The document presents a commentary on James 5, specifically addressing the rich and the impending judgment they face due to their unjust and oppressive actions. It emphasizes the emotional distress that is foretold for these individuals, calling them to weep and wail for the miseries that are to come, which are interpreted as both temporal and eternal. The text warns against the false sense of security that wealth provides, highlighting the ultimate worthlessness of earthly riches and the serious consequences of neglecting spiritual responsibilities.

1. JAMES 5 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
Warning to Rich Oppressors
1 ow listen, you rich people, weep and wail
because of the misery that is coming on you.
BAR ES, "Go to now - Notes, Jam_4:13.
Ye rich men - Not all rich men, but only that class of them who are specified as
unjust and oppressive. There is no sin in merely being rich; where sin exists peculiarly
among the rich, it arises from the manner in which wealth is acquired, the spirit which it
tends to engender in the heart, and the way in which it is used. Compare the Luk_6:24
note; 1Ti_6:9 note.
Weep and howl - Greek: “Weep howling.” This would be expressive of very deep
distress. The language is intensive in a high degree, showing that the calamities which
were coming upon them were not only such as would produce tears, but tears
accompanied with loud lamentations. In the East, it is customary to give expression to
deep sorrow by loud outcries. Compare Isa_13:6; Isa_14:31; Isa_15:2; Isa_16:7; Jer_
4:8; Jer_47:2; Joe_1:5.
For your miseries that shall come upon you - Many expositors, as Benson,
Whitby, Macknight, and others, suppose that this refers to the approaching destruction
of Jerusalem by the Romans, and to the miseries which would be brought in the siege
upon the Jewish people, in which the rich would be the peculiar objects of cupidity and
vengeance. They refer to passages in Josephus, which describe particularly the sufferings
to which the rich were exposed; the searching of their houses by the zealots, and the
heavy calamities which came upon them and their families. But there is no reason to
suppose that the apostle referred particularly to those events. The poor as well as the
rich suffered in that siege, and there were no such special judgments then brought upon
the rich as to show that they were the marked objects of the divine displeasure. It is
much more natural to suppose that the apostle means to say that such men as he here
refers to exposed themselves always to the wrath of God, and that they had great reason
to weep in the anticipation of his vengeance. The sentiments here expressed by the
apostle are not applicable merely to the Jews of his time. If there is any class of men
which has special reason to dread the wrath of God at all times, it is just the class of men
here referred to.
CLARKE, "Go to now - See on Jam_4:13.
Weep and howl for your miseries - St. James seems to refer here, in the spirit of
prophecy, to the destruction that was coming upon the Jews, not only in Judea, but in all

2. the provinces where they sojourned. He seems here to assume the very air and character
of a prophet; and in the most dignified language and peculiarly expressive and energetic
images, foretells the desolations that were coming upon this bad people.
GILL, "Go to now, ye rich men,.... All rich men are not here designed; there are
some rich men who are good men, and make a good use of their riches, and do not abuse
them, as these here are represented; and yet wicked rich men, or those that were the
openly profane, are not here intended neither; for the apostle only writes to such who
were within the church, and not without, who were professors of religion; and such rich
men are addressed here, who, notwithstanding their profession, were not rich towards
God, but laid up treasure for themselves, and trusted in their riches, and boasted of the
multitude of their wealth; and did not trust in God, and make use of their substance to
his glory, and the good of his interest, as they should have done:
weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you; meaning, not
temporal calamities that should come upon them at the destruction of Jerusalem, in
which the rich greatly suffered by the robbers among themselves, as well as by the
Roman soldiers; for the apostle is not writing to the Jews in Judea, and at Jerusalem;
but to the Christians of the twelve tribes scattered in the several parts of the world, and
who were not distressed by that calamity; but eternal miseries, or the torments of hell
are intended, which, unless they repented of their sins, would shortly, suddenly, and
unavoidably come upon them, when their present joy and laughter would be turned into
howling and weeping.
HE RY, "The apostle is here addressing first sinners and then saints.
I. Let us consider the address to sinners; and here we find James seconding what his
great Master had said: Woe unto you that are rich; for you have received your
consolation, Luk_6:24. The rich people to whom this word of warning was sent were not
such as professed the Christian religion, but the worldly and unbelieving Jews, such as
are here said to condemn and kill the just, which the Christians had no power to do; and
though this epistle was written for the sake of the faithful, and was sent principally to
them, yet, by an apostrophe, the infidel Jews may be well supposed here spoken to. They
would not hear the word, and therefore it is written, that they might read it. It is
observable, in the very first inscription of this epistle, that it is not directed, as Paul's
epistles were, to the brethren in Christ, but, in general, to the twelve tribes; and the
salutation is not, grace and peace from Christ, but, in general, greeting, Jam_1:1. The
poor among the Jews received the gospel, and many of them believed; but the generality
of the rich rejected Christianity, and were hardened in their unbelief, and hated and
persecuted those who believed on Christ. To these oppressing, unbelieving, persecuting,
rich people, the apostle addresses himself in the first six verses.
1. He foretels the judgments of God that should come upon them, Jam_5:1-3. they
should have miseries come upon them, and such dreadful miseries that the very
apprehension of them was enough to make them weep and howl - misery that should
arise from the very things in which they placed their happiness, and misery that should
be completed by these things witnessing against them at the last, to their utter
destruction; and they are now called to reason upon and thoroughly to weigh the matter,
and to think how they will stand before God in judgment: Go to now, you rich men. (1.)
“You may be assured of this that very dreadful calamities are coming upon you,
calamities that shall carry nothing of support nor comfort in them, but all misery, misery

3. in time, misery to eternity, misery in your outward afflictions, misery in your inward
frame and temper of mind, misery in this world, misery in hell. You have not a single
instance of misery only coming upon you, but miseries. The ruin of your church and
nation is at hand; and there will come a day of wrath, when riches shall not profit men,
but all the wicked shall be destroyed.” (2.) The very apprehension of such miseries as
were coming upon them is enough to make them weep and howl. Rich men are apt to say
to themselves (and others are ready to say to them), Eat, drink, and be merry; but God
says, Weep and howl. It is not said, Weep and repent, for this the apostle does not expect
from them (he speaks in a way of denouncing rather than admonishing); but, “Weep and
howl, for when your doom comes there will be nothing but weeping, and wailing, and
gnashing of teeth.” Those who live like beasts are called howl like such. Public calamities
are most grievous to rich people, who live in pleasure, and are secure and sensual; and
therefore they shall weep and howl more than other people for the miseries that shall
come upon them
JAMISO , "Jam_5:1-20. Woes coming on the wicked rich: Believers should be
patient unto the Lord’s coming: Various exhortations.
Go to now — Come now. A phrase to call solemn attention.
ye rich — who have neglected the true enjoyment of riches, which consists in doing
good. James intends this address to rich Jewish unbelievers, not so much for
themselves, as for the saints, that they may bear with patience the violence of the rich
(Jam_5:7), knowing that God will speedily avenge them on their oppressors [Bengel].
miseries that shall come — literally, “that are coming upon you” unexpectedly and
swiftly, namely, at the coming of the Lord (Jam_5:7); primarily, at the destruction of
Jerusalem; finally, at His visible coming to judge the world.
CALVI , "1Go to now. They are mistaken, as I think, who consider that James
here exhorts the rich to repentance. It seems to me to be a simple denunciation of
God’s judgment, by which he meant to terrify them without giving them any hope of
pardon; for all that he says tends only to despair. He, therefore, does not ADDRESS
them in order to invite them to repentance; but, on the contrary, he has a regard to
the faithful, that they, hearing of the miserable and of the rich, might not envy their
fortune, and also that knowing that God would be the avenger of the wrongs they
suffered, they might with a calm and resigned mind bear them. (136)
But he does not speak of the rich indiscriminately, but of those who, being immersed
in pleasures and inflated with pride, thought of nothing but of the world, and who,
like inexhaustible gulfs, devoured everything; for they, by their tyranny, oppressed
others, as it appears from the whole passage.
Weep and howl, or, Lament, howling. Repentance has indeed its weeping, but being
mixed with consolation, it does not PROCEED to howling. Then James intimates
that the heaviness of God’s vengeance will be so horrible and severe on the rich, that
they will be constrained to break forth into howling, as though he had said briefly to
them, “Woe to you!” But it is a prophetic mode of speaking: the ungodly have the
punishment which awaits them set before them, and they are represented as already
enduring it. As, then, they were now flattering themselves, and promising to
themselves that the prosperity in which they thought themselves happy would be

4. perpetual, he declared that the most grievous miseries were nigh at hand.
Besides, it was not unusual, in ADDRESSES to Christians, to address unbelievers.
Indeed, Paul expressly says, “What have I to do to judge them that are without?”
That there were rich men professing the gospel at that time, is evident from James
1:10.
BARCLAY, "THE WORTHLESS ESS OF RICHES (James 5:1-3)
5:1-3 Come now, you rich, weep and wail at the miseries which are coming upon
you. YOUR wealth is rotten and your garments are food for moths. Your gold and
silver are corroded clean through with rust; and their rust is proof to you of how
worthless they are. It is a rust which will eat into your very flesh like fire. It is a
treasure indeed that you have amassed for yourselves in the last days!
James 5:1-6 has two aims. First, to show the ultimate worthlessness of all earthly
riches; and second, to show the detestable character of those who possess them. By
doing this he hopes to prevent his readers from placing all their hopes and desires
on earthly things.
If you knew what you were doing, he says to the rich, you would weep and wail for
the terror of the judgment that is coming upon you at the Day of the Lord. The
vividness of the picture is increased by the word which James uses for to nail. It is
the verb ololuzein (Greek #3649), which is onomatopoeic and carries its meaning in
its very sound. It means even more than to wail, it means to shriek, and in the King
James Version is often TRA SLATED to howl; and it depicts the frantic terror of
those on whom the judgment of God has come (Isaiah 13:6; Isaiah 14:31; Isaiah
15:2-3; Isaiah 16:7; Isaiah 23:1; Isaiah 23:14; Isaiah 65:14; Amos 8:3). We might
well say that it is the word which describes those undergoing the tortures of the
damned.
All through this passage the words are vivid and pictorial and carefully chosen. In
the east there were three main sources of wealth and James has a word for the decay
of each of them.
There were corn and grain. That is the wealth which grows rotten (sepein, Greek #
4595).
There were garments. In the east garments were wealth. Joseph gave changes of
garments to his brothers (Genesis 45:22). It was for a beautiful mantle from Shinar
that Achan brought disaster on the nation and death on himself and his family
(Joshua 7:21). It was changes of garments that Samson promised to anyone who
would solve his riddle ( 14:12). It was garments that aaman brought as a GIFT to
the prophet of Israel and to obtain which Gehazi sinned his soul (2 Kings 5:5; 2
Kings 5:22). It was Paul's claim that he had coveted no man's money or apparel
(Acts 20:33). These garments, which are so splendid, will be food for moths
(setobrotos (Greek #4598, compare Matthew 6:19).

5. The climax of the world's inevitable decay comes at the end. Even their gold and
silver will be rusted clean through (katiasthai, Greek #2728). The point is that gold
and silver do not actually rust; so James in the most vivid way is warning men that
even the most precious and apparently most indestructible things are doomed to
decay.
This rust is proof of the impermanence and ultimate valuelessness of all earthly
things. More, it is a dread warning. The desire for these things is like a dread rust
eating into men's bodies and souls. Then comes a grim sarcasm. It is a fine treasure
indeed that any man who concentrates on these things is HEAPI Gup for himself at
the last. The only treasure he will possess is a consuming fire which will wipe him
out.
It is James' conviction that to concentrate on material things is not only to
concentrate on a decaying delusion; it is to concentrate on self-produced
destruction.
THE SOCIAL PASSIO OF THE BIBLE (James 5:1-3 CO TI UED)
ot even the most cursory reader of the Bible can fail to be impressed with the
social passion which blazes through its pages. o book condemns dishonest and
selfish wealth with such SEARI Gpassion as it does. The book of the prophet Amos
was called by J. E. McFadyen "The Cry for Social Justice." Amos condemns those
who store up violence and robbery in their palaces (Amos 3:10). He condemns those
who tread on the poor and themselves have houses of hewn stone and pleasant
vineyards--which in the wrath of God they will never enjoy (Amos 5:11). He lets
loose his wrath on those who give short weight and short measure, who buy the poor
for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes, and who palm off on the poor the refuse
of their wheat. "I will never forget any of their deeds," says God (Amos 8:4-7).
Isaiah warns those who build up great estates by adding house to house and field to
field (Isaiah 5:8). The sage insisted that he who trusts in riches shall fall (Proverbs
11:28). Luke QUOTESJesus as saying, "Woe to you that are rich!" (Luke 6:24). It is
only with difficulty that those who have riches E TER into the Kingdom of God
(Luke 18:24). Riches are a temptation and a snare; the rich are liable to foolish and
hurtful lusts which end in ruin, for the love of money is the root of all evils (1
Timothy 6:9-10).
In the inter-testamental literature there is the same note. "Woe to you who acquire
silver and gold in unrighteousness.... They shall perish with their possessions, and in
shame will their spirits be cast into the furnace of fire" (Enoch 97: 8). In the
Wisdom of Solomon there is a savage passage in which the sage makes the selfish
rich speak of their own way of life as compared with that of the righteous. "Come
on, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present; and let us speedily use
created things like as in youth. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments:
and let no flower of the spring pass by us. Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds
before they be withered; let there be no meadow but our luxury shall pass through
it. Let none of us go without his part of our voluptuousness; let us leave tokens of

6. our joyfulness in every place; for this is our portion, and our lot is this. Let us
oppress the poor righteous man, let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the
ancient grey hairs of the aged.... Therefore, let us lie in wait for the righteous;
because he is not for our turn and is clean contrary to our doings; he upbraideth us
with our offending of the law, and objecteth to our infamy, the sins of our way of
life" (Wisdom of Solomon 2:6-12).
One of the mysteries of social thought is how the Christian religion ever came to be
regarded as "the opiate of the people" or to seem an other-worldly affair. There is
no book in any literature which speaks so explosively of social injustice as the Bible,
nor any book which has proved so powerful a social dynamic. It does not condemn
wealth as such but there is no book which more strenuously insists on wealth's
responsibility and on the perils which surround a man who is abundantly blessed
with this world's goods.
BE SO , ". The unbelieving Jews, being exceedingly addicted to sensual pleasure,
and very covetous, were of course grievous oppressors of the poor. Wherefore, to
ALARM these wicked men, and, if possible, to bring them to repentance, St. James,
in the first paragraph of this chapter, sets before them, in the most lively colours,
the miseries which the Romans, the instruments of the divine vengeance, were about
to bring on the Jewish people, both in Judea and everywhere else, now deserted of
God for their crimes, and particularly for the great crime of murdering the Just
One, Jesus of azareth, their long-expected Messiah. So that, being SOO to lose
their possessions and goods, it was not only criminal, but foolish, by injustice and
oppression to amass wealth, of which they were soon to be stripped. In this part of
his letter the apostle hath introduced figures and expressions which, for boldness,
vivacity, and energy, might have been used by the greatest tragic poet. See
Macknight. Go to now — Or, come now, ye rich men — The apostle does not speak
this so much for the sake of the rich themselves, as of the poor children of God, who
were then groaning under their cruel oppression. Weep and howl for YOUR
miseries that shall come upon you — Quickly and unexpectedly. The miseries of
which he speaks were those which our Lord had pointed out in his prophecy of the
destruction of Jerusalem, and in which this apostle foresaw they would soon be
involved; miseries arising from famine, pestilence, and the sword. These fell heaviest
on the Jews in Judea. But they extended also to the Jews in the provinces. The
reader who desires to see a particular ACCOU T of these calamities, may read
Josephus’s history of the Jewish war, where he will find scenes of misery laid open
not to be paralleled in the annals of any nation. And as these were an awful prelude
of that wrath which was to fall upon them in the world to come, so this passage may
likewise refer to the final vengeance which will then be executed on the impenitent.
COFFMA , "This chapter has a dramatic denunciation of the wealthy class who
had murdered the Messiah, that is, the rich Sadducean aristocracy in Jerusalem
who had slain "the Just One" (James 5:6), and whose approaching doom was
prophetically announced in this denunciation. This paragraph (James 5:1-6) is
parallel to those passages in the gospels which Jesus Christ pronounced against
Jerusalem, and the similar pronouncement of the apostle Paul in Acts 28:25-28.

7. Calvin was probably CORRECT in failing to find here any call to repentance.[1] It
was past time for that. The hour was approaching when the wrath of God would be
poured out upon Israel for their final rejection of Christ; and James adopted the
stern language of the Old Testament prophets for pronouncing their doom. As
Gibson said, "This paragraph might almost be a leaf torn out of the Old
Testament."[2] Despite the original APPLICATIO of these verses, however, there
remains an eloquent warning for all men who may be tempted to amass their wealth
through selfishness and exploitation. If Christians are in this ungodly class, the
warning is for them also. As Lenski said, "Merely bearing the Christian name does
not exempt them."[3] James, more than any other ew Testament writer, identified
the true reason why "the righteous one" was slain. It resulted directly from the
selfish hatred of the Jewish religious hierarchy in Jerusalem, a hatred which was
inspired by Jesus' twice cleansing the temple and challenging their godless robbing
of the people. It was their conduct in the temple that figured prominently in the
teachings of Jesus; but in this inspired paragraph, James gives a little more
extensive view of their "operations," in the wicked defrauding of farm laborers, and
their selfish lives of luxury.
The next paragraph (James 5:7-12) has an admonition directed to the brethren with
a plea for them to be patient and wait until the Lord himself would avenge their
wrongs and execute judgment upon their oppressors. There is more here than
merely a social injustice. "The rich" in focus here were also the persecutors of
Christians (James 2:6,7).
[1] Calvin as QUOTED by E. G. Punchard, Ellicott's Commentary on the Holy
Bible, Vol. VIII (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1959), p.
375.
[2] E. C. S. Gibson, The Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 21, James (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1950), p. 67.
[3] R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistle of James (Minneapolis:
Augsburg Publishing House, 1938), p. 644.
Come now, ye rich, weep and howl for YOUR miseries which are coming upon you.
(James 5:1)
Ye rich ... " either here nor elsewhere in the ew Testament are the rich
denounced simply because they are rich."[4] Many God-fearing souls have been
wealthy, from the days of JOB and Abraham until the present day; and the frequent
ew Testament warnings relative to riches must always be understood as reference
to wealth held without regard for the kingdom of God. Yet, there is an inherent
dishonesty in riches themselves, meaning not that such wealth was dishonorably
procured, or even that its possessor is unmindful of God, but that wealth inherently,
within itself, has an evil influence. For discussion of this, see in my Commentary on
Luke, pp. 349,350.

8. Weep and howl for your miseries ... "The verb [@ololuzein] (used here) means more
than to wail; it means to shriek ... it depicts the frantic terror of those upon whom
the judgment of God has come."[5] This supports the interpretation that what we
are DEALI G with here is a judgment of God upon a self-hardened and rebellious
people.
Which are coming upon you ... The tense of the verbs in this paragraph is the
present perfect, the traditional prophetic tense of the Old Testament, in which God's
judgments are announced in the present tense, indicating that such prophesies are
as certain to be fulfilled as if fulfillment had ALREADY come to pass. Gibson said
that "The perfects are probably to be explained as prophetic in accordance with a
common Hebrew idiom."[6]
[4] A. F. Harper, Beacon Bible Commentary (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1967),
p. 238.
[5] William Barclay, The Letters of James and Peter (Philadelphia: The
Westminster Press, 1977), p. 115.
[6] E. C. S. Gibson, op. cit., p. 67.
COKE, "Wicked rich men are to fear God's vengeance. We ought to be patient in
afflictions, after the example of the prophets, and Job: to forbear swearing; to pray
in adversity; to sing in prosperity; to acknowledge mutually our several faults; to
pray one for another, and to reduce a straying brother to the truth.
Anno Domini 60.
THE first six verses of this chapter have been looked upon as an ADDRESS to the
unbelieving Jews, among whom the Christians lived in their dispersions, and by
whom they were persecuted; but they appear to me to have been rather a fine
apostrophe. It is evident that this epistle is written in a sublime stile, and abounds
with lively images, beautiful similitudes, and other strong figures. Why may not we
then look upon these six verses as a remarkable instance of this kind? Indeed there
appears to me nothing to hinder us from supposing that they are introduced in a
figurative manner; that is, by way of apostrophe. There is a beautiful apostrophe to
this purpose, Revelation 18:20 and the speaking by way of apostrophe is not only
usual with the sacred writers, (see Deuteronomy 32:1. Jeremiah 22:29. 1
Corinthians 15:55.) but also with the best Greek and Roman writers: and the
apostle seems to have introduced it here, that by this image he might give the greater
force to those arguments which he was about to OFFER for the support and
encouragement of the Jewish Christians, who were at that time in a state of
persecution. For after he had, in this livelymanner, set before them the much
heavier calamities which were hanging over the heads of their greatest enemies and
most violent persecutors, and just ready to fall upon them, he then finishes the
apostrophe; and, addressing himself directly to the Jewish Christians, says with the
greatest propriety, Be ye patient therefore, unto the coming of the Lord, &c. That is,

9. in other words, "Be patient, brethren; because the destruction of YOUR enemies,
and your deliverance, approach swiftly," James 5:1-11.
Among other effects of impatience, against which the apostle cautions them, he
reckons the irreverent use of the name of God, and profane oaths and execrations,
into which, in the transport of their criminal passions, some unhappy wretches are
ready to fall: and he cautions them to content themselves with a simple affirmation
or negation in all their conversation, and to take care to maintain such constant
integrity in all their words, that nothing more may be needful to gain them credit,
James 5:12. He then requires them to accustom themselves to the frequent exercises
of devotion, as what will have the surest tendency to promote the comfort and
happiness of their lives in every circumstance, James 5:13. And he advises them, if
they be sick, and feel themselves so instigated by the secret workings of the Spirit of
grace upon their minds as may encourage them to hope for an extraordinary cure,
to send for the elders of the church to pray over them, and anoint them with oil,
James 5:14-15.
When they were conscious of having been really to blame, he charges them not
perversely to vindicate a conduct which their own hearts condemned, but be frank
in acknowledging it, James 5:16.—Then he illustrates the efficacy of the prayers of
the righteous by the efficacy of Elijah's prayers, James 5:17-19.—Lastly, that the
faithful might be excited to do their utmost, by prayer and other proper means in
dependance on Divine grace, to reclaim their brethren who had fallen into sin, he
assures them that whosoever turns a sinner from the ERROR of his way, becomes
the instrument of obtaining pardon for him through Christ, and may thereby save
him from death eternal, James 5:20.
Verse 1
James 5:1. That shall come upon you.— Which are coming upon you. This latter
rendering is,I think, more agreeable to the original than our English version; the
word επερχοµεναις being a participle of the present tense. Josephus particularly
observes (Bell. Jud. 20. 30. 4:19.) how much the rich men suffered by the Romans in
the Jewish war
ELLICOTT, "(1) Go to now, ye rich.—As in James 4:3, it was “Woe to you,
worldly,” so now “Woe to ye rich: weep, bewailing”—literally, howling for
YOURmiseries coming upon you. Comp. Isaiah 13:6; Isaiah 14:31; Isaiah 15:3,
where (in the LXX.) the same term is used;—a picture word, imitating the cry of
anguish,—peculiar to this place in the ew Testament. Observe the immediate
future of the misery; it is ALREADY coming. Doubtless by this was meant
primarily the pillage and destruction of Jerusalem, but under that first intention
many others secondary and similar are included: for all “riches certainly make
themselves wings” and fly away (Proverbs 23:5). Calvin and others of his school fail
to see in this passage an exhortation of the rich to penitence, but only a denunciation
of woe upon them; in the sense, however, that all prophecy, whether evil or good, is
conditional, there is sufficient room to believe that no irrevocable doom was
pronounced by “a Christian Jeremiah.”

10. BURKITT, "These words may be considered wither relatively or absolutely.
Consider them, 1. With relation to the Jews, to whom they were written
immmediately, and they are a prediction or denuncitation of that judgment which
was coming upon the right men in the Jewish nation; which prediction, Josephus
assures us, was fulfilled by the slaughter and spoiling of the rich Jews throughout
Galilee and Judea, the zealots sparing none but the poor and low. Thus did the
vengeance of God, and does to this day, pursue and follow that wicked people, who
killed the Lord of Life, and their own prophets, who brought judgment on
themselves to the uttermost.
Consider the words absolutely in themselves, and they are a severe and cutting
reprehension to covetous rich men, for their sordid sparing of that wealth which
God had given them for public service. And the apostle gives us,
1. A description of their sin. 2. A declaration of their punishment.
Observe, 1. A description of the sin of the covetous rich worldlings, they chose
rather to have their goods to be corrupted and spoiled, than to be employed to good
uses; their victuals might have refreshed the bowels of the hungry, but they rather
suffered them to putrify and stink; the garments which lay useless in their
wardrobes, might have clothed the backs of their naked brethren, but they had
rather let them be moth eaten; their gold and silver might have been APPLIED to
many good uses, but they had rather it should be cankered, and rust in their chests.
Observe, 2. The punishment denounced against them for this their sin, the rust of
their gold and silver shall witness against them; that is, their consciences shall at
once convince them of their base covetousness, and torment them for it; and this
corroding of their consciences shall have an impression upon their bodies, it shall
eat their flesh as it were fire; and all that treasure which, with wrong to others, and
violation of their own consciences, they had HEAPED together, was but heaped up
for the spoiler, and the violence of the last days.
Learn from the whole, 1. That it is hard to possess riches without sin; a hard matter
to have them, and not be hindered from heaven by them.
Learn, 2. That a covetous hoarding, and sordid sparing of wealth, which our
suffering brethren want, brings a curse both upon our persons and estates.
3. That more miseries, and dreadful judgments, shall come upon wicked rich men,
which, if believingly apprehended, would cause them now to weep and howl. We do
not hurt with our wealth, say some; aye, but what good do you do with it? Where
are the poor members of Christ, whom ye have relieved with the superfluities of
YOUR table? But can many say truly, they have done no harm with their estates?
Lord! what carelessness in religion, what contempt of God, what riot and excess is

11. found amongst many that abound in wealth, who expend more upon a lust in one
day, than would maintain a poor family many years.
Learn, 4. That in the day of judgment, not only our actions, but all the
circumstances of our actions, shall be brought forth, and produced as arguments of
conviction; the rusty iron, the cankered silver, the moth eaten clothes, shall be
produced; the stones of the wall, built by oppression, shall cry, "Lord, we were built
by oppression and violence;" and the beam out of the timber shall answer it, True,
Lord, even so it is, Habakkuk 2:11 The circumstances of men's sins at the great day
will be as so many memorials to put them in mind of guilt, and God in mind of
vengeance: Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of it shall be witness
against you.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, "Ye rich men, weep and howl
The miseries coming upon the rich
I.
THE COMING OF JUDGMENT. “Weep and howl”—weep, and do it in this open, violent
manner, with loud, bitter cries of distress—do it wailing, shrieking, howling as was, and
still is, so customary among the Orientals in times of mourning. Lament thus “for,” or
over, “the miseries that shall come upon you”—more exactly and impressively, “which
are coming on,” are already even now impending. These miseries were not simply those
which in all circumstances the love and abuse of money entail, but specially, and in
addition to them, the temporal judgments which were about to visit the guilty parties in
this instance. They were to be the peculiar objects of vengeance; their treasures were to
be rifled, their possessions wrenched from them, and stripped bare, they were to be
subjected to hardships, all the heavier because of the pleasures once enjoyed and the
losses thus sustained.
II. THE COMMENCEMENT OF JUDGMENT. “Your riches are corrupted” either their
possessions of all kinds, these being afterwards spoken of in detail, or, as distinguished
from what follows, those hoarded stores of grain, fruits, and other provisions, in which
the wealth of Orientals largely consisted. To the latter the term “corrupted” could most
properly be applied. They were rotting, perishing. “Your garments are moth-eaten.” In
eastern countries one of the most valuable possessions was a stock of costly clothing, a
number of dresses, wardrobes filled with a great variety of articles of apparel. They were
moth-eaten—a way in which articles of dress, when long kept and little used, are often
wasted, destroyed. “Your gold and silver is cankered”—rusted, corroded. The original
word implies that it is so not partially, but entirely—as it were through and through its
whole substance. This does not take place in regard to silver and gold as it does to iron
and steel; but they are spoken of as undergoing the change to which metals generally are
subject; and there is that which corresponds to it n their case, for they get discoloured,
blackened, tarnished, wasted, corrupted-looking. “And the rust of them shall be a
witness against you”—literally, “shall be for a testimony to you”—“and shall eat your
flesh asit were fire.” In the moth-eaten garments, the cankered silver and gold, their sin
no doubt appeared, but appeared in the judgments which had followed it, for in that
process of destruction which had commenced there was the avenging hand of God
visible. This is the prominent thing—the punishment already begun. The very objects on
which they prided themselves, which they made an idol of, were smitten; and n every
hole of the cloth, every spot on the money, there was a sign of the consumption that was

12. coming on themselves, of the destruction that was impending over them, the servants of
the mammon of unrighteousness. There was a testimony in their wasted, blackened
stores—a testimony borne to the worm that dieth not, and the fire that cannot be
quenched. “Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.” Treasure has been
understood here in the figurative sense of a store of wrath, vengeance to be opened and
emptied at the time mentioned. But it is obviously to be taken literally, and as referring
to their material riches as detailed in the preceding verses. The “last days” are those
introducing and issuing in the season of judgment which was approaching—the last days
of the Jewish Church and nation, and, in many cases of the individual persons
themselves; for what multitudes were then to perish by the sword, by famine, by disease,
by captivity? They had gathered wealth for a season like this, when they could not enjoy
it, could not retain it—when it was to become the prey of the rapacious invaders, or of
the more needy and desperate of their own countrymen. But the literal translation of the
original is “in the last days”—they had heaped treasure together, not for, but in the
period thusdesignated. These days were already upon them—the days were begun, and
hastening to their terrible close; and it was at a season like that, one fitter far for
repentance and reformation, one calling them to break off their sins by righteousness, to
prepare for impending judgment by turning to the Lord—one specially imposing on
them the obligation to lay up treasure, not on earth but in heaven, where no moth or rust
can corrupt, and where no thieves can break through and steal—it was then that they
devoted their efforts to the gathering of riches, the storing of fruits, garments, and the
precious metals. Here was the deepest guilt, here the most reckless, unprincipled
infatuation.
III. THE CAUSES OF JUDGMENT.
1. Injustice. The wages of the workman should be paid honestly and punctually. To
withhold it is a flagrant wrong, and such a wrong was committed by the rich men
whose conduct the apostle is here denouncing. They kept it back “by fraud.” And in
various ways may such fraud be perpetrated. The master may not pay at all the
stipulated and earned wages. He may receive the service without remunerating the
servant. Or he may make unjust deductions from the amount which has been agreed
on. He may take advantage of his position and power, and on certain pretexts give
less than was bargained for by the other party. And what is still more common, he
may beat down the price of labour, and pay for it most inadequately. He may turn to
account the competition which prevails and the necessities of the poor, so as to get
work done for greatly less than its proper value. This hire, dishonestly retained, is
represented by James as crying. Yes, from the coffers where it was treasured up, a
loud, piercing call for vengeance rose to high heaven. Often, often, the oppressed are
not listened to on earth, however just their claim and urgent their pleading. But they
are heard in heaven. Here their cries are said to have “entered into the ears of the
Lord of Sabaoth.” He was able to vindicate the cause of the defrauded reapers who
groaned and supplicated. He could call to account, and overwhelm with destruction,
those who trampled on their dependents, and set all human law and right at
defiance.
2. Luxury. “Ye have lived in pleasure”—that is, in a self-indulgent, sumptuous,
effeminate manner. In the qualification, “on the earth,” there is an implied contrast
with another region, where vengeance was stored up, and their portion was to be one
of want and misery. “And been wanton.” This word conveys to us the idea of
lewdness, lustfulness; but what is intended here is luxuriousness, voluptuousness. It
does not necessarily involve indulgence in gross excesses, in coarse and degrading
impurities. It intimates that the persons were devoted to earthly enjoyments, and

13. regardless of expense in procuring them, for the term is expressive of extravagance,
wastefulness. “Ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.” They have
satiated, pampered their hearts, for there were seated the tastes and appetites which
they gratified; there the craving for, and the sense of satisfaction, repletion, as they
fed and dressed, fattened and adorned their bodies. And they had been doing this “as
in,” or simply, “in a day of slaughter.” They were on the brink of destruction. God
was about to draw His glittering sword and smite them in His anger. And yet in these
circumstances they disregarded all warnings and signs; they revelled and wantoned
as if they were perfectly secure. They were sunk in brutish insensibility. It was thus
with the antediluvians: for they did eat and drink, they were married and given in
marriage, until the flood came and took them all away.
3. Violence—violence going the length even of blood, of murder. Stephen was the
first of a band of early martyrs whom the Jews, in the malignant unbelief, had put to
death for their adherence to the gospel. The holiness, the righteousness of these
victims of fanatical fury, instead of saving them, had excited the rage and drawn
down the vengeance of their adversaries. “And he doth not resist you”—not only or
chiefly because of a want of power, but because of the meekness of his character, his
patience, endurance, long-suffering. He submits to your murderous violence. He
commits his cause to God, and allows you to do your utmost, striving to exhibit the
spirit of his crucified Master. And this made their guilt the greater. Their cruelty was
the less excusable. It had no provocation. (John Adam.)
Avaricious rich men
It is not to “rich men,” simply as such, that James addresses himself. There was no sin in
being rich. It is to the description of rich men whose characters he proceeds to portray,
that he speaks—unprincipled, selfish, ungodly, wicked rich men. “Weep and howl.” Tears
are the natural indication of grief: “howling,” or loud lamentation, of overwhelming
distress. They had reason for both in “the miseries that were coming upon them.” They
would be the chief objects of the plundering rapacity of the besieging foe; and, while the
sword would be upon them for their riches’ sake—even to those of them who fell not a
prey themselves, the very loss of all their accumulated stores, gathered with so much
pains and care, would itself be one of their miseries from which the poorer would be
exempt. True it is, however, with regard to all “rich men” of the same character, that
“miseries are coming upon them.” What, then, is the character? Verses 2, 3. The word
“riches” need not be confined to the precious metals alone: the” silver and the gold” are
separately mentioned. Eastern riches consisted frequently, not in these alone, but also in
stores of corn, and wine, and oil; and here, as in other places, “garments”—wardrobes of
various descriptions of clothing, are mentioned, as forming part of such wealth. “Your
riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten,” is a part of the charge brought
against them: the charge of avaricious selfishness—that, instead of giving away, they
kept all to themselves; allowing what might have been distributed for the benefit of
others, rather than part with it, to go to waste in their own stores; and allowing the
moths to consume what might have clothed and comforted the naked. Had they given
away as they ought to have done, their riches would not have been “corrupted.” That
their “riches were corrupted and their garments moth-eaten” was thus their crime rather
than their punishment—though as a part of their punishment—the effects of their selfish
hoarding—it might also be regarded. The “last days” are susceptible of
twointerpretations: of the time of Jerusalem’s destruction and the final overthrow of the
Jewish economy; or of the end of the world. I do not think it at all unlikely that the

14. apostle had both in his eye; on the same principle on which our Lord Himself appears to
pass from the former to the latter—from the nearer to the more distant—in His
remarkable address to His disciples in the twenty-fourth chapter of the Gospel by
Matthew. In the sack and pillage of Jerusalem, how vain would all the pains appear
which they had bestowed on the “heaping together of their treasures.” And in the great
day of final reckoning they should find that, in having amassed for self, instead of having
distributed for God and for fellow-men, they had only been “heaping up” evidence for
their own crimination at the bar of Divine judgment. How different the case with those
who, in the early days of the Christian Church, used their wealth as the inspired history
describes: when they” sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, as every
man had need; and distribution was made to all as need required.” They had acted in
conformity with the Lord’s own directions (Mt Luk_12:33). Of that treasure there would
“in the last days” be no loss, nor any bitter lamentation over it. No enemy could touch it.
And in “the day of the Lord”—the day of final account—it would tell in their favour as the
evidence of the genuineness of their faith and love. The wealth of those addressed by
James was not only selfishly hoarded, it was obtained by criminal oppression and cruelty
(verse 4). This “keeping back by fraud”—under false and unworthy pretexts—of the
reapers’ wages, to which they were rightfully entitled, was a fearful violation to explicit
Divine precepts (see Lev_19:13; Deu_24:14-15). And it “cried”—cried against the
unrighteous oppressor; cried to God; cried for just retribution; cried—in the same sense
in which God said to Cain—“The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the
ground.” And, as God heard the voice of the blood of a murdered brother, so did He hear
that of the “hire” of the defrauded labourers. Let Christians avoid even the remotest
approach to such oppression. They ought to be examples of righteousness and love as
the children of a just and merciful God. We have next, the manner in which they laid out
their riches. We have seen how they were made: we learn now how they were used (verse
5). The verse expresses the extreme of self-indulgence; the gratification of every sensual
desire. Like the infatuated king of Israel, “in the days of his vanity,” “whatsoever their
eyes desired they withheld not from them; they restrained not their hearts from any joy.”
The clause—“ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter,” is by many
understood to mean their pampering themselves as in a day of killing for social festivity.
But the meaning seems rather to be that they were pampering themselves as beasts were
fed and fattened for a day of slaughter. They were preparing themselves for the knife.
While thus “feeding themselves without fear,” they were “only fitting themselves for final
destruction.” Their “joy would be turned to sorrow; their mirth to heaviness.” And, in
addition to all this, while at the same time in full consistency with it, they were
persecutors. “Ye have condemned and killed the just” (verse 6). This by some interpreted
as having reference to Christ Himself: “the just” being in the singular number—“the just”
or “the just one.” And without doubt this is one of His distinguishing designations. But,
on the other hand, “He doth not resist you” is in the present time; and agrees better,
consequently, with a charge of present persecution unto death, than with one relating to
a deed so long past. This, therefore, favours the interpretation which makes it refer to
the persecution of Christ’s followers, who resembled Him in character; of which we have
so beautiful an exemplification in the case of the first martyr, Stephen. That there were
persecutors still troubling the Church is evident from the admonitions to patience under
such troubles, which immediately follow (verses 7, 8). Let us conclude with one or two
reflections.
1. Surely the poorest Christian has no reason to envy the wealthy but wicked man of
the world; no, even though he were to suffer, and suffer unto death, at his hands. The
poorest Christian is “rich in faith, and an heir of the kingdom which God hath

15. provided for them that love Him.” He has God Himself for his portion—a portion
infinite in preciousness and fulness of blessing, and unfailing and everlasting in
duration. Let him cherish “godliness with contentment,” and he is a happy man—
happy in enjoyment, and happier in hope.
2. There may be rich men whose wealth has been acquired by honest means—who
have been chargeable with no extortion; and who, in the use oftheir wealth, have not
at all rioted in sensuality and libertinism, or abused the superiority which it
imparted in evil-entreating and persecuting the godly. Let not such, on this account,
sit at ease and flatter themselves with safety. Your riches may be a snare to you,
notwithstanding. You may trust in your wealth. It may take away your heart.
3. Let Christians, whom Providence, in whatever measure, has favoured with this
world’s wealth, remember the true use of riches. Bear in mind that in bestowing
wealth upon you the universal Proprietor alienates nothing from Himself. Of the gold
and the silver which He puts into your coffers He continues to say, just as He does of
all yet in the bowels of the earth—“The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine.” And His
command is, “Honour the Lord with thy substance, and”—not with the paltry
remnants after all thine own selfish cravings have been fully satiated, but—“with the
first-fruits of all thine increase.” (R. Wardlaw, D. D.)
The curse of wealth
A full purse, with a lean soul, is a great curse. (Bunyan.)
The gold poison
Gold is the worst poison to men’s souls. (Shakespeare.)
God help the rich
God help the rich, the poor can help themselves.
Gold bought too dearly
Men may buy gold too dear.
Wealth disappointing
Very few men acquire wealth in such a manner as to receive pleasure from it. Just as
long as there is the enthusiasm of the chase they enjoy it; but when they begin to look
around, and think of settling down, they find that that part by which joy enters is dead in
them. They have spent their lives in heaping up colossal piles of treasure, which stand at
the end like the pyramids in the desert sands holding only the dust of kings. (H. W.
Beecher.)
Too much and too little
He that hath too little wants feathers to fly withal; he that hath too much is cumbered
with too large a tail. (Owen Feltham.)

