02.04. Chapter 4 - Verse 09

James 4:9. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into heaviness.

He now prescribeth them another remedy against their carnal affections and practices; it is proposed with the more earnestness, because of the calamity then ready to fall upon the people and nation of the Jews. Be afflicted, ταλαιπωρήσατε.—What is the meaning? Must we draw affliction and unnecessary troubles upon ourselves? I answer—(1.) It must be understood of some commendable afflicting ourselves; and therefore must either imply that our corporal afflictions and distresses ought to be borne patiently. ‘Be afflicted;’ that is, if God bring it upon you, bear it, be content to be afflicted; it is our duty to be what God would have us to be; let your will be done when the Lord’s is. Or else, (2.) Know your misery, be sensible of it; it is some happiness to know our misery. Man, in a proud obstinacy, choketh his grief and stifleth conviction. Or else (3.) It noteth compassion and fellow-feeling of others’ sorrows. A member is sensible of pain as long as it holdeth the body: Hebrews 13:3, ‘As being in the body,’ &c. A pinch or wound in the arm discomposeth the whole body; members will have a care of one another. Or else, (4.) And so most properly to the context, humbling and afflicting the soul for sin; sorrow seemeth to be made for that purpose and use.

Obs. Observe, if we would not be afflicted of God, we should afflict ourselves for sin. Voluntary humiliations are always best and sweetest; they please God best, and they do us most good. God is most pleased then. Christ was ‘wounded with one of the spouse’s eyes,’ Song of Solomon 4:9. The angels rejoice at the creatures’ repentance, Luke 15:7. Some say there shall be godly sorrow in heaven, because there will be memory and remembrance of sins in heaven, and because it is rather a perfection than an oppression of nature. But that is a strain beyond elah;¹ there all ‘tears are wiped from our eyes.’ But, however, it is pleasing to heaven, to God, and angels; and then these self-afflictings do us most good. Voluntary mournings prevent enforced. ‘Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted,’ Matthew 5:4, that do it freely, and of their own accord. It is one of the attributes of God, ‘he comforteth those that are cast down,’ 2 Corinthians 7:6. You see it preventeth misery; if not, it comforteth in misery. This mourning hath always a joy going along with it. Chrysostom observeth that the greatest mourner in Israel was the sweet singer in Israel. A Christian is never more truly joyful than after, yea, in godly sorrow. True conviction of sin is caused by ‘the Comforter,’ John 16:8. There is consolation mixed with it. Besides, it is of great profit to the soul. The rain maketh the ground flourish; and melted metals are fit to receive any stamp. ‘By the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better,’ Ecclesiastes 7:3. It is bitter physic, but it procureth health. Holy tears are the sponge of sin; a hard heart must be soaked, and a filthy heart must be washed in this water. We are most considerate when most pensive. Besides all this, the issue and end of it is very sweet. God will ‘revive the spirit of the humble, and restore comfort to the mourners,’ Isaiah 57:15. Well, then, be afflicted; it is a hard duty, but of great profit. Make your sorrow to draw water for the sanctuary; affections, like the Gibeonites, must not be abolished, but kept for temple uses.

¹ The highest note in the old musical notation. ED. And mourn and weep.—Why so many words to one purpose? The whole verse and the next is of the same strain. I answer (1.) It is a hard duty, and needeth much enforcement.

Obs. 1. Flesh and blood must be much urged to acts of sorrow. They are painful to the body, and burdensome to the mind. Frothy spirits love their pleasure and ease: ‘The fool’s heart is in the house of mirth,’ Ecclesiastes 7:1-29. A loose, garish spirit doth not love to converse with mournful objects, or to be pressed to mourning duties. It showeth how instant and earnest we should be in pressing such duties as these. Oh! ‘weep,’ ‘mourn,’ ‘be afflicted.’ It is one of the fancies now in fashion, men would be altogether honeyed and oiled with grace; the wholesome severities of religion are distasted. Some that would be taken for Christians of the highest form are altogether prejudiced against such doctrines as this is, and think we are legal when we press humiliation. How may the poor ministers of the gospel go to God, and say as Moses did, Exodus 6:12, ‘The children of Israel have not hearkened unto me, how then shall Pharaoh hear me?’ Lord, the professors will not brook such doctrine as this is, how shall we hope to prevail with the poor, blind, carnal world? Certainly it is very sad that that which was wont to be a badge of profaneness men should now adopt it into their religion; I mean, scoffing at doctrines of repentance and humiliation.

