02.03. Chapter 3 - Verse 09
James 3:9. Therewith we bless God, even the Father; and therewith we curse men, that are made offer the similitude of God.
Here he showeth the good and bad use of the tongue; the good to bless God, the bad to curse men; and the absurdity of doing both with the same tongue: you put the same member to the best and worst use. Things employed in worship, because of their relation are wont to be accounted holy; certainly too worthy to be submitted or debauched to mean, at least, to the vilest, uses and purposes; that were a monstrous and unbeseeming levity.
I shall open the phrases in the points.
Obs. 1. The proper use of the tongue is to bless God: Psalms 51:15, ‘Open my mouth, and I will show forth thy praise.’ If God give speech and abilities of utterance, he must have the glory; it is the rent we owe to him. This is the advantage we have above the creatures, that we can be distinct and explicit in his praises: Psalms 45:10, ‘All thy works, Lord, shall praise thee, and thy saints shall bless thee.’ The creatures offer the matter, but the saints publish it. The whole creation is as a well-tuned instrument, but man maketh the music. Speech, being the most excellent faculty, should be consecrated to divine uses:1 Ephesians 5:4, ‘Nor filthiness, nor foolish speaking, but giving of thanks,’ εὐχάριστια, thankfully remembering your sweet experiences. It is a Christian’s work, and his recreation: ‘While I have breath I will praise the Lord,’ saith the psalmist. God gave us these pipes and organs for that purpose; your breath cannot be better spent. Acts 2:4, when they spake with other tongues, they spake ‘the wonderful works of God.’ Well, then, go away and say, ‘I will bless the Lord continually; his praise shall be always in my mouth,’ Psalms 34:1. This is to begin heaven upon earth. Some birds sing in winter as well as in spring. Stir up one another, Ephesians 5:18, as one bird setteth all the flock a-chirping.
1 See Nazianzen. Orat. 2. in Pascha.
Obs. 2. From that God, even the Father; that is, of Christ, and in him of us: you had the same speech, James 1:27. The note is, We bless God most cheerfully when we consider him as a father. Thoughts of God as a judge cannot be comfortable. Our meditations of him are sweet when we look upon him as a father in Christ. The new song and the new heart do best suit.2 Every one cannot learn the Lamb’s new song, Revelation 14:3. Praise cometh from us most kindly when it cometh from us like water out of a fountain, not like water out of a still; out of a sense of love, not out of a fear of wrath. Wicked men can howl, though they cannot sing. Pharaoh in his misery could say, ‘The Lord is righteous.’
Obs. 3. From that and therewith me curse men. The same tongue should not bless God and curse men, it is hypocrisy. Acts of piety are counterfeited when acts of charity are neglected: Psalms 50:16, with Psalms 50:19-20, ‘What hast thou to do to take my covenant in thy mouth? . . . seeing thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit: thou speakest against thy brother, and slanderest thine own mother’s son.’ Hypocrites are most censorious, but true piety maketh men meek and humble. It is storied of Cranmer, that he never miscalled a servant, or used words of disgrace and contempt to them. Religion begetteth a grave awe and reverence. The seraphim never revile, but only praise God: Jude 1:9, ‘He durst not bring a railing accusation against the devil.’ Some are of a wicked temper, can only curse, like dogs, non pro feritate, sed pro consuetudine latrant, that bark not so much out of fierceness as custom. They know not how to pray, their mouths are so inured to cursing and evil-speaking. Others there are that can curse and bless at the same time: ‘They bless with their mouths, but they curse inwardly,’ Psalms 62:4; others that curse and rail under a pretence of piety and zeal. The evils of the tongue, where they are not restrained, cannot consist with true piety. Obedience is counterfeit where it is not uniform. One table cannot be kept with the violation of another. Oh! check yourselves, then, when you are about to break out into passion. Shall I pray and brawl with the same tongue? and divert from worship to railing? With this tongue I have been speaking to God, and shall it presently be set on fire of hell?
Obs. 4. Man is made after God’s own image: ‘Let us make man after our image and likeness,’ Genesis 1:26. In other creatures there are vestigia; we may track God by his works, but man is his very image and likeness. I shall not be large in this argument. This image of God consisteth in three things—(1.) In his nature, which was intellectual. God gave him a rational soul, spiritual, simple, immortal, free in its choice; yea, in the body there were some rays and strictures of the divine glory and majesty. (2.) In those qualities of ‘knowledge,’ Colossians 3:10; ‘righteousness,’ Ecclesiastes 7:29; and ‘true holiness,’ Ephesians 4:24. (3.) In his state, in a happy confluence of all inward and outward blessings, as the enjoyment of God, power over the creatures, &c. But now this image is in a great part defaced and lost, and can only be restored in Christ. Well, then, this was the great privilege of our creation, to be made like God: the more we resemble him the more happy. Oh! remember the height of your original. We press men to walk worthy their extraction. Those potters that were of a servile spirit disgraced the kingly family and line of which they came, 1 Chronicles 4:22-23. Plutarch saith of Alexander, that he was wont to heighten his courage by remembering he came of the gods.2 Remember you were made after the image of God; do not deface it in yourselves, or render it liable to contempt, by giving others occasion to revile you.