16. The wounds of evil wealth
It were no bad comparison to liken mere rich men to camels and mules; for they often
pursue their devious way over hills and mountains, laden with India purple, with gems,
aromas, and generous wines upon their backs, attended, too, by a long line of servants as
a safeguard on their way. Soon, however, they come to their evening halting-place, and
forthwith their precious burdens are taken from their backs; and they, now wearied and
stripped of their lading and their retinue of slaves, show nothing but livid marks of
stripes. So, also, those who glitter in gold and purple raiment, when the evening of life
comes rushing on them, have nought to show but marks and wounds of sin impressed
upon them by the evil use of riches. (St. Augustine.)
Excessive wealth ruinous
Gotthold saw a bee flutter for a while around a pot of honey, and at last light upon it,
intending to feast to its heart’s content. It, however, fell in, and, being besmeared in
every limb, miserably perished. On this he mused, and said, “It is the same with
temporal prosperity, and that abundance of wealth, honour, and pleasure, which are
sought for by the world as greedily as honey is by the bee. A bee is a happy creature so
long as it is assiduously occupied in gathering honey from the flowers, and by slow
degrees accumulating a store of it. When, however, it meets with hoard like this, it
knows not what to do, and is betrayed into ruin.” (New Cyclo. of Illustrations.)
Unsatisfactory riches
Worldly riches are like nuts: many clothes are torn in getting them, many a tooth broke
in cracking them; but never a belly filled with eating them. (J. Venning.)
Wealth too dearly bought
A ship bearing a hundred emigrants has been driven from her course, and wrecked on a
desert island far from the tracks of man. There is no way of escape; but there are means
of subsistence. An ocean, unvisited by ordinary voyagers, circles round their prison; but
they have seed, with a rich soil to receive, and a genial climate to ripen it. Ere any plan
has been laid, or any operations begun, an exploring-party returns to headquarters,
reporting the discovery of a gold mine. Thither instantly the whole party resort to dig.
They labour successfully day by day and month after month. They acquire and
accumulate large heaps of gold. But spring is past, and not a field has been cleared, nor a
grain of seed committed to the ground. The summer comes, and their wealth increases;
but the store of food is small. In harvest they begin to discover that their heaps of gold
are worthless. When famine star, s them in the face a suspicion shoots across their
fainting hearts that the gold has cheated them. They rush to the woods, fell the trees, dig
the roots, till the ground, sow the seed. It is too late! Winter has come; and their seed
rots in the ground. They die of want in the midst of their treasures. This earth is the little
isle, eternity the ocean round it; on this shore we have been cast. There is a living seed,
but gold mines attract us. We spend spring and summer there; winter overtakes us

17. toiling there, destitute of the bread of life, forgetting that we ought to “seek first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto us.” (W.
Armlet, D.D.)
Wealth seasoned by alms
The pious Jews believed that as salt seasoned food so did alms riches, and that he who
did not give alms of what he had his riches should be dispersed. The moth would corrupt
the bags, and the canker corrode the money, unless the mass was sanctified by giving a
part to the poor.
Ruined by riches
Do not be over-anxious about riches. Get as much of true wisdom and goodness as you
can; but be satisfied with a moderate portion of this world’s good. Riches may prove a
curse as well as a blessing. I was walking through an orchard, looking about me, when I
saw a low tree laden more heavily with fruit than the rest. On a nearer examination it
appeared that the tree had been dragged to the very earth and broken by the weight of its
treasures. “Oh!” said I, gazing on the tree, “here lies one who has been ruined by his
riches.” In another part of my walk I came up with a shepherd who was lamenting the
loss of a sheep that lay mangled and dead at his feet. On inquiry about the matter he told
me that a strange dog had attacked the flock, that the rest of the sheep had got away
through a hole in the hedge, but that the ram now dead had more wool on his back than
the rest, and the thorns of the hedge held him fast till the dog had worried him. “Here is
another,” said I, “ruined by his riches.” At the close of my ramble I met a man hobbling
along on two wooden legs, leaning on two sticks. “Tell me,” said I, “my poor fellow, how
you came to lose your legs?” “Why, sir,” said he, “in my younger days I was a soldier.
With a few comrades I attacked a party of the enemy and overcame them, and we began
to load ourselves with spoil. My comrades were satisfied with little, but I burdened
myself with as much as I could carry. We were pursued; my companions escaped, but I
was overtaken and so cruelly wounded that I only saved my life afterwards by losing my
legs. It was a bad affair, sir; but it is too late to repent of it now.” “Ah, friend,” thought I,
“like the fruit tree, and the mangled sheep, you may date your downfall to your
possessions. It was your riches that ruined you.” When I see so many rich people as I do,
caring so much for their bodies and so little for their souls, I pity them from the bottom
of my heart, and sometimes think there are as many ruined by riches as by poverty. (Old
Humphrey.)
Riches eating the flesh
Some strong poison is made of the rust of metals; none worse than that of money. (J.
Trapp.)
Money an opportunity
Money, both inherited and accumulated, is a great talent or opportunity. Nothing
astonishes me more than the fact that so many rich men utterly fail to realise what an
opportunity wealth gives them. They go on heaping up useless wealth with which to
curse their children. As though the mere accumulation of money was, in itself, a great

18. gain! As though heaps of gold could protect them against all the ills to which flesh is
heir! I am very glad that one millionaire—Mr. Carnegie, of Pennsylvania—realises that
the best thing he can do with his money is to get rid of it, and that the worst thing
possible would be to pile it upon the hapless head of his children. There seems to be, in
some respects, even less public spirit among the wealthy men of our own time than
distinguished the heathen patricians of old Rome. They delighted to spend their wealth
in dignifying and adorning their great city. It is exceedingly strange to me that the
immensely wealthy citizens of London do not use their millions to purify and to beautify
this great capital. It is even more astonishing that those who profess and call themselves
Christians, toil on and slave on, adding money-bag to money-bag, instead of using this
mighty instrument to facilitate and encourage the evangelisation of mankind. Nearly
every Christian and humanitarian organisation is crippled for want of more adequate
resources. One of the greatest evils of the time is the miserliness of the wealthy. They are
preparing for their children an awful retribution. The bitter and almost implacable
hatred of the wealthy, which is the most dangerous social symptom of modern Europe, is
the direct result of the awful way in which the wealthy have neglected to use their wealth
for the public good. They are busily heaping up wealth, but they are also heaping up
wrath against the day of wrath. They seem to have forgotten that wealth is a talent, an
opportunity, a glorious opportunity, of serving God by serving men.
The troubles of the rich
Mr. Jay Gould, the American millionaire, thus confided his woes to a reporter: “I am
kept on the drive now from early in the morning till late at night, without any let up, day
in and day out. The money I’ve made has enslaved me. With financial success, cares, and
responsibilities, and trials outnumbered go close together; and there is no escaping the
embarrassments and troubles. A rich man ought to be judged pretty generously. He has
a good deal more to contend with than people who are not rich generally suppose. Food
and clothes and a place to sleep, that’s all a man gets in this world, and I don’t care how
rich he is. The boy on the farm, the man who isn’t driven to death to look after property
that is in his name, they are the happiest—or ought to be.”
Your riches are corrupted
Sordid sparing
1. Sordid sparing is a sure sign of a worldly heart. God gave us wealth, not that we
should be hoarders, but dispensers. Seneca calleth covetous men chests. We think
them men, and they are but coffers; who would envy a trunk well stored? Well, then,
beware of “withholding more than is meet” Pro_11:24), of a delight in hoarding; it is
a sure note that the world has too much of your heart.
2. Keeping things from public use till they be corrupted or spoiled is sordid sparing.
When you lay them not out upon God, or others, or yourself, you are justly culpable.
The inhabitants of Constantinople would afford no money to the Emperor
Constantinus Palaeologus when he begged from door to door for a supply for the
soldiers; but what was the issue? the barbarous enemy won the city and got all. The
like story there is of Musteatzem, the covetous caliph of Babylon, who was such an
idolater of his wealth and treasures that he would not dispend anything for the
necessary defence of his city, whereupon it was taken, and the caliph famished to
death, and his mouth, by Haalon, the Tartatian conqueror, filled with melted gold.
3. Covetousness bringeth God’s curse upon our estates. He sendeth corruption, and
the rust, and the moth. There is nothing gotten by tenacity, by greedy getting, or
close withholding. Not by greedy getting; when men will snatch an estate out of the

19. hands of Providence, no wonder if God snatch it away again; ill gains are equivalent
to losses (Mic_6:10). Not by undue withholding; it draweth man’s curse and God’s
too upon us Pro_11:26). God can easily corrupt that which we will not bestow, and
cause a worm to breed in manna. Certainly there is a “withholding that tendeth to
poverty” (Pro_11:24).
4. There is corruption and decay upon the face of all created glory, Riches corrupted,
garments moth-eaten, gold and silver cankered. It is madness to set up our rest in
perishing things, “Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not” (Pro_23:5)? It is
not only against grace, but reason; confidence should have a sure and stable ground.
Well, then, take Christ’s advice (Mat_6:19-20).
5. From the diversity of the terms—moth, corruption, canker, note that God hath
several ways wherewith to blast our carnal comforts. Sometimes by the moth,
sometimes by the thief, by rust or robbery; they may either rot, or be taken from us.
Well, then, let the greater awe be impressed upon your thoughts. (T. Manton.)
The folly of avarice
We have here three kinds of possessions indicated. First, stores of various kinds of
goods. These are “corrupted,” they have become rotten and worthless. Secondly, rich
garments, which in the East are often a very considerable portion of a wealthy man’s
possessions. They have been stored up so jealously and selfishly that insects have preyed
upon them and ruined them. And thirdly, precious metals. These have become tarnished
and rusted, through not having been put to any rational use. Everywhere their avarice
has been not only sin, but folly. It has failed of its sinful object. The unrighteous
hoarding has tended not to wealth, but to ruin. And thus the rust of their treasures
becomes “a testimony against them.” In the ruin of their property their own ruin is
portrayed; and just as corruption, and the moths, and the rust consume their goods, so
shall the fire of God’s judgment consume the owners and abusers of them. They have
reserved all this store for their selfish enjoyment, but God has reserved them for His
righteous anger. (A. Plummer, D. D.)
Wealth exposed to danger
Strolling along the banks of a pond, Gotthold observed a pike basking in the sun, and so
pleased with the sweet soothing rays as to forget itself and the danger to which it was
exposed. Thereupon a boy approached, and with a snare formed of a horsehair, and
fastened to the end of a rod, which he skilfully cast over his head, pulled it in an instant
out of the water. “Ah me!” said Gotthold with a deep sigh, “how evidently do I here
behold shadowed forth the danger of my poor soul! When the beams of temporal
prosperity play upon us to our heart’s content, so grateful are they to corrupt flesh and
blood, that, immersed in sordid pleasure, luxury, and security, we lose all sense of
spiritual damager, and all thought of eternity. In this state, many are, in fact, suddenly
snatched away to the eternal ruin of their souls.”
Wealth destructive
When Crates threw his gold into the sea, he cried out, Ego perdam te, ne tu perdas me.
That is, “I will destroy you, lest you should destroy me.” Thus, if the world be not put to
death here, it will put us to death hereafter. (T. Secker.)

20. Your garments are motheaten
Moth-eaten garments
In early days, besides silver and gold, which always and everywhere have been
considered wealth, garments were stored up, and were regarded as an evidence of riches.
Against these things time has a grudge. They wear out if you use them, and waste more if
you do not. If you store them away, mildew and damp searches for them to rot them. If
you too incautiously expose them to the cleansing air, you give knowledge of your
treasure, excite cupidity, anti draw the thief to your dwelling. And while men covet, and
the elements enviously consume your garments and your fabrics, there are insects
created, it would seem, expressly to feed upon them. First is the moth miller. It is most
fair, silent, harmless. And yet every housewife springs after it with electric haste. It is a
dreaded pest—not for what it is, but for what it becomes. It is the mother of moths. And
there are ten thousand moral moths just like them—soft, satiny, silent, harmless in
themselves; but they lay eggs, and the eggs are not as harmless as the insects. There are
sins that have teeth, and there are sins that have children with teeth. Could there, then,
have been selected a figure more striking in its analogies than this? Could anything more
clearly show to us the power of the sins of neglect? of the sins of indolence and of
carelessness? of sins of a soft and gentle presence, that in themselves are not very
harmful, but that are the breeders of others that are? of the silent mischiefs of the
unused faculties or rooms of the soul, that are not ventilated, nor searched with the
broom and the brush? men do well to watch and fight against obvious and sounding
sins. They are numerous. They are armed and are desperate. They swarm the ways of
life. Not one vice, not one temptation of which the Word of God warns us, is to be lightly
esteemed. But these are not our only dangers. Tens of thousands of men perish, not by
the lion-like stroke of temptation, but by the insidious bite of the hidden serpent; not
with roar and strength, but with subtle poison. More men are moth-eaten than lion
eaten in this life; and it behoves us in time to give heed to these dangers of invisible and
insidious little enemies. The real strength of man is in his character. Now character is
not a massive unit; it is a fabric, rather. It is an artificial whole made up by the interply
of ten thousand threads. Every faculty is a spinner, spinning every day its threads, and
almost every day threads of a different colour. Myriads and myriads of webbed products
proceed from the many active faculties of the human soul, and character is made up by
the weaving together of all these innumerable threads of daily life. Its strength is not
merely in the strength of some simple unit, but in the strength of numerous elements.
There are crimes that, like frost on flowers, in one single night accomplish their work of
destruction. There are vices that, like freshets, sweep everything before them. Men may
be destroyed in character and reputation, utterly and sudden. But there are other
instruments of destruction besides these. We do well to mark them, and to watch against
them; but we also do well to remember that a man may be preserved from crimes and
from great vices, and yet have his character moth-eaten. Watch against little sins and
little faults. First, aside from great vices and crimes, there are the moths of indolence.
Indolence may be supposed to be morally wrong; but it is thought to be wrong rather in
a negative way than otherwise. No, no! The mischief of water is not that it does not run,
but that, not running, it corrupts, and corrupting breeds poisonous miasma, so that they
who live in the neighbourhood inhale disease at every breath. The mischief of indolence
is, not that it neglects the use of powers and the improvement of the opportunities of life,
but that it breeds morbid conditions in every part of the soul. There is health in activity,
but there is disease in indolence. There are moths also in things unsuspected. All men

21. agree that a glutton and a drunkard are opprobrious and ignominous. But there are
excesses from over-eating on this side of gluttony, and excesses from over-drinking this
side of drunkenness. There are moths of appetite. There are many men who eat beyond
the necessities of nature. They obscure their minds. There are many who, by taking too
much food, twice or thrice a day repeated, keep all their feelings upon an edge, so that
they are quick and irritable, or stupid and slow. There are many who, by mere over-
eating, take from sleep its refreshment, and from their waking hours their peace, by the
gnawing of the worm of appetite. This is a little thing. Your physician does not say much
about it. Your parents hardly ever speak of it. It is a thing for every man to consider for
himself. But it is a serious fact that two-thirds of the men who live a sedentary life impair
their strength by the simple act of injudicious feeding—over-eating. And that which is
true of food is still more true of stimuli: not alone of spirituous liquors, with regard to
which you are warned abundantly, but also of domestic stimuli. I do not mean to be
understood as saying that every man who employs tobacco is moth-eaten; that every
man who indulges himself moderately in the use of tea and coffee is injured thereby. I do
not mean to go so far as to say that every man who uses unfrequently and in small
quantities, wines and liquors, is himself physically injured by them. But I do mean to
say, comprehensively—and you know it is true—that in this sphere lie a multitude of
mischiefs and of temptations, each of which is minute, but the sum of which is
exceedingly dangerous. The carriage of our affections also develops a class of tendencies
which are fitly included in this subject. There are many men who never give way to wrath
on a great and sounding scale. It is wholesome to be mad thoroughly. It does a man good
to subsoil him by stirring him up down to the bottom. I would that men were fretful less
and angry more. For it is these little petty moths of perpetual fretfulness, moroseness,
sourness; these little fribbles of temper that cut the thread of life—it is these that destroy
men, inside and out. We read about some of the passions of which we see traces, but of
the nature, and progress, and power of which we scarcely ever form an adequate
conviction, either in others or in ourselves. Some of them are such as these: greediness,
envy, jealousy. Youth is seldom afflicted with them. They are latent. They lie concealed.
There is a sphere in men’s lives into which they are accustomed to sweep a whole
multitude of petty faults without judging them, without condemning them, and without
attempting to correct them. There is a realm of moral moths for almost all of us. We all
hold ourselves accountable for major morals, but there is a realm of minor morals where
we scarcely suppose ethics to enter. There are thousands and thousands of little
untruths, that hum and buzz and sting in society, which are too small to be brushed or
driven away. They are in the looks; they are in the inflections and tones of the voice; they
are in the actions; they are in reflections rather than in direct images that are presented.
They are methods of producing impressions that are false, though every means by which
they are produced is strictly true. There are little unfairnesses between man and man,
and companion and companion, that are said to be minor matters, and that are small
things; there are little unjust judgments and detractions; there are slight indulgences of
the appetites; there are petty violations of conscience; there are ten thousand of these
plays of the passions in men, which are called foibles or weaknesses, but which eat like
moths. They take away the temper, they take away magnanimity and generosity, they
take from the soul its enamel and its polish. Men palliate and excuse them, but that has
nothing to do with their natural effect upon us. They waste and destroy us, and that, too,
in the soul’s silent and hidden parts. (H. W. Beecher.)
The hire of the labourers

22. Various ways of oppressing the poor
1. When through greatness you challenge their labours without reward, as the gentry
use the peasants of many countries, “Woe be to him that useth his neighbour without
wages” (Jer_22:13), meaning Jehoiakim, who, in his pompous buildings used his
subjects’ labour without hire.
2. When you give them not a proportionate hire, working upon their necessities, for
then a great part of their labour is without reward; and it is flat covetousness to
“exact all your labours” (Isa_58:3), when your reward is scanty and short.
3. When by cunning ye defraud them of their reward, either through bad payment or
crafty cavils. The Lord saith, “I will be a swift witness against those that oppress the
hireling in his wages” (Mal_3:5). So it is in the text, “by fraud kept back.” God
knoweth what is oppression, though veiled under crafty pretences.
4. When you diminish or change their wages, as it is said of Laban that he changed
Jacob’s wages ten times (Gen_31:41).
5. When you delay payment. God commanded the Jews to do it before sunset (see
Deu_24:14-15; Lev_19:30). It is a maxim of the law that not to pay it at the time is to
pay the less, because of the advantage of improvement; and in the text it is said,
“kept back by fraud,” though not wholly taken away, yet “kept back” entitled them to
sin. The Lord, you know, rewardeth His servants ere they have done their work; we
have much of our wages aforehand, &c. (T. Manton.)
Profane rich men
What shall we say then? Is it not lawful at all to resist injuries, but shall we suffer
ourselves to be spoiled, robbed, injured, smitten, and murdered without resisting? by
not withstanding them shall we animate them, encourage them to further mischief?
Hereunto I answer, though it be commanded us that we shall not resist, and commended
in the righteous men that they did not resist their oppressions, yet it followeth not that
the righteous may not at all resist. For, touching the commandment of Christ and His
apostle, it is apparent that they spake of impatient resisting, and of such resisting as was
joined with greedy desire of private revenge, in which manner the saints of God are
everywhere forbidden to resist. In other respects it is not unlawful to resist, but either by
avoiding their oppressions; either by telling the wicked of their injuries or, finally, by
repelling force by force; when we cannot have the lawful aid of magistrates it is lawful to
resist the wicked when they oppress us, which doctrine may be warranted out of the
infallible word of truth. Our Saviour Christ commanded His disciples to fly from city to
city when they were persecuted, and so by avoiding injuries to make resistance, as it
were, to their persecutors. And when Himself was in danger of stoning He conveyed
Himself from them, and did not suffer the Jews to wreak their wrath upon Him. Neither
by avoiding and shunning their injuries is it lawful only to resist the wicked, but also by
telling them of the wicked oppressions and extreme cruelty which they show towards
their brethren, though in the meantime our bodies be subject to their tyrannous outrage
and fury (Joh_18:22-23). The first sin and evil condemned in thesewicked rich men
against whom St. James dealeth is their fraudulent detaining of their hirelings’ wages,
whereof he giveth special example in their harvest labourers. Yet for so needful, so
painful and profitable a work they were unrewarded and their wages detained by fraud
from them, no doubt an extreme point of evil dealing. The greatness of their sin the
apostle amplifieth in most effectual manner, “Behold,” saith he, “the hire of the

23. labourers which have reaped your fields, which is by you kept back by fraud crieth, and
the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts.” First,
saith he, “Behold “of which speech there are divers uses. Sometimes it is used far a
greater evidence and certainty of a thing. St. Jude, citing the words of Enoch for a great
evidence of the Lord’s coming to judge the world, useth this phrase of speech: “Behold
the Lord cometh with thousands of His saints, to give judgment against all men,” &c. In
like manner, in this place, to assure them that their wickedness was certainly gone up
into the cares of the Lord the apostle breaketh out in this manner: “Behold the hire of
the labourers,” &c. Sometimes it is used in strange and wonderful things, which rarely
are heard or seen, as Isaiah entreating of the extraordinary, rare, and wonderful manner
of Christ’s conception, in this wise expresseth it: “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear
a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel.” Our apostle, either to assure them of
their punishment, or as wondering at the hard dealing of the wicked, may not amiss in
this sense be thought to use it: “Behold the hire of your labourers,” &c., as a thing to be
wondered at, that you would be so hard hearted as to defraud their labourers of their
hire, the apostle breaketh out and saith, “Behold the hire of your labourers,” etc.
2. The hire of those labourers which reaped their fields was detained. This amplifieth
their wickedness. To detain the wages of any labourer who by the toil and moil of his
body, and in the sweat of his face, eateth his bread cannot be but a great sin; but to
deny them their wages, by whom our fields are reaped, our corn and grain gathered
into our garners, is no doubt a grievous sin before God.
3. The wages of their hired servants was by fraud kept back. To detain the wages of
the hireling and servant, which for his living worketh with men, is an evil and sin by
the law and Word of God forbidden (Lev_19:13). To withhold the daily relief of a
man from him, what is it, but as much as lieth in us, to take his life from him; for we
keep back the thing whereby he liveth, and this is murder before the Lord.
And this sin of fraudulent detaining the wages of the hired servants is divers ways
committed.
1. When the hireling’s wages are stopped altogether under some colourable pretence
and intended matter, not right, not true, not just, but deceitful.
2. Moreover, this cruelty is done, and sin committed, when the wages are deceitfully
deferred longer than the poor can well spare it.
3. Men become guilty hereof also when, through fraud, they misreckon the poor
hireling being simple, or ally ways diminish of the wages of the labourer.
4. Finally, by changing the wages of the servant and workman to their hurt and
damage.
5. To conclude, this sin is mightily amplified in that the cry thereof is said to ascend
and come to the cars of the Lord of hosts. Here God is called the Lord of hosts, which
attribute is oftentimes given unto Him because He hath all His creatures always
ready as an innumerable and infinite host to fight at His pleasure against the wicked
for the maintenance of His glory and defence of His servants. They shall be glad to do
His commandment, and when need is they shall be ready upon earth, and when their
hour is come they shall not overpass the commandment. St. James, therefore, partly
for the terror of the wicked, who in due time shall feel the weight of His revenging
hand, and partly for the comfort of His afflicted servants whose wages wicked men
hold back by fraud, calleth Almighty God the Lord of hosts, as having a power always
prepared, and an army evermore in readiness, to fight against His enemies and to

24. defend His saints. Now, if the cries of their detained wages which work in our bodily
and earthly harvest be entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts, how much more
fearful judgment shall be pronounced against them—under how wretched condition
are they who, by fraud or by force, keep back the wages of them that labour in the
heavenly and spiritual harvest of the Lord? who sow the furrows of your hearts with
the Divine seed of the Word of truth, and should reap the increase of their labours
with great joyfulness. The first evil then in this place condemned is their fraudulent
detaining of their labourers’ wages, the cry whereof entered into the ears of the Lord
of hosts. This second evil and sin for which the apostle threateneth their destruction
to the wicked is their sensuality and carnal life, which consisteth briefly in three
thing.
1. Pleasure.
2. Wantonness.
3. Riotousness and excessive banqueting.
1. Pleasure here signifieth the deliciousness of men in this life, whereunto they give
themselves that they, faring deliciously every day, may spend their time and life in
pleasure like Epicures, by the which they are not only condemned as injurious unto
others, but also are accused as misspending that which they detain from their
workmen upon their own pleasures and delights.
2. Their sensuality also showeth itself in the wantonness of their lives, whereby
carnal uncleanness is understood (Rom_13:13). Thereunto also most rich men are
given. For riches minister matter of living deliciously; delicious living pricketh
forward to fleshliness and bodily uncleanness. St. Cyril saith: “In those which flow in
prosperity, honour, and all worldly wealth, there is a sting of desire of deliciousness
more vehement, and the mind moved with concupiscence is (as it were)carried away
with the whole bridle, none staying it.”
3. Of their sensuality the last and third branch is that they nourished their hearts as
in the day of slaughter. Whereby their continual study to banquet and make merry is
noted that their whole life might be, as it were, a continual day of feasting, by which
they grew as fat as pork or brawn for Satan the devil to feed on in the day of
judgment. The Hebrews call the days of feasting the days of slaughter, because at
great feasts there is great killing, great slaughter. Calves from the stall, sheep from
the fold, oxen from the pasture, kids from the goats, lambs from the ewes, deer from
the forest, buck from the chase, fish from the sea, fowl from the fen, birds from the
air, capons from the coop, pheasant from the wood, partridge from the covey, rabbit
from the warren, and infinite the like are then slam to be devoured. The third sin and
evil for which these men are subject to this judgment is their cruelty, which in these
two things appeareth.
1. That they condemn the righteous men.
2. That they condemn them not only, but slay them when they make no resistance.
1. The wicked men of this world condemn the righteous at their pleasures, they give
what sentence they lust against the just and godly men, they judge the innocent at
their wills, if in all things they do not please them, which is great cruelty and a thing
abominable before God (Pro_17:15).
2. Neither do these only wrongfully judge and condemn the righteous, but also they
slay him, and he resisteth them not, this is fierceness and intolerable cruelty. Now,

25. the righteous are slain divers ways.
(1) In heart by hatred, “He that hateth his brother in his heart is a murderer,”
saith St. John.
(2) In tongue by slander, therefore Christ containeth it under the nature of
murder, making it subject to like judgment
(3) By denying help in their misery wherein we suffer them to perish without
succour.
(4) When by fraud or force, when by greedy courteousness or cruel extortion,
whereby our hands are imbued by the blood of our brethren we take or hold from
them, that which is their own; whereby, as much as in us lieth, we murder them.
(5) When, finally, we bereave men of their lives, which all agree with this place of
St. James, and are found in the rich wicked men of this world. For—
1. They hate the godly poor men in their hearts.
2. They slander them with their tongues.
3. They withdraw their helping hands from them.
4. They detain their right from them.
5. And, to conclude, they cause their lives oftentimes to be taken from them, who,
albeit themselves by themselves, do not always these things; yet by their means and
power these are done, therefore are they said to do it.
Finally, there are times and seasons when by repelling force by force it is lawful to resist.
When Christians are so narrowly bestead and so straightly beset with their enemies, as
that they cannot have the aid of civil powers and lawful magistrates of the
commonwealth, but must either resist by force, or be in danger of the loss of their lives
and goods without all recovery or recompense; in such a case to resist I hold it lawful
altogether. So that it be done in a moderate defence of ourselves, without private malice
or desire of shedding of blood. (R. Turnbull.)
Sins of the wealthy
The three most important things about a man’s wealth are these: How it was obtained;
how it was enjoyed; how it is used. Lucre is not filthy itself; but if obtained by unjust
means it becomes filthy lucre; or if it be enjoyed selfishly, lavishly, and carnally, it
becomes filthy lucre; or if employed to carry out crafty and wicked designs by corrupting
men to become instruments for evil in the hands of its owner, it is filthy lucre. It is to
men who have so obtained and employed wealth that James calls out in tones of
tremendous warning. In the midst of the shouts of their revelry he calls them to weep, in
words spoken in tones of the old prophets (see Isa_13:1-22.). It is a call to arouse them
from their self-contentment and self—sufficiency; dispositions frequently caused by
great riches. He prophesies that miseries are coming upon them. He seems to hear the
footfall of the approaching days of misery—misery that could not be warded off by all the
wealth which they had gathered around them. In the picturesque phrases which follow,
James alludes to the various kinds of wealth in his day. If a man acquired wealth beyond
his own house and garden, what was he to do with it? There were three classes of things
in which he ordinarily invested it—grain, clothes, and gold and silver coin. The first
might be used in several ways. It might be stored for a rise in breadstuffs, something like

26. our modern “corners in grain”; or it might be transported and sold; or it might be kept
stored in vaults for the owner’s use if there should come at any time a famine or a war.
With such wealth one might say (Luk_12:19), When the calamities came, the grain,
which had been kept up at a high price, thus increasing the suffering of the poor, had
become rotten in the bins. Another form of accumulation was in the shape of costly
raiment, and even of plainer garments in greater quantities. In our day this kind of
accumulation is almost unknown, because the fashions are so constantly varying. Not so
then. As the prizes taken in ancient wars, we often hear of fine garments as amongst the
treasures. In regard to that species of wealth James said: “Your garments have become
moth-eaten”; and so he said of coin: “Your gold and silver are rusted.” Long kept out of
circulation, and thus increasing the embarrassment of society, they had become spotted
in the secret and safe places where they bad been concealed. The words of James must
have brought back to his readers the exhortation of Christ (Mat_6:19-20). He
announced to them that the rust of their money should rise up against them and
condemn them, and come down upon them and punish them, that is, should eat into
them, with an agony that should be like the burning of one’s flesh; for their avarice,
which had led them to such great injustice, which had warmed their hearts and burned
out their neighbours, should be in them like the flaming fire. Here, again, we have the
old prophetic thunder (Psa_21:9; Isa_10:16; Jer_5:14; Eze_15:7; Eze_28:18). To the
Jews who lived when James wrote, this soon came to be literally true; for their substance
and their flesh were destroyed when the city and the temple were burned. Josephus tells
us that the flames consumed their dead bodies and their substance and their wardrobes.
Whatever was spared from the flames fell into the hands of the Romans; and so it came
to pass that the treasures which had been heaped up to produce for thrum a long season
of quiet and comfort were all swept away; for they had planted their seed in a garden
that lay over the heart of a volcano which was soon to burst. Their doing was aggravated
by the injustice they bad used in the accumulation of their hoarded property. They had
violated the law of justice and, as well, the law of benevolence, and had broken the
precept of Moses (Lev_19:13; Lev_24:14-15). Perhaps there is no portion of the
denunciation which could be brought home to the modern Christian community more
decisively than this. The crying sin against the rich in every large city is the sin of
keeping back the hire which belongs to the labourers. In addition to covetousness and
oppression, James presents to the conscience the sin of voluptuousness. Supposing a
certain amount of enjoyment to be possible to any one man in his lifetime, it is plain that
the excesses of one day make drafts upon another day; it may be, upon all days. If he
have a thousand days to live, and ten thousand dollars be put at his command, it is plain
that he will have the purchasing power of ten dollars for every day in his life. But if he
spend fifty dollars a day in the first hundred days, it is quite plain that he would have less
than six dollars a day during the remaining nine hundred. And if he spend a hundred
dollars a day for the first hundred days, the remaining nine hundred would be spent in
absolute penury. This is a rigid mathematical calculation, which does not do justice to
the case, for life is composed of so many factors, and each man has so many faculties and
connections that an impairment of a man is a wider injury than the removal of anything
which can be represented by numbers. To these destructive excesses great wealth tempts
any man, no matter what may be his moral qualities. The fourth sin with which James
charges the rich, the worldly, and the wanton Jews of his day, is the oppression of the
righteous, even to the taking of their lives. If the application of the verse be made either
to the good in general, or to the Lord Jesus in particular, there is something very striking
in the omission of the conjunction, “Ye have condemned, ye have killed, the Just,”
expresses the rapidity of the action and result of their maliciousness. They seemed so
afraid that after condemning a good man He should escape slaughter, that they hurried

27. up His death, although, as a lamb before the shearers is dumb, He opened not His
mouth. (C. F. Deems, D. D.)
The moral evils of wealth
I am obliged to regard with considerable distrust the influence of wealth upon
individuals. I know that it is a mere instrument, which may be converted to good or bad
ends. I know that it is often used for good ends; but I more than doubt whether the
chances lead that way. Independence and luxury are not likely to be good for any man.
Leisure and luxury are almost always bad for every man. I know that there are noble
exceptions. But I have seen so much of the evil effect of wealth upon the mind—making
it proud, haughty, and impatient; robbing it of its simplicity, modesty, and humility;
bereaving it of its large, and gentle, and considerate humanity; and I have heard such
astonishing testimonies, to the same effect, from those whose professional business is to
settle and adjust the affairs of estates—that I more and more distrust its boo, steal
advantages. I deny the validity of that boast. In truth, I am sick of the world’s admiration
of wealth. Almost all the noblest things that have been achieved in the world have been
achieved by poor men; poor scholars and professional men; poor artisans and artists;
poor philosophers, and poets, and men of genius. (Orville Dowry.)
Money
A philosopher has said, “Though a man without money is poor, a man with nothing but
money is still poorer.” Worldly gifts cannot bear up the spirits from fainting and sinking
when trials and troubles come, no more than headache can be cured by a golden crown,
or toothache by a chain of pearls. “Earthly riches are full of poverty.”
The ingenuousness of fraud
Some frauds succeed from the apparent candour, the open confidence, and the full blaze
of ingenuousness that is thrown around them. The slightest mystery would excite
suspicion and ruin all. Such stratagems may be compared to the stars: they are
discoverable by darkness, and hidden only by light. (C. Colton.)
The greedy disposition
The king vulture will not permit any other bird to begin its meal until his own hunger is
satisfied. The same habit may be seen in many other creatures, including some men, the
more powerful lording it over the weaker, and leaving them only the remains of the feast
instead of permitting them to partake of it on equal terms. If the king vulture should not
happen to be present when the dead animal has reached a state of decomposition, which
renders it palatable to vulterine tastes, the subject vultures would pay but little regard to
the privileges of their absent monarch, and would leave him but a slight prospect of
getting a meal on the remains of the feast. Thus the greedy disposition, whether in the
high or low, never concerns itself about the want of others. (Scientific Illustrations and
Symbols.)

