James 1

Chap. I. Ver. 1—8. We must rejoice in tribulation—seek with the idea of their being the universal and unavoidable lot of man: but Christianity alone can teach us to rejoice in them, as “working together for our good.” Faith can derive the honey-eyed sweetness of present profit, and the valuable prospects of future benefit, out of sickness and poverty, pains and woes, disappointments and bereavements. It can sanctify sorrows, and cause us to “rejoice in tribulation;” yea, to count it all joy, full, unabated, overflowing advantage to our best and higher interests, when we fall into many and diversified temptations.” In contemplating these afflictions, we should particularly consider their tendency to produce patience, a grace of the highest importance to the Christian life, and which, if not impeded, will have the happiest effect in raising and perfecting the Christian character. So St. Paul teaches us, ((Romans 5:3-5)) that “tribulation worketh patience, patience experience, and experience hope”—even “hope that maketh not ashamed.” The next subject for our consideration is the importance of true wisdom, and the source from which it can be alone obtained. “If any of you lack (or need) wisdom, let him ask it of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not.” Hence we may learn that God is the only source of true wisdom—that he bestows this, as he does all his favours, unmerited and unconstrained: and, when we penitently return to him, reproaches us not for former ingratitude or misimprovement.

He is the source of wisdom, as the sun is of light: and communicates spiritual and intellectual blessings, as the sun does his rays to men of every clime and country. But then we are commanded to “ask in faith, nothing wavering.” One presenting a petition to Augustus in a timorous and trembling manner, the emperor expressed himself displeased, as it implied a doubt of his generosity. Let not that man who doubts the benevolence of God, expect to prove it in his own experi- The following anecdote well illustrates the propriety of applying to God for wisdom, as here enjoined, and we would particularly recommend it to the sceptics of the present day:— A gentleman once called on Dr. James Foster, a popular preacher of the last paper, to request the solution of some sceptical objections, with which his mind was much harassed.

The Doctor stopped him short with this question—“Have you asked a solution of your difficulties from God this morning? have you prayed to the fountain of all light for information?” Upon receiving an answer in the negative, he rejoined, “Sir, you must excuse my gratifying your curiosity on the subject of Revelation, while you neglect one of the first duties of natural religion.” —(Buck’s Pract. Expos. Sept. 16.) But to return to our apostle.—“The double-minded man (or man of two minds) is unstable in all his ways.” He is compared, therefore, to the waves of the sea, incessantly rising and falling, and driven by every breath of wind that blows: continually changing his mind, and not knowing his own wants or wishes, how can he expect to receive a grant of them from the Lord?

To feel our wants is the first thing necessary in prayer; and he who knows not his deficiency in grace or wisdom, can have little reason to expect supplies. Ver. 9—27. Address to the different classes of society, the rich and poor, upon their respective spiritual necessities.—Christianity has, in one respect, a levelling tendency. It elevates the humble, and brings down the lofty, and both have reason to rejoice in these effects. “The brother of low degree,” the servant and the slave, will naturally rejoice in the liberty of the gospel, and in being raised to the rank of a child of God: but why should the rich rejoice in that he is made low? Plainly, because that without being humbled he cannot be saved.

Even in prosperity will wither him, and in a time of trial and persecution he will fade away, like a tender plant before the burning sun. O how hard it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven! But blessed is the man that endureth trials and temptations, whereby his mind becomes humbled under the mighty hand of God, and his heart schooled in obedience to Jesus Christ; and when his trials are over, he shall receive that crown of everlasting life, which the Lord hath promised “to them that love him.” We have hinted at the extensive sense in which the word temptation is sometimes used, as applicable to every species of trial, and if we so understand it here, the sense of verse 12 harmonizes with that of verse 2.

But, from verse 13, it here seems to have a particular reference to temptations to sin, which some were disposed to charge upon their Maker, for which the apostle severely reproves them. There are two classes of persons prone to do this: the one through speculative notions of necessity and fate, and the other from the predominance of their passions, which being derived from God, men are too apt to indulge, and then to say, “And why doth he yet find fault?” (James 1:13) The origin of evil, either in itself or in us, is a subject which perhaps no human intellect can satisfactorily explain; two things alone seem certain; 1. That no evil, natural or moral, can arise unknown to God, and without his permission: and, 2.

That though natural evil may be inflicted by him as the punishment of moral, moral evil itself, as it implies perversity of disposition, cannot originate with the divine Being, who is here, and throughout the sacred Scriptures, represented as the fountain of wisdom and of goodness. There is indeed a malevolent being, commonly called the Tempter; and he, as we well know, “walketh about seeking whom he may devour.” ((1 Peter 5:8).) But much, we doubt not, is laid upon him of which he is not guilty: for, in innumerable instances, man is ensnared by his own lusts, and becomes the victim of his depraved passions. Lust engendereth sin, and sin produceth death. On the contrary, “all that comes from God is good and perfect.”

As the sun, his fairest created image, is the fountain of material light to us, so is God himself the fountain of wisdom, or intellectual light, to all the universe—and not of light only, but of purity and benevolence also; for “every good and perfect gift cometh down from him.” But whereas the material sun is subject to perpetual changes in his course, the Sun of Righteousness is subject to no variableness, “neither shadow of turning.” The apostle proceeds to warn the Christian Hebrews, regenerated in grace through the instrumentality of the divine word, against the indulgence of evil passions, wrath and bitterness, all filthiness and obscenity; and exhorts them to “be doers of the word, and not hearers only,” the latter being the way awfully to deceive their own souls. He illustrates this, by alluding to a man taking a transient glance at himself in a mirror, which makes no abiding impression on his mind; whereas, “the man who hears with proper attention, and practises what he hears—the man who setteth his passions, and bridles his tongue—who visits the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and keeps himself unspotted from the world—‘That man is blessed;’ and his ‘religion is pure and undefiled.’”