Obs. 2. It is a necessary duty; those that will be Christians must look to mourn. The Spirit descended in the form of a dove, to note both meekness and mourning. Christian affections will be tender. God’s glory cannot be violated, but your heart will even bleed if it be right: Psalms 119:136, ‘Rivers of tears run down mine eyes, because thy law is made void.’ When sins are common, your souls will ‘weep sore in secret places,’ Jeremiah 13:17. If afflictions light on God’s heritage, you will have a fellow-feeling, Romans 12:15. Nay, there will be not only occasions offered without, but within. Your own sins, your own wants. Your sins: Lamentations 5:16, ‘Woe is us, for we have sinned.’ Times shall come when you shall have occasion to mourn like the doves of the valleys. Oh! woe the time that ever I sinned against God! Your wants and needs: all gracious supplies are to be fetched out this way. The disciple is not above his Lord. ‘By prayers, and tears, and strong cries,’ &c., Hebrews 5:7. His requests were uttered with deep sighs. Christ, that shed his blood, did also shed tears; and if he were ‘a man of sorrows,’ certainly we must not be men and women of pleasures. Well, then, do not call mourning melancholy. The world dealeth perversely with the children of God; they provoke their sorrow, and then upbraid them with it; your sins and injuries give them occasion to mourn, and then you blemish the holy profession, as if it were mopishness and melancholy. Those tears that you see upon the eyes of God’s children are either shed for their own sins or yours. If for yours, you should not upbraid them, but bear them company; mourn with these doves of the valleys. If for their own, ‘a stranger doth not intermeddle with their joys.’ The sun shineth many times while it raineth: there may be joy in their hearts whilst there are tears in their eyes. Again, it serveth to press us to this duty: better be a ‘mourner in Zion’ than a ‘sinner in Zion.’ The mourners were marked for preservation. Though it be a duty against the heart and hair, yet imitate those holy ones of God that ‘watered their couches with tears,’ Psalms 6:6, that wished ‘their heads to be fountains of water,’ Jeremiah 9:1. It is likely you will come short of them, but high aims and attempts in duty will do you no hurt. He that shooteth at the sun, though he come far short, will shoot higher than he that aimeth at a shrub; it is best to eye the highest and worthiest examples. Again, it showeth how little of a Christian is found in them that are strangers to godly sorrow, that bathe and steep their souls in fleshly delights. Christ was ‘a man of sorrows,’ and the Spirit is a ‘mourning dove.’ I confess some Christians are of a sadder temper than others; the Spirit acteth with difference and variety; in some more mournfully, in others more raisedly. Some men’s lives are spent in the silence of meditation, others in the heat of service, in doing and suffering for God. The one makes use of Christ’s love, like holy Niobes, to dissolve and melt away their souls in tears; the other to quicken themselves to action and more resolution for God. But certainly every Christian is of tender bowels, and they will find frequent occasions of mourning; and unless we be well humbled, we can hardly do well or suffer well.

Obs. 3. The next reason of this multiplication of words is to show that we must continue and persevere in it. We would soon turn over our hard lesson, and love not to dwell upon sad thoughts; therefore the apostle returneth the duty again and again to our care: ‘Be afflicted,’ and then ‘mourn,’ and then ‘weep,’ Sorrow doth not work till it be deep and constant, and the arrows stick fast in the soul. David saith, ‘My sin is ever before me,’ Psalms 51:3. We must be held to it; slight sorrows are soon cured. Mourning is a holy exercise, by which the soul is every day more and more weaned from sin, and drawn out to rtsach after God. Well, then, it checketh those that content themselves with a hasty sigh, and a little blowing upon the matter: judge you, is this being afflicted and mourning and weeping? Check such a vain heart as would presently run out into the house of mirth again. But you will say, Would you have us turn Heraclites, to be always weeping? I answer—(1.) True it is that sorrow befitteth this life rather than joy. Now we are ‘absent from the Lord,’ under the burden of a ‘vile body’ and vicious affections; it is our pilgrimage; we have only a few ‘songs,’ God’s statutes, Psalms 119:54. The communion that we have with God in ordinances is but little. Grace is mixed with sin, faith with doubts, knowledge with ignorance, and peace with troubles. Now ‘we groan,’ Romans 8:23. We are waiting and groaning for a full and final deliverance. We are as they that ‘pass through the valley of Baca,’ Psalms 84:6; the Septuagint read δακρύων, tears. (2.) There are some special seasons and occasions of mourning, as chiefly in the time of God’s absence: ‘When the bridegroom is gone, then shall they mourn,’ Matthew 9:15; when we have lost the comforts and refreshings of God’s presence, or the quickenings of his Spirit. The absence of the sun maketh the earth languish; when you have lost the shine of his countenance, you should cry after him. So in times of great guilt, public or personal: ‘Deep calleth on deep, and floods to floods;’ the deluge of sins upon the flood of holy tears. So in times of great distempers, and the growing of carnal lusts. The persons to whom the apostle speaketh were envious, proud, covetous, ambitious, and he biddeth them ‘weep and mourn,’ &c. Salt water and bitter potions kill the worms; so doth bitter weeping fleshly lusts: the exercises of repentance are the best means for the mortifying of carnal desires. So in times when judgments are threatened. Thunder usually causeth rain; and threatenings should draw tears from us. So in times of calamity, when judgments are actually inflicted: Isaiah 22:12, ‘Then the Lord called to sackcloth, and baldness, and ashes.’ So also in times of great mercies, it is a fit season to remember our unkindness; the warm sun melts: she wept much, because she was pardoned much, Luke 7:38, with Luke 7:47. When Christ had washed her soul with his blood, she washed his feet with her tears.