28. Insatiable greed
The father-lasher, or lucky proach, is a big-headed, wide-mouthed, staring-eyed little
fish. Every atom of meat that you drop into the water within the range of his vision must
be his; you perhaps intended the morsel for the goby or the blenny, but proach sees it,
and proach must have it. They, indeed, may sail up towards the speck, but proach dashes
up, bristling with indignation at their temerity, and snaps the food from their very noses.
Not one of them can get a bit till preach is satiated, and I have often seen him lie with a
morsel projecting from his mouth for some time, absolutely incapable of swallowing
more, before he would relinquish the contest. (P. H. Gosse, in “Good Words.”)
The unscrupulous money-getter
The unscrupulous money-getter is not necessarily an able man. On the contrary, he often
appears dull and stupid. But he is rapacious, cruel, and cunning, and he owes his success
to these qualities. Notwithstanding the applause with which society greets his
performances, they have much the same inspiration as those of the glutton. The glutton
is thought but a dull animal, but his mode of catching deer shows much the same
proportion of intelligence as that which is exhibited by the money-getter, or by the Arctic
fox when he arranges cods’ heads as baits to catch crows. The glutton climbs into a tree
in the neighbourhood of a herd, carrying up with him a quantity of a kind of moss of
which the deer are fond, and when be sees any one of the herd approaching, he lets a
portion of the moss fall. If the deer stops to eat, the glutton instantly descends on its
back, and torments it by tearing out its eyes and other violence to such a degree that,
either to get rid of its enemy, or to put an end to its sufferings, it beats its head against
the trees till it falls down dead; for when the glutton has once fixed himself by his claws
and teeth, it is impossible to dislodge him. After killing the deer he divides the flesh into
convenient portions, and conceals them in the earth for future provision. In this he
shows himself to be as prudential as the money-getter, who at the end of a nefarious
financial success places his profits in various securities, and the balance in his bank for
future use. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)
Ye have lived in pleasure
Luxury
“A day of slaughter!” What “day of slaughter”? Who are slaughtered? The answer is in
the context. The poor are slaughtered. The labourers whose hire is kept back by fraud.
The luxury of the few is always obtained by the slaughter of the many. The few cannot
live delicately on the earth without directly or indirectly keeping back by fraud the hire
of the labourer. In a word, we ate all so tightly bound together in the bundle of life that
extravagant expenditure anywhere always involves starvation somewhere else.
Prodigality at one end of the scale must mean pauperism at the other end. What
pestiferous delusion is more widely accepted than the notion that the extravagant
expenditure of the rich is good for trade? How often have I heard people condemn the
Queen of England because she does not spend more time in London holding costly
leyden and drawing-rooms and concerts. Now, there is no doubt that if she wasted her
money as most monarchs do, she would bring a great deal of temporal prosperity to
some of our West-end tradesmen. But when we think of it, that temporary prosperity of
the comparative few would be a great loss to the nation as a whole. Let me take a

29. concrete example of this. The Queen holds a drawing-room. A young lady of high rank
and of great wealth is to be “presented.” For this purpose she procures a court dress,
which, with all its finery and lace and jewellery, is worth, say, £400. That sum of money
has been calculated by a great authority to be the equivalent of 50,000 hours of labour—
labour of the most tedious kind and fatal to the eyes. What is the advantage of
expenditure of that luxurious sort? This poor, vain child wears it once or twice, and then
the fruits of all that arduous toil is thrown away. Now, suppose the dressmakers and
others had spent those 50,000 hours in making cheap, warm, and beautiful dresses for
the half-clad and starving poor. Would they not have added a deal more to the sum of
human health and happiness? Let us take another example. Some time ago a friend of
mine was in the provinces, and was driving along the road near one of the great
provincial palaces which belong to the British nobility. He began to speak of the
aristocratic family who owned that estate. “Ah,” said the man who was driving him, “we
used to have a great deal of aristocratic company coming down here, and much money
was spent on dinner-parties and wines. There was plenty of amusement. But now that
the property has fallen into the hands of the heir, there is no more of that, and
everything is going to the bad.” Now, from this man’s narrow point of view it appeared a
dreadful matter that the old state of things was not continued. But look at the other side
of the picture. The owner of that estate had also a very large property, inhabited by the
poor, in one of the most miserable parts of London, full of public houses and hovels
where the people were living in abject misery. The estate had been neglected for
generations. Now, in the old time, when a handful of the rural tradesman were making
money out of the prodigality and extravagance of the owner of the property, this London
estate was utterly’ neglected, and thousands of the poor were suffering untold agonies.
But the present owner having a conscience and being a Christian, instead of using the
revenue for the purpose of diffusing a little trade among a handful of people in the
country, is living a quiet life in a very simple home, and is using all the resources of her
property to blot out the liquor-shops and the houses of infamy, and to build proper
dwellings for the poor, where for generations they have been occupying hovels. Although
a handful of people in a remote part of the provinces may suffer a certain amount of loss,
it is an untold gain to thousands of people and to the human race that the wealth of that
great property is no longer wasted in the old way. It is impossible to waste and save at
the same time. Luxury and economy are as diametrically opposed as darkness and light.
Luxury is any expenditure that is both costly and superfluous. I do not say a word about
any little superfluity that does not cost much and which may give as much pleasure as it
is worth. But when the superfluity is a very costly one, then it becomes a luxury, and
must be denounced by every Christian and by every lover of the human race. It is
astonishing what ingenious arguments have been used from time to time in defence of
luxury. It has been argued, for example, that luxury is necessary to keep machinery at
work. But, as Laveleye says, the object of machinery is to give us more leisure as well as
more products. It is quite clear that in the better times which are coming we must not
only give fair wages for every piece of work done, but we must also give men leisure to
spend with their families, and to cultivate the higher aims of life. But there is another
reply to this argument, and it is this. The money which is saved from luxury will give
much more employment to machinery in other and healthier directions than it now gives
in doubtful ways. It is very important in this particular discussion to remember that
money is not hoarded now. If a man happens to have a good deal of money he does not
bury it; that money is saved. When economy has saved money it is spent in employing
labour. That is always a great gain to the human race. This brings us to the point from
which we started, and is a fresh refutation of the delusion that luxury is good for trade. A
distinguished French economist tells a good anecdote about himself, and shows how he

30. discovered that prodigality was not an advantage to the human race; that it was an
absolute and total delusion; and that the human race has no deadlier enemy than the
spendthrift. On one occasion, when M. Say was a young man, he went to dine with his
uncle, who produced some exceeding beautiful wineglasses, which he subsequently
broke into pieces. He justified this extraordinary conduct by saying that every one must
get a living, and he thought that by destroying his wineglasses he was a benefactor of the
human race. That is a very simple illustration, but it precisely illustrates a widespread
delusion which exists in West London, that waste and extravagance and destruction are
beneficial and make trade. It was, of course, a matter of fact that if he broke six
wineglasses it was to the benefit of some one in the neighbourhood, for he sent a servant
the next day to buy some more. This incident set young Say thinking. “If my uncle is
really doing good, he had better proceed to smash all his crockery, and then to smash all
his furniture, and then all the glass in the windows of his house; for glaziers, painters,
and carpenters would be employed; and from this point of view his destructiveness
would be a great benefit.” When the argument is worked out, every one sees that there
must be some delusion in it. If waste is for the good of trade, those Communists who set
fire to many of the finest buildings in Paris were great benefactors. It has employed
thousands of masons and painters to replace those buildings. Yes, but when you reflect,
the answer is this: If none of this destruction had taken place, the money that has been
used by the French Government to restore the public monuments, schools, and
museums that were burnt would still be at their disposal, and might have been used to
pay for other monuments, schools, railways, and museums. They would have retained
their old property and had other property as well. Money is never well spent except, first,
when it satisfies real human wants, and secondly, when it makes permanent
improvements. (H. P. Hughes, M. A.)
Living in pleasure
1. A sin very natural to us. There were but two common parents of all mankind—
Adam the protoplast, and Noah the restorer, and both miscarried by appetite: the
one fell by eating, and the other by drinking. We had need be careful (Luk_21:34).
2. The sin is natural to all, but chiefly incident to the rich. There is, I confess, a
difference in tempers; wealth maketh some covetous, and others prodigal; but the
usual sin in the rich is luxury. Pride, idleness, and fulness of bread were the sins of
Sodom, and they are usually found in great men’s houses; they should be the more
wary.
3. Though delicate living be a sin incident to wealthy men, yet their abundance doth
not excuse it. God gave wealth for another purpose than to spend it in pleasures.
Intemperance is odious to God, be it in any whatsoever they be.
4. Luxury is living in pleasure. God alloweth us to use pleasures, but not to live in
them; to take delights, but not they should take us; to live always at the full is but a
wanton luxury. (T. Manton, D. D.)
Aggravations of luxury
St. James’ words here are of a highly tragical character, and therefore the sentences are
brief, abrupt, concise, and broken; the graphic metaphor reminds us of the style of the
outpourings of Hosea. The difficulty here, as in other examples of the same kind of

31. composition, is to catch the logical relation of the thoughts expressed, and trace out the
consecutiveness of the clauses. He had charged them with laying up riches “in the last
days.” There his purpose was to point out their folly with reference to the time in which
they were engaged in their ungodly gain. Now he proceeds to show where they were
doing this, in the land, the land of Israel, which was on the very point of being given over
to the avenger. In the former chapter the visiting of the city by the rich for the purposes
of gain had been adverted to, now he supposes them ripen the spot, and the day of
vengeance at hand. Jerusalem was the central spot on which the thunderbolt was about
to fall that would paralyse all Israel, Hebrews and Hellenists. As a matter of history it is
well known that vast numbers of the Dispersion were involved in the catastrophe of the
holy city. This passage, however, though addressed to, and by direct implication
comprising the Dispersion, yet evidently conveys a prophetic warning and denunciation
against the whole family of Israel, on whom the judgment was about to descend. (F. T.
Bassett, M. A.)
End of gaiety
A Parisian gentleman who had educated his daughter Ninon for the gay world, on his
death-bed thus addressed her, “Draw near, Ninon: you see that nothing more remains
for me than the sad remembrance of those enjoyments which I am about to quit for ever.
But, alas! my regrets are as useless as vain; you, who will survive me, must make the best
of your precious time”
Poison in pleasures
It is said to have been a plan sometimes practised in the Middle Ages, to send poisoned
flowers to princes or great persons, when a plot was laid against their life. Whether the
fact be true or not, the moral it may suggest is true. (New Cyclopoedia of Illustration.)
A warning to the rich
A nobleman who lived in the neighbourhood of the Rev. Mr. D—, one day asked him to
dine with him. Before dinner they walked into the garden, and after viewing the various
productions and rarities with which it abounded, his lordship exclaimed, “Well, Mr. D—,
you see I want for nothing; and I have all that my heart can wish for.” As Mr. D—made
no reply, but appeared thoughtful, his lordship asked him the reason. “Why, my lord, a
man may have all these things, and go to hell after all.” The words powerfully struck the
nobleman, and through the blessing of God terminated in his conversion.
Take care of pleasure
It is said that where the most beautiful cacti grow, there the venomous serpents are to be
found at the root of every plant. And it is so with sin. Your fairest pleasures will harbour
your grossest sins. Take care, take care, of your pleasures. Cleopatra’s asp was
introduced in a basket of flowers: so are our sins often brought to us in the flowers of our
pleasure. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Sodden with pleasure
“A soul sodden with pleasure” is a lost soul. (J. C. Lees, D. D.)

32. Pleasures
Think not that a pleasure which God hath threatened, nor that a blessing which God
hath cursed. (Quarles)
The pleasures of sense will surfeit, and not satisfy; the pleasures of religion will satisfy,
but not surfeit. (Henry.)
The pleasures of sense and of religion
He buys honey too dear who licks it from thorns. Xerxes offered a reward to the man
who would invent a new pleasure.
Living in pleasure
Ye have lain melting in sensual delights, which have drawn out your spirits and dissolved
them. (J. Trapp.)
Ye have nourished your hearts
Nourished hearts
Pleasures nourish the heart, and fatten it into a senseless stupidity: nothing bringeth a
dulness upon it more than they. There is a fish which they call the ass-fish, which hath
its heart in its belly; a fit emblem of a sensual epicure. The heart is never more dull and
unfit for the severities and masculine heights of religion than when burdened with
luxurious excess; therefore Christ useth that expression, “Let not your hearts be
overcharged,” etc. (Luk_21:36). Ah! do but consider how many reasons we have to be
wary in our pleasures. Will the inconveniences they bring to your estates mow you? “He
that loveth corn, and wine, and oil, shall be poor” (Pro_23:21). How often hath the belly
brought the back to rags? Or will the mischiefs they bring upon the body move you?
Lust, which is but the last end and consummation of all pleasures, sucketh the bones,
and, like a cannibal, eateth your own flesh (Pro_5:11). Ah! but chiefly think of the
inconveniency which your precious souls sustain; your hearts will be nourished and
fattened. Pleasure infatuateth the mind, quencheth the radiancy and vigour of the spirit,
the generous sprightliness of the affections. So the apostle speaketh of persons given to
pleasures, that they are past feeling (Eph_4:1-32.); they have lost all the smartness and
tenderness of their spirits. Oh! that men would regard this, and take heed of nourishing
their hearts while they nourish their bodies. You should starve lust when you feed
nature; or, as Austin, come to your meat as your medicine, and use these outward
refreshments as remedies to cure infirmities, not to cause them; or, as Bernard, refresh
the soul when you feed the body, and by Christian meditations on God’s bounty, Christ’s
sweetness, the fatness of God’s house, &c., keep the heart from being nourished
whenever you repair nature. (T. Manton.)
Running to death
Alas! the greatest part of this world run to the place of torment, rejoicing, and dancing,
eating, drinking, and sleeping. (S. Rutherford.)

33. Ye have condemned and killed the just
The just
The true meaning is found, it is believed, in taking “the just” as the representatives of a
class, probably of the class of those who, as disciples of Christ, the Just One, were
reproducing His pattern of righteousness. Such an one, like his Master, and like
Stephen, St. James adds, takes as his law the rule of not resisting. He submits patiently,
certain that in the end he will be more than conqueror. It is not without interest to note
that the title was afterwards applied to St. James himself. The name Justus (Act_1:23;
Act_18:7; Col_4:11) was evidently the Latin equivalent of this epithet, and it probably
answered to the Chasidim or Assideans of an earlier stage of Jewish religious history. It
is as if a follower of George Fox had addressed the judges and clergy of Charles II’sreign,
and said to them, “Ye persecuted the friend, and he does not resist you.” (Dean
Plumptre.)
Taking advantage of meekness
Meekness of spirit commonly draws on injuries and indignities from unreasonable men.
A crow will stand on a sheep’s back, pulling off the wool from his side; she durst not do
so to a wolf or mastiff. (J. Trapp.)
EBC, "THE FOLLIES AND INIQUITIES OF THE RICH; THEIR MISERABLE
END.
HERE, if anywhere in the Epistle, the writer glances aside from the believing Jews of the
Dispersion, to whom the letter as a whole is addressed, and in a burst of righteous
indignation which reminds us of passages in the old Hebrew Prophets, denounces
members of the twelve tribes who not even in name are Christians. In the preceding
section such a transition is in preparation. When he is condemning the godless
presumption of those seekers after wealth who dared, without thought of their own
frailty and of God’s absolute control over their lives and fortunes, to think and speak
confidently of their schemes for future gains, he seems to be thinking almost as much of
unbelieving Jews as of those who have accepted the Gospel. Here he appears for the
moment to have left the latter entirely out of sight, and to be addressing those wealthy
Jews who not only continued the policy and shared the guilt of the opponents and
murderers of Christ, but by scandalous tyranny and injustice oppressed their poor
brethren, many of whom were probably Christians. The severity of the condemnation is
not the only or the main reason for thinking that the paragraph is addressed to
unconverted Jews. The first ten verses of chapter 4. are very severe; and there also, as
here, the affectionate form of address, "brethren," so frequent elsewhere in the Epistle, is
wanting; but there is no doubt that those ten verses, like the paragraphs which
immediately precede and follow them, are addressed to Christians. What is so
exceptional in the passage now under consideration is the entire absence of any
exhortation to repentance, or of any indication that there is still hope of being reconciled
to the offended Jehovah. They are to "weep and howl," not in penitence, but in despair.
The end is at hand; the day of reckoning is approaching; and it is a fearful account which
awaits them. In this respect there is a very marked difference between this paragraph

34. and the one which follows it. In both the nearness of the Day of Judgment is the motive;
but this nearness is to "the rich" a terror, to "the brethren" a comfort. This difference
would be very difficult to explain if both paragraphs were addressed to believing Jews.
Throughout the Epistle there are strains which sound like echoes from the Prophets of
the Old Testament, with whom St. James has much in common; but the passage before
us is specially in their spirit. It would not surprise us to meet with it in Isaiah or
Jeremiah. One or two similar passages are worth comparing: "Woe to thee that spoilest,
and thou wast not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously
with thee! When thou hast ceased to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou hast
made an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee". (Isa_33:1)
"Woe to him that getteth an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that
he may be delivered from the hand of evil? Thou hast consulted shame to thy house, by
cutting off many peoples, and hast sinned against thy soul. For the stone shall cry out of
the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it". (Hab_2:9) In the New
Testament the passage which most resembles it is our Lord’s denunciation of the scribes
and Pharisees. (Mat_23:13-36)
"Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you." We
have the same combination of words in Isaiah: "In their streets they gird themselves
with sackcloth: on their housetops, and in their broad places, every one howleth,
weeping abundantly". (Isa_15:3) And in an earlier chapter we have a still closer parallel
to the spirit of this verse: "Howl ye; for the day of the Lord is at hand". (Isa_13:6) The
miseries to which St. James alludes are those which shall befall them at "the coming of
the Lord" (Jas_5:8). It is the impending judgment of the tyrannous rich that is primarily
in his mind. He may also have foreseen something of the horrors of the Jewish war and
the destruction of Jerusalem, and in accordance with Christ’s prophecy may have
considered these calamities typical of the judgment, or part and parcel of it. In the
Jewish war the wealthy classes suffered terribly. Against them, as having been friendly to
the Romans, and having employed Roman influence in oppressing their own
countrymen, the fury of the fanatical party of the Zealots was specially directed; and
although the blow fell first and heaviest upon the Jews in Jerusalem and Judea, yet it
was felt by all Jews throughout the world.
They imagined themselves to be rich; they were really most poor and most miserable. So
sure is the doom that is coming upon them, that in prophetical style St. James begins to
speak of it as already here; like a seer, he has it all before his eyes. "Your riches are
corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are rusted." We
have here three kinds of possessions indicated. First, stores of various kinds of goods.
These are "corrupted"; they have become rotten and worthless. Secondly, rich garments,
which in the East are often a very considerable portion of a wealthy man’s possessions.
They have been stored up so jealously and selfishly that insects have preyed upon them
and ruined them. And thirdly, precious metals. These have become tarnished and rusted,
through not having been put to any rational use. Everywhere their avarice has been not
only sin, but folly. It has failed of its sinful object. The unrighteous hoarding has tended
not to wealth, but to ruin. And thus the rust of their treasures becomes "a testimony
against them." In the ruin of their property their own ruin is portrayed; and just as
corruption, and the moths, and the rust consume their goods, so shall the fire of God’s
judgment consume the owners and abusers of them. They have reserved all this store for
their selfish enjoyment, but God has reserved them for His righteous anger.
"Ye laid up your treasure in the last days."
"There was the monstrous folly of it. The end of all things was close at hand; the last

35. days" had already begun; and these besotted graspers after wealth were still heaping up
treasures which they would never have any opportunity of using. The Authorized
Version spoils this by a small, but rather serious, mistranslation. It has, "Ye have heaped
up treasure together for the last days," instead of "in the last days" (εν εσχαταις ηµεραις).
The case is precisely that which Christ foretold: "As were the days of Noah, so shall be
the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days which were before the flood they were
eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered
into the ark, and they knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall be
the coming of the Son of man". (Mat_24:37-39) "Likewise even as it came to pass in the
days of Lot; they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but
in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and
destroyed them all: after the same manner shall it be in the day that the Son of man is
revealed". (Luk_17:28-30)
That the "last days" mean the days immediately preceding the Second Advent can
scarcely be doubted. The context renders this very probable, and the exhortation in the
next section renders it practically certain. "Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for
the coming of the Lord is at hand. Murmur not, brethren, one against another, that ye be
not judged: behold, the Judge standeth before the doors." That the first Christians
believed that Jesus Christ would return in glory during the lifetime of many who were
then living, will hardly be disputed by any one who is acquainted with the literature of
the Apostolic age and of the period immediately following. Nor, perhaps, will many at
the present time care to dispute that this erroneous opinion was shared, for a time at any
rate, even by Apostles.
"Ye are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time," says
St. Peter. (1Pe_1:5) "We that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in
nowise precede them that are fallen asleep"; (1Th_4:15; cf. 1Co_15:51) and again, writing
some years later, "In the last days grievous times shall come," about which Timothy is to
be on his guard, says St. Paul. (2Ti_3:1) And much nearer to the close of the Apostolic
age we have St. John telling his little children that "it is the last hour". (1Jn_2:18) Some
twenty or thirty years later St. Ignatius writes to the Ephesians, "These are the last times.
Henceforth let us be reverent; let us fear the longsuffering of God, lest it turn into a
judgment against us. For either let us fear the wrath which is to come, or let us love the
grace which now is" (11.).
Only very gradually did the Christian Church attain to something like a true perspective
as to the duration of Christ’s kingdom upon earth. Only very gradually did even the
Apostles obtain a clear vision as to the nature of the kingdom which their Lord had
founded and left in their charge, for them to occupy until He came. Pentecost did not at
once give them perfect insight into the import of their own commission. Much still
remained to be learned, slowly, by experience. And if this was the case with Apostles, we
need not wonder that it was so with James, the Lord’s brother. It is remarkable that
Christ’s solemn warning against speculating as to the time of His return seems to have
made only partial impression upon the disciples. "Of that day or that hour knoweth no
one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch
and pray: for ye know not when the time is". (Mar_13:32-33) But it is our gain that they
were allowed for a time to hold a belief that the Lord would return very speedily. The
Epistles and Gospels were written by men under the influence of that belief, and such
influence is a very considerable guarantee for the honesty of the writers. It was because
the rich whom St. James here denounces had no such belief in a speedy judgment,
indeed had very little thought of a judgment at all, that they were guilty of such folly and

36. iniquity.
Having indicated their folly in amassing wealth which was no blessing to themselves or
others, but simply deteriorated by being hoarded, St. James passes on to point out their
iniquity. And first of all he mentions the gross injustice which is frequently inflicted by
these wealthy employers of labor upon those who work for them. The payment of the
wages which have been earned is either unfairly delayed or not paid at all. "Behold, the
hire of the laborers who mowed your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth
out." Several passages in the Old Testament appear to be in the writer’s mind. "Thou
shalt not oppress a hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren,
or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates: in his day thou shalt give him his
hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it:
lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee." (Deu_24:14-15; cf. Deu_
24:17, and Lev_19:13) "And I will come near you to judgment; and I will be a swift
witness against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the
fatherless, and that turn away the stranger from his right, and fear not Me, saith the
Lord." (Mal_3:5; cf. Jer_22:13) Perhaps also, "Their cry came upon unto God by reason
of the bondage"; (Exo_2:23) and "The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from
the ground." (Gen_4:10) The frequency with which the subject is mentioned seems to
show that the evil which St. James here denounces had long been a common sin among
the Jews. Tobit, in his charge to his son, says, "What is hateful to thee do not thou to
others. Let not the wages of any man, which hath wrought for thee, tarry with thee
(abide with thee all night), but give him it out of hand." (Tob_4:14) And in
Ecclesiasticus, which St. James seems so often to have in his thoughts, we read, "The
bread of the needy is the life of the poor; he that defraudeth him thereof (ο αποστερων
αυτην) is a man of blood. He that taketh away his neighbor’s living slayeth him; and he
that defraudeth the laborer of his hire (ο αποστερων µισθοου) is a blood-shedder" (Sir_
34:21-22).
But none of these passages determine for us a point of some interest in the construction
used by St. James. The words translated "of you," in "of you kept back by fraud," literally
mean "from you" (αφ υµων, not υφ υµων). Two explanations are suggested:
1. The fraudulent action proceeds from-them, and hence "from" becomes nearly
equivalent to "by"; and the use of "from" (απο), rather than "by" (υπο), is all the more
natural because the word for "kept back by fraud" has the former preposition
compounded with it.
2. "From you," being placed between "kept back by fraud" and "crieth out" (ο
απεστερηµενος αφ υµων κραζει), may go with either, and it will be better to take it with
"crieth out:…The hire kept back by fraud crieth out from you." The wrongfully detained
wages are with the rich employers, and therefore it is from the place where they are
detained that their cry goes up to heaven. The passage quoted above from Exo_2:23
slightly favors this view, for there the Septuagint has, "Their cry came up unto God from
their labors" (απο των εργων); but the passages are not really parallel.
The word used for "fields" (χωρας) is worth noting. It implies extensive lands, and
therefore adds point to the reproach. The men who own such large properties are not
under the temptations to fraud which beset the needy, and it is scandalous that those

37. who can so well afford to pay what is due should refuse. Moreover, the labor of mowing
and reaping such fields must be great, and therefore the laborers have well earned their
wage. The words "into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth" probably come from Isaiah, (Isa_
5:9) and perhaps St. James was led to them by the thought that these extensive fields are
the result of fraud or violence; for the Verse which precedes the words in Isaiah run
thus: "Woe unto them that join house to house, that ‘lay field to field, till there be no
room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land!" No other New Testament
writer uses the expression "the Lord of Sabaoth," although St. Paul once quotes it from
Isaiah. (Rom_9:29) Bede may be right in thinking that its point here is that the rich
fancy that the poor have no protector; whereas the Lord of hosts hears their cry. And
there is possibly another point in mowers and reapers being selected as the
representatives of all hired laborers. Calvin suggests that it is specially iniquitous that
those whose toil supplies us with food should themselves be reduced to starvation; and
to this it has been added that the hard-heartedness of the grasping employers is indeed
conspicuous when not even the joy of the harvest moves them to pay the poor who work
for them their hardly earned wage.
The second feature in the iniquity of the rich is the voluptuous and prodigal life which
they lead themselves, at the very time that they inflict such hardships upon the poor. "Ye
lived delicately on the earth, and took your pleasure; ye nourished your hearts in a day of
slaughter." The aorists should perhaps be translated as aorists throughout these verses:
"Ye laid up your treasure…ye lived delicately," etc. rather than, "Ye have laid up, ye have
lived," etc. The point of view is that of the Day of Judgment, when these wealthy sinners
are confronted by the enormities which they committed during their lives. But it is a case
in which it is quite permissible to render the Greek aorist by the English perfect. "On the
earth" may either mean "during your lifetime," or may be in contrast to "entered into the
ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." All the while that the cry against their iniquity was
ascending to heaven, as an accumulating charge that would at last overwhelm them, they
were living in luxury on earth, thinking nothing of the wrath to come. It was the
converse of the old Epicurean doctrine, so graphically described by the late Laureate in
"The Lotus-eaters." There it is the gods who "lie beside their nectar" in ceaseless
enjoyment, "careless of mankind," who send up useless lamentations, which provoke no
more than a smile among the neglectful deities. Here it is the men who revel in
boundless luxury, careless of the righteous God, whose vengeance they provoke by
persistent neglect of His commands.
The meaning of "in a day of slaughter" is not easily determined. The "as"-"as in a day of
slaughter"-must certainly be omitted. It was inserted to make more evident one of the
possible interpretations of "day of slaughter." "Ye fattened your heart with perpetual
banqueting, as if life were made up of killing and eating." "And in that day did the Lord,
the Lord of hosts, call to weeping and to mourning, and baldness, and to girding with
sackcloth: and behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and
drinking wine: let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die". (Isa_22:12-13) If this be the
idea which is expressed by the words in question, then the meaning would be, "Ye fared
sumptuously every day." But it is possible that "in a day of slaughter" here balances "in
the last days" just above. As the folly of heaping up treasure was augmented by the fact
that it was done when the end of all things was at hand, so the iniquity of voluptuous
living was augmented by the fact that their own destruction was at hand. In this case the
wealthy owners, like stalled oxen, were unconsciously fattening themselves for the
slaughter. Instead of sacrificing themselves to God’s love and mercy, they had sacrificed
and devoured their poor brethren. They had fed themselves, and not the flock; and
unwittingly they were preparing themselves as a sacrifice to God’s wrath. For a sacrifice,

38. either willingly or unwillingly, every one must be.
Did any of those whom St. James here condemns remember his words when, a few years
later, thousands of the Jews of the Dispersion were once more gathered together at
Jerusalem for the sacrifice of the Passover, and there became unwilling sacrifices to
God’s slow but sure vengeance? As already pointed out, it was the wealthy among them
who specially suffered. Their prosperity and their friendship with the Romans provoked
the envy and enmity of the fanatical Zealots, and they perished in a day of slaughter.
Josephus tells us that it was all one whether the richer Jews stayed in the city during the
siege or tried to escape to the Romans; for they were equally destroyed in either case.
Every such person was put to death, on the pretext that he was preparing to desert, but
in reality that the plunderers might get his possessions. People who were evidently half-
starved were left unmolested, when they declared that they had nothing; but those who
bodies showed no signs of privation were tortured to make them reveal the treasures
which they were supposed to have concealed. ("Bell. Jud," 5 10:2)
"Ye condemned, ye killed the righteous one; he doth not resist you." Does this refer to
the condemnation and death of Jesus Christ? This interpretation has found advocates in
all ages-Cassiodorus, Bede, OEcumenius, Grotius, Ben-gel, Lange, and other modern
commentators; and it is certainly attractive. St. Peter, addressing the Jews in Solomon’s
Porch, says, "But ye denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be
granted unto you, and killed the Prince of Life". (Act_3:14-15) St. Stephen, in his speech
before the Sanhedrin, asks, "Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? and
they killed them which showed before of the coming of the Righteous One; of whom ye
have now become betrayers and murderers." (Act_7:52; cf. Act_22:14, and 1Pe_3:18) It
is certainly no objection to this interpretation that St. James uses the aorist-"ye
condemned, ye killed." That tense might fittingly be used either of a course of action in
the past, as in the aorists immediately preceding, or of a single action, as of Abraham’s
offering Isaac. (Jas_2:21) Nor is it any objection that in "He doth not resist you" St.
James changes to the present tense. In any case the change from past to present has to
be explained, and it is as easy to explain it of the present longsuffering of Christ, or of
His abandoning them to their wickedness, as of the habitual meekness of the righteous
man. Nor, again, is it any objection that the Jews addressed in this Epistle could not
rightly be charged with the condemnation and death of Christ, for twenty or thirty years
had elapsed since that event. It is by no means improbable that among the Jews then
living there were many who had cried "Crucify Him" on Good Friday; and even if there
were not, the words of St. James are quite justifiable. The Crucifixion was in a very real
sense the act of the whole nation, far more so than was the murder of Zacharias the son
of Jehoiada, and yet Jesus says to the Jews respecting Zacharias, "whom ye slew between
the sanctuary and the altar." If at the present day the English might be told that they
condemned and killed Charles I, and the French be told that they condemned and killed
Louis XVI, much more might the Jews in the middle of the first century be said to have
condemned and killed Jesus Christ. But nevertheless, this attractive and tenable
interpretation is probably not the right one; the context is against it. It is the evil that is
inherent in class tyrannizing over class that is condemned, the rich oppressing the poor,
and the godless persecuting the godly. "The righteous one" is here not an individual, but
the representative of a class. The iniquitous violence which slew Jesus Christ and His
martyrs, James the son of Zebedee and Stephen, illustrates what St. James says here,
just as his own martyrdom does; but it does not follow from this that he is alluding to
any one of these events in particular. The Book of Wisdom seems once more to be in the
writer’s mind: "Let us oppress the poor righteous man; let us not spare the widow, nor
reverence the ancient grey hairs of the aged Let us lie in wait for the righteous; because

39. he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings: he upbraideth us with our
offending the law, and objecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education He is
grievous to us even to behold: for his life is not like other men’s; his ways are of another
fashion…Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his
meekness, and prove his patience. Let us condemn him with a shameful death; for by his
own saying he shall be respected". (Jas_2:10-20)
Julius Caesar on one occasion stated his financial position by confessing that he needed
half a million of money in order to be worth nothing. The spiritual condition of many
prosperous men might be expressed in a similar way. Caesar never allowed lack of funds
to stand between him and his political aims; when he had nothing he borrowed at
enormous interest. So also with us. In pursuing our worldly aims we sink deeper and
deeper in spiritual ruin, and accumulate debts for an eternal bankruptcy. Riches are not
a whir less perilous to the soul now than they were in the first century, and yet how few
among the wealthy really believe that they are perilous at all. The wisdom of our
forefathers has placed in the Litany a petition which every well-to-do person should say
with his whole heart: "In all time of our wealth, Good Lord, deliver us."
HAWKER, "James 5:1-6
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. (2)
Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. (3) Your gold and silver is
cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as
it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. (4) Behold, the hire of the
laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth:
and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.
(5) Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your
hearts, as in a day of slaughter. (6) Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth
not resist you.
When the Reader hath duly pondered the many solemn things, which are here said of
the ungodly and unregenerate, if the Lord be his teacher, I venture to think that it will
strike him, as it doth me, that there can hardly be a passage more tremendously
alarming, to shew the folly, as well as sin, of the rich worldling, than what is here said.
Nothing can be more clear than the Lord’s design in it. The Holy Ghost is all along
writing to the Church. His sole object is the instruction and comfort of the Church. In
doing which, the Lord seems in these few verses, but still wholly in the Church’s hearing,
and for the Church’s good; to turn to the unregenerate, and in this rousing apostrophe,
to expostulate with them on their extreme folly. The images are finely chosen, being
taken from the things which worldly men make their idol. Their contemptible nature is
strongly expressed. The cobweb covering, and the canker even of gold, not only testify
their folly, but become witnesses against them in the end, in that they could not use
them themselves, neither would let others who needed them. But let not the Reader
mistake, as if this address was delivered in a way of persuasion to them, but wholly for
the benefit of the Lord’s people. Every part and portion in the word of God, is done with
an eye to the Church, And whenever the Lord the Spirit steppeth aside to represent the
final end of the ungodly, ordained of old to this condemnation, it is with the express
design, to impress upon the minds of the Lord’s redeemed ones, by such awful
repesentations, the nature of that distinguishing mercy vouchsafed them.

40. MEYER, " PATIENTLY AWAIT THE LORD’S COMING
Jam_5:1-11
There are many among the rich who are using money as a sacred trust. Not against these
does the Apostle utter his terrible anathemas, but against those who make money by
oppression and hoard it for their selfish ends. Riches, which have not been gotten
righteously, ever bring a curse with them; and the rust of unused or misused wealth eats
not only into the metal but into the miser’s flesh. In the light of this passage, it is as great
a wrong to hoard up for selfish ends money entrusted as a stewardship, as it is to obtain
it unrighteously.
There is a sense in which the Lord is ever at hand and present. But He shall come again
at the end of this age. Then all wrongs shall be righted and the oppressed avenged.
Everything comes to him who can wait for it; do not judge the Lord by His unfinished
work. Be patient till He unveils the perfected pattern in glory. Await the end of the Lord!
2 YOURwealth has rotted, and moths have eaten
your clothes.
BAR ES, "Your riches are corrupted - The word here rendered “corrupted”
(σήπω sēpō) does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. It means, to cause to rot, to
corrupt, to destroy. The reference here is to their hoarded treasures; and the idea is, that
they had accumulated more than they needed for their own use; and that, instead of
distributing them to do good to others, or employing them in any useful way, they kept
them until they rotted or spoiled. It is to be remembered, that a considerable part of the
treasures which a man in the East would lay up, consisted of perishable materials, as
garments, grain, oil, etc. Such articles of property were often stored up, expecting that
they would furnish a supply for many years, in case of the prevalence of famine or wars.
Compare Luk_12:18-19. A suitable provision for the time to come cannot be forbidden;
but the reference here is to cases in which great quantities had been laid up, perhaps
while the poor were suffering, and which were kept until they became worthless.
Your garments are moth-eaten - The same idea substantially is expressed here in
another form. As the fashions in the East did not change as they do with us, wealth
consisted much in the garments that were laid up for show or for future use. See the
notes at Mat_6:19. Q. Curtius says that when Alexander the Great was going to take
Persepolis, the riches of all Asia were gathered there together, which consisted not only
of a great abundance of gold and silver, but also of garments, Lib. vi. c. 5. Horace tells us
that when Lucullus the Roman was asked if he could lend a hundred garments for the
theater, he replied that he had five thousand in his house, of which they were welcome to
take part or all. Of course, such property would be liable to be moth-eaten; and the idea

41. here is, that they had amassed a great amount of this kind of property which was useless
to them, and which they kept until it became destroyed.
CLARKE, "Your riches are corrupted - Σεσηπε· Are putrefied. The term πλουτος,
riches, is to be taken here, not for gold, silver, or precious stones, (for these could not
putrefy), but for the produce of the fields and flocks, the different stores of grain, wine,
and oil, which they had laid up in their granaries, and the various changes of raiment
which they had amassed in their wardrobes.
GILL, "Your riches are corrupted,.... Either through disuse of them; and so the
phrase is expressive of their tenaciousness, withholding that from themselves and others
which is meet, and which is keeping riches for the owners thereof, to their hurt; or these
are corrupted, and are corruptible things, fading and perishing, and will stand in no
stead in the day of wrath, and therefore it is great weakness to put any trust and
confidence in them:
and your garments are moth eaten; being neither wore by themselves, nor put
upon the backs of others, as they should, but laid up in wardrobes, or in chests and
coffers, and so became the repast of moths, and now good for nothing.
HE RY, " Their misery shall arise from the very things in which they placed their
happiness. “Corruption, decay, rust, and ruin, will come upon all your goodly things:
Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten, Jam_5:2. Those things
which you now inordinately affect will hereafter insupportably wound you: they will be
of no worth, of no use to you, but, on the contrary, will pierce you through with many
sorrows; for,”
JAMISO , "corrupted — about to be destroyed through God’s curse on your
oppression, whereby your riches are accumulated (Jam_5:4). Calvin thinks the sense is,
Your riches perish without being of any use either to others or even to yourselves, for
instance, your garments which are moth-eaten in your chests.
garments ... moth-eaten — referring to Mat_6:19, Mat_6:20.
CALVI , "2 YOURriches. The meaning may be twofold: — that he ridicules their
foolish confidence, because the riches in which they placed their happiness, were
wholly fading, yea, that they could be reduced to nothing by one blast from God —
or that he condemns as their insatiable avarice, because they heaped together wealth
only for this, that they might perish without any benefit. This latter meaning is the
most suitable. It is, indeed, true that those rich men are insane who glory in things
so fading as garments, gold, silver, and such things, since it is nothing else than to
make their glory subject to rust and moths; and well known is that saying “What is
ill got is SOO lost;” because the curse of God consumes it all, for it is not right that
the ungodly or their heirs should enjoy riches which they have snatched, as it were,
by violence from the hand of God.

42. But as James enumerates the vices of which the rich brought on themselves the
calamity which he mentions, the context requires, as I think, that we should say, that
what he condemns here is the extreme rapacity of the rich, in retaining everything
they could lay hold on, that it might rot uselessly in their chests. For thus it was, that
what God had created for the use of men, they destroyed, as though they were the
enemies of mankind. (137)
But it must be observed, that the vices which he mentions here do not belong to all
the rich; for some of them indulge themselves in luxury, some spend much in show
and display, and some pinch themselves, and live miserably in their own filth. Let
us, then, know that he here reproves some vices in some, and some vices in others.
However, all those are generally condemned who unjustly accumulate riches, or
who foolishly abuse them. But what James now says, is not only suitable to the rich
of extreme tenacity, (such as Euclio of Plautus,) but to those also who delight in
pomp and luxury, and yet prefer to HEAP up riches rather than to employ them for
necessary purposes. For such is the malignity of some, that they grudge to others the
common sun and air.
BE SO , "James 5:2-3. Your riches are corrupted — Greek, σεσηπε, are putrefied,
or are as things putrefied by being kept too long. The riches of the ancients
consisted much in large stores of corn, wine, oil, and costly apparel. These things the
rich men in Judea had amassed, like the foolish rich man mentioned Luke 12:18,
little imagining that they would soon be robbed of them by the Roman soldiers, and
the destructive events of the war. Your garments — In YOUR wardrobes; are moth-
eaten — The fashion of clothes not changing in the eastern countries as with us,
persons of fortune used to have many garments made of different costly stuffs,
which they laid up as a part of their wealth. Thus, ACCORDI G to Q. Curtius, (lib.
5. c. 6,) when Alexander took Persepolis, he found the riches of all Asia gathered
together there, which consisted not only of gold and silver, but vestis ingens modus,
a vast quantity of garments. Your gold and silver is cankered — Or eaten out with
rust; and the rust of them — Your perishing stores and moth-eaten garments; shall
be, εις µαρτυριον, for a testimony against you — Of your covetousness and worldly
mind; and of your having foolishly and wickedly buried those talents in the earth,
which you ought to have employed, according to your Lord’s will, in relieving the
wants of your fellow-creatures. And shall eat your flesh as it were fire — Will
occasion you as great a torment as if fire were consuming your flesh. Or, as the rust
eats into the gold and silver, so shall your flesh and wealth be eaten up as if you had
treasured up fire in the midst of it. This was punctually fulfilled in the destruction
of that nation by their own seditions, and their wars with the Romans. For, among
the Sicarii and the Zealots, the ringleaders of all their seditions, it was crime enough
to be rich; and their insatiable avarice induced them CO TI UALLY to search
into the houses of the rich, and, by false accusation, to slay them as deserters, for the
sake of their property. Yea, both their substance and their bodies were devoured by
the flames which burned up the city and the temple: and if any thing remained, it
became a prey to the Roman soldiers. Ye have heaped treasure for the last days —
The days which are now coming, when your enemies shall seize or destroy all, to

43. your infinite vexation and distress: or, you have HEAPED them up when it is too
late; when you have no time or OPPORTU ITY to enjoy them. This phrase, the last
days, does not merely signify for the time to come, but for that period when the
whole Jewish economy was to close, and when those awful judgments, threatened in
the prophets to be poured out upon wicked men in the last days, were just coming.
COFFMA , "Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.
All the fabulous wealth of the Jewish hierarchy in Jerusalem would prove utterly
worthless to prevent the "miseries" coming upon them. Their great STORES of oil
and wheat would be turned into famine by the siege against the city. Their fine
garments would prove as worthless as a moth-eaten rag. And did such miseries
indeed come upon them? Alas, they did. As Gibson observed, "The Jewish historian
(Josephus) was the unconscious witness of the fulfillment of the prophecies of our
Lord and his apostles against Jerusalem."[7] The best commentary upon what befell
Jerusalem is found in the works of Josephus, who related in detail the unspeakable
horror, disaster, slaughter, famine and total ruin, not merely of the city alone, but
even of the temple and everything else. All the major kinds of wealth were
enumerated here by James. The riches that would be "corrupted" were supplies like
those of corn and oil; fine clothing was also a standard treasure of the rich. Gold
and silver would be mentioned next.
E D OTE:
[7] Ibid.
COKE, "James 5:2. YOURriches are corrupted,— By riches here are very probably
meant their STORESof corn, wine, oil, and other perishing goods, which they used
to lay up in great abundance: see James 5:4 and Luke 12:16-19. Dr. Heylin reads it,
your stores. Another thing which CO FIRMS this conjecture is, that the word
σεσηπε, which we render corrupted, signifies any thing's being putrified by being
kept too long,—like the manna, Exodus 16:20. Such riches as gold, silver, &c.
afterwards mentioned, are not liable to a putrefaction of this kind. We have
heretofore observed, that the rich among the ancients used to have many changes of
garments ready made up, as many (or more sometimes,) as would serve them all
their lives; and those they kept by them, as a considerable part of their possessions.
The apostle alludes to this, when he says, Your garments are moth-eaten. See the
note on Matthew 22:11.
ELLICOTT, "(2) YOUR riches are corrupted . . .—As expanded in the eloquent
gloss of Bishop Wordsworth, “Your wealth is mouldering in corruption, and your
garments, stored up in vain superfluity, are become moth-eaten: although they may
still glitter brightly in your eyes, and may dazzle men by their brilliance, yet they
are in fact already cankered; they are loathsome in God’s sight; the Divine anger
has breathed upon them and blighted them; they are already withered and blasted.”
(Comp. Matthew 6:19.)

44. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their
corrosion will testify against you and eat your
flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last
days.
BAR ES, "Your gold and silver is cankered - That is, that you have heaped
together, by injustice and fraud, a large amount, and have kept it from those to whom it
is due, Jam_5:4, until it has become corroded. The word rendered is “cankered”
(κατίωται katiōtai,) does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. It properly means
“to cause to rust; to rust out” (Passow); “to be corroded with rust” (Robinson); to be
spotted with rust. It is true that gold and silver do not properly rust, or become oxidized,
and that they will not be corroded like iron and steel; but by being kept long in a damp
place they will contract a dark color, resembling rust in appearance. This seems to be the
idea in the mind of the apostle. He speaks of gold and silver as they appear after having
been long laid up without use; and undoubtedly the word which he uses here is one
which would to an ancient have expressed that idea, as well as the mere literal idea of the
rusting or oxidizing of metals. There is no reason to suppose that the word was then
used in the strict chemical sense of rusting, for there is no reason to suppose that the
nature of oxidization was then fully understood.
And the rust of them - Another word is used here - ᅶᆵς ios. This properly denotes
something sent out or emitted, (from ᅟηµι hēmi), and is applied to a missile weapon, as
an arrow; to poison, as emitted from the tooth of a serpent; and to rust, as it seems to be
emitted from metals. The word refers to the dark discoloration which appears on gold
and silver, when they have remained long without use.
Shall be a witness against you - That is, the rust or discoloration shall bear
testimony against you that the money is not used as it should be, either in paying those
to whom it is due, or in doing good to others. Among the ancients, the gold and silver
which anyone possessed was laid up in some secret and safe place. Compare the notes at
Isa_45:3. There were no banks then in which money might be deposited; there were few
ways of investing money so as to produce regular interest; there were no corporations to
employ money in joint operations; and it was not very common to invest money in the
purchase of real estate, and stocks and mortgages were little known.
And shall eat your flesh as it were fire - This cannot be taken literally. It must
mean that the effect would be as if it should corrode or consume their very flesh; that is,
the fact of their laying up treasures would be followed by painful consequences. The
thought is very striking, and the language in which it is conveyed is singularly bold and

45. energetic. The effect of thus heaping up treasure will be as corroding as fire in the flesh.
The reference is to the punishment which God would bring on them for their avarice and
in-justice - effects that will come on all now for the same offences.
Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days - The day of judgment; the
closing scenes of this world. You have been heaping up treasure; but it will be treasure of
a different kind from what you have supposed. It is treasure not laid up for ostentation,
or luxury, or use in future life, but treasure the true worth of which will be seen at the
judgment-day. So Paul speaks of “treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath, and
revelation of the righteous judgment of God,” Rom_2:5. There are many who suppose
they are accumulating property that may be of use to them, or that may secure them the
reputation of possessing great wealth, who are in fact accumulating a most fearful
treasure against the day of final retribution. Every man who is rich should examine
himself closely to see whether there is anything in the manner in which he has gained his
property, or in which he now holds it, that will expose him to the wrath of God in the last
day. That on which he so much prides himself may yet bring down on him the vengeance
of heaven; and in the day of judgment he may curse his own madness and folly in
wasting his probation in efforts to amass property.
CLARKE, "Your gold and silver is cankered - Instead of helping the poor, and
thus honoring God with your substance, ye have, through the principle of covetousness,
kept all to yourselves.
The rust of them shall be a witness against you - Your putrefied stores, your
moth-eaten garments, and your tarnished coin, are so many proofs that it was not for
want of property that you assisted not the poor, but through a principle of avarice;
loving money, not for the sake of what it could procure, but for its own sake, which is the
genuine principle of the miser. This was the very character given to this people by our
Lord himself; he called them φιλαργυροι, lovers of money. Against this despicable and
abominable disposition, the whole of the 12th chapter of St. Luke is levelled; but it was
their easily besetting sin, and is so to the present day.
Shall eat your flesh as it were fire - This is a very bold and sublime figure. He
represents the rust of their coin as becoming a canker that should produce gangrenes
and phagedenous ulcers in their flesh, till it should be eaten away from their bones.
Ye have heaped treasure together - This verse is variously pointed. The word ᆞς,
like as, in the preceding clause, is left out by the Syriac, and some others; and πυρ, fire, is
added here from that clause; so that the whole verse reads thus: “Your gold and your
silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall consume
your flesh. Ye have treasured up Fire against the last days.” This is a bold and fine image:
instead of the treasures of corn, wine, and oil, rich stuffs, with silver and gold, which ye
have been laying up, ye shall find a treasure, a magazine of fire, that shall burn up your
city, and consume even your temple. This was literally true; and these solemn
denunciations of Divine wrath were most completely fulfilled. See the notes on Matthew
24 (note), where all the circumstances of this tremendous and final destruction are
particularly noted.
By the last days we are not to understand the day of judgment, but the last days of the
Jewish commonwealth, which were not long distant from the date of this epistle,
whether we follow the earlier or later computation, of which enough has been spoken in

46. the preface.
GILL, "Your gold and silver is cankered,.... Or grown rusty like iron, by lying long
without use; this is not easily and quickly done, but in length of time gold and silver will
change, and contract a rustiness; and so this conveys the same idea of hoarding up
riches and laying up money, without making use of it in trade, for the support of the
poor, and without distributing it to their necessities:
and the rust of them shall be a witness against you: at the day of judgment;
which will be a proof that they have not been employed to such services, and for such
usefulness, for which they were designed and given.
And shall eat your flesh as it were fire; that is, a remembrance of this, a sense of it
impressed upon them, shall be like fire in their bones; shall distress their minds, gnaw
their consciences, and be in them the worm that never dies, and the fire that shall never
be quenched:
ye have heaped treasure together for the last days; either for many years, as the
fool in the Gospel, for the times of old age, the last days of men, for fear they should then
want; or for the last days of the world, or of time, as if they thought they should live for
ever: the Vulgate Latin version reads, "ye have treasured up wrath for yourselves in the
last days"; instead of riches, as they imagined; and that by their covetousness and
wickedness, by a wicked disuse of their riches, and an unrighteous detention of them;
but this supplement seems to be taken from Rom_2:5 though the sense is confirmed by
some copies which connect the phrase, "as it were fire", in the preceding clause, with
this, "ye have treasured up as it were fire"; and the Syriac version renders it, "ye have
treasured up fire"; the fire of divine wrath; this is the fruit of treasuring up riches in an
ill way, and without making a proper use of them.
HE RY, " “They will witness against you, and they will eat your flesh as it were
fire,” Jam_5:3. Things inanimate are frequently represented in scripture as witnessing
against wicked men. Heaven, earth, the stones of the field, the production of the ground,
and here the very rust and canker of ill-gotten and ill-kept treasures, are said to witness
against impious rich men. They think to heap up treasure for their latter days, to live
plentifully upon when they come to be old; but, alas! they are only heaping up treasures
to become a prey to others (as the Jews had all taken from them by the Romans), and
treasures that will prove at last to be only treasures of wrath, in the day of the revelation
of the righteous judgment of God. Then shall their iniquities, in the punishment of them,
eat their flesh as it were with fire. In the ruin of Jerusalem, many thousands perished by
fire; in the last judgment the wicked shall be condemned to everlasting burnings,
prepared for the devil and his angels. The Lord deliver us from the portion of wicked
rich men! and, in order to this, let us take care that we do not fall into their sins, which
we are next to consider.
JAMISO , "is cankered — “rusted through” [Alford].
rust ... witness against you — in the day of judgment; namely, that your riches
were of no profit to any, lying unemployed and so contracting rust.
shall eat your flesh — The rust which once ate your riches, shall then gnaw your

47. conscience, accompanied with punishment which shall prey upon your bodies for ever.
as ... fire — not with the slow process of rusting, but with the swiftness of consuming
fire.
for the last days — Ye have heaped together, not treasures as ye suppose (compare
Luk_12:19), but wrath against the last days, namely, the coming judgment of the Lord.
Alford translates more literally, “In these last days (before the coming judgment) ye laid
up (worldly) treasure” to no profit, instead of repenting and seeking salvation (see on
Jam_5:5).
CALVI , "3A witness against you. He CO FIRMS the explanation I have already
given. For God has not appointed gold for rust, nor garments for moths; but, on the
contrary, be has designed them as aids and helps to human life. Therefore, even
spending without benefit is a witness of inhumanity. The rusting of gold and silver
will be, as it were, the occasion of inflaming the wrath of God, so that it will, like
fire, consume them.
Ye have heaped treasure together: These words may also admit of two explanations:
— that the rich, as they would always live, are never satisfied, but weary themselves
in heaping together what may be sufficient to the end of the world, — or, that they
heap together the wrath and curse of God for the last day; and this second view I
embrace. (138)
COFFMA , "YOURgold and your silver are rusted; and their rust shall be for a
testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye have laid up your
treasures in the last days.
Gold ... silver ... rusted ... The precious metals themselves did not rust, of course,
and James certainly knew that; but the base alloys evil men had mixed with them
did rust. The gold and silver of the Sadducean enemies were in no sense "pure," but
they had been mixed with fraud, deceit, oppression, falsehood and murder; and the
metaphor of rusted gold and silver is eloquent. Even the most precious assets would
be of no AVAIL when the judgment fell.
A testimony against you ... As the blood of righteous Abel cried unto God, just so the
Sadducean wealth of Jerusalem would cry to heaven for vengeance. Long centuries
of God's forbearance and patient love, still spurned, still contemptuously rejected,
would at last reap their inevitable harvest.
And shall eat your flesh as fire ... This is a metaphor. The woes coming upon them
were, in fact, caused by their inordinate love of that very wealth so avidly and
fraudulently acquired; thus it was appropriate to say that the wicked riches unjustly
extorted and wickedly abused would indeed eat their flesh as fire. Punchard
declared that "The wages of the traitor, the spoil of the thief, and the wealth of the
oppressor burn the hands that clasp them. Memories of the wrongs shiver through
each guilty soul like fire."[8]
Dummelow referred this to "the siege of Jerusalem."[9] Likewise, Carson:

48. The last days were ALREADY upon them. The Christian is always in the last days
(Acts 2:17; 1 John 2:18). The reference is to the last days before the Second Advent,
of which the destruction of Jerusalem was a type.[10]SIZE>
In the destruction of Jerusalem, the wealthy Sadduceans lost all of their wealth, and
more than a million were ruthlessly murdered, fulfilling perfectly the promise of
Jesus that "The king was wroth; and he sent his armies, and destroyed those
murderers, and burned their city" (Matthew 22:7). This was "the last days" of the
Jewish commonwealth.
Despite the Old Testament overtones of this passage, the spirit and teaching of the
ew Testament also permeate it, as indicated by this reference to "the last days,"
and the laying up of treasures where moth and rust doth consume (James 5:2), a
plain reference to Jesus' teaching in Matthew 6:20f.
[8] E. G. Punchard, op. cit., p. 375.
[9] J. R. Dummelow, Commentary on the Holy Bible ( ew York: The Macmillan
Company, 1937), p. 1037.
[10] T. Carson, A ew Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1969), p. 580.
COKE, "James 5:3. Ye have HEAPED treasure together, &c.— The literal and
most exact translation of the words is, Ye have heaped up treasure in the last days;
which rendering leads us to the true interpretation of them. By the last days, we
understand here the end of the Jewish state; when the temple, city, and polity, were
to be all destroyedtogether,andtheRomanswouldspoilthemof all their possessions.
Daniel's four monarchies are, according to Mede, the grand calendar in holy
scripture, to which the mention of times and seasons in the ew Testament ought in
general to be referred. These four monarchies were to succeed each other: that was
the long line of time; and under the last, (that is, the Roman monarchy,) the
kingdom of God was to be erected: the seventy weeks prophesied of, Daniel 9:24
were to be a shorter line of time; cut out of the longer line. And the last days
mentioned here, and in the parallel passages of the ew Testament, were the
conclusion of the seventy weeks, or shorter line of time; when the city and
sanctuary, or temple, were to be destroyed with an utter desolation. See 1 Timothy
4:1. Heaping up treasures when that desolation was approaching, could turn to no
ACCOU T, because they had very little or no time to enjoythem; for the rich Jews
in their dispersions did many of them share the same fate with those in Judea and
Jerusalem.
ELLICOTT, "(3) Your gold and silver . . .—In like manner, the gold and silver are
said to be “cankered,” or eaten up with rust. The precious metals themselves do not
corrode, but the base alloy does, which has been mixed with them for worldly use
and device. The rust of them shall be a witness to you: not merely against, but
convincing yourselves in the day of judgment; and, moreover, a sign of the fire

49. which shall consume you. So will the wages of the traitor, and the harlot, the spoil of
the thief and oppressor, burn the hands which have clutched them; the memories of
the wrong shiver through each guilty soul, like the liquid fires which
Muhammedans say torture the veins of the damned in the halls of Eblis.
Ye have HEAPED . . .—Read, Ye heaped up treasures in the last days:—the days of
grace, given you for repentance, like the years when “the long-suffering of God
waited in the days of oah” (Genesis 6:3; 1 Peter 3:20), or the time during which
God bore with Canaan, “till the iniquity of the Amorite” was “full” (Genesis 15:16).
Some expositors have seen in this verse an instance of James’s belief that he was
“living in the last days of the world’s history;” and compared his delusion with that
of Paul and John (1 Thessalonians 4:15, and 1 John 2:18). But there was no mistake
on the part of the inspired. writers; freedom from ERROR in their Sacred office
must be vindicated, or who shall sever the false gospel from the true? The simple
explanation is an old one—the potential nearness of Christ, as it is called. In many
ways He has been ever near each individual, as by affliction, or death, or judgment;
but His actual return was probably nearer in the first ages of faith than in the
brutality of the tenth century, or the splendid atheism of the fifteenth, or the
intellectual pride of the nineteenth. His advent is helped or hindered by the state of
Christendom itself: “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand
years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8), there is: neither past nor future in His sight; only
the presence of His own determination: and nought retards Christ’s Second Coming
so much as the false and feeble Christianity which prays “Thy kingdom come” in
frequent words, but waits not as the handmaid of her Lord, with “loins girded
about and lights burning” (Luke 12:35), “until the day dawn, and the day star
arise” (2 Peter 1:19).
4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers
who mowed your fields are crying out against you.
The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears
of the Lord Almighty.
BAR ES, "Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your
fields - In the previous verses the form of the sin which the apostle specified was that
they had hoarded their property. He now states another form of their guilt, that, while
doing this, they had withheld what was due from the very laborers who had cultivated

50. their fields, and to whose labor they were indebted for what they had. The phrase “who
have reaped down your fields,” is used to denote labor in general. This particular thing is
specified, perhaps, because the reaping of the harvest seems to be more immediately
connected with the accumulation of property. What is said here, however, will apply to
all kinds of labor. It may be remarked, also, that the sin condemned here is one that may
exist not only in reference to those who are hired to cultivate a farm, but to all in our
employ - to day-laborers, to mechanics, to seamen, etc.
It will apply, in an eminent degree, to those who hold others in slavery, and who live
by their unrequited toils. The very essence of slavery is, that the slave shall produce by
his labor so much more than he receives for his own maintenance as to support the
master and his family in indolence. The slave is to do the work which the master would
otherwise be obliged to do; the advantage of the system is supposed to be that the master
is not under a necessity of laboring at all. The amount which the slave receives is not
presumed to be what is a fair equivalent for what he does, or what a freeman could be
hired for; but so much less than his labor is fairly worth, as to be a source of so much
gain to the master. If slaves were fairly compensated for their labor; if they received what
was understood to be a just price for what they do, or what they would be willing to
bargain for if they were free, the system would at once come to an end. No owner of a
slave would keep him if he did not suppose that out of his unrequited toil he might make
money, or might be relieved himself from the necessity of labor. He who hires a freeman
to reap down his fields pays what the freeman regards as a fair equivalent for what he
does; he who employs a slave does not give what the slave would regard as an equivalent,
and expects that what he gives will be so much less titan an equivalent, that he may be
free alike from the necessity of labor and of paying him what he has fairly earned. The
very essence of slavery, therefore, is fraud; and there is nothing to which the remarks of
the apostle here are more applicable than to that unjust and oppressive system.
Which is of you kept back by fraud - The Greek word here used is rendered
defraud, in Mar_10:10; 1Co_6:7-8; 1Co_7:5; and destitute, in 1Ti_6:5. It occurs nowhere
else, except in the passage before us. It means to deprive of, with the notion that that to
which it is applied was due to one, or that he had a claim on it. The fraud referred to in
keeping it back, may be anything by which the payment is withheld, or the claim evaded
- whether it be mere neglect to pay it; or some advantage taken in making the bargain; or
some evasion of the law; or mere vexatious delay; or such superior power that he to
whom it is due cannot enforce the payment; or such a system that he to whom it is fairly
due is supposed in the laws to have no rights, and to be incapable of suing or being sued.
Any one of these things would come under the denomination of fraud.
Crieth - That is, cries out to God for punishment. The voice of this wrong goes up to
heaven.
And the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the
Lord of sabaoth - That is, he hears them, and he will attend to their cry. Comp, Exo_
22:27. They are oppressed and wronged; they have none to regard their cry on earth, and
to redress their wrongs, and they go and appeal to that God who will regard their cry,
and avenge them. On the phrase “Lord of sabaoth,” or Lord of hosts, for so the word
sabaoth means, see the Isa_1:9 note, and Rom_9:29 note. Perhaps by the use of the
word here it is implied that the God to whom they cry - the mighty Ruler of all worlds - is
able to vindicate them. It may be added, that the cry of the oppressed and the wronged is
going up constantly from all parts of the earth, and is always heard by God. In his own
time he will come forth to vindicate the oppressed, and to punish the oppressor. It may
be added, also, that if what is here said were regarded as it should be by all men, slavery,
as well as other systems of wrong, would soon come to an end.

51. If everywhere the workman was fairly paid for his earnings; if the poor slave who
cultivates the fields of the rich were properly compensated for his toil; if he received
what a freeman would contract to do the work for; if there was no fraud in withholding
what he earns, the system would soon cease in the earth. Slavery could not live a day if
this were done. Now there is no such compensation; but the cry of oppressed millions
will continue to go up to heaven, and the period must come when the system shall cease.
Either the master must be brought to such a sense of right that he will be disposed to do
justice, and let the oppressed go free; or God will so impoverish the lands where the
system prevails as to make all men see that the system is unprofitable and ruinous as
compared with free labor; or the oppressed will somehow become so acquainted with
their own strength and their rights that they shall arise and assert their freedom; or
under the prevalence of true religion better views will prevail, and oppressors, turned to
God, shall relax the yoke of bondage; or God will so bring heavy judgments in his holy
providence on the oppressors, that the system of slavery will everywhere come to an end
on the earth.
Nothing is more certain than that the whole system is condemned by the passage of
Scripture before us; that it is contrary to the genuine spirit of Christianity, and that the
prevalence of true religion would bring it to an end. Probably all slaveholders feel that to
place the Bible in the hands of slaves, and to instruct them to read it, would be
inconsistent with the perpetuity of the system. Yet a system which cannot survive the
most full and free circulation of the sacred Scriptures, must be founded in wrong.
CLARKE, "The hire of the laborers - The law, Lev_19:13, had ordered: The
wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning, every
day’s labor being paid for as soon as ended. This is more clearly stated in another law,
Deu_24:15 : At his day thou shalt give him his hire; neither shall the sun go down upon
it; - lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee. And that God
particularly resented this defrauding of the hireling we see from Mal_3:5 : I will come
near to you in judgment, and will be a swift witness against those who oppress the
hireling in his wages. And on these laws and threatenings is built what we read in
Synopsis Sohar, p. 100, l. 45: “When a poor man does any work in a house, the vapor
proceeding from him, through the severity of his work, ascends towards heaven. Wo to
his employer if he delay to pay him his wages.” To this James seems particularly to
allude, when he says: The cries of them who have reaped are entered into the ears of the
Lord of hosts; and the rabbins say, “The vapor arising from the sweat of the hard-
worked laborer ascends up before God.” Both images are sufficiently expressive.
The Lord of sabaoth - St. James often conceives in Hebrew though he writes in
Greek. It is well known that ‫צבאות‬ ‫יהוה‬ Yehovah tsebaoth, Lord of hosts, or Lord of armies,
is a frequent appellation of God in the Old Testament; and signifies his uncontrollable
power, and the infinitely numerous means he has for governing the world, and
defending his followers, and punishing the wicked.
GILL, "Behold the hire of the labourers, which have reaped down your
fields,.... The wages agreed for by the day, with the labourers in their fields, particularly
their reapers; which one instance serves for many others; and is the rather mentioned,
because reaping is a laborious work, and those who are employed in it have nothing to
live upon but their hand labour; and especially because they are made use of in cutting

52. down the corn when it is fully ripe, and in great plenty; wherefore, to detain their just
wages from them argues great inhumanity and wickedness; and yet this was what was
done by rich men:
which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; unto God for vengeance, as the blood of
Abel did; and shows that such an evil, however privately and fraudulently it may be
done, will be made public, and is a crying one:
and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the
Lord of sabaoth; that is, the Lord of hosts; of angels, and of men; of the host of
heaven, and of the inhabitants of the earth; of Jews and Gentiles, and of rich and poor;
and who has power to vindicate the cause of the latter against their rich oppressors, and
will do it; his ears are open to their cries, he takes notice of them, and regards them, and
will take vengeance on those that injure them. The reference is to Deu_24:15.
HE RY, " The apostle shows what those sins are which should bring such miseries. To
be in so deplorable a condition must doubtless be owing to some very heinous crimes.
(1.) Covetousness is laid to the charge of this people; they laid by their garments till they
bred moths and were eaten; they hoarded up their gold and silver till they were rusty and
cankered. It is a very great disgrace to these things that they carry in them the principles
of their own corruption and consumption - the garment breeds the moth that frets it, the
gold and silver breeds the canker that eats it; but the disgrace falls most heavily upon
those who hoard and lay up these things till they come to be thus corrupted, and
cankered, and eaten. God gives us our worldly possessions that we may honour him and
do good with them; but if, instead of this, we sinfully hoard them up, thorough and
undue affection towards them, or a distrust of the providence of God for the future, this
is a very heinous crime, and will be witnessed against by the very rust and corruption of
the treasure thus heaped together. (2.) Another sin charged upon those against whom
James writes is oppression: Behold, the hire of the labourers, who have reaped down
your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth, etc., Jam_5:4. Those who have
wealth in their hands get power into their hands, and then they are tempted to abuse
that power to oppress such as are under them. The rich we here find employing the poor
in their labours, and the rich have as much need of the labours of the poor as the poor
have of wages from the rich, and could as ill be without them; but yet, not considering
this, they kept back the hire of the labourers; having power in their hands, it is probable
that they made as hard bargains with the poor as they could, and even after that would
not make good their bargains as they should have done. This is a crying sin, an iniquity
that cries so as to reach the ears of God; and, in this case, God is to be considered as the
Lord of sabaoth, or the Lord of hosts, Kuriou sabaōth, a phrase often used in the Old
Testament, when the people of God were defenseless and wanted protection, and when
their enemies were numerous and powerful. The Lord of hosts, who has all ranks of
beings and creatures at his disposal, and who sets all in their several places, hears the
oppressed when they cry by reason of the cruelty or injustice of the oppressor, and he
will give orders to some of those hosts that are under him (angels, devils, storms,
distempers, or the like) to avenge the wrongs done to those who are dealt with
unrighteously and unmercifully. Take heed of this sin of defrauding and oppressing, and
avoid the very appearances of it.
JAMISO , "Behold — calling attention to their coming doom as no vain threat.
labourers — literally “workmen.”

53. of you kept back — So English Version rightly. Not as Alford, “crieth out from you.”
The “keeping back of the hire” was, on the part OF the rich, virtually an act of “fraud,”
because the poor laborers were not immediately paid. The phrase is therefore not, “kept
back by you,” but “of you”; the latter implying virtual, rather than overt, fraud. James
refers to Deu_24:14, Deu_24:15, “At this day ... give his hire, neither shall the sun go
down upon it, lest he CRY against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee.” Many sins
“cry” to heaven for vengeance which men tacitly take no account of, as unchastity and
injustice [Bengel]. Sins peculiarly offensive to God are said to “cry” to Him. The rich
ought to have given freely to the poor; their not doing so was sin. A still greater sin was
their not paying their debts. Their greatest sin was not paying them to the poor, whose
wages is their all.
cries of them — a double cry; both that of the hire abstractly, and that of the
laborers hired.
the Lord of sabaoth — here only in the New Testament. In Rom_9:29 it is a
quotation. It is suited to the Jewish tone of the Epistle. It reminds the rich who think the
poor have no protector, that the Lord of the whole hosts in heaven and earth is the
guardian and avenger of the latter. He is identical with the “coming Lord” Jesus (Jam_
5:7).
CALVI , "4Behold, the hire. He now condemns cruelty, the invariable companion
of avarice. But he refers only to one kind, which, above all others, ought justly to be
deemed odious. For if a humane and a just man, as Solomon says in Proverbs 12:10,
regards the life of his beast, it is a monstrous barbarity, when man feels no pity
towards the man whose sweat he has EMPLOYED for his own benefit. Hence the
Lord has strictly forbidden, in the law, the hire of the laborer to sleep with us
(Deuteronomy 24:15). Besides, James does not refer to laborers in common, but, for
the sake of amplifying, he mentions husbandmen and reapers. For what can be
more base than that they, who supply us with bread by their labor should be pined
through want? And yet this monstrous thing is common; for there are many of such
a tyrannical disposition, that they think that the rest of mankind live only for their
benefit alone.
But he says that this hire crieth, for whatever men retain either by fraud or by
violence, of what belongs to another; it calls for vengeance as it were by a loud voice.
We ought to notice what he adds, that the cries of the poor come to the ears of God,
so that we may know that the wrong done to them shall not be unpunished. They,
therefore, who are oppressed by the unjust ought resignedly to sustain their evils,
because they will have God as their defender. And they who have the power of doing
wrong ought to abstain from injustice, lest they provoke God against them, who is
the protector and patron of the poor. And for this reason also he calls God the Lord
of Sabaoth, or of hosts, intimating thereby his power and his might, by which he
renders his judgment more dreadful.
BARCLAY, "THE WAY OF SELFISH ESS A D ITS E D (James 5:4-6)
5:4-6 Look you, the pay of the reapers who reaped YOUR estates, the pay kept back
from them by you, cries against you, and the cries of those who reaped have come to

54. the ears of the Lord of Hosts. On the earth you have lived in soft luxury and played
the wanton; you have fattened your hearts for the day of slaughter. You condemned,
you killed the righteous man, and he does not resist you.
Here is condemnation of selfish riches and warning of where they must end.
(i) The selfish rich have gained their wealth by injustice. The Bible is always sure
that the labourer is worthy of his hire (Luke 10:7; 1 Timothy 5:18). The day
labourer in Palestine lived on the very verge of starvation. His wage was small; it
was impossible for him to save anything; and if the wage was withheld from him,
even for a day, he and his family simply could not eat. That is why the merciful laws
of Scripture again and again insist on the prompt PAYME T of his wages to the
hired labourer. "You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy....
You shall give him his hire on the day he earns it, before the sun goes down (for he
is poor, and sets his heart upon it); lest he cry against you to the Lord, and it be sin
in you" (Deuteronomy 24:14-15). "The wages of a hired servant shall not remain
with you all night until the morning" (Leviticus 19:13). "Do not say to your
neighbour, 'Go, and come again, tomorrow I will give it'--when you have it with
you" (Proverbs 3:27-28). "Woe to him that builds his house by unrighteousness and
his upper ROOMS by injustice; who makes his neighbour serve him for nothing,
and does not give him his wages" (Jeremiah 22:13). "Those that oppress the hireling
in his wages" are under the judgment of God (Malachi 3:5). "He that taketh away
his neighbour's living, the bread gotten by sweat, slayeth him; and he that
defraudeth the labourer of his hire, defraudeth his Maker, and shall receive a bitter
REWARD, for he is brother to him that is a blood-shedder" (Sirach 34:22). "Let not
the wages of any man which hath wrought for thee tarry with thee, but give it him
out of hand" (Tobit 4:14).
The law of the Bible is nothing less than the charter of the labouring man. The
social concern of the Bible speaks in the words of the Law and of the Prophets and
of the Sages alike. Here it is said that the cries of the harvesters have reached the
ears of the Lord of hosts! The hosts are the hosts of heaven, the stars and the
heavenly powers. It is the teaching of the Bible in its every part that the Lord of the
universe is concerned for the rights of the labouring man.
(ii) The selfish rich have used their wealth selfishly. They have lived in soft luxury
and have played the wanton. The word TRA SLATED to live in soft luxury is
truphein (Greek #5171). It comes from a root which means to break down; and it
describes the soft living which in the end saps and destroys a man's moral fibre. The
word translated to play the wanton is spatalan (Greek #4684). It is a much worse
word; it means to live in lewdness and lasciviousness. It is the condemnation of the
selfish rich that they have used their possessions to gratify their own love of comfort
and to satisfy their own lusts, and that they have forgotten all duty to their fellow-
men.
(iii) But anyone who chooses this pathway has also chosen its end. The end of
SPECIALLY fattened cattle is that they will be slaughtered for some feast; and

55. those who have sought this easy luxury and selfish wantonness are like men who
have fattened themselves for the day of judgment. The end of their pleasure is grief
and the goal of their luxury is death. Selfishness always leads to the destruction of
the soul.
(iv) The selfish rich have slain the unresisting righteous man. it is doubtful to whom
this refers. It could be a reference to Jesus. "You DE IED the Holy and Righteous
One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you" (Acts 3:14). It is Stephen's
charge that the Jews always slew God's messengers even before the coming of the
Just One (Acts 7:52). It is Paul's declaration that God chose the Jews to see the Just
One although they rejected him (Acts 22:14). Peter says that Christ suffered for our
sins, the just for the unjust (1 Peter 3:18). The suffering servant of the Lord offered
no resistance. He OPE ED not his mouth and like a sheep before his shearers he
was dumb (Isaiah 53:7), a passage which Peter QUOTES in his picture of Jesus (1
Peter 2:23). It may well be that James is saying that in their oppression of the poor
and the righteous man, the selfish rich have crucified Christ again. Every wound
that selfishness inflicts on Christ's people is another wound inflicted on Christ.
It may be that James is not specially thinking of Jesus when he speaks about the
righteous man but of the evil man's instinctive hatred of the good man. We have
already QUOTED the passage in The Wisdom of Solomon which describes the
conduct of the rich. That passage goes on: "He (the righteous man) professeth to
have the knowledge of God, and he calleth himself the child of the Lord. He was
made to reprove our thoughts. He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life is
not like other men's, his ways are of another fashion. We are esteemed of him as
counterfeits: he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness: he pronounceth the
end of the just to be blessed, and maketh his boast that God is his Father. Let us see
if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him. For if the
just man be the son of God, he will help him and deliver him from the hand of his
enemies. Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his
meekness and prove his patience. Let us condemn him with a shameful death: for by
his own saying he shall be respected" (Wisdom of Solomon 2:13-24). These, says the
Sage, are the words of men whose wickedness has blinded them.
Alcibiades, the friend of Socrates, for all his great talents often lived a riotous and
debauched life. And there were times when he said to Socrates: "Socrates, I hate
you; for every time I see you, you show me what I am." The evil man would gladly
eliminate the good man, for he reminds him of what he is and of what he ought to
be.
BE SO , "James 5:4. Behold, the hire of the labourers — The apostle alludes in
this verse to Leviticus 19:13 : The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with
thee all night: and to Deuteronomy 24:15, At his day thou shalt give him his hire,
neither shall the sun go down upon it, &c., lest he cry against thee unto the Lord,
and it be sin unto thee. In allusion to these passages, the apostle here mentions a
two-fold cry; the cry of the hire unjustly kept back; that is, the cry of the sin against
the sinner for vengeance; in which sense those sins chiefly cry to God concerning

56. which human laws are silent; such are luxury, unchastity, and various kinds of
injustice. But the cry of the labourers themselves is also here mentioned, to mark
more strongly the greatness of the injustice committed. And “by representing the
cries of the reapers defrauded of their hire as E TERI Ginto the ears of the Lord
of Sabaoth, that is, hosts, or armies, the apostle intimates that the great Ruler of the
universe attends to the wrongs done to his creatures, and is affected by them as
tender-hearted persons are affected by the cries of the miserable; and that he will, in
due time, avenge them by punishing their oppressors. Let all oppressors consider
this!” — Macknight.
COFFMA , "Behold the hire of the laborers who mowed your fields, which is of
you kept back by fraud, crieth out: and the cries of them that reaped have
E TERED into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.
It was not merely the rejection of Christ that provoked the judgment of God upon
the Jewish state, although that was sufficient; but it was their gross rebellion against
the very law they pretended so much to adore. Leviticus 13:13, and Deuteronomy
24:15, and countless other passages forbade the withholding of the laborers' pay
even for the space of a SI GLE day, but the evil men James denounced had
withheld it altogether, defrauding them of it.
The hire of the laborers ... This is an eloquent statement. It identifies the place of the
offense cited as Jerusalem of Judea, the rest of the civilized world of that period
having all of the farm work done by slaves. "Only in Palestine would field laborers
have been hired help; elsewhere in the Roman Empire the fields were worked by
slaves."[11] It also means that this epistle was surely written before the destruction
of Jerusalem, because after that event the slave system prevailed in Judea also.
Lord of Sabaoth ... Some writers seize upon this as proof of their allegation that
here we have a Jewish writing; but their ERROR is due to a failure to discern
James' reason for this usage. The judgment about to fall upon Israel was due to
their having rejected the teachings of the Lord of Sabaoth, as inculcated in the Law
of Moses; and it was most fitting that this lapse on their part should have been
mentioned in connection with this prophetic announcement of their destruction. The
expression means "The Lord of Hosts," "The God of the heavenly armies," "God of
the heavenly hosts (such as the sun, moon and stars)," "God of all the armies of
angels arranged in an orderly host," etc., etc. It speaks of the omnipotence, glory
and eternity of Almighty God. Tasker called this "One of the most majestic of all the
titles of God in the Old Testament."[12] The only other ew Testament usage of this
title is in Romans 9:29, where Paul QUOTED it from Isaiah in exactly the same
context as that in which James used it here, namely, that of discussing the apostasy
of Israel. How strange it is that some fail to see the same connection here.
[11] A. F. Harper, op. cit., p. 238.
[12] R. V. G. Tasker, Tyndale ew Testament Commentaries, James (Grand
Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1977), p. 113.

57. COKE, "James 5:4. Which is of you kept back by fraud,— This was one of their
wicked methods of HEAPI G up riches; they were not only covetous and
uncharitable, but also unjust: the phrase, crieth, &c. seems to be taken from the
customs of the Eastern people, who, when they have suffered an injury, go to the
judge with a horrible
clamour,torequirevengeance;whichloudclamourtheyrepeatwithgreatvehemence, if
the judge seems SLOW to wrath and punishment; and the same custom prevailed in
the dark and feudal ages of Christianity. Those sins are said to cry unto heaven,
which so affect the guilty, as to seem with a loud voice to require vengeance from
God. It is an observation of the Hebrews, "that when God judgeth his creatures, he
is called Aleim, GOD when he doth mercy unto the world, he is called Jehovah: but
when he warreth against the wicked, he is called Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts;"—the
last part of which rule holds in this place.
BURKITT, "The next sin which our apostle convicts the rich of, and condemns
them for, is the sin of oppression, and that of the worst sorts, even of labourers and
servants; their covetousness was the cause of this oppression. There is no sin so
heinous and base but covetousness may be a mother or a URSE to it: What more
sordid than for the rich master to detain the wages of the poor labourer? Yet,
Behold the hire of the labourers crieth: though they did not, durst not complain, yet
their hire kept back did complain.
Learn hence, that as all oppression is very sinful, so especially the detaining of the
labourers' wages when their hire is delayed or DE IED, both are exceeding sinful;
and accordingly we find oppressors in Scripture joined with the vilest of sinners,
even with sorcerers, adulterers, and false swearers.
And to testify that God cannot want witnesses against oppressors, he tells us, their
hire shall cry as well as the poor themselves: "The beam, and the stone out of the
wall shall cry," Habakkuk 2:11.
Remember we then that secret wrongs are known to God; the poor may not always
know who wrongs them, but the Lord fully knows, and their wrongs and
oppressions will cry against us, when they know not against whom to cry.
And note, the person gloriously described, who is the poor's avenger; he is the Lord
of Sabaoth, or the Lord of hosts, who has all power in his hand, and all creatures at
his command. How bold and daring then is the oppressor to afflict the poor, who
have the Lord of hosts for their avenger? Their cry is E TEREDinto the ears of the
Lord of Sabaoth.

58. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-
indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the
day of slaughter.[a]
BAR ES, "Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth - One of the things to which
the rich are peculiarly addicted. Their wealth is supposed to be of value, because it
furnishes them the means of doing it. Compare Luk_12:19; Luk_16:19. The word
translated “lived in pleasure, (τρυφάω truphaō) occurs only here in the New Testament.
It means, to live delicately, luxuriously, at ease. There is not in the word essentially the
idea or vicious indulgence, but that which characterizes those who live for enjoyment.
They lived in ease and affluence on the avails of the labors of others; they indulged in
what gratified the taste, and pleased the ear and the eye, while those who contributed the
means of this were groaning under oppression. A life of mere indolence and ease, of
delicacy and luxury, is nowhere countenanced in the Bible; and even where unconnected
with oppression and wrong to others, such a mode of living is regarded as inconsistent
with the purpose for which God made man, and placed him on the earth. See Luk_12:19-
20. Every man has high and solemn duties to perform, and there is enough to be done on
earth to give employment to every human being, and to fill up every hour in a profitable
and useful way.
And been wanton - This word now probably conveys to most minds a sense which is
not in the original. Our English word is now commonly used in the sense of “lewd,
lustful, lascivious.” It was, however, formerly used in the sense of “sportive, joyous, gay,”
and was applied to anything that was variable or fickle. The Greek word used here
(σπαταλάω spatalaō) means, to live luxuriously or voluptuously. Compare the notes at
1Ti_5:6, where the word is explained. It does not refer necessarily to gross criminal
pleasures, though the kind of living here referred to often leads to such indulgences.
There is a close connection between what the apostle says here, and what he refers to in
the previous verses - the oppression of others, and the withholding of what is due to
those who labor. Such acts of oppression and wrong are commonly resorted to in order
to obtain the means of luxurious living, and the gratification of sensual pleasures. In all
countries where slavery exists, the things here referred to are found in close connection.
The fraud and wrong by which the reward of hard toil is withheld from the slave is
connected with indolence and sensual indulgence on the part of the master.
Ye have nourished your hearts - Or, yourselves - the word hearts here being
equivalent to themselves. The meaning is, that they appeared to have been fattening
themselves, like stall-fed beasts, for the day of slaughter. As cattle are carefully fed, and
are fattened with a view to their being slaughtered, so they seemed to have been fattoned
for the slaughter that was to come on them - the day of vengeance. Thus many now live.
They do no work; they contribute nothing to the good of society; they are mere
consumers - fruges, consumere nati; and, like stall-fed cattle, they seem to live only with
reference to the day of slaughter, and to the recompense which awaits them after death.
As in a day of slaughter - There has been much variety in the interpretation of this
expression. Robinson (lex.) renders it, “like beasts in the day of slaughter, without care
or forethought.” Rosenmuller (Morgenland) supposes that it means, as in a festival;

59. referring, as he thinks, to the custom among the ancients of having a feast when a part of
the animal was consumed in sacrifice, and the rest was eaten by the worshippers. So
Benson. On such occasions, indulgence was given to appetite almost without limit; and
the idea then would be, that they had given themselves up to a life of pampered luxury.
But probably the more correct idea is, that they had fattened themselves as for the day of
destruction; that is, as animals are fattened for slaughter. They lived only to eat and
drink, and to enjoy life. But, by such a course, they were as certainly preparing for
perdition, as cattle were prepared to be killed by being stall-fed.
CLARKE, "Ye have lived in pleasure - Ετρυφησατε. Ye have lived luxuriously;
feeding yourselves without fear, pampering the flesh.
And been wanton - Εσπαταλησατε· Ye have lived lasciviously. Ye have indulged all
your sinful and sensual appetites to the uttermost; and your lives have been scandalous.
Ye have nourished your hearts - Εθρεψατε· Ye have fattened your hearts, and
have rendered them incapable of feeling, as in a day of slaughter, ᅧµερᇮ σφαγης, a day of
sacrifice, where many victims are offered at once, and where the people feast upon the
sacrifices; many, no doubt, turning, on that occasion, a holy ordinance into a riotous
festival.
GILL, "Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth,.... This is said of other rich men;
for all that is here said is not to be understood of the same individuals, but some things
of one, and some of another; some made no use of their riches, either for themselves, or
others; some did make use of them, and employed the poor, and then would not give
them their wages; and others lived a voluptuous and luxurious life, indulged themselves
in carnal lusts and pleasures, and gratified the senses by eating, drinking, gaming, and so
were dead while they lived. The phrase suggests, that their pleasures were but short
lived, but for a season, even while they were on earth; and that hereafter they would not
live in pleasure:
and been wanton; through the abundance and plenty of good things, their delicious
way of living, and the swing of pleasures which they took; the allusion is to fatted beasts,
which being in good pastures, grow fat and wanton:
ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter, when beasts were slain
for some extraordinary entertainment, or for the solemn festivals and sacrifices the
Jews, when they lived more deliciously than at other times; and then the sense is, that
these rich men fared sumptuously every day; every day was a festival with them; they
indulged themselves in intemperance; they ate and drank, not merely what was
necessary, and satisfying, and cheering to nature, but to excess, and gorged, and filled
themselves in an extravagant manner: the Syriac version, instead of "hearts", reads
"bodies" and one copy reads, "your flesh": and the last phrase may be rendered, as it is in
the same version, "as unto", or "for the day of slaughter"; and so the Arabic version, "ye
have nourished your hearts, as fattened for the day of slaughter": like beasts that are
fattened in order to be killed, so were they preparing and fitting up by their sins for
destruction.

