02.04. Chapter 4 - Verse 11

James 4:11. Speak not evil of one another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.

Here the apostle cometh to dissuade them from another sin, of which he had impleaded them guilty before, and that is detraction and speaking evil of one another.

Speak not evil of one another, brethren, μὴ καταλαλεῖτε ἀλλήλων, speak not one against another. The word implieth any speaking which is to the prejudice of another, be it true or false; the scripture requiring that our words should suit with love as well as truth. Note hence:—

Obs. That speaking evil of one another doth not become brethren and Christians. A citizen of Sion is thus described: Psalms 15:3, ‘He backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.’ So there is an express law: Leviticus 19:16, ‘Thou shalt not go up and down as a tale-bearer among the people.’ Rokel, saith Ainsworth,¹ signifieth a merchant or trafficker up and down with spices; thence the word rakil, there used for one that wandereth from place to place uttering slanders as wares. These pedlars will be always opening their packs, Thus I have heard of such and such a one, &c.; these were not to be suffered in Israel. There are several kinds of evil-speaking: they may be all ranked under two heads whispering and backbiting. Whispering is a privy defamation of our brother among those that think well of him; backbiting is more public, before every one promiscuously. Now both may be done many ways, not only by false accusations, but by a divulging of their secret evils, by extenuating their graces, by increasing or aggravating their faults, and defrauding them of their necessary excuse and mitigation, by depraving their good actions through the supposition of sinister aims; by mentioning what is culpable, and enviously suppressing their worth. It were easy to run out upon this argument, but I contain myself. Well, then, if all this misbecometh brethren, do not give way to it in yourselves, nor give ear to it in others. (1.) Do not give way to it in yourselves; nature is marvellously prone to offend in this kind, therefore you must lay on the greater restraints, especially when the persons whom you would blemish profess religion: Numbers 12:8, ‘Were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?’ Mark the πάθος, or emphasis of that expression: What! against my servant? against Moses? You should be afraid to speak against any one, much more against those whom God hath a mind to honour. This is the devil’s proper sin; he is ‘the accuser of the brethren,’ Revelation 12:10. He doth not commit adultery, break the Sabbath; these are not laws to him; but he can bear false witness, dishonour parents, accuse the brethren; and yet what more common amongst us? John Baptist’s head in a charger is a usual dish at our meals. When men’s hearts are warm with wine and good cheer, then God’s children are brought in, like Samson among the Philistines, to make them sport. Oh! consider, God will surely recompense this into your bosoms; either in this life ‘They that judge are judged,’ Matthew 7:1; men are bold with their names, because they were not tender in meddling with others; or in the life to come, without repentance. It is said of the wicked, Psalms 64:8, ‘Their own tongue shall fall upon them.’ How unsupportable is the weight of the sins of this one member! (2.) Do not give way to it in others: your ears may be as guilty as their tongues; therefore such whisperings should never be heard without some expression of dislike. Solomon commendeth a frown and the severity of the countenance: Proverbs 25:23, ‘As the north wind driveth away rain, so doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue.’ They are discouraged when they do not meet with compliance. David would not have such to dwell in his house, Psalms 101:5. Certainly our countenancing them draweth us into a fellowship of the guilt. Now if we must not receive these whispers against an ordinary brother, much less against a minister; there is express provision for the safety of their repute and credit: ‘Against an elder receive not,’ &c., 1 Timothy 5:19; partly because men are apt to hate him that reproveth in the gate, and so they are liable to be traduced; partly because men in office are most observed and watched, see Jeremiah 20:12, and Ezekiel 33:30; and partly because their credit is of most concernment for the honour of the gospel: therefore we should not easily hear those that are ‘talking of them by the walls and doors of the houses,’ as it is in the prophet.

¹ See Ainsworth in Lev. 19:16. For he that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother.—In that word judgeth the apostle showeth what their censuring amounted to, a usurping of God’s office, and a passing sentence upon their brethren; and also what kind of evil-speaking he principally intendeth; that is, for things merely indifferent, as observation of days, meats, and the like, see Romans 14:3-4. Observe hence:—

Obs. That censuring is a judging: you arrogate an act of power which doth not belong to you. When you are advanced into the chair of arrogance and censure, check yourselves by this thought, Who gave me this superiority? The question put to Moses may well be urged, in the behalf of our wronged brethren, to our souls: ‘Who made thee a judge over us?’ Exodus 2:14. Paul useth the same disuassion, Romans 14:4, ‘Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant?’ &c.

Speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law.—How can this be? Several ways may this sentence be made good. I shall name the principal.