2 ‘Quoties diis genitum se putavit, toties in barbaros, multo ferocius et insolentius pugnavit.’
Obs. 5. It is a dissuasive from slandering and evil-speaking of others, to consider they are made after God’s image. I shall inquire—(1.) How this can be a motive. (2.) Wherein the force of it lieth.
1. How can this be a motive, since the image and likeness of God is defaced and lost by the fall? I answer—He speaketh of new creatures especially, in whom Adam’s loss is repaired and made up again in Christ: Colossians 3:10, ‘Ye have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.’ So Ephesians 4:24, ‘That ye put on the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness.’ God is tender of his new creatures; intemperance of tongue against saints is dangerous: as he said, ‘Take heed what you do; this man is a Roman,’ so take heed what you speak; these are Christians, created after God’s image, choice pieces, whom God hath restored out of the common ruins. (2.) He may speak it concerning all men, for there are some few relics of God’s image in all, as Epiphanius well argueth out of that Genesis 9:6, ‘Who so sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he him.’ In which reason there would be no force, if there were not after sin some relics of God left in man, though much deformed. So this saying in James, being promiscuously spoken of all kind of men, it argueth, that in them as yet remaineth some similitude of God, as the simplicity and immortality of the soul; some moral inclinations instead of true holiness; some common notices of the nature and will of God instead of saving knowledge; which, though they cannot make us happy, yet serve to leave us inexcusable. So also some pre-eminence above other creatures, as we have a mind to know God, capable of divine illumination and grace; and in the fabric of the body and countenance there is some majesty and excellency above the beasts, as also in the relics of dominion and authority spoken of before. And look, as we reverence the drizzled picture of a friend, and the ruins of a stately edifice, so some respect is due to these remains of our primitive integrity.
2. Wherein lieth the force of the argument—cursing man made after the image of God? I answer—(1.) God hath made man his deputy to receive love and common respects; higher respects of trust and worship are to be carried out to God alone; but in other things, Christians, the poorest of them, are Christ’s receivers. Hence those expressions, ‘He that despiseth you, despiseth me,’ Luke 10:16; and ‘Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of these little ones, ye did it not to me,’ Matthew 25:1-46. (2.) The image of God is that which we can come at: we would blast all excellency:3 we go as far as our malice can reach. As they say, the panther, when she cannot come at the man, rendeth his picture; so do we deal with God. (3.) God himself is wronged by the injury done to his image; as among men the contempt and despite is done to the king himself which is done to his image or coin; as Matthew 23:18, to ‘swear by the altar,’ which was the symbol of God’s presence, was to swear by God.4 (4.) This is the fence God hath placed against injury: Genesis 9:6, ‘For in the image of God made he him.’ It is referred, not to the slayer, as if he had sinned against those common notices of justice and right continued in his conscience, but of the man slain, he is the image of God: God hath honoured this lump of flesh by stamping his own image upon him; and who would offer violation to the image of the great King? Now to speak evil against him is to wrong the image of God. All God’s works are to be looked upon and spoken of with reverence, much more his image.
3 ‘Ἡ τοῦ εἰκόνος τὶμη ἐπὶ τὸ πρωτότυπον ἀναβαίνει.’—Basil. de Spiritu Sancto, cap. 18.
4 ‘So Maximinus his statues were thrown down, in disgrace to the person.’—Euseb. Hist. Eccl., lib. 9., cap. 11.
Well, then, in your carriage towards men let this check injury and indecency of speech: he is God’s image. Though images are not to be worshipped, yet the image of God is not to be bespattered with reproaches; especially if they have a new creation, and a new forming: these are vessels of honour. Consider against whom the sin is in its latest result, a despite done to God himself, because done to his work and image. Solomon saith, Proverbs 17:5, ‘Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his maker.’ God is the maker of all; but he instanceth in the poor because they are the usual objects of our scoffs and reproaches: though poor and mean, they are the image of God as well as thou: this should beget a restraint and reverence. Nay, the poor are secured by a special reason; their persons are the image of God, and their condition is the work of God. Besides creation there is an ordination of providence; you afflict a man, and you afflict misery, which are both of God’s making; and though they cannot avenge the injury, God can, whose command you have not only violated, but his image.