60. HE RY, " Another sin here mentioned is sensuality and voluptuousness. You have
lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton, Jam_5:5. God does not forbid us to use
pleasure; but to live in them as if we lived for nothing else is a very provoking sin; and to
do this on the earth, where we are but strangers and pilgrims, where we are but to
continue for a while, and where we ought to be preparing for eternity - this, this is a
grievous aggravation of the sin of voluptuousness. Luxury makes people wanton, as in
Hos_13:6, According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their
heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me. Wantonness and luxury are
commonly the effects of great plenty and abundance; it is hard for people to have great
plenty and abundance; it is hard for people to have great estates, and not too much
indulge themselves in carnal, sensual pleasures: “You have nourished your hearts as in
a day of slaughter: you live as if it were every day a day of sacrifices, a festival; and
hereby your hearts are fattened and nourished to stupidity, dulness, pride, and an
insensibility to the wants and afflictions of others.” Some may say, “What harm is there
in good cheer, provided people do not spend above what they have?” What! Is it no harm
for people to make gods of their bellies, and to give all to these, instead of abounding in
acts of charity and piety? Is it no harm for people to unfit themselves for minding the
concerns of their souls, by indulging the appetites of their bodies? Surely that which
brought flames upon Sodom, and would bring these miseries for which rich men are
here called to weep and howl, must be a heinous evil! Pride, and idleness, and fullness of
bread, mean the same thing with living in pleasure, and being wanton, and nourishing
the heart as in a day of slaughter.
JAMISO , "Translate, “Ye have luxuriated ... and wantoned.” The former expresses
luxurious effeminacy; the latter, wantonness and prodigality. Their luxury was at the
expense of the defrauded poor (Jam_5:4).
on the earth — The same earth which has been the scene of your wantonness, shall
be the scene of the judgment coming on you: instead of earthly delights ye shall have
punishments.
nourished ... hearts — that is glutted your bodies like beasts to the full extent of
your hearts’ desire; ye live to eat, not eat to live.
as in a day of slaughter — The oldest authorities omit “as.” Ye are like beasts which
eat to their hearts’ content on the very day of their approaching slaughter, unconscious it
is near. The phrase answers to “the last days,” Jam_5:3, which favors Alford’s
translation there, “in,” not “for.”
CALVI , "5In pleasure. He comes now to another vice, even luxury and sinful
gratifications; for they who abound in wealth seldom keep within the bounds of
moderation, but abuse their abundance by extreme indulgences. There are, indeed,
some rich men, as I have said, who pine themselves in the midst of their abundance.
For it was not without reason that the poets have imagined Tantalus to be hungry
near a table well furnished. There have ever been Tantalians in the world. But
James, as it has been said, does not speak of all rich men. It is enough that we see
this vice commonly prevailing among the rich, that they are given too much to
luxuries, to pomps and superfluities.

61. And though the Lord allows them to live freely on what they have, yet profusion
ought to be avoided and frugality practiced. For it was not in vain that the Lord by
his prophets severely reproved those who slept on beds of ivory, who used precious
ointments, who delighted themselves at their feasts with the sound of the harp, who
were like fat cows in rich pastures. For all these things have been said for this end,
that we may know that moderation ought to be observed, and that extravagance is
displeasing to God.
Ye have nourished YOUR hearts. He means that they indulged themselves, not only
as far as to satisfy nature, but as far as their cupidity led them. He adds a similitude,
as in a day of slaughter, because they were wont in their solemn sacrifices to eat
more freely than ACCORDI G to their daily habits. He then says, that the rich
feasted themselves every day of their life, because they immersed themselves in
perpetual indulgences.
BE SO , "James 5:5-6. Ye have lived in pleasure, and have been wanton —
ετρυφησατε και εσπαταλησατε. The former word signifies, ye have lived
luxuriously; or, as the Vulgate has it, Epulati estis, ye have feasted; it being intended
of their luxuries and intemperance in eating and drinking: the latter word is
intended of their indulging themselves in lasciviousness and carnal lusts. Ye have
nourished — Or cherished; your hearts — Have indulged yourselves to the
uttermost; as in a day of slaughter — That is, as beasts are fed for a day of
slaughter; or, as the words may be rendered, as in a day of sacrifice, which were
solemn feast-days among the Jews. The apostle’s meaning is, both that the rich Jews
pampered themselves every day, as the luxurious did on high festival-days; and that,
by their luxury and lasciviousness, they had rendered themselves fit to be destroyed
in the day of God’s wrath. Ye have condemned and killed, τον δικαιον, the Just One
— Many just men, and in particular that Just One, termed, (Acts 3:14,) the Holy
One and Just. They had killed Stephen, also, and they afterward killed James, the
writer of this epistle, surnamed the Just. But the expression might be intended to
comprehend all the righteous persons who were murdered by the Jews from first to
last. And he — The Just One; doth not resist you — With that display of power
which he can easily exert to YOUR utter destruction, and therefore you are
SECURE. But the day will speedily come when God will avenge his own cause, and
pour out upon you the judgments he has threatened.
COFFMA , "Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken YOUR pleasure; ye
have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter.
ourished your hearts in a day of slaughter ... This is a reference (a) to their delicate
living and their pleasures, called here "nourishing their hearts" and (b) to the
forthcoming destruction of Jerusalem, called here "a day of slaughter," the Old
Testament expression meaning "the day of God's judgment" (Isaiah 34:6; Ezekiel
21:15); and let it be noted that the day had already arrived. Their sins
CO TI UED in a day of slaughter, that is, up until the very moment of the
impending judgment. As Carson put it, "They were like animals gorging themselves
on the very day of their destruction."[13] As Adam Clarke said, concerning "the
last days" of James 5:3, and the "day of slaughter" here, "This is not to be

62. understood as the judgment day, but as the last days of the Jewish
commonwealth."[14] Carson also said that the best exposition of this verse is
"Josephus' ACCOU T of the destruction of Jerusalem."[15]
[13] T. Carson, op. cit., p. 580.
[14] Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Holy Bible, Vol. VI (London: Carlton and
Porter, 1829), p. 824.
[15] T. Carson, op. cit., p. 580.
COKE, "James 5:5. Ye have lived in pleasure, &c.— Ye have passed your lives in
luxury and voluptuousness; ye have satiated yourselves [every day] as on a day of
sacrifice.
It is well known that at their high FESTIVALS, or when they offered their
eucharistical sacrifices, the Jews used to fare sumptuously, and devote the day to
feasting and joy; and very often would drink to excess. How justly was their luxury
condemned, when the rich persons here addressed, pampered themselves every day,
as other persons used commonly to do on the day of a high sacrifice and festival;—
while, notwithstanding their plenty, they neglected the poor, and hoarded up riches
to spend luxuriously upon themselves!
ELLICOTT, "(5) Ye have lived in pleasure.—And what an indictment is this
brought against them by the Apostle:—Ye revelled upon earth, and wantoned; ye
nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter. The pleasure and wantonness wherein
the rich had lived, the selfishness with which they had cared for their own hearts, in
a time of death for others—nay, preparation of like for themselves: this is the
aggravated wrong, and the inexpiable shame. In the Received text above they are
accused of having “nourished their hearts as in a day of slaughter,” the cries of the
victims thus seeming an addition to their own delights; but the charge against them
is heavy enough without this insertion.
As they had dealt to others, so the vengeance of God dealt with them. The Passover
called together the richest Jews from all parts of the earth, and they themselves were
the victims in their last sacrifice. o words can overdraw the fury of the Roman
onset, under Titus, when the Temple floors ran with blood, and the roofs raged in
fire till all was utter desolation.
BURKITT, "The next sin he charges upon them, is sensuality, luxury,
lasciviousness, their eating and drinking to excess in their feasts, pampering
themselves for the slaughter and the shambles. These are sins very natural to
corrupt nature, but chiefly incident to the rich. Pride, idleness, fulness of bread, and
living in pleasure, are too frequently sins that do abound in rich men's houses:
though their abundance is no excuse, but rather an aggravation of their sin.
God allows us to use pleasure, but not to live in pleasure; and by calling it pleasure

63. upon earth, he intimates,
1. That sensual delights are only enjoyed here in this world: 2. That their desires ran
after these earthly pleasures only:
The pleasures of the beast only pleased them; whereas the delights of sense are so
far from being the chief pleasure for which God designed us, that, on the contrary,
he intended we should take our chief pleasure, not in gratifying, but in restraining
our sensual appetite, in reducing that rebellious power under the government and
dominion of reason and religion.
6 You have condemned and murdered the
innocent one, who was not opposing you.
BAR ES, "Ye have condemned and killed the just - τᆵν δίκαιον ton dikaion -
“the just one,” or “the just man” - for the word used is in the singular number. This may
either refer to the condemnation and crucifixion of Christ - meaning that their conduct
towards his people had been similar to the treatment of the Saviour, and was in fact a
condemnation and crucifixion of him afresh; or, that by their rejection of him in order to
live in sin, they in fact condemned him and his religion; or, that they had condemned
and killed the just man - meaning that they had persecuted those who were Christians;
or, that by their harsh treatment of others in withholding what was due to them, they
had deprived them of the means of subsistence, and had, as it were, killed the righteous.
Probably the true meaning is, that it was one of their characteristics that they had been
guilty of wrong towards good men. Whether it refers, however, to any particular act of
violence, or to such a course as would wear out their lives by a system of oppression,
injustice, and fraud, cannot now be determined.
And he doth not resist you - Some have supposed that this refers to God, meaning
that he did not oppose them; that is, that he bore with them patiently while they did it.
Others suppose that it should be read a question - “and doth he not resist you?” meaning
that God would oppose them, and punish them for their acts of oppression and wrong.
But probably the true reference is to the “just man” whom they condemned and killed;
meaning that they were so powerful that all attempts to resist them would be vain, and
that the injured and oppressed could do nothing but submit patiently to their acts of
injustice and violence. The sense may be either that they could not oppose them - the
rich men being so powerful, and they who were oppressed so feeble; or that they bore
their wrongs with meekness, and did not attempt it. The sins, therefore, condemned in
these verses Jam_5:1-6, and for which it is said the divine vengeance would come upon
those referred to, are these four:

64. (1) That of hoarding up money when it was unnecessary for their real support and
comfort, and when they might do so much good with it, (compare Mat_6:19;)
(2) That of keeping back the wages which was due to those who cultivated their fields;
that is, keeping back what would be a fair compensation for their toil - applicable
alike to hired men and to slaves;
(3) That of giving themselves up to a life of ease, luxury, and sensual; indulgence; and,
(4) That of wronging and oppressing good and just men - men, perhaps in humble life,
who were unable to vindicate their rights, and who had none to undertake their
cause; men who were too feeble to offer successful resistance, or who were
restrained by their principles from attempting it.
It is needless to say that there are multitudes of such persons now on the earth, and
that they have the same reason to dread the divine vengeance which the same class had
in the time of the apostle James.
CLARKE, "Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist
you - Several by τον δικαιον, the just one, understand Jesus Christ, who is so called, Act_
3:14; Act_7:52; Act_22:14; but the structure of the sentence, and the connection in
which it stands, seem to require that we should consider this as applying to the just or
righteous in general, who were persecuted and murdered by those oppressive rich men;
and their death was the consequence of their dragging them before the judgment seats,
Jam_2:6, where, having no influence, and none to plead their cause, they were unjustly
condemned and executed.
And he doth not resist you. - In this, as in τον δικαιον, the just, there is an enallege of
the singular for the plural number. And in the word ουκ αντιτασσεται, he doth not resist,
the idea is included of defense in a court of justice. These poor righteous people had
none to plead their cause; and if they had it would have been useless, as their oppressors
had all power and all influence, and those who sat on these judgment seats were lost to
all sense of justice and right. Some think that he doth not resist you should be referred to
God; as if he had said, God permits you to go on in this way at present, but he will
shortly awake to judgment, and destroy you as enemies of truth and righteousness.
GILL, "Ye have condemned and killed the just,.... Meaning not Christ, the Just
One, as some have thought; whom the Jewish sanhedrim condemned as guilty of death,
and got the sentence passed upon him, and him to be crucified by Pontius Pilate, on the
day of slaughter, at the time of the passover, as some connect the last clause of the
preceding verse with this; since the apostle is not writing to the Jerusalem Jews, nor to
unbelievers, but to professors of religion; though he might say they did it, because their
nation did it: but rather this is to be understood of the poor saints, who were just,
through the imputation of Christ's righteousness to them, and lived soberly, righteously,
and godly, and were harmless and inoffensive in their conversation: who were evil
spoken of, censured, and judged, and condemned in a rash and uncharitable manner by
their brethren; or were drawn to the judgment seats by the rich, who obtained a judicial
process against them, and procured a sentence of condemnation to pass upon them
unrighteously; and who killed them, by taking away their good names from them, and by
withholding from them their supplies of life, the fruit of their own labour, whereby their

65. lives were embittered and made miserable:
and he doth not resist you; it being neither in his power, nor in his inclination; but
takes it patiently, quietly submits, and makes no opposition: or God does not resist you,
as yet; he will do it shortly.
HE RY, " Another sin here charged on the rich is persecution: You have condemned
and killed the just, and he doth not resist you, Jam_5:6. This fills up the measure of
their iniquity. They oppressed and acted very unjustly, to get estates; when they had
them, they gave way to luxury and sensuality, till they had lost all sense and feeling of the
wants or afflictions of others; and then they persecute and kill without remorse. They
pretend to act legally indeed, they condemn before they kill; but unjust prosecutions,
whatever colour of law they may carry in them, will come into the reckoning when God
shall make inquisition for blood, as well as massacres and downright murders. Observe
here, The just may be condemned and killed: but then again observe, When such do
suffer, and yield without resistance to the unjust sentence of oppressors, this is marked
by God, to the honour of the sufferers and the infamy of their persecutors; this
commonly shows that judgments are at the door, and we may certainly conclude that a
reckoning-day will come, to reward the patience of the oppressed and to break to pieces
the oppressor. Thus far the address to sinners goes.
II. We have next subjoined an address to saints. Some have been ready to despise or to
condemn this way of preaching, when ministers, in their application, have brought a
word to sinners, and a word to saints; but, from the apostle's here taking this method,
we may conclude that this is the best way rightly to divide the word of truth. From what
has been said concerning wicked and oppressing rich men, occasion is given to
administer comfort to God's afflicted people: “Be patient therefore; since God will send
such miseries on the wicked, you may see what is your duty, and where your greatest
encouragement lies.”
JAMISO , "Ye have condemned ... the just — The Greek aorist expresses, “Ye
are accustomed to condemn ... the just.” Their condemnation of Christ, “the Just,” is
foremost in James’ mind. But all the innocent blood shed, and to be shed, is included,
the Holy Spirit comprehending James himself, called “the Just,” who was slain in a
tumult. See my Introduction. This gives a peculiar appropriateness to the expression in
this verse, the same “as the righteous (just) man” (Jam_5:16). The justice or
righteousness of Jesus and His people is what peculiarly provoked the ungodly great
men of the world.
he doth not resist you — The very patience of the Just one is abused by the wicked
as an incentive to boldness in violent persecution, as if they may do as they please with
impunity. God doth “resist the proud” (Jam_4:6); but Jesus as man, “as a sheep is dumb
before the shearers, so He opened not His mouth”: so His people are meek under
persecution. The day will come when God will resist (literally, “set Himself in array
against”) His foes and theirs.
CALVI , "6Ye have condemned. Here follows another kind of inhumanity, that the
rich by their power oppressed and destroyed the poor and weak. He says by a
metaphor that the just were condemned and killed; for when they did not kill them
by their own hand, or condemn them as judges, they yet EMPLOYED the authority

66. which they had to do wrong, they corrupted judgments, and contrived various arts
to destroy the innocent, that is, really to condemn and kill them. (139)
By adding that the just did not resist them, he intimates that the audacity of the rich
was greater; because those whom they oppressed were without any PROTECTIO .
He, however, reminds them that the more ready and prompt would be the
vengeance of God, when the poor have no protection from men. But though the just
did not resist, because he ought to have patiently endured wrongs, I yet think that
their weakness is at the same time referred to, that is he did not resist, because he
was unprotected and without any help from men.
The two first verbs, being aorists, may be rendered in the present tense, especially as
the last verb is in that tense. For in the very next verse, the 7th, the aorist is so used.
We may then give this version, —
6. “Ye condemn, ye kill the righteous; he sets himself not in array against you.”
Probably the aorist is used, as it expresses what was done habitually, or a
CO TI UED act, like the future tense often in Hebrew. The preceding verse, the
5th, where all the verbs are aorists, would be better rendered in the same way, “Ye
live in pleasure,” etc.
COFFMA , "Ye have condemned, ye have killed the righteous one; he doth not
resist you.
The righteous one ... is an expression used of Christ in a number of ew Testament
references (Acts 3:14; 7:52; 22:14), and this is clearly the meaning of it here. That
James did not specify Christ by name is no problem, because ew Testament
writers generally were most reluctant to mention by name their own family; and
James adhered to this rule, making only enough exceptions to identify Jesus as the
Christ and Saviour. Dummelow, and many others, concede that "this may refer to
the Lord,"[16] and in the total absence of any reason why it should not be referred
to him, this is the way we shall construe it. Ward likewise allowed that "James
seems to see the condemnation of the Messiah repeated in the experience of his
righteous subjects."[17] Tasker and Gibson also APPLY this to righteous men
generally; but, while it is clear enough that it is true of righteous men generally the
specific reference here must be to Christ. Our interpretation of this whole
paragraph will hardly allow any other meaning. The great sin of the heartless rich
being thus condemned and judged was that of murdering the Messiah. "Ye have
condemned ..." indicates formal trial and passing sentence, details that were often
absent from their unjust dealings with the poor. "Ye have killed ..." This, they did
not generally do to the poor; but they effectively wrought the crucifixion of Christ.
Barclay admitted that this verse "could be a reference to Jesus Christ,"[18] though
he left the question open. That this is actually the meaning will appear in the further
examination of the last clause.
He doth not resist you ... It is a well know fact that the Greek words here may be
either affirmative or interrogative, the latter being in all probability CORRECT.

67. Hort suggested, and Ropes advocated that it be read as a question, "Doth he not
resist you?"[19] Tasker explained that this would have a prophetic meaning,
demanding an affirmative reply.[20] The true meaning of the clause then is, "You
have killed the Christ, but will he not resist you? .... Do you really think you can
escape judgment for such a crime as that?" Thus read, this verse is a powerful and
dramatic conclusion of this terrible, yet magnificent, prophecy. The oppression of
the poor, the persecution of the church, the cruel and heartless crucifixion of the
Messiah inspired James in this sublime paragraph to announce the forthcoming
judgment of God as about to fall upon the perpetrators of such wickedness.
While construing this paragraph as primarily a prophecy against entrenched
Judaism, it should also be observed that it is charged with social consequences of the
most extensive dimensions. As Barclay said:
One of the mysteries is how Christianity ever came to be regarded as the opium of
the people. There is no book in any literature that speaks so explosively of social
injustice as does the Bible. It does not condemn wealth as such, but there is no book
which more strenuously insists on wealth's responsibilities, and on the perils that
surround the man of wealth.[21]SIZE>
This passage (James 5:1-6) deserves to rank alongside the greatest passages of the
Bible for its tremendous social implications. Charles David Eldridge identified the
Bible as the source of all social justice in these words:
The Old Testament prophets and the ew Testament writers denounce the exclusive
privileges of the rich, and the usurpation of the rights of the poor, and strenuously
enforce their demands for righteous DEALI GS among men. The Bible, like an
unfailing arsenal, has supplied the ammunition for the age-long struggle for liberty.
[22]SIZE>
Such qualities shine with exceptional brilliance in James' thundering denunciation
in this passage.
The CO ECTIO with the foregoing in the following passage (James 5:7-12) is
most intimate and instructive. With Lenski we deplore the blindness which has
viewed these as isolated statements. "He is charged with patching heterogeneous
pieces together. A redactor (!) is also mentioned."[23] It is simply incredible that
men should not see how closely James followed the teachings of Jesus Christ, the
writings of the ew Testament authors, and the teachings of the Old Testament in
this epistle. There is no need whatever to QUOTE from apocalyptic literature, the
book of Wisdom, Sirach and the inter-testamental writings in an effort to
understand James. The Holy Bible illuminates every word that he wrote.
The historical situation in which this epistle occurs is that of the expectancy
permeating the whole church during those years leading up to the destruction of
Jerusalem, an EVE T which was known and anticipated throughout the world of
that period. Christ had categorically predicted it in a prophecy that so inspired the
church that when the city was finally destroyed, not a Christian perished in the
disaster. They, having been forewarned, fled to Pella. This universal expectancy

68. which dominated Christian thought in this period is conspicuous in the writings of
Paul, who noted with consternation a flowering of conceit and gloating expectancy
among the Gentile segment of Christianity, and who at Once wrote the book of
Romans, addressing it specifically to that conceit (see in my Commentary on
Romans, pp. 412,413). In the same manner, James in this epistle ADDRESSED that
air of expectancy (especially among the poor who had made up the vast majority of
Jewish Christianity), which as the years passed and Jerusalem was still standing,
had tended to be alloyed with impatience. The vital, intimate and urgent connection
is simply this: (1) the first six verses are a prophecy of the certain and impending
overthrow of the Sadducean overlords who were notorious oppressors of the poor
and the terminal heirs of that generation which had murdered the Son of God; (2)
the next six verses are concerned with the proper behavior and attitude of the
Christians who were destined to witness the fulfillment of the prophecy.
[16] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit, p. 1037.
[17] Ronald A. Ward, ew Bible Commentary, Revised (Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970), p. 1233.
[18] William Barclay, op. cit., p. 120.
[19] R. V. G. Tasker, op. cit., p. 116.
[20] Ibid.
[21] William Barclay, op. cit., p. 117.
[22] Source of this quotation unknown.
[23] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 645.
COKE, "James 5:6. Ye have condemned and killed the Just;— By τον ∆ικαιον, the
Just, some understand our Lord Jesus Christ, who is so termed, Acts 3:14 and in
other places. Him the Jews murdered, and he did not resist them; and they did it at
the timeof a great festival, when their hearts were elevated with high living and
jollity; for which crime particularly wrath was now swiftly coming upon them. All
these things maybe alledged in favour of that interpretation;—but I scarce think,
says Benson, that the apostle did here refer to the crucifixion of our Lord: for it was
chiefly the Jerusalem Jews, and not they of the dispersions, who were his
murderers; and how often is the singular number put for the plural?—I should
therefore choose to interpret this text of any of the Christians put to death by means
of the Jews, who were dispersed among the nations. Our Saviour prophesied that
his disciples should meet with such treatment; and St. Paul confessed that, while he
was a Jew, he had persecuted some of the Christians to death. Some of the Jews
likewise of the dispersions were the occasion of stoning St. Paul himself, till they
thought he had been dead. It may possibly be some CO FIRMATIO that by the
Just is meant, not our Lord, but his disciples; that in ch. James 2:6 rich men are

69. represented as then CO TI UI G to oppress the Christians by their power, and as
dragging them before the heathen tribunals to condemn them: and none were more
forward to do this than the unbelieving Jews. Michaelis supports the common
interpretation by supposing the relative ος, who, to be understood;—who doth not
resist you. His reasons are, first, That it was usual with the Hebrews, and much
more with the Arabs, to omit the pronoun relative; which, among the Europeans, is
particularly common with the English. Secondly, It was the greatest reproach to kill
the innocent, who did not so muchasresist. And then, from commending the Just
Man, who had patiently resigned his life, the apostle PROCEEDS torecommend
patience to the surviving Christians, from the consideration of all that he had said,
James 5:1-6.
ELLICOTT, "(6) Ye have condemned and killed the just.—Better thus: Ye
condemned, ye slew the just—as in the speech of Peter (Acts 3:14-15), or that of
Stephen (Acts 7:52). Such a reference, however, has been disallowed by some
commentators, as conveying too harsh an accusation against the whole Jewish
people; and besides, it being unfair to forget that St. James was writing to Christian
Jews, as well as to the anti-Christian. But, in a manner, all wrong and oppression
tend towards the murder of the Just One, as every falsehood (see OTE on James
3:13) is an attack on the Truth. And far beyond this, in the present case our Lord is
rightly to be considered the victim of the Jews. His blood is on them and on their
children (Matthew 27:25); they filled up “the measure of their fathers” (Matthew
23:32), that “the blood of all the righteous” might come upon them, from Abel to
Zacharias (Matthew 23:35): the one crowning sin made them guilty of all. And not
only is this backward PARTICIPATIO true, but there is a forward one as well.
Christ Himself was persecuted by Saul in the afflictions of His servants (Acts 9:4-5),
and so onward ever till the martyr-roll be full.
It is of strange significance that in this verse—ye condemned, ye slew the just—
James the Just prophetically described his own murderers. The last words,
moreover, of the Scripture, simply record the behaviour of himself, as of every real
witness for Christ: He doth not resist. o: “the servant of the Lord must not strive”
(2 Timothy 2:24) even in death; and by such meekness and resignation is best seen
the likeness to the divine Master, Who “was brought as a lamb to the slaughter”
(Isaiah 53:7). Comp. Wisdom of Solomon 2:10-20 for a striking parallel, on the
oppression of the righteous, which would not inaptly describe the “just man,” the
“Son of God.”
BURKITT, "By the just, may be understood Jesus Christ, that just One whom the
nation of the Jews condemned and killed; and also such of his members, orthodox
Christians, who the judaizing Christians persecuted. By their condemning the just,
understand how they PROCEEDED against them under a pretence and colour of
law; before they would actually kill, they pretended legally to condemn.
Learn then, that God takes notice not only of the OPE violences offered to his
people, but also of all the injuries done unto them under the form of a legal
procedure; it is a mighty provocation when public authority, which is the defense of

70. innocency, is made the pretense of oppression.
It follows, ye have killed the just: This is added to let us know that oppression will
preceed as far as death. Wickedness knoweth no bounds; good men are oft-times
arraigned, condemned, and killed; they fall a sacrifice to the rage of their
persecutors and oppressors.
It is added, He doth not resist you; which if APPLIED to Christ, points at his
meekness; he was slain without resistance: he came to suffer, therefore would not
resist. If applied to the suffering Christians, it points at their weakness and inability
to make resistance, as well as at their meekness and patience under sufferings: Ye
have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you.
Patience in Suffering
7 Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the
Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the
land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting
for the autumn and spring rains.
BAR ES, "Be patient therefore, brethren - That is, under such wrongs as the
apostle had described in the previous verses. Those whom he addressed were doubtless
suffering under those oppressions, and his object was to induce them to bear their
wrongs without murmuring and without resistance. One of the methods of doing this
was by showing them, in an address to their rich oppressors, that those who injured and
wronged them would be suitably punished at the day of judgment, or that their cause
was in the hands of God; and another method of doing it was by the direct inculcation of
the duty of patience. Compare the notes at Mat_5:38-41, Mat_5:43-45. The margin here
is, “be long patient,” or “suffer with long patience.” The sense of the Greek is, “be long-
suffering, or let not your patience be exhausted. Your courage, vigor, and forbearance is
not to be short-lived, but is to be enduring. Let it continue as long as there is need of it,
even to the coming of the Lord. Then you will be released from sufferings.”

71. Unto the coming of the Lord - The coming of the Lord Jesus - either to remove
you by death, or to destroy the city of Jerusalem and bring to an end the Jewish
institutions, or to judge the world and receive his people to himself. The “coming of the
Lord” in any way was an event which Christians were taught to expect, and which would
be connected with their deliverance from troubles. As the time of his appearing was not
revealed, it was not improper to refer to that as an event that might possibly be near; and
as the removal of Christians by death is denoted by the phrase “the coming of the Lord” -
that is, his coming to each one of us - it was not improper to speak of death in that view.
On the general subject of the expectations entertained among the early Christians of the
second advent of the Saviour, see the 1Co_15:51 note; 2Th_2:2-3 note.
Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth - The
farmer waits patiently for the grain to grow. It requires time to mature the crop, and he
does not become impatient. The idea seems to be, that we should wait for things to
develop themselves in their proper season, and should not be impatient before that
season arrives. In due time we may expect the harvest to be ripened. We cannot hasten
it. We cannot control the rain, the sun, the season; and the farmer therefore patiently
waits until in the regular course of events he has a harvest. So we cannot control and
hasten the events which are in God’s own keeping; and we should patiently wait for the
developments of his will, and the arrangements of his providence, by which we may
obtain what we desire.
And hath long patience for it - That is, his patience is not exhausted. It extends
through the whole time in which, by the divine arrangements, he may expect a harvest.
Until he receive the early and latter rain - In the climate of Palestine there are
two rainy seasons, on which the harvest essentially depends - the autumnal and the
spring rains - called here and elsewhere in the Scriptures the early and the latter rains.
See Deu_11:14; Job_29:23; Jer_5:24. The autumnal or early rains of Scripture, usually
commence in the latter half of October or the beginning of November; not suddenly, but
by degrees, which gives opportunity for the husbandman to sow his fields of wheat and
barley. The rains come mostly from the west or south-west, continuing for two or three
days at a time, and falling especially during the nights. The wind then chops round to the
north or east, and several days of fine weather succeed. During the months of November
and December the rains continue to fail heavily; afterwards they return only at longer
intervals, and are less heavy; but at no period during the winter do they entirely cease to
occur.
Snow often falls in Jerusalem, in January and February, to the depth of a foot or more,
but it does not last long. Rain continues to fall more or less through the month of March,
but it is rare after that period. At the present time there are not any particular periods of
rain, or successions of showers, which might be regarded as distinct rainy seasons. The
whole period from October to March now constitutes only one continued rainy season,
without any regularly intervening time of prolonged fair weather. Unless, therefore,
there has been some change in the climate since the times of the New Testament, the
early and the latter rains for which the husbandman waited with longing, seem rather to
have implied the first showers of autumn, which revived the parched and thirsty earth,
and prepared it for the seed; and the latter showers of spring, which continued to refresh
and forward the ripening crops and the vernal products of the fields. In ordinary
seasons, from the cessation of the showers in spring until their commencement in
October or November, rain never falls, and the sky is usually serene. - Robinson’s
Biblical Researches, vol. ii., pp. 96-100.

72. CLARKE, "Be patient, therefore - Because God is coming to execute judgment on
this wicked people, therefore be patient till he comes. He seems here to refer to the
coming of the Lord to execute judgment on the Jewish nation, which shortly afterwards
took place.
The husbandman waiteth - The seed of your deliverance is already sown, and by
and by the harvest of your salvation will take place. God’s counsels will ripen in due
time.
The early and latter rain - The rain of seed time; and the rain of ripening before
harvest: the first fell in Judea, about the beginning of November, after the seed was
sown; and the second towards the end of April, when the ears were filling, and this
prepared for a full harvest. Without these two rains, the earth would have been
unfruitful. These God had promised: I will give you the rain of your land in his due
season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy
wine, and thy oil, Deu_11:14. But for these they were not only to wait patiently, but also
to pray, Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain; so shall the Lord make
bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field; Zec_10:1.
GILL, "Be patient therefore, brethren,.... The apostle here addresses himself to
the poor who were oppressed by the rich men, and these he calls "brethren" of whom he
was not ashamed; when he does not bestow this title upon the rich, though professors of
the same religion: these poor brethren he advises to be patient under their sufferings, to
bear them with patience,
unto the coming of the Lord; not to destroy Jerusalem, but either at death, or at the
last, judgment; when he will take vengeance on their oppressors, and deliver them from
all their troubles, and put them into the possession of that kingdom, and glory, to which
they are called; wherefore, in the mean while, he would have them be quiet and easy, not
to murmur against God, nor seek to take vengeance on men, but leave it to God, to
whom it belongs, who will judge his people:
behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth; ripe fruit,
which arises from the seed he sows in the earth; and which may be called "precious",
because useful both to man and beast; see Deu_33:14 and between this, and the sowing
of the seed, is a considerable time, during which the husbandman waits; and this may be
an instruction in the present case:
and hath patience for it until he receive the early and latter rain; the Jews had
seldom rains any more than twice a year; the early, or former rain, was shortly after the
feast of tabernacles (u), in the month Marchesvan, or October, when the seed was sown
in the earth; and if it did not rain, they prayed for it, on the third or seventh day of the
month (w); and the latter rain was in Nisan, or March (x), just before harvest; and to this
distinction the passage refers.
HE RY, "Attend to your duty: Be patient (Jam_5:7), establish your hearts (Jam_5:8),
grudge not one against another, brethren, Jam_5:9. Consider well the meaning of these
three expressions: - (1.) “Be patient - bear your afflictions without murmuring, your

73. injuries without revenge; and, though God should not in any signal manner appear for
you immediately, wait for him. The vision is for an appointed time; at the end it will
speak, and will not lie; therefore wait for it. It is but a little while, and he that shall
come will come, and will not tarry. Let your patience be lengthened out to long
suffering;” so the word here used, makrothumēsate, signifies. When we have done our
work, we have need of patience to stay for our reward. This Christian patience is not a
mere yielding to necessity, as the moral patience taught by some philosophers was, but it
is a humble acquiescence in the wisdom and will of God, with an eye to a future glorious
recompense: Be patient to the coming of the Lord. And because this is a lesson
Christians must learn, though ever so hard or difficult to the, it is repeated in Jam_5:8,
Be you also patient. (2.) “Establish your hearts - let your faith be firm, without
wavering, your practice of what is good constant and continued, without tiring, and your
resolutions for God and heaven fixed, in spite of all sufferings or temptations.” The
prosperity of the wicked and the affliction of the righteous have in all ages been a very
great trial to the faith of the people of God. David tells us that his feet were almost gone,
when he saw the prosperity of the wicked, Psa_73:2, Psa_73:3. Some of those
Christians to whom St. James wrote might probably be in the same tottering condition;
and therefore they are called upon to establish their hearts; faith and patience will
establish the heart. (3.) Grudge not one against another; the words mē stenazete signify,
Groan not one against another, that is, “Do not make one another uneasy by your
murmuring groans at what befalls you, nor by your distrustful groans as to what may
further come upon you, nor by your revengeful groans against the instruments of your
sufferings, nor by your envious groans at those who may be free from your calamities: do
not make yourselves uneasy and make one another uneasy by thus groaning to and
grieving one another.” “The apostle seemeth to me” (says Dr. Manton) “to be here taxing
those mutual injuries and animosities wherewith the Christians of those times, having
banded under the names of circumcision and uncircumcision, did grieve one another,
and give each other cause to groan; so that they did not only sigh under the oppressions
of the rich persecutors, but under the injuries which they sustained from many of the
brethren who, together with them, did profess the holy faith.” Those who are in the
midst of common enemies, and in any suffering circumstances, should be more
especially careful not to grieve nor to groan against one another, otherwise judgments
will come upon them as well as others; and the more such grudgings prevail the nearer
do they show judgment to be.
JAMISO , "Be patient therefore — as judgment is so near (Jam_5:1, Jam_5:3),
ye may well afford to be “patient” after the example of the unresisting Just one (Jam_
5:6).
brethren — contrasted with the “rich” oppressors, Jam_5:1-6.
unto the coming of the Lord — Christ, when the trial of your patience shall cease.
husbandman waiteth for — that is, patiently bears toils and delays through hope
of the harvest at last. Its “preciousness” (compare Psa_126:6, “precious seed”) will more
than compensate for all the past. Compare the same image, Gal_6:3, Gal_6:9.
hath long patience for it — “over it,” in respect to it.
until he receive — “until it receive” [Alford]. Even if English Version be retained,
the receiving of the early and latter rains is not to be understood as the object of his
hope, but the harvest for which those rains are the necessary preliminary. The early rain
fell at sowing time, about November or December; the latter rain, about March or April,
to mature the grain for harvest. The latter rain that shall precede the coming spiritual

74. harvest, will probably be another Pentecost-like effusion of the Holy Ghost.
CALVI , "7Be patient therefore. From this inference it is evident that what has
hitherto been said against the rich, pertains to the consolation of those who seemed
for a time to be exposed to their wrongs with impunity. For after having mentioned
the causes of those calamities which were hanging over the rich, and having stated
this among others, that they proudly and cruelly ruled over the poor, he
immediately adds, that we who are unjustly oppressed, have this reason to be
patient, because God would become the judge. For this is what he means when he
says, unto the coming of the Lord, that is, that the confusion of things which is now
seen in the world will not be perpetual, because the Lord at his coming will reduce
things to ORDER, and that therefore our minds ought to entertain good hope; for it
is not without reason that the restoration of all things is promised to us at that day.
And though the day of the Lord is everywhere called in the Scriptures a
manifestation of his judgment and grace, when he succors his people and chastises
the ungodly, yet I prefer to regard the expression here as referring to our final
deliverance.
Behold, the husbandman. Paul briefly refers to the same similitude in 2 Timothy
2:6, when he says that the husbandman ought to labor before he gathers the fruit;
but James more fully expresses the idea, for he mentions the daily patience of the
husbandman, who, after having committed the seed to the earth, confidently, or at
least patiently, waits until the time of harvest comes; nor does he fret because the
earth does not immediately yield a ripe fruit. He hence concludes, that we ought not
to be immoderately anxious, if we must now labor and sow, until the harvest as it
were comes, even the day of the Lord.
The precious fruit. He calls it precious, because it is the nourishment of life and the
means of sustaining it. And James intimates, that since the husbandman suffers his
life, so precious to him, to lie long DEPOSITED in the bosom of the earth, and
calmly suspends his desire to gather the fruit, we ought not to be too hasty and
fretful, but resignedly to wait for the day of our redemption. It is not necessary to
specify particularly the other parts of the comparison.
The early and the latter rains. By the two words, early and latter, two seasons are
pointed out; the first follows soon after sowing; and the other when the corn is
ripening. So the prophets spoke, when they intended to set forth the time for rain,
(Deuteronomy 28:12; Joel 2:23; Hosea 6:3.) And he has mentioned both times, in
order more fully to shew that husbandmen are not disheartened by the SLOW
progress of time, but bear with the delay.
BARCLAY, "WAITI G FOR THE COMI G OF THE LORD (James 5:7-9)
5:7-9 Brothers. have patience until the coming of the Lord. Look you, the farmer
waits for the precious fruit of the earth, patiently waiting for it until it receives the
early and the late rains. So do you too be patient. Make firm YOUR hearts for the
coming of the Lord is near. Brothers, do not complain against each other, that you
may not be condemned. Look you, the judge stands at the door.