First, Every sin is a kind of an affront to the law that forbiddeth it; for, by doing quite contrary, we do in effect judge the law not fit or worthy to be obeyed. As, for instance, in the present case, the law forbiddeth rash judgment, and speaking evil one of another; but the detractor approveth that which the law condemneth, and so in effect judgeth the law to be not good or equal. From hence observe:—

Obs. That sin is a judging of the law. It is said to David, 2 Samuel 12:9, ‘Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight?’ In the rage of his lust David looked upon it as a slight law. Observe it when you will, you will find that in sinning there are some implicit evil thoughts by which the law of God is disvalued and disapproved; we think it unworthy, hard, or envious, or unequal. Those wretches speak out that which is the silent language of every sinful action: Ezekiel 18:25, ‘The ways of the Lord are not equal, the ways of the Lord are not equal.’ The heart of man is by nature obstinately and vehemently set upon lust, revenge, censuring therefore, in all these cases, we are most apt to think the law of God hard and injurious to the liberty of man, and that God hath dealt enviously with our natures to deny them the pleasures which we so strongly pursue. This was the devil’s first insinuation against God, he seeketh to work Adam into hard thoughts of God’s restraint: Genesis 3:5, ‘God knoweth, that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened.’ And still it is Satan’s great policy to represent God as a hard taskmaster, and to make us think evil of the law; therefore Paul seeketh to prevent such thoughts, when the law checked his lusts and brought him into a sense of inevitable misery: Romans 7:12, ‘The law is holy, and the commandment just and good;’ but was that good which caused death to him? Yes, saith he, I look upon it still as a rule of right; it is I am carnal, my heart is wicked, &c. Well, then, you see how to make sin odious; it is a despising of the law, a speaking evil of the law; it slighteth that rule which it violateth.

Secondly, They were wont, in that age to condemn one another for things indifferent, merely upon their own will and sense, without any warrant and sentence from the word, as you may see, Romans 14:1-23. Now this was a kind of condemning of the law, as if it were not full and exact enough, but needed to be pieced up by man’s institutions.

Obs. Observe, that to make more sins than God hath made, is to judge the law. You imply it to be an imperfect rule: men will be wise beyond God, and bind others in chains of their own making. It is true there is an ‘obedience of faith,’ by which the understanding must be captivated to God, but not to men; to the word, not to every fancy. There is a double superstition, positive and negative; the one when men count that holy which God never made holy, the other when men condemn that which God never condemned. They are both alike faulty; we are not in the place of God; it is not in our power to make sins or duties: ‘Touch not, taste not, handle not,’ were the ordinances and precepts of false teachers, Colossians 2:21. There are three things exempted from man’s judicatory—God’s counsels, the holy scriptures, and the hearts of men. We should not dogmatise and subject men to ordinances of our own making, press our own austerities and rigorous observances as duties. Justice and wisdom is good, but to be ‘just overmuch,’ or ‘wise overmuch,’ is stark naught, Ecclesiastes 7:15-16; that is, to be just or wise beyond the rule. Man is a proud creature, and would fain make his morosity a law to others, and obtrude his own private sense for doctrine. It is usual to condemn everything that doth not please us, as if our magisterial dictates were articles of faith. We must not come in our own name, but judge as the word judgeth, or else we judge the word. The Lord grant we may consider it in this dogmatising age, wherein every one crieth up his private conceit for law, and men make sins rather than find them!

Thirdly, You may conceive it thus: They might discommend and censure others for that which the word approved and allowed, and so did not so much condemn private persons as the law itself. If you take in this consideration, the note will be:

Obs. That to plead for sins, or to asperse graces, is to judge the word itself. Thus you set the pride of corrupted wit against the wisdom of God in the scriptures: ‘Woe be to them that call good evil, and evil good; that put light for darkness, and darkness for light; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter,’ Isaiah 5:20. Usually thus it is in the world; grace meeteth with calumny and sin with flattery. Open and gross sins are the more gently stroked, because they have the hap to go away under a good name: drunkenness is good fellowship, censure is conference and good discourse, error is new light, rebellion is zeal of public welfare; but grace hath, the hap to suffer under some ill resemblance. As they were wont to deal with Christians in the primitive times, to put them in bearskins, and then to bait them, so graces are miscalled and misrepresented, and then hooted at. The law saith, Be zealous, be peace able, &c., but in the world’s reckoning zeal is fury, peaceableness and holy moderation is time-serving and base compliance; pressing humbling doctrine is legalism, &c. Thus do many deceive themselves with names; but do not you judge the law in all this? The law saith, Sitting at the wine all day is drunkenness, and you call this good fellowship, &c. But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge; that is, when thou exercisest such a rash superiority over the law, thou dost clearly exempt thyself from obedience and subjection to it. Observe hence:—

Obs. Those that judge the word, no wonder if they be given over to the disobedience of it. It is done grossly by those that either deny the divine authority of the scriptures, or accuse it, as the Papists do, as an uncertain rule, or examine all the doctrines of it by their private reason, or the writings and precepts of men, &c. And it is done more closely by those that come to judge the word, rather than to be judged by it. It is true, we have a liberty to examine, but we should not come with a mind to cavil and censure. The pulpit, which in a sense is God’s tribunal, should not be our bar. The matter delivered must be examined by scripture modestly and humbly, but we must not despise and slight God’s ordinance, and come hither merely to sit judges of men’s parts or weaknesses. This is the ready way to beget an irreverent and fearless spirit. And then when men lose their awe and reverence, their restraint is gone, and they grow loose, or desperately erroneous. God will punish their pride with some sudden fall. Look to your ends, Christians; you will find a great deal of difference between coming to hear and coming to censure. If you come with such a vain aim, see if you get anything by a sermon but matter of carping, and see if that do not bring you to looseness, and that to atheism. Usually this is the sad progress of proud spirits. First preaching is censured, not examined, then the manners are tainted; then the word itself is questioned, and then men lose all fear of God and man.