, do not mistake in this matter, because it is a hard thing to conceive how God concurreth to the act, and not to the evil of the act; how he should be the author of all things, and not the author of sin: therefore he saith, however it be difficult to conceive, yet ‘Do not err.’ The note is, that where truths cannot be plainly and easily made out to the apprehension, men are apt to swerve from them. Many truths suffer much because of their intricacy, errors may be so near alike that it is hard to distinguish them: the nature of man is prone to error, and therefore when the truth is hard to find out, we content ourselves with our own prejudices. All truths are encumbered with such a difficulty that they which have a mind to doubt and wrangle do easily stumble at it: John 6:60, ‘This is a hard saying; who can hear it?’ that is, understand it; and then, John 6:66, ‘From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.’ When there is something to justify our prejudices, we think we are safe enough. God leaveth justly such difficulties for a stumbling block to them that have a mind to be offended. The Pharisees and people that had followed Christ thought themselves well enough, because of the darkness of those expressions, as if it did justify their apostasy; so when there are some involucra veritatis, some covers of difficulty, in which truth is lapped up from a common eye, we think our assent may be excused: as Jews say, that surely Christ was not the Messiah, because he did not come in such a way as to satisfy all his own countrymen; so many refuse truth because it will require some industry and exercise to find it out. God never meant to satisfy hominibus prœfracti ingenii,3 men of a captious and perverse wit; and therefore truth is represented in such a manner, that though there be plainness enough to those that have a mind to know, yet difficulty enough to harden others to their own ruin. Men would fain spare the pains of prayer, study, and discourse; they are loath to ‘cry for knowledge, to dig for it as for silver,’ Proverbs 2:4; they love an easy, short way to truth, and therefore run away with those mistakes which come next to hand, vainly imagining that God doth not require belief to such things as are difficult and hard to be understood; they do not look to what is sound and solid, but what is plausible, and at first blush reconcilable with their thoughts and apprehensions.
3 Camero de Eccles.
Use 1. You see, then, what need you have to pray for gifts of interpretation, and a ‘door of utterance’ for your ministers, and a knowing heart for yourselves, that you may not be discouraged by the difficulties that fence up the way of truth. Pray that God would give us a clear spirit, a plain expression, and yourselves a right understanding; this will be better than to cavil at the dispensation of God, that he should leave the world in such doubt and suspense. Chrysostom observeth, that the saints do not pray, Lord, make a plainer law, but, Lord, open my eyes, that I may see the wonders of thy law; as David doth. It were an unjust demand for blind men, or they that willingly shut their eyes, to desire God to make such a sun that they might see; it is better to desire gifts of the Spirit for the minister, that the scriptures might be opened; and the grace of the Spirit for ourselves, that our understandings might be opened, that so we may come to discern the mind of God.
Use 2. It showeth how much they are to blame that darken truth, and make the things of God the more obscure. ‘They darken counsel by words,’ that by method or manner of speaking perplex the understanding, that people can hardly reach the letter of things delivered. Many men have a faculty to raise a cloud of dust with their own feet, and so darken the brightness and glory of the scriptures; certainly such men either envy the commonness of knowledge, or serve their own esteem, when they draw all things to a difficulty, and would seem to swim there, where they may easily wade, yea, pass over dry-shod.
Obs. 4. Again, from that do not err. Take in the weightiness of the matter. Ah! would you err in this point, in a business that doth so deeply intrench upon the honour of God? The mistake being so dangerous, he is the more earnest. Oh! do not err. The note is, that errors about the nature of God are very dangerous. There is nothing more natural to us than to have ill thoughts of God, and nothing more dangerous; all practice dependeth upon it, to keep the glory of God unstained in your apprehensions. You shall see, Romans 1:23-24, ‘They changed the glory of God,’ &c., and then ‘God gave them up to uncleanness.’ Idolatry is often expressed by whoredom; bodily and spiritual uncleanness usually go together: ill thoughts of God debauch the spirit, and make men lose their sense and care of piety. Well, then, take heed of erring this error: let not the nature or glory of God be blemished in your thoughts; abhor whatever cometh into your mind, or may be suggested by others, if it tend any way to abate your esteem of God, or to eclipse the divine glory in your apprehensions.
Obs. 5. From that my beloved brethren. Gentle dealing will best become dissuasives from error. One saith, we must speak to kings, φήμασι βυσσίνοις, with silken words. Certainly we had need to use much tenderness to persons that differ from us, speak to them in silken words. Where the matter is like to displease, the manner should not be bitter: pills must be sugared, that they may down the better: many a man hath been lost through violence: you engage them to the other party. As Tertullian, when he had spoken favourably of the Montanists, by the violence of the priests of Rome he was forced into their fellowship.4 Meekness may gain those that are not engaged. Men of another party will think all is spoken out of rage and anger against them; it is good to give them as little cause as may be, especially if but inclining through weakness to an error. Oh! ‘do not err, my beloved brethren.’ I would to God we could learn this wisdom in this age: 2 Timothy 2:25, ‘In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if peradventure God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.’ Others will brook sharpness better than they: every man that is of a contrary opinion thinketh that he hath the advantage ground of another, as being in the right; and pride is always touchy. Outward gross sins fill the soul with more shame, and upon conviction there is not that boldness of reply; for a man is so far under another as he may be reproved by him: but now here, where every man thinketh himself upon equal or higher terms, we had need deal the more meekly, lest pride take prejudice, and, out of a distaste of the manner, snuff at the matter itself: but of this elsewhere.
4 ‘Prorsus in Montani partes transivit.’—Pamel. in Vita Tertul.