75. The early church lived in expectation of the immediate Second Coming of Jesus
Christ; and James exhorts his people to wait with patience for the few years which
remain. The farmer has to wait for his crops until the early and the late rains have
come. The early and the late rains are often spoken of in Scripture, for they were
all-important to the farmer of Palestine (Deuteronomy 11:14; Jeremiah 5:24; Joel
2:23). The early rain was the rain of late October and early ovember without
which the seed would not germinate. The late rain was the rain of April and May
without which the grain would not mature. The farmer needs patience to wait until
nature does her work; and the Christian needs patience to wait until Christ comes.
During that waiting they must CO FIRM their faith. They must not blame one
another for the troubles of the situation in which they find themselves for, if they do,
they will be breaking the commandment which forbids Christians to judge one
another (Matthew 7:1); and if they break that commandment, they will be
condemned. James has no doubt of the nearness of the coming of Christ. The judge
is at the door, he says, using a phrase which Jesus himself had used (Mark 13:29;
Matthew 24:33).
It so happened that the early church was mistaken. Jesus Christ did not return
within a generation. But it will be of interest to gather up the ew Testament's
teaching about the Second Coming so that we may see the essential truth at its heart.
We may first note that the ew Testament uses three different words to describe the
Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
(i) The commonest is parousia (Greek #3952), a word which has come into English
as it stands. It is used in Matthew 24:3; Matthew 24:27; Matthew 24:37; Matthew
24:39; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 1 Thessalonians 3:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:15; 1
Thessalonians 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 2:1; 1 Corinthians 15:23; 1 John 2:28; 2 Peter
1:16; 2 Peter 3:4. In secular Greek this is the ordinary word for someone's presence
or arrival. But it has two other usages, one of which became quite technical. It is
used of the invasion of a country by an army and specially it is used of the visit of a
king or a governor to a province of his empire. So, then, when this word is used of
Jesus, it means that his Second Coming is the final invasion of earth by heaven and
the coming of the King to receive the final submission and adoration of his subjects.
(ii) The ew Testament also uses the word epiphaneia (Greek #2015) (Titus 2:13; 2
Timothy 4:1; 2 Thessalonians 2:9). In ordinary Greek this word has two SPECIAL
usages. It is used of the appearance of a god to his worshipper; and it is used of the
accession of an emperor to the imperial power of Rome. So, then, when this word is
used of Jesus, it means that his Second Coming is God appearing to his people, both
to those who are waiting for him and to those who are disregarding him.
(iii) Finally the ew Testament uses the word apokalupsis (Greek #602) (1 Peter 1:7;
1 Peter 1:13). Apokalupsis in ordinary Greek means an unveiling or a laying bare;
and when it is used of Jesus, it means that his Second Coming is the laying bare of

76. the power and glory of God come upon men.
Here, then, we have a series of great pictures. The Second Coming of Jesus is the
arrival of the King; it is God appearing to his people and mounting his eternal
throne; it is God directing on the world the full blaze of his heavenly glory.
THE COMI G OF THE KI G (James 5:7-9 CO TI UED)
We may now gather up briefly the teaching of the ew Testament about the Second
Coming and the various uses it makes of the idea.
(i) The ew Testament is clear that no man knows the day or the hour when Christ
comes again. So secret, in fact, is that time that Jesus himself does not know it; it is
known to God alone (Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32). From this basic fact one thing is
clear. Human speculation about the time of the Second Coming is not only useless, it
is blasphemous; for surely no man should seek to gain a knowledge which is hidden
from Jesus Christ himself and resides only in the mind of God.
(ii) The one thing that the ew Testament does say about the Second Coming is that
it will be as sudden as the lightning and as unexpected as a thief in the night
(Matthew 24:27; Matthew 24:37; Matthew 24:39; 1 Thessalonians 5:2; 2 Peter 3:10).
We cannot wait to get ready when it comes; we must be ready for its coming.
So, the ew Testament urges certain duties upon men.
(i) They must be for ever on the watch (1 Peter 4:7). They are like servants whose
master has gone away and who, not knowing when he will return, must have
everything ready for his return, whether it be at morning, at midday, or at evening
(Matthew 24:36-51).
(ii) Long delay must not produce despair or forgetfulness (2 Peter 3:4). God does not
see time as men do. To him a thousand years are as a watch in the night and even if
the years pass on, it does not mean that he has either changed or abandoned his
design.
(iii) Men must use the time given them to prepare for the coming of the King. They
must be sober (1 Peter 4:7). They must get to themselves holiness (1 Thessalonians
3:13). By the grace of God they must become blameless in body and in spirit (1
Thessalonians 5:23). They must put off the works of darkness and put on the
armour of light now that the day is far spent (Romans 13:11-14). Men must use the
time given them to make themselves such that they can greet the coming of the King
with joy and without shame.
(iv) When that time comes, they must be found in fellowship. Peter uses the thought
of the Second Coming to urge men to love and mutual hospitality (1 Peter 4:8-9).
Paul commands that all things be done in love--Maran-atha (Greek #3134)--the
Lord is at hand (1 Corinthians 16:14; 1 Corinthians 16:22). He says that our
forbearance must be known to all men because the Lord is at hand (Philippians 4:5).

77. The word TRA SLATED "forbearance" is epieikes (Greek #1933) which means the
spirit that is more ready to OFFER forgiveness than to demand justice. The writer
to the Hebrews demands mutual help, mutual Christian fellowship, mutual
encouragement because the day is coming near (Hebrews 10:24-25). The ew
Testament is sure that in view of the Coming of Christ we must have our personal
relationships right with our fellow-men. The ew Testament would urge that no
man ought to end a day with an unhealed breach between himself and a fellow-man,
lest in the night Christ should come.
(v) John uses the Second Coming as a reason for urging men to abide in Christ (1
John 2:28). Surely the best preparation for meeting Christ is to live close to him
every day.
Much of the imagery ATTACHED to the Second Coming is Jewish, part of the
traditional apparatus of the last things in the ancient Jewish mind. There are many
things which we are not meant to take literally. But the great truth behind all the
temporary pictures of the Second Coming is that this world is not purposeless but
going somewhere, that there is one divine far-off event to which the whole creation
moves.
BE SO , "James 5:7-9. Be patient therefore, brethren — He now ADDRESSES
the pious, oppressed, and persecuted disciples of Christ: as if he had said, Since the
Lord will soon come to punish them, and relieve you, patiently bear the injuries
which rich men offer you, and quietly wait till he come. Behold the husbandman
waiteth for the precious fruit — Which will recompense his labour and patience; till
he receive the early, or the former rain — Immediately after sowing; and the latter
— Before harvest. In Judea the rains usually come in a regular manner; the early
rain about the BEGI I G of ovember, after the seed is sown, and the latter in
the middle or toward the end of April, while the ears are filling. These rains were
promised to the Israelites, Deuteronomy 11:14, where see the note, and on Hosea
6:3. Be ye also patient — Like the husbandman; stablish — στηριξατε, strengthen,
or CO FIRM your hearts — In faith and patience, considering that your sufferings
will not be long; the coming of the Lord — To destroy your persecutors; draweth
nigh — And so does his coming to rescue his people from the troubles of this life by
death, and to judge the world in righteousness at the last day. Grudge, or, groan,
not — As στεναζετε signifies; one against another — Groaning is caused by
oppression; and when it is merely the natural expression of affliction, it is perfectly
consistent with genuine piety, and moves God to pity the afflicted person, 2:18 : but
when it is the effect of impatience, or when it implies a desire of revenge, it becomes
criminal, and is the kind of groaning which the apostle forbids. Some read the
clause, Murmur not one against another: that is, have patience also with each other;
lest ye be condemned — Lest you all suffer for it, and perish in the common
calamity; behold the Judge — Christ; standeth before the door — Hearing every
word, marking every thought, and ready to execute those judgments.
COFFMA , "Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold,
the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it,

78. until it receive the early and latter rain.
Until the coming of the Lord ... In Jesus' great prophetic utterances regarding the
destruction of Jerusalem, as recorded in Matthew 24; Mark 13, and Luke 21, our
Lord blended the prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem with those of the
coming of the end of the world; and, in all probability, not even the apostles and
other ew Testament writers understood until long afterward that the two
EVE TSwould be separated by a vast distance in time. Only time would reveal that
the destruction of Jerusalem, which was indeed the end of the Jewish dispensation,
of the Jewish state, and of Judaistic persecution of Christianity, would be only a
type of the destruction of the whole world at the Second Advent. They fully
understood that Jerusalem was to be destroyed before that "generation" had passed
(see in my Commentary on Mark for double meaning of "generation," p. 292).
"Coming of the Lord," therefore, in this place has primary reference to the
destruction of Jerusalem; but in its wider reference to the Second Advent, the
admonition of "patience" APPLIES to all generations of Christians.
Be patient, therefore ... "Patience," as used here, does not mean merely patience
with respect to persons, but as Gibson noted, "It includes endurance in respect of
things (that is, of events)."[24] Harper paraphrased the meaning as "Patiently
accept God's delay in the timing of our Lord's return."[25]
The early and latter rain ... "The husbandman" here is a farmer who, after planting
his crops, does not expect the harvest at once, but patiently waits until the early and
latter rains have sprouted and matured the grain. As Wessel explained:
In Palestine, the early rain in October and ovember came after the crop was
planted, and the latter rain in April and May when they were maturing. Both were
crucial for the success of the crop.[26]SIZE>
Some have seen in this illustration an intimation that God in his harvest of the earth
will also wait for the early rain (that PROSPEROUS era of Christianity before the
destruction of Jerusalem), and the latter rain (the evangelization of the world prior
to the final advent of Christ). Although interesting, it is precarious to make such an
illustration the basis of any specific prophesy. However, as Carson noted, "The
words naturally recall our Lord's comparison of the consummation of the age to a
harvest (Matthew 13:39)."[27] Joel also has some words in the same line of thought
(Joel 2:23).
[24] E. C. S. Gibson, op. cit., p. 68.
[25] A. F. Harper, op. cit., p. 242.
[26] Walter W. Wessel, Wycliffe ew Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody
Press, 1971), p. 961.
[27] T. Carson, op. cit., p. 580.
COKE, "James 5:7. Brethren,— It would have been exceedingly strange if the

79. Christians had condemned and killed any of their own number: what is said,
therefore, James 5:6 as well as several other things, prove that James 5:1-6 is an
apostrophe to the unbelieving Jews; who were wicked themselves, and persecuted
the Christians, but were to come to a speedy and exemplary destruction. His
BEGI I G this exhortation with Brethren, and recommending patience to them,
from the consideration of the approaching destruction of their rich and potent
adversaries, seems a plain intimation that the apostle is turning his ADDRESS to the
Christians, to whom, in the preceding verses, he had not been speaking directly; for
they were in a suffering state, and were not in general the persecutors of others. See
ch. James 2:6-7.
ELLICOTT, "(7) Be patient.—The third, and last, part of the Letter commences
here with these exhortations towards endurance.
Therefore—i.e., because of this YOUR deep and abiding misery, be sure God’s help
is nigh:—
“The darkest hour is on the verge of day.”
“Out of your stony griefs” build, like Jacob of old, a house of God (Genesis 28:19),
whereunto you may run and find refuge. If there be wrath laid up in STORE for the
oppressor, great is the coming peace of the oppressed.
The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience
for it . . . Be ye also patient.—It becomes you, the just, to bear with the unjust till
God work the end of your trial, and prove them at the same time. Again and again,
through several verses (James 5:7-11), St. James repeats his advice, emphasising it
with various reasons: the nearness of deliverance; the Judge standing at the gate;
the example of the prophets—persecuted by men, and therefore blessed of God; the
hope of those who endure—Job for example: the very faithfulness and tender mercy
of the Lord, bringing all things to a perfect end. Few ideas are more startling (is a
reflection of Dr. Evans) than those produced by the strange combinations in
Scripture. Matters are joined there which we mostly put asunder here, speaking of
them, at least, as APART. And thus we read in the Revelation (James 1:9) of the
kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. But all Christians are citizens of a patient
kingdom; the King thereof is more patient, as He hath greater need of patience than
His subjects, and He is patient, because He is strong. Impatience is a sign of
weakness. God can afford to wait, for His time is eternity. And we can be strong in
His strength, and wait also in patience. In so far as St. James’s hearers were earthly
minded, they could not learn this lesson; so often with ourselves we would have our
wrong righted instantly, and to the full. Only one view of life can alter this, viz., the
lifting of our gaze from earth to heaven, remembering that “the time is SHORT” (1
Corinthians 7:29).
The early and latter rain.—It is, perhaps, just as well to recollect there were only
two seasons of rainfall in the Holy Land, and, if long delayed, famine was a certain
result. With the change of the Israelites from pastoral life to agricultural, the

80. malignity of these dearths was lessened; but they were and are still severe. The Bible
mentions many such—e.g., in the days of Abraham (Genesis 12:10), Isaac (Genesis
26:1), Jacob (Genesis 42:2), Ruth (James 1:1), Samuel (2 Samuel 21:1), Ahab (1
Kings 18:2). The “early rain” fell during the autumn sowing—in October,
ovember, and December; “the latter” in March and April. By many versions the
word “rain” is omitted, but, of course, was always intended.
BURKITT, "Observe here, 1. The duty exhorted to, patience: Be patient, brethren.
Patience is a sense of afflictions without murmuring, and of injuries without
revenge. It is the duty of Christians to be patient under their sufferings, though they
be long and sharp.
Observe, 2. The argument to enforce this duty, The coming of the Lord draweth
nigh. This may be understood of Christ's particular coming to judge his murderers
at Jerusalem, which was then at hand, or of his general coming to judge the world at
the last day. As if our apostle had said, "Have a little patience, and when YOUR
Lord cometh he will put a period to all your afflictions; with desire long for his
coming, and yet with patience wait for it."
Observe, 3. A pattern of patience, propounded in the husbandman, he waiteth, and
waiteth long for the time of harvest; and in ORDER thereunto, for the former and
latter rain, to prepare the corn for the day of a joyful harvest. ow, in imitation of
the husbandman, the patient Christian thus argues with himself: "If the
husbandman waits with patience for the coming of the harvest, shall not I wait with
perseverance for the coming of my Lord? The approach of harvest is precious to
him, and shall not the appearance of Christ be so to me? Shall he endure so much
for a little corn, and not I much more for a heavenly kingdom?
Observe, 4. The direction given in ORDER to the obtaining of this patience and long
suffering, stablish YOUR hearts; that is, in a firm expectaion of Christ's coming,
believe that he will come certainly, and may come suddenly, and sooner perhaps
than you may apprehend.
Learn hence, that it is the duty of Christians, in and under their afflictions, to
stablish their hearts in a firm belief of the coming and appearance of Christ, to put a
final period to all their sufferings, and to REWARD their victorious faith and
patience: Be ye also patient, stablish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord
draweth nigh.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, "The husbandman waiteth
Persuasives to patience
Here the apostle inculcates—
I.
A PATIENCE THAT, IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS THAT LIFE RIPENS, WAITS. This is
taught in the allusion made to harvest. The husbandman waits. He waits from the season
of the autumnal till after the vernal rains. These rains, and all the ripening influences of

81. sun and earth succeed each other in unhastened order, tie waits for what is worth the
waiting. To him the clusters of the grape, the sheaves of the corn, are “precious fruit.”
And all the time he waits, he knows that the ripening process is going on.
1. The human race advances to maturity. Notwithstanding the blight of its early
spring, and the many perils of all its seasons, the great Restorer points to its harvest
when He says, “Then cometh the end.”
2. Our individual life is under the same law, the law of growth. “Whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he also reap.” Every life ripens, every life tends to and culminates
in a harvest. Towards it in all our seasons we are advancing. To the Christian man
the produce, the result of his ever-ripening life, will be in its habits, experiences, and
fellowships, a harvest of “precious fruit.” Even now he reads pages of his own inner
history, which prove that “tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience,
and experience hope.”
II. A. PATIENCE THAT, BY THE HOPE THAT CHRIST WILL COME, IS UPHELD. The
expression of patience at which we have been looking is that of a somewhat spiritless
resignation. Now we are summoned to a fortitude prepared for all that may happen.
“Stablish your hearts.” The Septuagint uses the word translated “stablish” to describe
the upbearing of the hands of Moses by Aaron and Hur on the mountain. Those two men
sustained the prophet’s arms from hour to hour till the war was over, and the victory
won. So there is a hope which our patience, though often like Moses’ hands thus heavy,
may be upheld. What hope?” That the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” The “coming of
the Lord” may mean at least one of the three things:
1. His coming in some special dispensation of Providence.
2. His coming to judge the world.
3. His coming at our death.
III. A PATIENCE THAT IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST’S PRESENCE IS
UNMURMURING. “The Judge standeth before the door,” and though Judge, it is He
who was the “Man of sorrows,” the “despised and rejected of men.” Does not His history,
from the stable to the Cross, shame our murmurs? “The Judge standeth before the
door,” and knows the circumstances and deserts of us all. Before we judge others we
need that our eye should, like Christ’s, search souls as well as circumstances, and that
our hand, like His, should weigh character as well as condition. “The Judge standeth
before the door,” and will rightly reward our destiny. Dare we anticipate His sentence?
Need we?
IV. A PATIENCE THAT IN THE SENSE OF ITS FELLOWSHIPS REJOICES. High
among the heroes of the good stand the prophets. Having held communion with God,
they have turned to the world of men, and charged with God-given thoughts, have stood
and taught in His stead. Thus, theirs has been the dignity not of mere nobility, nor
royalty, but of Divinity. Their sufferings have become as famous as their mission—so
famous that we are bidden to take them as examples of “suffering affliction.” In our
sufferings, therefore, we can look round to those that have “spoken in the name of the
Lord,” and wonderingly ask one and another of them, “Art thou also become weak as
we? art thou become like unto us?” But as eminent as their sorrows is their endurance.
When we think of them we reckon them not as sad, unfortunate, pitiable. Listening to
the voice that on the mountain pronounced who among men are “blessed,” we know that
these prophets are indeed blessed.
V. A PATIENCE THAT THROUGH CONFIDENCE IN GOD’S CHARACTER IS

82. ALLCONQUERING. The expression, “The end of Lord,” may mean one of two things,
either of which reveals Him as being “very pitiful and of tender mercy.”
1. It may mean the termination to which God brings sorrow. For illustration of this,
perhaps, Job’s name is cited.
2. Or it may mean the object of the Lord in permitting sorrows. Well has it been said
that “it is rough work that polishes. Look at the pebbles on the shore! Far inland,
where some arm of the sea thrusts itself deep in the bosom of the land and
expanding into a salt loch, lies girdled by the mountains, sheltered from the storms
that agitate the deep, the pebbles on the beach are rough, not beautiful—angular, not
rounded. It is where long white lines of breakers roar, and the rattling shingle is
rolled about the strand, that its pebbles are rounded and polished. As in nature, as in
the arts, so in the grace: it is rough treatment that gives souls, as well as stones, their
lustre. The more the diamond is cut, the brighter it sparkles; and in what seems hard
dealing, their God has no end in view but to perfect His people’s graces.” (U. R.
Thomas.)
Are missions a failure?
It is a matter of common remark that Christian missions are often looked upon
somewhat coldly even by well-disposed people. The main reason for this coldness is, at
least in very many cases, a mistaken estimate of what missions can be reasonably
expected to achieve. Now the first point to be observed in this estimate of what missions
can be expected to do, is that it is the natural product of one feature of the temper of our
day. The human mind is largely influenced by the outward circumstances of the
successive forms of civilisation in which it finds itself; and within the last half century
railroads and telegraphs have successively altered human habits of thought in more
respects than one. We assume that the rate at which we travel and send messages must
necessarily have its counterpart in all meritorious forms of human effort; and in this way
we accustom ourselves to regard rapidity in producing results as a necessary test of good
work—a test failure to satisfy which is not easily, if at all, atoned for by other tokens of
excellence. This impatience of delay in production may have its advantages in certain
limited districts of activity. But is it not a mistake to assume that all forms of human
effort are improved by this acceleration of pace, or, indeed, that they will adapt
themselves to it? Take art, and consider the old and true saying, “Time is short and art is
long.” Do what we will, art cannot be hurried. Even if a painter or a sculptor creates with
great rapidity this or that masterpiece, the rapidity is limited to the moment of
production; the real preparation which has enabled him to project the idea, and has
perfected the methods of expressing it, is the work of a lifetime, and rare, indeed, are the
occasions when even a great artist can produce rapidly and to order. Or take literature.
As a rule, the composition of a great poem, or history, or treatise, which shall live
extends over many years, not because the mechanical labour involved formally in writing
out a considerable work requires a great deal of time, but especially because to produce
anything that shall have on it the stamp of maturity requires time stilt more urgently—
time for redressing, so far as may be possible, some defects whichnecessarily attach to
the first effort at production, time to reconsider what is ill-judged, to supply what is
deficient, to anticipate in some degree the sentence which an impartial posterity would
pass upon a composition in its original crudity. Now, to-day, we are remarking how this
impatience for immediate results which marks our time extends itself beyond those
activities which are mainly or wholly human, and claims to mould and to govern

83. undertakings in which God is the main agent, and man only God’s instrument. Only here
the impatient demand is apt to meet with a different kind of reception from there.
Artists and men of letters adjust their work to the temper of the day, but the Eternal
Workman heeds not the varying moods and fashions of the creature whom He has made,
and, in spite of the demand for rapid production, is at this hour as slow and as sure in
His work as at any past time in history. A mission is essentially a work in which man
counts for little, although his active exertion is imperatively necessary. In a mission, the
influences which fertilise human effort, and the date at which this fertilisation shall take
place, are alike in the hands of God. When this is felt, it will be felt also that an order, so
to describe it, upon a given mission for so many converts, at least, within such and such
time, is an indefensible thing. But St. James in the text supplies us with an illustration
which may enable us to see this more clearly. What “the coming of the Lord” certainly
means in this passage may be open to discussion. Our Lord comes to us in blessings and
in judgments, and St. James may be thinking of some political or social event which
would put a stop to the oppressions of which his correspondents had complained; or he
may be thinking of our Lord’s second coming to judgment: But either coming, St. James
implies, is in this respect like the natural harvest—that while man’s activity leads up to it,
it depends on agencies which are beyond man’s control. When St. James points to the
presence and operation of God in nature, every countryman in Syria would have
understood him. The corn was sown in September; in October there came the early rain,
which made the seed sprout; the latter rain fell, as a rule, in March or the beginning of
April, in time to make the ears swell before they ripened. In a soil of remarkable fertility,
but generally of no great depth, spread as it was over the limestone rock, everything
depended on the two rainfalls. The husbandman could only prepare the soil and sow the
seed: the rest he must leave to God; and St. James dwells on the long patience with
which, as a rule, a Syrian peasant waited for the precious fruit of the earth, and for the
rainfall which was so necessary to its growth. And his language illustrates an old
observation, that, as a rule, people who live in the country are more religious—by which
I mean more constantly alive to the presence and the working of Almighty God—than are
people who live in towns. The habit of Watching God in Nature is of itself a lesson in the
school of faith. If anything is clear about God’s work in nature, it is that it proceeds
gradually, that it cannot be precipitated. This truth finds, perhaps, unintentional
expression in the modern word of which we hear so much—evolution. One period in the
earth’s earliest condition introduces to another; one phase of natural life leads on to the
confines of another; this epoch of human history is the parent of much that first emerges
to view in that—the truth being that the one presiding and controlling Mind is
throughout at work, never ceasing from, never hesitating about His task, and that
eternal wisdom which reaches from one end to another mightily and sweetly doth order
all things. And in nature, so, as St. James implies, it is in grace. Man does his part; he
sows the word of life, he prepares the soil, he plants with St. Paul, he waters with
Apollos, but he can do no more, and God, who sends the early and the latter rain, alone
gives the increase. So it is in the history of individuals when that great change takes
place which is called conversion, whether from error to truth or from ungodliness of life
to obedience of Christ. St. Augustine tells us that long before the change which was
precipitated by his reading the passage in the Epistle to the Romans he had met with
teachers, events, examples which had set him thinking. He put those thoughts aside, but
they returned. He again dismissed them; again they came back to him. He was, in truth,
ill at ease; his Manichean creed, his dissolute life were the husks on which this prodigal
son long fed, but those husks had a work of disenchantment to do, though time was
needed in which to do it, and at last this preparatory process was over. The hesitations,
the misgivings, the yearnings, the relapses, the near approaches to grace, and the

84. shrinkings back from grace had all come to an end; the fruit had ripened, whereby the
Christian Church received the greatest of her teachers since St. Paul. And so, too, in the
history of societies. It took three centuries to convert the Roman empire to Christianity,
if, indeed, we may rightly so describe the numerical superiority, for it was not much
more, on the part of the Christians at the end of the first quarter of the fourth century of
our era. And yet even so described what a wonderful work it was! Three centuries before
such a result would have seemed impossible to any man of sense and judgment. In view
of these natural analogies, and of this history, let us turn once more to the modern
demand that so many missionaries shall produce in such and such a time so many
converts, and to the impatience, if not the indignation, which is felt or expressed if this
expectation is not realised, as though something had taken place which was akin to a
commercial fraud. What is this modern way of looking at missions but an endeavour to
apply to the kingdom of Divine grace those rules of investment and return which are
most properly kept in view in a house of commerce? Do you not see that this demand
leaves God, the Great Missionary of all, out of the calculation? God has His own times
for pouring out His Spirit, His own methods of silent preparation, His own measures of
speed and of delay, and He does not take missionaries or the promoters of missionary
societies into His confidence. He has a larger outlook than they, and more
comprehensive plans, and whether He gives or withholds His gifts, of this we may be
sure, in view of the truest and broadest interests of His spiritual kingdom: we appeal to
His bounty, but we can but do as He bids us, and abide His time. Not that this reverent
patience in waiting for God’s blessing is any excuse whatever for relaxing the zealous
activity with which missionary efforts should be prosecuted by the Church of God. The
husbandman does not the less plough the soil or the less sow the seed because he is
uncertain whether his labour will be followed by the early and the latter rain. If he does
not plough and sow he knows that the rain will be useless at least to him. It is quite
possible for a secret indifference to the interests of Christ and His kingdom to veil itself
under the garb of reverence, to refuse to help the work of Christian missions because we
do not know how far God will promote a particular mission; but that is only one of the
many forms of self-deceit which we Christians too often employ in order to evade
Christian duties. Duties are for us, the results with God. (Canon Liddon.)
Waiting
I. BEHOLD THE CONTINUED AND PERSEVERING DILIGENCE WHICH PRECEDED
THE EXERCISE OF THE HUSBANDMAN’S PATIENCE, HOW various and multiplied
are his labours: he ploughed, dressed, fallowed, sowed, harrowed, his fields—and for
what?—to wait until the softened furrows should allow the tender grain to sprout. Can
you behold his preparatory efforts without emotion? Alas I we are verily guilty in this
matter. What little diligence have we evinced—how disconnected have our toils been—
how unwilling to repeat the effort, which appears pretentious!
II. MAKE THE SUBMISSIVE ACQUIESCENCE WITH WHICH HE EXPECTS THE
PROMISED ISSUE OF HIS LABOURS. He, indeed, knows not which field shall best
prosper, or whether both shall be alike good; but he quietly, and without distraction,
waits the arrival of spring, when the tender herb shall appear. And shall he be wiser in
his worldly ways than you, who are the husbandmen of the Most High? In providential
concerns you are perplexed, and your fears are many; but why be careful for the
morrow? Of what avail is this tumult of mind, this agitation of spirit? Under tedious
delays, does this rebellion of heart do other than increase your misery? Stand still, and
see the salvation of the Lord; observe how the husbandman waits, how deep is the

85. conviction that impatience will never accelerate his harvest. Moreover, in your case, your
hopes are delayed by this temper. Suffer not your fears-I had almost, but for pity, said,
your follies—to triumph. You are no proper judge of the length of time you have waited:
every minute has been to you as an hour, or as a year. You misjudge the motive of his
delay; it is, that he may commend your patience, as well as reward your labours.
III. OBSERVE THE ANXIETY WITH WHICH THE HUSBANDMAN EXPECTS THE
SPRINGING OF THE CORN. Man is prone to extremes; if he may not be impatient, he
thinks he must be indifferent; if he is condemned for standing still, he runs like some
restive horse which will either not stir, or furiously gallop. But the farmer unites the two;
though not impatient, he is far from unconcerned. Do you take an equal interest, as
lively a concern, in the field you cultivate for your Great Employer? Go to the
husbandman, thou careless and unconcerned parent; consider his anxieties, and be wise:
recollect the domestic trust confided to you.
IV. But once more, notice the CERTAINTY characterises the patient expectation of the
farmer; he waits till “he receive the early and the latter rain.” The expression may be
considered as comprehending all the kindly and sweet influences of the heavens, which
are necessary for the precious fruits of the earth; and have these ever been withheld? But
the profits of our fields are not so certain, by many degrees of probability, as is the
reward of grace which is ensnared by His promise who cannot lie.
1. Before we conclude, let our attention be directed to One who has towards us
exemplified long patience; who has frequently come and sought fruit from us, and
found none. You think much of waiting a few months for your crops; or if your
desires are delayed for a year or two, prayer and effort are both discontinued. Has He
not reason to expect abundant returns from you? What more could He have done for
you?
2. Let me point you to those inferior husbandmen who fairly expected to have
reaped from you the reward of their labours, and yet have hitherto waited in vain.
3. Should the expectations of the husbandman in reference to any of his fields fail, he
will again plough up the land; and, notwithstanding a few sickly plants sprinkled
here and there on the surface of the ground, sacrifice all his toils and hopes, and
prepare it for another crop. Thus has the Great Husbandman dealt with the nations
at large: their privileges have been taken from them, and given to such as bring forth
the fruits thereof: and thus will He act towards individuals who trifle with the means
of cultivation they enjoy. (W. Clayton.)
A visit to the harvest field
The earth that yields seed to the sower and bread to the eater has received its
constitution from God; and it is governed through His wise providence by fixed laws that
are infinitely reliable: and yet, at the same time, with such diversified conditions and
minute peculiarities as may well convince us that the Almighty intended the operations
of nature to supply us with spiritual instruction as well as with material good.
I. First, then, How DOES THE HUSBANDMAN WAIT? He waits with a reasonable hope
for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it until he receive the early
and the latter rain. He expects the harvest because he has ploughed the fields and sown
the grain. Out on the folly of those who flatter their souls with a prospect of good things
in time to come while they neglect the opportunity of sowing good things in the time

86. present. They say they hope it will be well with them at the end; but, since it is not well
with them now, why should they expect any change—much less a change contrary to the
entire order of Providence? The husbandman waits with a reasonable hope; he does not
look for grain where he has cast in garlic. Save then that thou art a fool, thou wilt like
him count only on the fruit of thine own sowing. While he waits with a patient hope, he
is no doubt all the more patient of the issue, because his hope is so reasonable. And not
only does he wait with patience, but some stress is put upon the length of it; “and hath
long patience for the precious fruit of the earth.” Now, our waiting, if it be the work of
the Holy Spirit, must have this long patience in it. Are you a sufferer? There are sweet
fruits to come from suffering t Have long patience for those peaceable fruits. You shall
be brought out of your trouble when the discipline for which you were brought into it
has been fulfilled. Have long patience, however, for not the first month does the
husbandman find a harvest. If he has sown in the winter, he does not expect he will reap
in the early spring: he does not go forth with his sickle in the month of May and expect
to find golden sheaves. He waits. The moons wax and wane; suns rise and set; but the
husbandman waits till the appointed time is come. Wait thou, O sufferer, till the night be
over. Tarry thou a little longer, for if the vision tarry it shall come. Are you a worker?
Then you need as much patience in working as you do in suffering. We must not expect
to see immediate results in all cases from the preaching of the gospel, from the teaching
of Scripture in our classes, from distributing religious literature, or from any other kind
of effort. Be patient, O worker, for impatience sours the temper, chills the blood, sickens
the heart prostrates the vigour of one’s spirit, and spoils the enterprise of life before it is
ripe for history. Wait thou, clothed with patience, like a champion clad in steel. Wait
with a sweet grace, as one who guards the faith and sets an example of humility. Wait in
a right spirit, anxious, prayerful, earnest submissive to the ways of God, not doubtful of
His will. Disciple of Jesus, “learn to labour and to wait.” With regard to the result of
Christian obedience, the lesson is no less striking. The first thing that a farmer does by
way of seeking gain on his farm is to make a sacrifice which could seem immediately to
entail on him a loss. He has some good wheat in the granary, and he takes out sacks full
of it and buries it. You must not expect as soon as you become a Christian, that you shall
obtain all the gains of your religion, perhaps you may lose all that you have for Christ’s
sake. And, while the husbandman waits, you observe in the text he waits with his eye
upward, he waits until God shall send him the early and the latter rain. None but the
eternal Father can send the Holy Spirit like showers on the Church. He can send the
Comforter, and my labour will prosper; it will not be in vain in the Lord; but if He deny,
if He withhold this covenant blessing, ah me! work is useless, patience is worthless, and
all the cost is bootless: it is in vain. Note, however, that while the husbandman waits
with his eye upward, he waits with his hands at work, engaged in restless toil. He cannot
push on the months; he cannot hasten the time of the harvest-home; but he does not
wait in silence, in sluggishness and negligence; he keeps to his work and waits too. So do
you, O Christian men I wait for the coming of your Lord, but let it be with your lamps
trimmed and your lights burning, as good servants. The husbandman waits under
changeful circumstances, and various contingencies. Only a farmer knows how his hopes
and fears alternate and fluctuate from time to time. Yet he waits, he waits with patience.
Ah, when we work for God, how often will this happen! There are always changes in the
field of Christian labour. At one time we see many conversions, and we bless God that
there are so many seals to our testimony. But some of the converts after a while
disappoint us. There was the blossom, but it produced no fruit. Then there will come a
season when many appear to backslide. Some deadly heresy creeps in, and the anxious
husbandman fears there will be no harvest after all. Oh, patience sir, patience. When
God shall give you a rich return for all you have done for Him, you will blush to think

87. you ever doubted; you will be ashamed to think you ever grew weary in His service.
II. WHAT DOES THE HUSBANDMAN WAIT FOR? He waits for results, for real results;
right results; he hopes also rich results. And this is just what we are waiting for—waiting
as sufferers for the results of sanctified affliction. Oh that we might have every virtue
strengthened, every grace refined, by passing through the furnace. And you are, also, like
the husbandman, waiting for a reward. All the while till the hat vest comes, he has
nothing but outlay. From the moment he sows, it is all outgoing until he sells his crops,
and then, recovering at once the principal and the interest, he gets his reward, in this
world look not for a recompense. You may have a grateful acknowledgment in the peace,
and quiet, and contentment of your own spirit, but do not expect even that from your
fellow-men. Wait till the week is over, and then shall come the wage. Wait until the sun
is gone down, and then there will be the penny for every labourer in the vineyard. Not
vet, not yet, not yet. The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth. This is
what we wait for.
III. WHAT IS THE HUSBANDMAN’S ENCOURAGEMENT IN WAITING? The first is,
that the fruit be waits for is precious. Who that walks through a cornfield where the
crops are plentiful, but will say, “Well, this was, after all, worth all the trouble and all the
expense, and all the long patience of that winter which is over and gone?” If the Lord
should draw you near unto Himself by your affliction, if He should make His image in
you more clear, it will be worth waiting for. And if, after your labours, He should give
you some soul for your reward, oh, will it not repay you? We may wait, therefore, with
patience, because the reward of our labour will be precious. Above all, the reward of
hearing the Master say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” is worth waiting for I
Even now to get a word from Him is quite enough to cheer us on, though it be a soft, still
voice that speaks it, but oh, the joy of that loud voice “Well done.” A godly husbandman
waits with patience, again, because he knows God’s covenant. God has said “seed time
and harvest, summer and winter, shall not cease,” and the Christian farmer knowing this
is confident. But oh, what strong confidences have we who have looked to Christ, and
who are resting on the faithful word of a covenant God. He cannot fail us. It is not
possible that He should suffer our faith to be confounded. The covenant stands good, the
harvest must come as surely as the seed time has come. Moreover, every husbandman is
encouraged by the fact that he has seen other harvests. And, O brethren, have not we
multitudes of instances to confirm our confidence? Let us cheerfully resign ourselves to
the Lord’s will in suffering, for as others of His saints who went before us have reaped
the blessing, so shall we.
IV. WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF PATIENCE? To patiently wait God’s appointed
time is our business. Suppose a man should be impatient under suffering. Will it
diminish his suffering? We all know that the irritability of temper which is caused by
impatience is one of the difficulties which the physician has to battle with. “When the
patient is calm there is a better chance of his recovery. O that ye would endeavour to
conquer impatience. It cast Satan out of heaven, when he was impatient at the honour
and dignity of the Son of God. But the benefits of patience are too many for me to hope
to enumerate them. Suffice it to say, patience saves a man from great discouragement.
Expect to wait for glory; expect to wait for the reward which God hath promised; and
while you are waiting on the Lord your bread shall be certain, and your water shall be
sure: you shall often eat meat, thank God, and take courage. The short days and long
nights shall not be all charged with gloom, but full often they shall be tempered with
good cheer. When we have patience it keeps us in good heart for service. Great haste
makes little speed. He that believeth shall not make haste; and as the promise runs, he
shall never be confounded. Above all, patience is to be commended to you because it

88. glorifies God. The man that can wait, and wait calmly, astonishes the worldling, for the
worlding wants it now. You remember John Bunyan’s pretty parable of Passion and
Patience. Passion would have all his best things first, and one came in and lavished
before him out of a bag all that the child could desire. Patience would have his best
things last, and Patience sat and waited, so when Passion had used up all his joy, and all
he sought for, Patience came in for his portion, and as John Bunyan very well remarked,
there is nothing to come after the last, and so the portion of Patience lasted for ever. Let
me have my best things last, my Lord, and my worst things first. Be they what they may,
they shall be over, and then my best things shall last for ever and for ever. There is one
other respect in which our case is like that of the husbandman. As the season advances,
his anxieties are prone to increase rather than to abate. In like manner we have a closing
scene in prospect which may, and will in all probability, involve a greater trial of faith,
and a sterner call for patience, than any or all of the struggles through which we have
already passed. Perhaps I can best describe it to you by quoting two passages of
Scripture, one specially addressed to workers, the other more particularly to sufferers.
The first of these texts you will find in Heb_10:35-36. This is sweet counsel for thee, O
pilgrim, to Zion’s city bound. When thou wast young and strong, thou didst walk many a
weary mile with that staff of promise. It helped thee over the ground. Don’t throw it
aside as useless, now that thou art old and infirm. Lean upon it. Rest upon that promise,
in thy present weakness, which lightened thy labour in the days of thy vigour. “Cast not
away your confidence.” But there is something more. The apostle says, “Ye have need of
patience, after ye have done the will of God.” But why, you will say, is patience so
indispensable at this juncture of experience? Doubtless you all know that we are never so
subject to impatience as when there is nothing we can do. Hence it is that after our fight
is fought, after our race is run, after our allotted task is finished, there is so much need of
patience, of such patience as waits only on God and watches unto prayer, that we may
finish our course with joy and the ministry we have received of the Lord Jesus. And what
about the second text? Turn to Jas_1:4. Seemeth it not as though patience were a virtue
par excellence which puts the last polish on Christian chastity? We will hire us back to
the cornfields again: I am afraid we were forgetting them. But this time we will net talk
so much with the farmer as with the crops. Knowest thou, then, what it is that gives that
bright yellow tinge of maturity to those blades which erst were green and growing?
What, think you, imparts that golden hue to the wheat? All the while the corn was
growing, those hollow stems served as ducts that drew up nourishment from the soil. At
length the process of vegetation is fulfilled. The fibres of the plant become rigid; they
cease their office; down below there has been a failure of the vital power which is the
precursor of death. Henceforth the heavenly powers work quick and marvellous
changes; the sun paints his superscription on the ears of grain. They have reached the
last stage; having fed on the riches of the soil long enough, they are only influenced flora
above. The time of their removal is at hand, when they shall be cut down, carried away in
the team, and housed in the garners. So, too, it is with some of you. “The fall of the year
is most thickly strewn with the fall of human life.” You have long been succoured with
mercies that have come up from mother-earth; you have been exposed to cold dews,
chilling frosts, stormy blasts; you have had the trial of the vapoury fog, the icy winter,
the fickle spring, and the summer drought; but it is nearly all over now. You are ready to
depart. Not yet for a brief space has the reaper come. “Ye have need of patience.” Having
suffered thus far, your tottering frame has learnt to bend. Patience, man—patience! A
mighty transformation is about to be wrought on you in a short space. Wait on the Lord.
Holiness shall now be legibly, more legibly than ever, inscribed on your forefront by the
clear shining of the Sun of Righteousness. The heavenly Husbandman has you daily,
hourly, in His eye, till He shall say to the angel of His presence, “Put in your sickle.” (C.