Let your laughter be turned into mourning.—He meaneth their carnal rejoicing in their outward comforts and possessions, they being gotten by rapine and violence, as in the context. Observe hence:—

Obs. 1. That it is a good exchange to put away carnal joy for godly sorrow; for then we put away a sin for a duty, brass for gold; yea, we have that in the duty which we expected in the sin, and in a more pure, full, and sweet way. God will give us that in sorrow which the world cannot find in pleasure; serenity, and contentment of mind. When the world repenteth of their joy, you will never repent of your sorrow, 2 Corinthians 7:10. Solomon saith, Proverbs 14:13, ‘The end of that mirth is heaviness.’ Worldly comforts in the issue and close grow burdensome; but who ever was the sadder for the hours of repentance? Job ‘cursed the day of his birth,’ but who ever cursed the day of his new birth? In this exchange of laughter for sorrow, you give that which is good for nothing for that which is useful to your souls. Ecclesiastes 2:2-3, ‘I have said of laughter, thou art mad;’ that is, it bringeth forth no solid comfort or profit. When we turn our laughter into mourning, God will turn our mourning into laughter: John 16:20, ‘Ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.’ Out of these salt waters God breweth the wine of spiritual consolation. It is the curse of wicked men that their joy will be ‘bitterness in the issue:’ their wine proveth at length to be like ‘the gall of asps;’ a cup of deadly drink to their conscience. Well, then, be not prejudiced against godly sorrow. Planctus lugentium are better then plausus theatrorum, the saddest duties are sweeter then the greatest triumphs, and the worst and most afflicted part of godliness is better than all the joys and comforts of the world. It is better to have your good things to come, than here: Luke 16:21, he lived in jollity, but his good days were past. Do not measure things by the present sweetness, but by the future profit; that which droppeth honey may prove wormwood. See Luke 6:25, ‘Woe unto you that laugh now, for you shall weep,’ &c.

Obs. 2. That an excellent way to moderate the excess of joy is to mix it with some weeping. He speaketh to men drunk with their present happiness, and his drift is to awaken them out of their sense less stupor. The way to abate one passion is to admit the contrary: in abundance there is danger; therefore in your jollity think of some mournful objects. Nazianzen reporteth of himself that this was his practice, when his mind was likely to be corrupted with happiness, τοῖς θρένοις συγγίγνομαι, &c., to read the Lamentations of Jeremiah,² and to inure his soul to the consideration of matters sad and mournful. It was God’s own physic to Belshazzar, in the midst of his cups to bring him to think of his ruin by a handwriting upon the wall. Well, then, when your mountain standeth strong, think of changes; evils come upon us unawares when we give up our hearts to joy. The secure carnalist would not so much as suppose a possibility of his death that night, Luke 12:19. Better it was with Job, Job 3:25, ‘The evil which I greatly feared is come upon me.’ The cockatrice killeth us not if we see it first.

² Naz. Orat. 13. And your joy to heaviness.—In all the context he noteth them as carnal, and as glorying in oppressing one another; such a joy and laughter is intended by which secure sinners please themselves in their present success, putting off all thoughts of imminent judgments.

Obs. That prosperous oppression is rather matter of sorrow than joy to us. You laugh now, but God will laugh hereafter when your calamities and fears come, Proverbs 1:20, Psalms 37:12-13. Wicked men and carnal oppressors have never so much cause to be humbled as when they are prosperous; it is but a sure pledge of their speedy ruin. Now you despise others, scoff at the servants and ways of God; you puff, and the children of God sigh; see Psalms 12:5. Oh! how will you hang the head when the scene is changed, and you are become objects of public scorn and contempt, and the children of God in a holy admiration shall say, as those in the prophet, ‘Where is the rage of the oppressor now?’ Isaiah 51:13. Oh! that men would awaken conscience, and say, I am a-laughing and triumphing; have I not more cause to howl and mourn? &c.