89. H. Spurgeon.)
Be ye also patient
Christian waiting
I. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIAN WAITING.
1. Christian waiting follows conscientious effort. It is not until we have striven to do
our duty in Divine strength; it is not until we feel ourselves hemmed in, unable to
take another step, that we are to “stand still and see the salvation of God.” The
apostolic injunction is: “Having done all, to stand.” It is not until we have laboured
that we are to learn to wait. To act otherwise would be to play the part of a farmer
who may be waiting for a harvest before he has sown the seed.
2. Christian waiting is an outcome of faith. Faith in the Divine promises, fidelity,
ability, and love.
3. Christian waiting is patient. It is a state in which fluttering and murmuring have
no place; it is a state in which there is dignified self-restraint, and sweet acquiescence
to that will which is recognised to be infallible, sovereign, and good.
4. Christian waiting is expectant. It is ever on the outlook. An attendant, who was
asked to wake a visitor in time to meet an appointment, was lingering hard by for the
purpose, when some one exclaimed, “What, sitting here and doing nothing!” “No,”
was the quick reply, “I am busy waiting.” The man who is truly waiting for the
“salvation of the Lord” is “busy waiting”—busy like one waiting for the day-dawn, or
like one waiting to take the tide at the flood.
5. Christian waiting is necessary. God does nothing hurriedly. Did the earth, with her
hills and vales, lakes, rivers, and seas, dark mines, and gigantic rocks, reach her
present state in swift transactions? Did Jesus sweep down from the heavens as the
Saviour of man immediately He was promised? Is human life rapid in its physical,
mental, and spiritual growth? The development of that which is great cannot be
forced. Perfection is not reached in a leap.
II. THE ENCOURAGEMENT BY WHICH CHRISTIAN WAITING IS HERE
ENFORCED. The farmer is encouraged to wait by the thought that every sunrise
prepares for, and accelerates the gleeful reaping time. So the believer is incited to wait
for Christ by the assurance that His coming “draweth nigh.”
1. His coming in some signal dispensation of Providence may be nigh. If there is no
longer a “needs be” for our waiting, we may be sure that He will speedily come to
crown our temporal and spiritual efforts with appropriate success; to solve
perplexing problems; to deliver from envy, slander, oppression, and to satisfy the
desires which He Himself has kindled.
2. His coming at the end of the world may be said to be nigh. “Now is our salvation
nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” “He which
testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly.”
3. His coming at our dissolution may be said to be nigh. It cannot be far distant from
any one of us; every clock-tick and pulse-beat hastens it. (E. H. Palmer.)

90. Christian persistence
When men have entered upon a religious experience, or a religious life, they are warned
that there are perils in that life or experience—especially the peril of getting tired of it; of
losing interest in it; of having their enthusiasm waste away like a summer’s brook, and
die like a fugitive cloud. Weariness may take on either of three forms—that of simple
fatigue, that of discouragement, or that of disgust. Now,there are no callings in life that
are continuous in which we do not experience weariness in the first form—that of
fatigue; and rest is the cure for it. We get tired of daily tasks—especially those that
consist in bearing heavy burdens and responsibilities; and the night is a blessed relief to
those who perform them. But then come the other forms of weariness—namely,
discouragement, want of hope, and disgust, aa inexplicable state of mind which
oftentimes drives a man to the other extreme, so that he loathes things that once were
attractive to him, and not only renounces his purposes, but stands in direct antagonism
to the very ends that before he sought violently to serve. I shall speak of some of the
occasions on which this weariness and this reaction take place, and of some of the causes
which produce them. Weariness often takes place in regular and necessary business
life—especially where our avocations are not such as minister pleasure. We should seek
as far as possible to reduce that which is necessary in our daily calling to a pleasure.
Although there are some things that can scarcely be made pleasurable, yet to a far
greater extent than men believe it is possible to subdue to liking things that are not
naturally likable. There are odours that are intolerable when we regard them with
disgust, but that, nevertheless, when we dwell by them day by day, if we have rational
minds, we may come to so regard as to overcome our repugnance to them. And if one
man can do it, another can. Tasks that are disagreeable should first be essayed. To all
those who have a wearisome life; to all those who have mixed responsibilities “to all
those who are obliged to have anxiety; to all those who are compelled to bear these
things in bodies enfeebled by disease, or in bodies whose nervous organisation has been
very much supplanted, there is this exhortation: “Be not weary in well doing. In due
season ye shall reap if ye faint not.” If by complaint, if by repugnance, if by weariness,
you could change your affairs for the better, it would be different; but you make them
worse by these things; and discretion, as well as the exhortation of revelation, points out
the true any “Be bold, be patient, be not weary, continue instant in season and out of
season.” Follow these directions, and in due time ye shall have relief. Then a still more
critical weariness comes upon persons who, having set before them a vivid notion of
their faults and failings, attempt to shape their whole character to a higher pattern and
to live their whole life on a higher plane. There is nothing harder than to rise from any
level where we have permitted ourselves to spread, out to a higher level. We hug the
sphere in which we have invested the most of ourselves; and when we are called to
forsake it and to go up to a higher level it is a thing of displacency; and we do it with the
utmost fatigue and reluctance. Yet, every man should set his face against the ruling of
lower tendencies; and should determine to measure himself by, a higher standard; and
when a man, carrying out these purposes in succession, finds himself attacking pride,
besieging vanity, doing battle with lusts, and passions, and appetites, he has a campaign
on his hands which may very well breed weariness and discouragement, for many and
many of the tendencies of our nature are like streams which seem to dry up in summer,
but which come Booming again in spring when the rains descend upon the mountains;
and where we thought we had achieved victories we find ourselves quite overthrown and
swept away. In some respects it is true that men are worse when they begin to be better:
The conflict with morbid nature with unwholesome nature is disturbing. Therefore men
who attempt to carry out the rule of righteousness with temperance often find

91. themselves very tired of sitting and watching at the door of the mouth, and saying, “Let
your moderation be known [be made apparent] to all men.” They forget, they relax
vigilance, they faint; and the inordinate appetite which they have striven against for days
and weeks at once overtakes them, and they are swept away; and in looking back, when
they examine the tendencies of anger, and irritableness, and envy, and jealousy, and
avarice in the actual strifes of life, when they think of their relations to others, and of the
relative conditions of others and themselves, and when they, from year to year, mark
whether they grow in grace or not, it is not strange that weariness and discouragement
come over men. Then there is weariness in our social duties and relationships. In days of
sickness, in days of labour, and especially in days of poverty, when one can almost say,
“Heart and flesh have failed,” is it strange that there is discouragement? And is there no
need of the injunction, “Be not weary in well doing”? and of the promise, “In due season
ye shall reap, if ye faint not”? When dealing, not within the sacred precincts of the
family, but in our relations with those around us—with our neighbours, of every clime, of
every disposition, of every kind of education, and of every temperament—an amount of
forbearance, of patience, of gentleness, of wisdom, and ofgoodness is required that
cannot be measured in words. And when it becomes necessary to co-operate for the
public good, or for the good of special classes or conditions of men, human nature is a
thing that torments the patience. It is hard to bear with men, and it is hard to bear with
them just in the proportion in which they are strong and multiform in their nature. We
are disposed to be weary in doing good to others, so slow is the result of anything we
undertake in developing itself, so unfruitful is this result, and so material and
uninteresting are people. Is it the work of charity? To do good among those who need
you most—the poor and the ignorant—will require all the patience, all the gentleness, all
the self-denial that you can command. All men, therefore, who go out into the
community as reformers should bear in mind the difficulty of managing human nature,
and should remember that reformation is effectual only in proportion as it touches the
fundamental wants of men. The temperance reformation is slow, is intermittent, and has
its reactionary periods, because it strikes at the very strongest passions and appetites
which exist in human life. It is an attempt of goodness to overcome badness. It is a
promiscuous campaign carried on by all sorts of men. And the marvel is not that it is so
slow, but that it is so fast, and that there is so much in it that is permanent. To the end of
life and society, however, the work of temperance will be a thing to be done over and
over again; and every generation will have to go through precisely the same process. Yet
men must not be discouraged nor faint. Then, other men grow weary on account of
injudicious labours, on account of undertaking too much, and on account of constantly
attempting to work from wrong standards in themselves. Many a man works from the
impulse of praise; and as long as he is praised, not to say flattered, he is encouraged, and
works cheerfully; but when the praise ceases he begins to grow weary and discouraged,
and it seems to him as though life had lost its savour. Others work from the feeling of
pride; and so long as that feeling is gratified, and men look up to them, and show them
difference, and submit to their control, they are buoyant, and work willingly; but when
the gratification of their pride ceases, and men do not yield to them any longer, and they
are obliged to humble themselves before others, they grow weary. The trouble comes
from the fact that they are attempting to work from the standpoint of prominence and
dominance, and wish to be masters. Other men work because they have a sense of duty,
and a sense of duty ought to underlie every action of their life; nevertheless, if there is
nothing but a sense of duty, it is a hard master that grudges reward; for the sense of duty
increases with the performance of duty. The ideal of what we should be and should do
grows with actual attainment, so that a man will live for ever in the seventh chapter of
Romans, if his inspiration in life is for ever an inspiration of conscience or of duty. In

92. view of these considerations, it is not strange that so many are weary in well-doing, and
we see how manifestly it is right that we should exhort men, saying, “Be not weary in
well-doing, for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not.” Be seed-sowers. Be
husbandmen in the harvest-field. Sow and reap day by day. Sow at morning and at
evening. Withhold not your hand anywhere. You know not which shall prosper, this or
that, or whether both alike shall prosper; and be not weary of the work that you leave
behind you; take it up again wherever you go; and in the spirit of the Master, carry
blessedness, cheerfulness, hopefulness, happiness in your rounds, whether of rest, of
pleasure, or of duty. (H. W. Beecher.)
The duty of expectation
In the order of the phenomena which we call natural, everybody knows that time must
be taken into account, and that the impatience of men has no effect whatever upon the
regular progress of things. The harvest can be expected only after a regular number of
months, and when fruit-trees or plants such as the vine are to be brought to maturity,
years of patient waiting are required. It is front the habit of reckoning with nature that
the peasant derives his proverbial patience and his unwearied tenacity. The artisan of
our cities handles matter at his will, and his task is sooner completed; nevertheless, he
also knows that nothing solid or good can be produced at a moment’s notice. Thus it is
as regards the culture of the intellect; it has its successive stages, which can neither be
suppressed nor inter-vetted; the greatest of mathematicians must proceed step by step
from the elements of arithmetic to integral calculus. Nothing can be absolutely
improvised in this world, and, as the poet said, “Time soon destroys what has been done
without its aid.” We all accept this law: but when the Divine works are in question, it
seems to us to be out of place. On this point our opinion partly rests upon the true idea
that God is above time. Now we may draw a false inference from this principle which,
however, is both true and necessary: we may imagine that whatever is Divine must needs
be instantaneous. It is certain, however, that Jesus Christ never encouraged this
tendency; He declared that prodigies in themselves might be an effect of the evil spirit,
and it is upon the moral character of His natural or supernatural works that He always
insists upon most strongly. Is it not this very prejudice which leads so many fervent
souls to acknowledge the action of the Holy Ghost only in those manifestations which
are sudden and striking? Two equally fatal consequences follow from this conception: in
the first place, disdain for the ordinary means of grace, for the regular ministry, for the
institutions of the past, for the measures which assure and prepare the future. God, it is
asserted, hath need of none of these. The other consequence is the impatient zeal which
would hurry on the progress of souls, which exaggerates the results already obtained,
sees conversions in factitious emotions, creates an over excitement which it takes for an
evident effusion of the Holy Spirit, and passes the most uncharitable judgments upon
those who have kept outside of this sacred contagion. Now the truth is this: It has
pleased God, who Himself is above time, to act in time and by means of time. To
convince yourselves of this, behold God at work, as revealed to us in Scripture; His
actions will enable us to understand His purposes. God creates the world. It seems as
though an instantaneous creation should have responded to an almighty will. But the
Bible gives us a totally different account of our origin. In it time appears to us as the very
condition of the existence of things. Everything is subject to the twofold law of
succession and progress. What I say of creation may also be affirmed as regards the work
of grace. If I seek the reason of the existence of all things, Scripture replies by this
sublime expression: the reign of God.

93. Everything tends towards this end, everything is subservient to it, and the entire
universe knows no other. Nevertheless, despite this decisive reason which appears to us
so completely self-evident, God’s triumph is not immediate; there is a history of the
reign of God. A history, that is to say, a beginning, then successive actions which prepare
the final consummation; a history, that is to say, the secular, difficult, laborious
development of a germ deposited in the depths of humanity. That is the substance of the
teaching of Scripture; if you misapprehend it, the Word of God will be for you an
eternally sealed book. God takes time into account when the destinies of His kingdom
are in question. The history of Christianity is the visible realisation of this Divine plan.
We must acknowledge, doubtless, that the sins, the indifference the apathy, the
dissensions of Christians have manifestly contributed to this delay; but, even had the
influence of these causes been null and void, the conversion of the world had not been
the work of a day: the rains of the early and latter seasons must have fallen ere that
magnificent harvest could be gathered in. What we say of the conquest of nations, we
must also affirm of the salvation of individual souls. God might subdue them in a day;
sudden and often striking conversions occur at all times to remind us of the sovereignty
of grace; but these are exceptions, and in these very exceptions, a discerning eye easily
detects a hidden and latent preparation. In the parable of the prodigal son, the gospel
points to the successive phases of the sinner’s estrangement, of the awakening of false
independence, of selfishness, pride, rebellion, of the intoxicating delights of passion, of
the final shame and degradation, and only in this supreme hour does the distinct
remembrance of the Father’s house spring up in that broken heart. For the salvation of a
soul, as well as for the salvation of the world, we must learn to wait. Oh! I am not
ignorant of the surprise, murmurs, and criticisms which these delays of the Divine
action rouse in our hearts. Before us continually stands out that unsolvable
contradiction between the notion of the Omnipotence of the good Being and the
duration of evil which unceasingly braves His justice and goodness. God is patient, He
tolerates the follies of human liberty until the day which He has Himself fixed upon.
What He does, that must we also do. Ay, more than this; we are compelled to do this by
our very position, for what is a Christian but a sinner, whom God bears with, towards
whom He acts with an often extraordinary patience? I have reminded you of the duty of
expectation. The expectation of faith is not inaction of the soul: it is its very opposite. We
must act as though everything depended upon us, we must wait as if everything
depended upon God—act, that is, accomplish the Father’s will, day by day, faithful to the
duty of the present hour, without impatience, without feverish ardour, without personal
ambition; wait in the immovable assurance that in all things the final victory shall be on
the Lord’s side. (E. Bersier, D. D.)
Quieting thoughts about life
I. THERE IS A PERIOD HASTENING ON THAT WILL TERMINATE FOR EVER THE
TRIALS OF THE GOOD. This period is not far off. It really takes place with the
individual man at death. It emphatically “draweth nigh,” and emphatically may it be said
to us all, “The Judge standeth at the door.” It is not something that is far off in the
distant ages; it is all but transpiring. We shall soon have struck the last blow in life’s
battle, and won the crown; heaved over the last billows in life’s ocean, and reached the
desired haven.
II. THE TRIALS OF THE GOOD ARE CONGRUOUS WITH THE PRESENT STATE OF
OUR HISTORY. It is a fitful spring with us—a moral April: the struggle of sunshine and
shower—the genial glow and the nipping frost. It is a season of fluctuation, not

94. settledness: outlay, not income: labour, not wages: seeds, not results. It is the season for
burying the grain, not for plucking the golden ear. It is wise and well for the
husbandman to labour patiently in the spring, for he has the assurance from testimony
and experience that the glorious summer will reward him for his toil.
III. A MORAL ENDURANCE OF TRIALS IS ESSENTIAL TO AMIABILITY OF
CHARACTER. The man who has not that “patience” which results from a loving
confidence in the character and a loving acquiescence in the will of the Supreme Ruler,
will feel an annoyance in every trial. He will pass through the trials of life, as we have
sometimes seen a little cur passing through a hailstorm, barking at every step. But the
man who cultivates this magnanimous quality of soul will be, in trial, like the imperial
bird in the storm, when beaten down from its heavenly flight, it still keeps its wings
expanded, looks calmly up, and with the first gleams of sunshine soars away into the
radiant and the high again.
IV. THE GREATEST TRIALS HAVE BEEN ENDURED BY THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS
MEN IN HISTORY. “The prophets” were men of genius and of God; great in talent and
in virtue, the loyal servants and moral organs of Heaven; the most majestic trees in the
forest, the brightest stairs in the firmament of their race. Yet they suffered (Mat_23:37;
Act_7:32). The morally great have always been sufferers.
V. TRIALS HAVE EVER BEEN THE CONDITION OF TRULY HEROIC AND
HONOURED LIVES “We count them happy which endure”—not only because affliction
tendeth to spiritual good (2Co_4:17-18), but because they are enabled by their
sufferings, when rightly endured, to display the highest attributes of greatness. In the
history of true men, when the sun of prosperity goes down, the brightest orbs of virtue
come out to light up the moral firmament of the world.
V. ALL TRIALS BEING UNDER THE DIRECTION OF AN EVER-MERCIFUL GOD,
WILL, IF RIGHTLY ENDURED, YIELD A GLORIOUS RETURN. (D. Thomas.)
Waiting upon God
The true Christian idea of waiting upon God patiently implies self-restraint, trust in God,
and the exertion of superior elements of manhood. Patient waiting upon God where it
exists is not only founded in intelligence, and in that faith which is the handmaid of
intelligence, but it is a state of submission and sweet relinquishment of one’s own urgent
and importunate feelings. It is the yielding up of everything into the hands of God, with
confidence that the Judge of all cannot but do justly, and that in His own time and way
He will fulfil the desires of our hearts, if they be right; or, if they be wrong, He will meet
our wants with things ether than those which we seek. Consider now the text: “Be
patient, therefore,” etc. Here is the measure of the waiting. It is to continue clean
through till the Lord appears; till the enigma is solved; till the mystery is cleared.
“Behold the husbandman waiteth,” &c. There could be no more admirable analogue than
this of husbandry; for there is in it the most obvious union of persistent natural laws
with human activity, which bears the same relation to natural laws that the rider does to
the horse. It is the horse that performs; it is the rider that steers and guides him. Natural
laws, of themselves, are brute forces, wandering wide, and doing little. It is not until
great natural laws, if I may say so, are inspired by human volition and human
intelligence, that they become productive of good—that they know how to converge and
co-operate so as to multiply blessings upon the earth. Without natural laws man is
utterly helpless. Without men natural laws are largely useless. Man, knowing how to use

95. those great physical, permanent laws, directs them to certain purposes. This
combination it is that makes fruitfulness in our fields. Human strength makes natural
laws productive. What are cities but the insignia of thought applied to brute and dead
material? What are gardens, vineyards, orchards, grain-fields, railroads, canals, tunnels,
bridges, highways, but the union of Divine natural law and human intelligence? Without
the one and the other they were impossible. Human society itself is a vast museum and
exhibition-hall, as it were, showing what man’s nature has been able to do when it has
worked upon the Divine law. See what husbandry does every year. We prepare the soil.
We do not make it. It is remedy at our hand. For generations God’s mills have been
grinding; the glacier and the rock have come together; the subtle water, made solid by
cold, and moving per force, has ground and ground; and behold, the soil that has in it
the results of the workings of cycles of centuries. Man finds it ready waiting for him. It is
waiting for man as much as man is waiting for it. It is only when by his skill the plough
opens the furrow, and he sows intelligently, studying the seasons, the markets, and the
pressing necessities of men about him; it is only when, waiting patiently through months
if it be fields of grain, or if it be orchards and vineyards through years, that he begins to
find remuneration. Farmers wait, and wait patiently, and wait confidently; and their
waiting is from no laggard’s indolence. It is from a consciousness that they have done
that which, co-operating with natural law, will produce the desired results. God’s stamp
is upon natural law, and it is warranted to cut, and not to fail. The farmer waits in
intelligence; the sluggard waits in laziness. The farmer thrives; the sluggard degenerates.
The farmer has abundance; the sluggard suffers cold in winter, and want the year round.
Men who refuse to do anything in God’s vineyard oftentimes pretend to honour God’s
sovereignty by waiting upon God; but who would think that he was honouring nature’s
sovereignty by waiting on it thus? There be those who say it is presumptuous for man to
put forth his hand and touch God’s work. They are afraid of interfering with the sphere
of Divine authority and Divine sovereignty. It is their own spiritual indolence that leads
them to wait, for no one of them that owns a ship sails that ship as he does his soul. No
one of them that has a farm manages that farm in husbandry as he does his soul in
spiritual things. He must know how to work who is to know how to wait. He must
experience fatigue who is to appreciate the blessing of rest. He must have enterprise who
is to understand the great charm of patient waiting upon God. Look, then, at the sphere
in which this virtue of waiting is to operate. Bearing in mind the nature of that waiting
which brings a blessing, we shall see that there is a sphere for it in our lives fully as great
as there was in the eyes of those of old, though we are differently placed from what they
were. We shall see, also, that one of the most common traits of a true piety is that of
patient waiting. As in all the emergencies of secular life we are called to wait patiently, so
we are in all the emergencies of religious life. (H. W.Beecher.)
Christian patience
Christian patience supposeth a sense of evil, and then, in the formality of it, it is a
submission of the whole soul to the will of God: wherein observe—
1. The nature; it is a submission of the whole soul. The judgment subscribeth, “Good
is the Word of the Lord,” &c. (Isa_39:8). Though it were to him a terrible word, yet
the submission of a sanctified judgment can call it good. Then the will accepteth, “If
they shall accept the punishment” (Lev_26:41); that is, take it kindly from God that
it is no worse. Then the affections are restrained, and anger and sorrow brought
under the commands of the word. Then the tongue is bridled, lest discontent splash

96. over; Aaron held his peace (Lev_10:3).
2. Consider the grounds and proper considerations upon which all this is carried on;
usually there is such a progress as this in the spiritual discourse.
(1) The soul seeth God in it, “I was dumb and opened not my mouth, because
Thou didst it” (Psa_39:9).
(2) It seeth God acting with sovereignty, “None can say unto Him, What debt
Thou?” (Job_9:12). And elsewhere, “He giveth no account of His matters.”
(3) Lest this should make the heart storm, it seeth sovereignty mitigated in the
dispensation of it with several attributes. With justice. With mercy, “Thou hast
punished us less than we deserved” (Ezr_9:13). They were afflicted, they might
have been destroyed; they were in Babylon, they might have been in hell. “It is
good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might keep Thy statutes.” God’s
faithfulness would not suffer them to want such a sweet help. With wisdom, “God
is a God of judgment “(Isa_30:18); it is meant in His dispensations. Let God
alone; He is too just to do us wrong, and too kind and wise to do us harm. (T.
Manton.)
Christian patience advocated
Julius Pflugius, complaining to the Emperor, by whom he had been employed, of great
wrong done him by the Duke of Saxony, received this answer—“Have a little patience;
thy cause is my cause.” So says God to His abused. (J. Trapp.)
Patience a strength
It would be far easier, I apprehend, for nine men out of ten to join a storming party than
to lie on a rack or to hang on a cross without repining. Yes, patience is a strength; and
patience is not merely a strength, it is wisdom in exercising it. We, the creatures of a day,
make one of the nearest approaches possible for us to the life of God who, because He
lives for ever, can afford to wait. (Canon Liddon.)
Stablish your hearts
An established heart
1. Our hearts are settled in our afflictions by the sweet promises we have from God of
our deliverance. David thereof saith, “Many are the troubles of the righteous, but the
Lord delivereth them out of all.” In another place to like purpose, “The salvation of
the righteous is of the Lord, He st)all be their strength in time of trouble.” Therefore
Almighty God saith to His people, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble and I will
deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.”
2. As by the promises of our deliverance our hearts are settled through patience in
our oppression; so also ought they to be settled in the experience we have of the
power of God in the deliverance of the righteous. If we look to others, or ourselves,
we shall find experience of this truth. Hath not God delivered Moses and Israel, His
people, from the army of Pharaoh? What, did not God deliver David from sundry

97. attempts of Saul?
3. Neither thus only are our hearts settled in our miseries, but also when we cast our
eyes upon the crown of glory, which we shall receive, and the glorious hope whereof
we shall be partakers, if we endure with patience, we should settle and quiet our
minds in our miseries. Thus Paul, exhorting the Romans to settle their hearts, and in
their afflictions which by the ensample of Christ they should suffer, comforting
them, telleth them that the sufferings of their mortal life were not to be compared to
the glory which should be revealed to the sons of God.
4. Our hearts shall the better be settled if we would consider that nothing cometh
unto us but by the will of God.
5. Our hearts shall be settled in afflictions if we know the manifold uses and good
ends of the afflictions which God sendeth to the saints.
6. Our hearts in affliction shall be settled if we did consider that our time of
sufferings is limited, and is but short, but the time of rest, of peace, of joy, eternal.
7. If we consider that the saints in all times have suffered adversity, that Jesus Christ
Himself, the Lord of Glory, hath by many tribulations entered into His glory, that we
are no otherwise fellow-heirs with Him, but upon this condition that we suffer with
Him.
8. Finally, our hearts in affliction are settled when we recount often the fearful
judgments of God upon them which have afflicted and cruelly persecuted His Church
and saints in all times. (R. Turnbull.)
The coming of the Lord draweth nigh
The approaching of Christ in the revolution of time
I. EVERY YEAR BRINGS HIM NEARER TO EVERY MAN TO TERMINATE HIS
CONNECTION WITH THIS EARTH.
1. What a solemnity does this give to time.
2. What significance to death.
II. EVERY YEAR BRINGS HIM NEARER TO ESTABLISH HIS SPIRITUAL EMPIRE IN
THE WORLD. Indications of His approach are multiplying and brightening as years
come and go. Every true thought, every moral conversion, every true revolution in the
minds of individuals and nations, announce the fact that He is coming whose right it is
to reign.
III. EVERY YEAR BRINGS HIM NEARER TO WIND UP ALL HUMAN AFFAIRS ON
THIS EARTH. On this wonderful day He will—
1. Stop the increase of the race.
2. Terminate the infidelities of the race.
3. Open the graves of the race.
4. Settle the destinies of the race. (D. Thomas.)

98. The impending hour
The feelings with which we await the coming of any person or tiling depend very much
upon the nature of the person or thing advancing, or upon the fittedness to meet him or
it. It is evening in a very pleasant household. There is a key heard at the front door. The
children come down the stairs with a bound, clapping their hands, and shouting,
“Father’s coming!” But disaster has entered that home. The writs have been issued. The
front door bell rings, an official is about to enter, and the whisper all through the rooms
of that house is, “The sheriff’s coming!” March weather gets through scolding, and one
day the windows toward the south are opened, and old age feels the flush of new life in
its veins; and invalidism looks up and smiles, and all through the land the word is,
“Spring is coming!” December hangs icicles on the eaves of the poor man’s house. No
wood gathered. No coal. The cracked window-pane invites the sleet to come in. The older
sister, with numb fingers, attempts to tie the shoe latchet of the little brother, and stops
to blow warmth into her blue hands, and the father shiveringly looks down and says,
“Oh, my God, winter is coming!” Well, it is just so in regard to the announcement of my
text. To one it sounds like a father’s, to another like an executioner’s, footstep. To one it
is the breath of a June morning; to the other it is the blast of a December hurricane. “The
coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” I do not see how God can afford to stay away any
longer. It seems to me that this world has been mauled of sin about long enough. The
Church has made such slow headway against the Paganism, and the Mohammedanism,
and the fraud, and the libertinism, and the drunkenness, and the rapine, and the murder
of the world, that there are ten thousand hands now stretched up beckoning for God to
come, and to come now. I also see a sign of the Divine advance in the opportunity for
repentance which is being given to the nations. God, and angels, and men calling.
Messages of salvation in the air. Telegraphs flashing the gospel news. Steamships
carrying Christian ambassadors to and fro. Yes, we are on the eve of a universal moral
earthquake. “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” But there is a deeper stop in the
organ of my text that needs to be pulled out, and that organ stop is the judgment
trumpet. My text distinctly points toward that august arrival. Now, there is one secret
that God has never told even to an archangel. The time when. It may come this autumn.
It may come next spring. It may be farther off. I cannot tell. But the fact that such a day
will come cannot be disputed. The Bible intimates, yea, it positively says, that in that last
day God will come in by a flash of lightning. When the roll-call of that day is read your
name and my name will be read in it, and we will answer, “Here!” These very feet will
feel the earth’s tremor, these eyes will see the scrolled sky, these hands will be lifted in
acclamation or in horror, when the Lord shall be revealed from heaven, with mighty
angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance upon those who know not God, and who obey
not the gospel of His Son. It will be our trial. It will be our judge. It will be our welcome
or it will be our doom. “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” But my subject takes a
closer grapple, and it closes in and closes in until it announces to you and to me that
Christ is coming very soon to put an end to our earthly residence. The most skilful
theologians may make a mistake of hundreds of years in regard to the chronology of the
judgment; but it is impossible for us to make a very wide mistake in regard to the time in
which Christ will come to put an end to our earthly existence. Oh, if you knew how near
you are to the moment of exit from this world, do you know what you would do? You
would drop your head and pray just now. If you knew how certainly the door of God’s
mercy is gradually shutting against your unpardoned soul, you would cry out, “Stop! till I
enter.” My subject closes in once more, and closes in until I have to tell you that God,
who in the text is represented as “drawing nigh,” has actually arrived. No longer
“drawing nigh.” He is here. Get away from Him, you cannot. Trust in Him, you ought. Be

99. saved by Him, you may. This God who has been arriving, and who is now come; this God
who has been “drawing nigh,” has come for one thing, and that is to save every one of
you. He has come a long pilgrimage, treading over nails, and spikes, and thorns, until the
sharp points have struck up through the hollow of the foot to the instep. He has come to
carry your burdens, and to slay your sins, and to sympathise with your sorrows. He is
here to break up your obduracy, and make you feel the palpitations of His warm, loving
heart. Oh, the love of God, the love of God! (T. De Witt Talmage.)
The great court of appeal
There will be a great court of appeal from all man’s injustice. (Dean Plumptre.)
Importance of the end
“We were,” writes a Christian traveller, “on a little steamer on the Volga … A young
Russian officer was on board with his wife. They bad plenty of money; they seemed
perfectly well; the scenery around was beautiful and the weather was fine; but, for all
that, the officer looked sad and was silent. Every day, as we went on and on, he was more
and more unhappy, and I soon found out the reason. He was going from home and
friends, far off into Siberia. Each mile of progress brought him nearer to the cold, bleak
wilderness where he was to spend many long years of banishment.” And it is just so in
the journey of life. If a man feels that each day he grows older only brings him nearer to
a dark, unknown future, his heart cannot be really happy, even if all around seems gay.
“A little while afterwards I had to return to Moscow with another Russian officer. We
travelled in a miserable plight, hurried over rough roads in a cart with only straw to sit
on, and a few apples to eat. The scenery was dull, the weather was bitterly cold, but that
officer was exulting in buoyancy and delight. He was hastening to the emperor to bear
the news of a great victory, and to be decorated with an honourable reward.” Even so,
again, it is on life’s journey. The man who feels sure he is getting nearer the heavenly
King each day he lives, and that he will be welcomed as a “faithful servant” of that
Master who has won a victory over the enemies of God and man—this man will be happy
in his heart, even in days of trial and toil, ‘mid darkness, want, and sorrow. (Sunday at
Home.)
EBC, "PATIENCE IN WAITING - THE ENDURANCE OF JOB - THE
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MENTION OF JOB BY ST. JAMES.
"BE patient, therefore, brethren." The storm of indignation is past, and from this point
to the end of the Epistle St. James writes in tones of tenderness and affection. In the
paragraph before us he, as it were, rounds off his letter, bringing it back to the point
from which he started; so that what follows (Jas_5:12-20) is of the nature of a postscript
or appendix. He began his letter with the exhortation, "Count it all joy, my brethren,
when ye fall into manifold trials; knowing that the proof of your faith worketh patience.
And let patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in
nothing" (Jas_1:2-4). He draws to a close with the charge, "Be patient therefore,
brethren, until the coming of the Lord."
The "therefore" shows that this sympathetic exhortation of the brethren is closely
connected with the stern denunciation of the rich in the preceding paragraph. The

100. connection is obvious. These brethren are in the main identical with the righteous poor
who are so cruelly oppressed by the rich; and St. James offers them consolation mainly
on two grounds: First, their sufferings will not last for ever; on the contrary, the end of
them is near at hand. Secondly, the end of them will bring not only relief, but reward.
As has been already pointed out, St. James evidently shared the belief, which prevailed
in the Apostolic age, that Jesus Christ would very speedily return in glory to punish the
wicked and reward the righteous. This belief, as Neander observes, was very natural:
"Christ Himself had not chosen to give any information respecting the time of his
coming. Nay, He had expressly said that the Father had reserved the decision to Himself;
(Mar_13:32) that even the Son could determine nothing respecting it. But still, the
longing desire of the Apostolic Church was directed with eager haste to the appearing of
the Lord. The whole Christian period seemed only as the transition-point to the eternal,
and thus as something that must soon be passed. As the traveler, beholding from afar
the object of all his wanderings, overlooks the windings of the intervening way, and
believes himself already near his goal, so it seemed to them, as their eye was fixed on
that consummation of the whole course of events on earth."
Thus, by a strange but unperceived incongruity, St. James makes the unconscious
impatience of primitive Christianity a basis for his exhortation to conscious patience.
Early Christians, in their eagerness for the return of their Lord, impatiently believed that
His return was imminent; and St. James uses this belief as an argument for patient
waiting and patient endurance. It is only for a short time that they will have to wait and
endure, and then the rich reward will be reaped. Ploughing and harrowing are toilsome
and painful, but they have to be gone through, and then, after no intolerable waiting, the
harvest comes.
Above, when St. James was rebuking his readers for their presumptuous confidence
respecting their future plans, he reminded them of the shortness of life. "What is your
life? For ye are a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away". (Jas_
4:14) Here the shortness of the interval between the present moment and the end of all
things is urged as a reason both for circumspection and for patience. In both cases, with
his characteristic fondness for illustrations drawn from nature, he employs physical
phenomena to enforce his lesson. In the one case life is a vapor, not substantial at any
time, and soon dispersed; in the other case life is the work and the waiting which must
precede the harvest.
The key-note of the whole passage is patience, which in one form or another occurs six
times in five verses. In the original two different words are used-one (µακροθυµειν and
µακροθυµια) four times in the first four verses; and the other (υποµενειν and υποµενη)
twice in the last verse, where we certainly need "the endurance of Job" rather than "the
patience of Job," in order to preserve the transition from the one word to the other.
"Take, brethren, for an example of suffering and of patience (µακροθυµιας) the prophets
who spake in the Name of the Lord. Behold, we call them blessed which endured
(τουναντας): ye have heard of the endurance (υποµενην) of Job." It was perhaps because
"the patience of Job" has become a proverbial formula that the Revisers banished
"endurance" to the margin, instead of placing it in the text. The two words are not
infrequently found together (2Co_6:4-6; Col_1:11; 2Ti_3:10; Clement of Rome, 58;
Ignatius, "Ephes.," 3.). The difference between the two is, on the whole, this, that the
first is the longsuffering which does not retaliate upon oppressive persons, the second
the endurance which does not succumb under oppressive things. The persecuted

101. prophets exhibited the one; the afflicted Job exhibited the other. The oppressed and
poor Christians whom St. James addresses are able to practice both these forms of
patience, which Chrysostom extols as the "queen of the virtues."
There is a remarkable diversity of readings in the illustration about the husbandman’s
waiting. Some authorities make him wait for the early and latter rain, others for the early
and latter fruit. The best witnesses leave the substantive to be understood, and this is
doubtless the original reading; it accounts for the other two. Some copyists thought that
rain was to be understood, and therefore inserted it; while others for a similar reason
inserted fruit. No doubt it is rain that is intended, in accordance with several passages in
the Old Testament. (Deu_11:14; Jer_5:24; Joe_2:23; Zec_10:1) The rains of autumn and
of spring are meant, not "morning rain and evening rain" as Luther renders it in his
version; and no moral or spiritual facts are symbolized by these natural phenomena,
such as the penitential tears of youth and of old age, which would not fit the context. The
point of the simile lies in the patient waiting, not in that which is waited for.
"Murmur not, brethren, one against another." The literal meaning of the Greek is "Groan
not"; that is, "Grumble not." Earlier English versions have "Grudge not"; and "grudge"
once had the meaning of "murmur," as in "They will run here and there for meat, and
grudge if they be not satisfied." (Psa_59:15) It is altogether a mistake to suppose that
"one against another" includes the wealthy oppressors spoken of in the preceding
section. It is the common experience of every one that men who are irritated and
exasperated by trying persons or circumstances are liable to vent their vexation on those
who are in no way responsible for what tries them. St. James is well aware of this
danger, and puts his readers on their guard against it. "Be longsuffering," he says, "and
do not retaliate on those who maltreat you; and do not let the smart of your troubles
betray you into impatience towards one another. He who is to judge your oppressors will
judge you also, and He is close at hand." We can hardly doubt that Christ’s saying,
"Judge not, that ye be not judged," (Mat_7:1) is in his mind. The way to lighten one’s
burden is not to groan over it, still less to murmur against those who are in the same
case, but to try to console and help them. "Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill
the law of Christ." It is a good thing to take as an example of patience the prophets and
others among God’s suffering saints; but it is a still better thing to give such an example
ourselves.
By the prophets St. James no doubt means the prophets of the Old Testament-Elijah,
Jeremiah, and others. It is not likely that he includes any of the persecuted disciples of
the New Testament, such as James the son of Zebedee, and Stephen. Here again we seem
to have an echo of Christ’s words: "Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and
persecute you" (comp. "We call them blessed which endured"): "for so persecuted they
the prophets which were before you". (Mat_5:11-12) It is the ceaseless reproach against
the Jews that they boasted that theirs were the prophets, and yet were the persecutors of
the prophets. "The children of Israel have slain Thy prophets with the sword," says
Elijah. (1Ki_19:10; 1Ki_19:14) "That I may avenge the blood of My servants the
prophets," says God to Elisha. (2Ki_9:7) They "slew Thy prophets which testified against
them. to turn them again to Thee," says Nehemiah, in his prayer. (Neh_9:26) "Your own
sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion," is the accusation of
Jeremiah. (Jer_2:30) "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killeth the prophets, and stoneth
them that are sent unto her!" is the lamentation of Christ. (Mat_23:37) And Stephen,
just before he was himself added to the number of the slain, asks, "Which of the
prophets did not your fathers persecute? and they killed them which showed before of
the coming of the Righteous One". (Act_7:52) Certainly those who try to do God’s work
in the world have no lack of examples of patient suffering for such work. The reasonable

102. question would seem to be, not, "Why should I be made to suffer for endeavoring to do
good?" but, "Why should I not be made to suffer? Seeing what others have had to
endure, why should I be spared?"
"Ye have heard of the endurance of Job." It is possible that this refers specially to the
reading of the Book of Job in public service; but there is no need to restrict the hearing
to such occasions. We need not doubt that the endurance of Job was a familiar topic
among the Jews long before this Epistle was written, and independently of the book
being read in the synagogues. Yet, in spite of this familiarity, the passage before us is the
only reference in the whole of the New Testament to the story of Job, and there is only
one quotation from the Book: "He taketh the wise in their own craftiness" (Job_5:13) is
quoted by St. Paul. (1Co_3:19) There are several loose quotations from it in the Epistle of
Clement of Rome (17, 20, 26, 39, 56); and the remarkable insertion in the Vulgate
Version of Tob_2:12 is worthy of quotation: "This trial the Lord therefore permitted to
happen to him, that an example might be given to posterity of his patience, as also of
holy Job. For whereas he had always feared God from his infancy, and kept His
commandments, he repined not against God because the evil of blindness had befallen
him, but continued immovable in the fear of God, giving thanks to God all the days of his
life. For as the kings insulted over holy Job, so his relations and kinsmen mocked at his
life, saying, Where is thy hope, for which thou gavest alms, and buriedest the dead? But
Tobias rebuked them, saying, Speak not so; for we are the children of saints, and look for
that life which God will give to them that never change their faith from Him."
"Ye have heard of the endurance of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, how that the
Lord is full of pity, and merciful." A well-supported, but, on the whole, less probable
reading, gives us the imperative, "see the end of the Lord," instead of the indicative, "ye
have seen" (Mere instead of ειδετε). If it be correct, it may be taken either with what
precedes or with what follows: either, "Ye have heard of the endurance of Job: see also
the end of the Lord, how that the Lord is full of pity, and merciful"; or, "Ye have heard of
the endurance of Job and the end of the Lord; see that the Lord is full of pity, and
merciful."
But a more important question than either the reading or the division of the clauses is
the meaning of the expression "the end of the Lord." Bede follows Augustine in
understanding it of the death of Christ, which no doubt many of the readers of the
Epistle had witnessed-"Exitum quoque Domini in cruce quem longanimiter suscepit,
adstantes ipsi vidistis"; and in this interpretation Bede is followed by Wetstein, Lange,
and some other modern writers. It cannot be considered as probable. St. James would
hardly couple the endurance of Job with the death of Christ in this abrupt way; and the
words which follow-"that the Lord is full of pity, and merciful"-do not fit on to this
interpretation. "The end of the Lord" much more probably means the end to which the
Lord brought the sufferings of Job. It may have special reference to the concluding
portion of the Book of Job, in which Jehovah is represented as bringing the argument to
a close: "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that
darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?" etc., etc. (Job_38:1-41) This
appearance of Jehovah to end the trials of Job would then be analogous to the
appearance of Christ to end the trials of the persecuted Christians; and it is possible that
the combination "ye have heard and have seen" was suggested by the last words of Job:
"I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore
I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes". (Job_42:5-6)
Stier remarks that the mention of Job in Ezekiel, (Eze_14:14; Eze_14:16; Eze_14:20)
and here by St. James, shows us "that the man Job actually lived, like Noah, Daniel, and

103. all the prophets; that the narrative of his life is not a didactic poem, but a real history."
But is that a necessary conclusion? Let us leave on one side the question whether or no
there really was such a person as Job, who experienced what is recorded in the book
which bears his name, and let us consider whether the mention of him by Ezekiel and by
St. James proves that there was such a person. It proves nothing of the sort. It shows no
more than this, that the story of Job was well known, and was employed for moral and
spiritual instruction. Let us suppose that the Book of Job is a parable, like that of Dives
and Lazarus. Would the fact that its contents are not historical prevent Ezekiel or St.
James from speaking of Job as a well-known person of exemplary life? There would be
nothing unnatural in coupling together Dives, who is probably an imaginary person, and
the rich young man, who is certainly a real person, as examples of men to whom great
wealth has proved disastrous, nor, again, in speaking of Lazarus and the penitent thief as
instances of souls that had passed from great earthly suffering to the rest of Paradise.
Such combinations would not commit the writer or speaker who made use of them to the
belief that Dives and Lazarus were historical persons. Why, then, should the fact that an
inspired writer couples Job with Noah and Daniel commit us to the belief that Job is a
real person? He may have been so, just as Lazarus may have been so, but the mention of
him by Ezekiel and by St. James does not prove that he was. We know too little about the
effects of inspiration to be justified in saying dogmatically that an inspired writer would
never speak of an unhistorical person as an example to be imitated. Is the merchant who
sold all that he had in order to buy one pearl of great price a historical person? and is he
not put before us as an example to be imitated? It is quite possible that the story of Job
is in the main a narrative of facts, and not an inspired fiction; but the mention of him by
Ezekiel and by St. James is no proof of it. It is neither fair nor prudent to cite either of
them as witnesses to the historical character of the Book of Job. It is not fair, because we
are ignorant of their opinion on the subject, and are also ignorant as to whether their
opinion on the subject would be under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And it is
not prudent, because it may be demonstrated hereafter that the story of Job is not
historical; and then we shall have pledged the testimony of inspired persons to the truth
of a narrative which is, after all, fictitious. If St. Paul may cite Jannes and Jambres as
instances of malignant opposition to the truth, without compelling us to believe that
those names are historical, St. James may quote Job as an example of patient endurance,
without obliging us to believe that Job is a historical personage. In each case the
historical character of the illustrations must be decided on other grounds than the fact
that they are employed by writers who were inspired. Questions of this kind are among
the many spheres in which we need that virtue on which St. James here insists with such
simple earnesthess-patience. When certainty has not been attained, and perhaps is not
attainable, let us learn to wait patiently in uncertainty. Was there ever such a person as
Job? Who wrote the Book of Job? What is its date? Does inspiration produce
infallibility? and if so, what are the limits to such infallibility? There are men to whom
uncertainty on such questions as these seems intolerable. They cannot "learn to labor
and to wait"; they cannot work patiently, and wait patiently, until a complete solution is
found. And hence they hurry to a definite conclusion, support it by evidence that is not
relevant, and affirm that it is demonstrated by what is perhaps relevant, but is far short
of proof. Intellectual probation is part of our moral probation in this life, and it is a
discipline much needed in an age of great mental activity. Impatience of the intellect is a
common blemish, and it is disastrous both to him who allows himself to be conquered
by it and to the cause of truth. He does good service both to himself and to others, who
cultivates a dread of jumping to unproved conclusions, and who in speaking and writing
watchfully distinguishes what is certain from what is only probable, and what is
probable from what is only not known to be untrue. The great example of patience is not

104. given by St. James, although we can read it into his words. In a sense not meant by him
there is the Husbandman, who waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, until it receive
the early and the latter rain. There is that precious harvest of human souls which must
receive and welcome the dew of God’s grace before it is ready for His garner. On some it
has never yet fallen; on some it has fallen, but as yet in vain; and meanwhile the
Husbandman waiteth, "being patient over it," until it receive the one thing needful.
Through long, long centuries He has been waiting, and He continues so doing. St.
Augustine tells us why. God is "patient, because He is eternal" (pattens quiaaeternus).
He who is "from everlasting to everlasting" can afford to wait. He waits patiently for us,
generation after generation. Can we not wait for Him one hour? Let us patiently abide
until "the end of the Lord" comes, the end which He has prepared for us, and towards
which all things under His guiding hand are working. When we have seen it we shall
once more see "that the Lord is full of pity, and merciful."
HAWKER 7-11, "Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the
husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it,
until he receive the early and latter rain. (8) Be ye also patient; establish your hearts: for
the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. (9) Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest
ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door. (10) Take, my brethren,
the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering
affliction, and of patience. (11) Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have
heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very
pitiful, and of tender mercy.
We have within the compass of these verses, some very precious views, for the child of
God, and especially the exercised child of God, to ruminate upon: and, if the Reader will
indulge me, and God the Holy Ghost will teach both Writer and Reader, very sure I am,
that we shall rise up from the review of them with much spiritual profit.
And, first. By the command to the brethren, who are regenerated in Christ, to be patient
unto the coming of the Lord; the child of God is taught to expect exercises. There will be,
there must be, many dark and trying seasons. And in those seasons, the best taught
children of God will be hard put to it, unless faith is always in lively exercise, to trust God
where we cannot trace God. The Holy Ghost therefore begins this sweet portion, after he
had told the Church in the verses going before, the sure ruin of the ungodly; that though
their patience should be exercised, yet they should rest in this one grand and unalterable
conclusion, the Lord is coming. And when he comes, all will be fully and clearly
explained. Therefore, saith the Lord, patiently wait this time, and be assured of this one
thing, the Lord’s ways, and the Lord’s heart, are towards thee for good in all things.
Rom_8:28.
Secondly. Having gained this great point, and set it down as a truth perfectly clear and
impossible to be questioned, that God’s dealings with his redeemed in Christ, are full of
love, and conducted with unerring wisdom; we are next taught, that the best way, and
the only way, by which we can rightly interpret the Lord’s dealings towards his people,
is, to do as the husbandman doth, in waiting for the precious fruit of the earth. What a
beautiful and striking similitude the Lord , hath chosen to represent this sure harvest by,
of the fruits of his everlasting love? What, to the human eye, apparently more
unpromising, or more unlikely to bring forth, than when the seed is not only cast into
the earth and buried over, but must absolutely rot and die before there can be any
product. See Joh_12:24. and Commentary. Such then is the harvest of grace. When the
Lord hath totally thrown to the ground, and buried over all our designs, and plans, and

105. exertions; yea, even to our prayers, as in the case of Israel, no answers have been given,
and matters have appeared darker than before: (see Ex 5 throughout,) then most blessed
it is, to behold, of a sudden, light rise out of obscurity, and hope against hope come in to
our joy and delight? Reader! say, (if you know the Lord,) hath the Lord at any time,
when bereaving you of earthly comforts, when withering your gourds, and breaking your
cisterns, when stripping you like the oak of its leaves in the winter; you have stood, as in
the midst of the forest, desolated, and forlorn; hath Jesus, during those seasons of
nature’s sorrows, refreshed in grace your soul? Hath the Lord given you increasing faith,
increasing spiritual strength, hath he blessed you with the more frequent visits of his
love, opened to you his covenant, shewn you his secrets, said unto you, Fear not, I am
with thee, I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine? Surely,
here is the fullest testimony to what the Apostle hath said, and encouragement enough
to be always on the watch-tower for such manifestations of his grace, in the expectation
of the coming of the Lord drawing nigh.
Once more. The Apostle beautifully sums up the argument, in proposing to the Church
the example of the Prophets, and particularly in the instance of Job, by way of shewing
the blessedness of suffering afflictions with patience. Behold! (saith he,) we count them
happy which endure. Yes! The people of God do count the Lord’s exercised ones under
trial, when found faithful, as eminently distinguished with the divine favor. It is indeed a
mark of the Lord’s regard for them. They are thereby called to high dignity and honor.
Paul told the Church of the Corinthians, that they were babes in Christ, and could not,
from their tender age, bear the strong food of the Gospel. Children, truly and savingly
regenerated, they were; but yet only children, 1Co_3:1-2. But, when the Lord calls an old
veteran in the holy army to sharp and trying conflicts, and blesseth him with strength in
the battle, this is an high honor on the saint! And the Apostle saith, Behold, we count
them happy which endure.
But what is the world’s estimate of good? Alas! the very reverse. Ask men of the world,
what they conceive; a goodly portion? They will make no hesitation to decide, and decide
so positively, as though their maxims were undeniable. We count them happy, they will
say, which have all this world’s good; riches, titles, mansions, and a profusion of all
creature comforts. But, who shall cast the lot? Who shall determine with whom the
advantage is? Reader! it is already determined, and God himself hath decided. It is
hardly possible to read the 49th Psalm (Ps 49); Job_21:13. or the 73 rd Psalm (Ps 73),
where the characters of the prosperous worldling is drawn in his full colors, without
trembling. And when from the Word of God, we turn to the contemplation of the world,
and behold such awful departures going on, from one generation to another, the child of
God cannot but arise up, under all his exercises, how pressing soever to flesh and blood
they may be, and say with him of old, Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord,
and teachest him out of thy law, that thou mayest give him rest from the days of
adversity until the pit be digged for the wicked, Psa_94:12-13.
SBC 7-8, "The lesson of Advent is a twofold one. It is a lesson of watchfulness; it is also a
lesson of patience. They are the two contrasted tones heard all through that solemn
discourse upon the Mount of Olives from which, as "in a glass, darkly," through parable
and figure, we have learned all that we can ever learn of that—
"Far-off Divine event
To which the whole creation moves."
I. Patience is a lesson which we all need. We need it in the heat and eagerness of youth;

106. we need it in the more firmly held purposes and severer tempers of manhood; we need it
in forming our opinions and in ordering our lives, in judging our friends, in judging our
enemies, in judging ourselves; we need it in our selfish plans and in our unselfish ones
also. Impatience wears many disguises. It is indeed nearly related to several virtues; but
the near relations of virtues are often not virtues themselves. To one it bears the
appearance of frankness, which says out what others feel, which has no time or care to
soften wholesome, if unpleasant, truth; to another it seems like proper spirit, resenting
what should be resented, chafing at officious criticism, claiming a man’s freedom in
thinking and judging; to still another it seems the expression of energy, or zeal, or
fearlessness, pushing on when others hesitate, making light of imaginary obstacles, so
intent on a great end as to have no time for minute consideration of the means. In the
smallest spheres of life, in little societies, in the family, in the individual soul, impatience
destroys peace, takes its happiness from effort, wears out prematurely hearts which, if
this poison were absent, would bear and do great things in God’s service.
II. I suggest three points in respect of which especially the New Testament bids us
connect the lesson of patience with the thoughts of the Second Advent: (1) Judging.
"Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come." "Let your moderation" (your
fairness, largeness, gentleness of judging) "be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand."
Our Lord puts it in one word, not as a counsel of perfection, not as what in all cases we
can actually do, but as an aim, an ideal, a warning: "Judge not, and ye shall not be
judged." We should make allowance, look always on the best side, hope all things,
believe all things. "He hath committed all judgment unto the Son, because He is the Son
of man." (2) Bearing. Think how many times in the Epistles we hear the words
"patience," "endurance," and almost always in the context, either in word or in thought,
is the remembrance of this limit, this great hope, in which men can stand firm. Our trials
are very various; they vary with our years, our circumstances, our temperament. "The
heart knoweth its own bitterness," but the great sweetener to all may be the thought that
God knows it too; that He is disciplining us for the day when He comes to "restore all
things," to "bind up the broken-hearted," when "all sorrow and sighing shall flee away."
(3) Waiting. "O tarry thou the Lord’s leisure," sings the Psalmist; "the patient waiting for
Christ," is St. Paul’s last word to the Thessalonians. Both of them knew that to anxious
and eager hearts it was one of the hardest of lessons; but peace cannot be had unless it
be learnt, nor true strength.
E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons, p. 278.
8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the
Lord’s coming is near.
BAR ES, "Be ye also patient - As the farmer is. In due time, as he expects the
return of the rain, so you may anticipate deliverance from your trials.

107. Stablish your hearts - Let your purposes and your faith be firm and unwavering.
Do not become weary and fretful; but bear with constancy all that is laid upon you, until
the time of your deliverance shall come.
For the coming of the Lord draweth nigh - Compare Rev_22:10, Rev_22:12,
Rev_22:20; the notes at 1Co_15:51. It is clear, I think, from this place, that the apostle
expected that that which he understood by “the coming of the Lord” was soon to occur;
for it was to be that by which they would obtain deliverance from the trials which they
then endured. See Jam_5:7. Whether it means that he was soon to come to judgment, or
to bring to an end the Jewish policy and to set up his kingdom on the earth, or that they
would soon be removed by death, cannot be determined from the mere use of the
language. The most natural interpretation of the passage, and one which will accord well
with the time when the Epistle was written, is, that the predicted time of the destruction
of Jerusalem Matt. 24 was at hand; that there were already indications that that would
soon occur; and that there was a prevalent expectation among Christians that that event
would be a release from many trials of persecution, and would be followed by the setting
up of the Redeemer’s kingdom.
Perhaps many expected that the judgment would occur at that time, and that the
Saviour would set up a personal reign on the earth. But the expectation of others might
have been merely - what is indeed all that is necessarily implied in the predictions on the
subject - that there would be after that a rapid and extensive spread of the principles of
the Christian religion in the world. The destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple
would contribute to that by bringing to an end the whole system of Jewish types and
sacrifices; by convincing Christians that there was not to be one central rallying-point,
thus destroying their lingering prejudices in favor of the Jewish mode of worship; and by
scattering them abroad through the world to propagate the new religion. The Epistle was
written, it is supposed, some ten or twelve years before the destruction of Jerusalem,
(Introduction, Section 3,) and it is not improbable that there were already some
indications of that approaching event.
CLARKE, "Be ye also patient - Wait for God’s deliverance, as ye wait for his
bounty in providence.
Stablish your hearts - Take courage; do not sink under your trials.
The coming of the Lord draweth nigh - Ηγγικε· Is at hand. He is already on his
way to destroy this wicked people, to raze their city and temple, and to destroy their
polity for ever; and this judgment will soon take place.
GILL, "Be ye also patient,.... As well as the husbandman, and like him; and wait for
the rains and dews of divine grace to fall, and make fruitful, and for the ripe fruit of
eternal life; and in the mean while cheerfully and patiently bear all injuries, and
oppressions:
stablish your hearts; though the state of the saints is stable, they being fixed in the
everlasting love of God, in the covenant of grace, in the hands of Christ, and on the rock
of ages; yet their hearts are very unstable, and so are their frames, and the exercise of
grace in them, and need establishing, which God's work; which is often done by the
means of the word and ordinances; and these the saints should make use of, for the

108. establishing of their hearts: the sense may be, take heart, be of good cheer, do not be
dismayed, or faint, or sink under your pressures, but be of good courage, pluck up your
spirits, lift up your heads: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh; when he will render
tribulation to them that trouble them, free them from all their sorrows and afflictions,
and enter them into the joy of their Lord; which will be either at death, which was not
very far off, or at the last day, which was drawing nearer and nearer, and which with God
was near; with whom a thousand years are as one day.
HE RY, "Consider what encouragement here is for Christians to be patient, to
establish their hearts, and not to grudge one against another. And, (1.) “Look to the
example of the husbandman: He waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long
patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. When you sow your corn in the
ground, you wait many months for the former and latter rain, and are willing to stay till
harvest for the fruit of your labour; and shall not this teach you to bear a few storms, and
to be patient for a season, when you are looking for a kingdom and everlasting felicity?
Consider him that waits for a crop of corn; and will not you wait for a crown of glory? If
you should be called to wait a little longer than the husbandman does, is it not
something proportionably greater and infinitely more worth your waiting for? But,” (2.)
“Think how short your waiting time may possibly be: The coming of the Lord draweth
nigh, Jam_5:8; behold, the Judge standeth before the door, Jam_5:9. Do not be
impatient, do not quarrel with one another; the great Judge, who will set all to rights,
who will punish the wicked and reward the good, is at hand: he should be conceived by
you to stand as near as one who is just knocking at the door.” The coming of the Lord to
punish the wicked Jews was then very nigh, when James wrote this epistle; and,
whenever the patience and other graces of his people are tried in an extraordinary
manner, the certainty of Christ's coming as Judge, and the nearness of it, should
establish their hearts. The Judge is now a great deal nearer, in his coming to judge the
world, than when this epistle was written, nearer by above seventeen hundred years; and
therefore this should have the greater effect upon us. (3.) The danger of our being
condemned when the Judge appears should excite us to mind our duty as before laid
down: Grudge not, lest you be condemned. Fretfulness and discontent expose us to the
just judgment of God, and we bring more calamities upon ourselves by our murmuring,
distrustful, envious groans and grudgings against one another, than we are aware of. If
we avoid these evils, and be patient under our trials, God will not condemn us. Let us
encourage ourselves with this.
JAMISO , "coming ... draweth nigh — The Greek expresses present time and a
settled state. 1Pe_4:7, “is at hand.” We are to live in a continued state of expectancy of
the Lord’s coming, as an event always nigh. Nothing can more “stablish the heart”
amidst present troubles than the realized expectation of His speedy coming.
CALVI , "8Stablish YOUR hearts. Lest any should object and say, that the time of
deliverance was too long delayed, he obviates this objection and says, that the Lord
was at hand, or (which is the same thing) that his coming was drawing nigh. In the
meantime, he bids us to CORRECT the softness of the heart, which weakens us, so
as not to persevere in hope. And doubtless the time appears long, because we are too
tender and delicate. We ought, then, to gather strength that we may become
hardened and this cannot be better attained than by hope, and as it were by a

109. realizing view of the near approach of our Lord.
COFFMA , "Be ye also patient; establish YOUR hearts: for the coming of the Lord
is at hand.
It is difficult not to lose patience with those commentators who receive every such
reference as this as an occasion for declaiming upon the "mistake" of all the ew
Testament writers in expecting the "coming of the Lord" (in his final advent, of
course) as an EVE T certain to occur in their lifetime. See extended discussion of
"The Speedy Return" of Christ, under 1 Thessalonians 1:10, in CT. The particular
"coming of the Lord" mentioned by James here was indeed "at hand." As James
would declare a little later, "The judge standeth before the doors" (James 5:9).
COKE, "James 5:8. For the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.— The apostle by this
phrase seems plainly to mean, the coming of the Romans to destroy or carry away
captive the Jewish nation: for what God in his providence promises, he himself is
very often said to do. See Matthew 27:33. Mark 13:29. Luke 21:20. Indeed it may be
asked, What other coming of the Lord was then drawing nigh? Is it not intimated,
James 5:1 that very great evils were just ready to fall upon the rich Jews? That they
would speedily be punished for their covetousness and luxury, and particularly for
their persecuting the Christians?—And it was about a year after the writing of this
epistle that the Jewish wars actually broke out, which ended in the destruction of
the Jewish nation. Well therefore might it now be said, that the coming of the Lord
drew nigh. This was a very proper motive by which to excite the Christians to
patience; for the Jews were their principal persecutors, and their destruction
approached swiftly. James 5:9. Grudge not, &c.] ΄η στεναζετε, groan not, from
anger or envy; complain not. Impatience toward each other is here condemned, as
impatience under the treatment which they met with from their enemies and
persecutors is condemned in the preceding verse; and the Judege might be at the
door, ready to condemn the guilty among the Christians, as well as to avenge them
of their adversaries.
ELLICOTT, "(8) The coming of the Lord draweth nigh.—Read thus, The presence
of the Lord is nigh. For the ancient belief in the nearness of Christ’s second advent,
see ote above, in James 5:3. The word used by the Apostle to describe its closeness
is the same as that used in Matthew 3:2, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” The
afflicted are therefore to establish, or rather strengthen, their hearts. If “comfort”
retained its older sense, such would express the true idea. Comp. the great prophecy
of Israel’s consolation (Isaiah 40, et seq.).
9 Don’t grumble against one another, brothers

110. and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is
standing at the door!
BAR ES, "Grudge not one against another - Margin, “groan, grieve.” The Greek
word (στενάζω stenazō) means, “to sigh, to groan,” as of persons in distress, Rom_8:23;
and then to sigh or groan through impatience, fretfulness, ill-humor; and hence “to
murmur, to find fault, to complain.” The exact idea here is, not that of grudging in the
sense of dissatisfaction with what others possess, or of being envious; it is that of being
fretful and impatient - or, to use a common word which more exactly expresses the sense
that of grumbling. This may arise from many causes; either because others have
advantages which we have not, and we are discontented and unhappy, as if it were wrong
in them to have such enjoyments; or because we, without reason, suppose they intend to
slight and neglect us; or because we are ready to take offence at any little thing, and to
“pick a quarrel” with them. There are some persons who are always grumbling. They
have a sour, dissatisfied, discontented temper; they see no excellence in other persons;
they are displeased that others are more prospered, honored, and beloved than they are
themselves; they are always complaining of what others do, not because they are injured,
but because others seem to them to be weak and foolish; they seem to feel that it
becomes them to complain if everything is not done precisely as in their estimation it
should be. It is needless to say that this spirit - the offspring of pride - will make any man
lead a wretched life; and equally needless to say that it is wholly contrary to the spirit of
the gospel. Compare Luk_3:14; Phi_4:11; 1Ti_6:8; Heb_13:5.
Lest ye be condemned - That is, for judging others with this spirit - for this spirit is
in fact judging them. Compare the notes at Mat_7:1.
Behold, the judge standeth before the door - The Lord Jesus, who is soon to
come to judge the world. See Jam_5:8. He is, as it were, even now approaching the door
- so near that he can hear all that you say.
CLARKE, "Grudge not - Μη στεναζετε· Groan not; grumble not; do not murmur
through impatience; and let not any ill treatment which you receive, induce you to vent
your feelings in imprecations against your oppressors. Leave all this in the hands of God.
Lest ye be condemned - By giving way to a spirit of this kind, you will get under the
condemnation of the wicked.
The judge standeth before the door - His eye is upon every thing that is wrong in
you, and every wrong that is done to you; and he is now entering into judgment with
your oppressors.
GILL, "Grudge not one against another, brethren,.... On account of any
happiness, temporal or spiritual, which another enjoys; do not inwardly repine at it; or
secretly sigh and groan in an envious manner at it, though nothing may be said, as the
word used signifies; much less complain of, accuse, and condemn one another, or

111. meditate and seek revenge:
lest ye be condemned; hereafter, at the bar of Christ, by the Judge of the whole earth,
who is privy to the secret murmurings and grumblings, and the envious sighs and groans
of men; see Mat_7:1
behold the judge standeth before the door; there is another that judgeth, who is
the Lord, and he is at hand; he is just at the door; a little while and he will come, and not
tarry; which may refer not to Christ's coming to destroy Jerusalem, but to his second
coming to judgment, which will be quickly; for the Gospel times are the last times; there
will be no other age; at the end of this, Christ will come.
JAMISO , "Grudge not — rather “Murmur not”; “grumble not.” The Greek is
literally, “groan”: a half-suppressed murmur of impatience and harsh judgment, not
uttered aloud or freely. Having exhorted them to patience in bearing wrongs from the
wicked, he now exhorts them to a forbearing spirit as to the offenses given by brethren.
Christians, who bear the former patiently, sometimes are impatient at the latter, though
much less grievous.
lest ... condemned — The best manuscript authorities read, “judged.” James refers
to Mat_7:1, “Judge not lest ye be judged.” To “murmur against one another” is virtually
to judge, and so to become liable to be judged.
judge ... before the door — referring to Mat_24:33. The Greek is the same in both
passages, and so ought to be translated here as there, “doors,” plural. The phrase means
“near at hand” (Gen_4:7), which in the oldest interpretations [Targums of Jonathan and
Jerusalem] is explained, “thy sin is reserved unto the judgment of the world to come.”
Compare “the everlasting doors” (Psa_24:7, whence He shall come forth). The Lord’s
coming to destroy Jerusalem is primarily referred to; and ultimately, His coming again
visibly to judgment.
CALVI , "9Grudge not, or, groan not. As the complaints of many were heard, that
they were more severely treated than others, this passage is so explained by some, as
though James bade each to be contented with his own lot, not to envy others, nor
grudge if the condition of others was more tolerable. But I take another view; for
after having spoken of the unhappiness of those who distress good and quiet men by
their tyranny, he now exhorts the faithful to be just towards one another and ready
to pass by offenses. That this is the real meaning may be gathered from the reason
that is added: Be not querulous one against another; lest ye be condemned. We may,
indeed, groan, when any evil torments us; but he means an accusing groan, when
one expostulates with the Lord against another. And he declares that thus they
would all be condemned, because there is no one who does not offend his brethren,
and afford them an occasion of groaning. ow, if everyone complained, they would
all have accused one another; for no one was so innocent, that he did not do some
harm to others.
God will be the common judge of all. What, then, will be the case, but that every one
who seeks to bring judgment on others, must allow the same against himself; and
thus all will be given up to the same ruin. Let no one, then, ask for vengeance on

112. others, except he wishes to bring it on his own head. And lest they should be hasty in
making complaints of this kind, he declares that the judge was at the door. For as
our propensity is to profane the name of God, in the slightest offenses we appeal to
his judgment. othing is a fitter bridle to CHECK our rashness, than to consider
that our imprecations vanish not into air, because God’s judgment is at hand.
COFFMA , "Murmur not, brethren, one against another, that ye be not judged:
behold, the judge standeth before the doors.
The judge standeth before the doors ... It is AGREED by all that "the judge" here is
Christ, thus justifying the conclusion that "the judge" mentioned a moment earlier
in James 4:12 is also Christ. As Roberts observed, "The clause reflects the very
words of Jesus (Mark 13:29; Matthew 24:33). The judge is Christ."[28]
Murmur not ... This is "grudge not" in the KJV, another example of words
changing their meaning. "Grudge has curiously changed its meaning from an
outward murmur to an inward feeling."[29] The type of murmuring which was
likely to have existed in the churches which originally received this letter was that of
complaining because so many years had passed and yet the old Sadducean
hypocrites were still totally in charge in Jerusalem. During the interval between the
governorships of Festus and Albinus, the wicked high priest Ananus seized the
OPPORTU ITY to murder James the author of this epistle.
He convened the judges and brought before them James a brother of Jesus who was
called Christ .... He accused him of having transgressed the law and delivered him
up to be stoned.[30]SIZE>
Unlike many early traditions, this one is generally received as being authentic.[31]
Punchard has this additional reference to it:
One of the mocking questions put to St. James by his enemies, as they hurried him
to death, was "Which is the door of Jesus?" Failing to receive an answer, they said,
"Let us stone this James the Just." So, they threw him from the pinnacle of the
temple, after which he was beaten to death with a fuller's club.[32]SIZE>
Thus, it is particularly interesting that James' words in this very verse were
mentioned on the occasion of his martyrdom.
Dummelow's paraphrase seems to be an accurate reflection of James' admonition in
this verse: "Do not let YOUR irritation and soreness at outside oppression vent
itself in impatience and grumbling towards one another."[33]
[28] J. W. Roberts, The Letter of James (Austin, Texas: The Sweet Publishing
Company, 1977), p. 154.
[29] E. G. Punchard, op. cit., p. 377.
[30] Flavius Josephus, Antiquities, 20:9. 1 (200).
[31] Jack P. Lewis, Historical BACKGROU DS of Bible History (Grand Rapids,

113. Michigan: Baker Book House, 1971), p. 141.
[32] E. G. Punchard, op. cit., p. 377.
[33] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 1037.
ELLICOTT, "(9) Grudge not.—Say in preference, Murmur not. “Grudge” has
curiously changed its meaning from an outward murmur to an inward feeling. It
has unfortunately been retained both here and in 1 Peter 4:9. See also Psalms 59:15,
SPECIALLY the Prayer Book version, “They will . . . grudge if they be not
satisfied”—i.e., complain and murmur.
Lest ye . . .—It is not “lest ye be condemned,” but lest ye be judged, repeating the
exact words of the original in Matthew 7:1.
Behold, the judge standeth before the door.—Compare this scene with that depicted
in Revelation 3:20. In the one Christ lingers mercifully outside the door that “loves
its hinge”; fain would He E TER and abide. In the other He sounds a note of
alarm; men are “waked in the night, not girding their loins for a journey, but in
vague wonder at uncertain noise, who may turn again to their slumber,” or in
wistful listening wait in vain for the voice of mercy which shall plead with them no
more for ever (Ruskin).
One of the mocking questions put to St. James by his enemies, as they hurried him
to death, was, “Which is the door of Jesus?” And failing to receive an answer to
their mind, they said, “Let us stone this James the Just!” which they did, after they
had cast him over the Temple wall.
BURKITT, "Observe here, 1. A prohibiton, Grudge not one against another; that is,
do not murmur or repine, groan or grieve, as impatient men use to do under their
pressure; complain not of God, because the time of your deliverance is delayed:
thirst not after revenge against your persecutors, and envy not those who are
exercised with fewer troubles than yourselves: grudge not.
Observe, 2. The enforcement of this prohibition from the danger of the fact, lest ye
be condemned. As if he had said, "Impatience and discontent, envy and distrust,
will expose you to greater miseries than you complain of: Your sufferings here are
but for your probation, but your grudging and repining will be your
condemnation."
Observe, 3. The anticipation or forestalling of an objection, which some might make.
What! must we suffer, and may we not complain? Must we, by tamely bearing many
affronts, invite more, and revenge none?" Yes, says the apostle, be patient, and
commit your cause to him that judegeth righteously; for Behold the Judge standeth
before the door.
Where OTE, 1. A Judge, the supreme and U IVERSAL Judge, Jesus Christ, who

114. was here judged by his creatures, but now is coming to judge his judges.
2. His posture, He standeth, which is the Judge's posture when he executes
judgment. St. Stephen saw Christ standing, Acts 7:55, at God's right hand; not as an
advocate to plead his cause, (Christ is said to sit at God's right hand when he does
that); but he stood now as a Judge, to take speedy vengeance on St. Stephen's
murderers for that bloody act.
ote, 3. The place where the Judge standeth before the door; that is, he is coming to
judgment, and he is just at hand; he has put on his robes, and is ascending his
tribunal.
Observe, lastly, the note of attention, Behold! this ushers in the whole, Behold the
Judge standeth at the door.
Learn hence, that the consideration of Christ's near approach to judgment should
awe the consciences of men, and mould their conversations into a dutiful compliance
with divine commands.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, "Grudge not one against another
Discontent and envy
I.
EXPLAIN THE EXHORTATION.
1. The exhortation implies that we are apt to be secretly discontented with our
condition and circumstances in the present life; that we are prone to become fretful
when things do not correspond with our wishes.
2. It is implied that we are prone to envy, or to look upon the prosperity of others,
either real or imaginary, with a spirit of secret discontent.
3. We are in danger of cherishing a spirit of resentment towards those who have
injured us, whether intentionally or not, and so of having a “grudge one against
another.”
II. ENFORCE THE EXHORTATION.
1. The disposition here forbidden is intrinsically evil, and is one of the corruptions of
the human heart.
2. It is expressly contrary to Divine command, which requires us to esteem others
better than ourselves, to rejoice in their prosperity, to participate of their sorrows,
and to make their interest our own.
3. An envious and rancorous disposition is marked with folly, as well as stainedwith
guilt. It argues an unacquaintedness with ourselves, who in every condition of life
deserve to be in worse circumstances than we are; nor does such a disposition
contribute in the least to our comfort and happiness. It cures not the wound, but
makes it more painful and dangerous; does not lighten the burden, but renders it still
more intolerable.
4. It is both injurious to ourselves and others, as well as sinful and unwise. Envy

115. makes us our own tormentors; it robs us of that peace and satisfaction which we
might otherwise enjoy. “Wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly
one.” It embitters his enjoyments and gives a keener edge to his afflictions. It is a sin
which often leads to cruelty and injustice, and is seldom found to exist alone.
5. It is a sin which, if not repented of, will subject us to final condemnation. (B.
Beddome, M. A.)
Grudging
Murmuring is not here generally taken for every grudging, either against God or man, as
whereof in other places of Scripture is spoken, but particularly for that murmuring
which is against men, therefore saith he, “Grudge not one against another.” This
grudging and murmuring is either when we grieve that wicked rich men should so highly
be exalted, and the poor, yet righteous, should by poverty be pressed down in the world;
or else it is that murmuring whereby we take it in evil part that ourselves should be so
tossed and turmoiled, and others should be dealt with more gently; thinking that we
bear a greater burden and heavier cross from God than we have deserved, and that other
men (as yet not touched) have deserved more. Or, finally, it is that grudging which is in
our afflictions, whereby we are discontented that we should sigh so long under our
afflictions, and the wicked which afflict us should so long escape unpunished, and so in
our hearts, through impatience, complain hereof to God. This ought not to be in the
saints of God, who ought to be renowned for their unspeakable patience; whose bounden
duty it is to pray even for their enemies, to wish well to them which have done them
injury, and to commit their cause to Him that judgeth righteously, which is God. And if
this moderation and equity of our minds is to be showed towards our enemies, how
much less ought we, then, to grudge against another Christian brother? If every one give
some offence unto another, shall we complain to God in the bitterness of our hearts,
shall we desire revenge from God against them? and shall we not all then perish? for no
man liveth without some offence-giving. This grudging proceedeth from impatience,
argueth discontentment of the mind, causeth mutual complaining unto God, and
desireth revenge against such as have done us injury; which thing is far from the
excellency or dignity of a Christian, whose patience should be such, as where others
through impatience accuse one another, either to God or men, yet they should not so
much as murmur in their minds, grudge to themselves, fret or grieve in their inward
parts, much less complain indeed through discontentment and impatience, howbeit they
had sustained injury. Finally, it bringeth condemnation upon us, who have lost patience,
according to the denouncing of the Scripture: “Woe be unto them that have lost
patience.” The reason why we should not murmur one against another is drawn from the
presence of the Lord, who is at hand, as a just judge, to avenge us of our enemies, and to
crown us for our patience or punish our murmuring. The Lord our God beholdeth our
injuries with open eye, and seeth our oppressions by the wicked; He is pressed and at
hand to rescue and deliver u s, as it shall seem best to His Divine Majesty; He marketh
all our behaviour under the cross; let us not, therefore, be impatient, neither murmur,
but therein show all Christian moderation as becometh saints. (R. Turnbull.)
The sin of grumbling
Do Christian people quite sufficiently consider the sin of grumbling, the sin of being
discontented with the allotment of Providence, as to the time and place of their birth; as

116. to the family in which they were born; as to their environment, as well as their heredity?
What a strange sight a grumbling Christian is! He is a man who believes that God hath
forgiven his sins, that Christ hath borne them all away, that his Lord has gone to prepare
a place for him, that in a short time he will be where neither pain nor persecution can
reach him, where the load of life will be laid down, where the wicked shall cease from
troubling, and the weary shall be for ever at rest. And yet he allows small and transient
things to keep him awake in the night, to worry him and make him peevish and fretful
and cross through the day. He makes his own burdens more distressing by fretting
under them, and thus increases the burdens which his friends have to bear. How many
Christians fail to put their grumblings into the category of their sins. But James’s
admonition, that we should not grumble lest we be condemned, ought to arouse us to
the duty of being patient, and to the fact that all really true Christian faith increases a
man’s manliness. (C. F. Deems, D. D.)
The carping spirit
A carping spirit rarely goes with a working spirit. It is easier to find fault with what some
one else does than it is to do something oneself; hence a man who enjoys doing the
easier thing is disinclined to do the harder one. As a rule men are divided into two
classes, of those who growl and those who work; and each class is alike devoted to its
own mission. But, when it comes to the relative worth in the community of the two
classes, everybody can see the difference.
Grudge not
“Murmur not” (R.V.). The literal meaning of the Greek is “Groan not”; i.e. “Grumble
not.” (A. Plummer, D. D.)
The Judge standeth before the door
The Judge before the door
This explains why conscience is always gloomy after sin; it is because He who is the
eternal righteousness casts His shadow across the threshold of the soul. In some Eastern
houses there are no windows, the doorway serving for lighting as well as for passage. A
party of us lunching by invitation in a Druze house in the Lebanons had to drive away
the curious villagers who looked in at us through the door, the only opening, because
they made it so dark that we could not see the food. God fills the whole light-way of the
soul when He looks in at us, and unless He shines on us with the light of His
countenance, His stern righteousness makes the soul all dark within. (J. M. Ludlow, D.
D.)
The magistrate present
If the magistrate be present we may not offend another to defend ourselves. (J. Trapp.)

117. 10 Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience
in the face of suffering, take the prophets who
spoke in the name of the Lord.
BAR ES, "Take, my brethren, the prophets - That is, in your trials and
persecutions. To encourage them to the exercise of patience, he points them to the
example of those who had trod the same thorny path before them. The prophets were in
general a much persecuted race of men; and the argument on which the apostle relies
from their example is this:
(1) That if the prophets were persecuted and tried, it may be expected that other good
men will be;
(2) That they showed such patience in their trials as to be a model for us.
An example of suffering affliction - That is, they showed us how evils are to be
borne.
CLARKE, "Take - the prophets - The prophets who had spoken to their
forefathers by the authority of God, were persecuted by the very people to whom they
delivered the Divine message; but they suffered affliction and persecution with patience,
commending their cause to him who judgeth righteously; therefore, imitate their
example.
GILL, "Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of
the Lord,.... Men who have been highly honoured of God, with a gift of prophesying, or
foretelling things to come; to whom God revealed his secrets, doing nothing without
acquainting them with it; and who were sent forth by him, and prophesied in his name
what were made known unto them; and yet, though these were his favourites, they
suffered much; as cruel mockings, scourgings, imprisonment, famine, nakedness, and
death in various shapes; some being stoned, others sawn asunder, and others killed by
the sword; all which they endured with incredible patience. And therefore the apostle
proposes them to be taken,
for an example suffering affliction, and of patience; their afflictions were many
and great, and yet they were very patient under them; and through faith and patience
they went through them, and now inherit the promises; and so are a very proper
example and pattern for New Testament saints to follow and copy after.
HE RY, "We are encouraged to be patient by the example of the prophets (Jam_5:10):
Take the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of

118. suffering affliction, and of patience. Observe here, The prophets, on whom God put the
greatest honour, and for whom he had the greatest favour, were most afflicted: and,
when we think that the best men have had the hardest usage in this world, we should
hereby be reconciled to affliction. Observe further, Those who were the greatest
examples of suffering affliction were also the best and greatest examples of patience:
tribulation worketh patience. Hereupon James gives it to us as the common sense of the
faithful
JAMISO , "the prophets — who were especially persecuted, and therefore were
especially “blessed.”
example of suffering affliction — rather, simply, “of affliction,” literally, “evil
treatment.”
CALVI , "10Take, my brethren, the prophets. The comfort which he brings is not
that which is ACCORDI G to the common proverb, that the miserable hope for
like companions in evils. That they set before them associates, in whose number it
was desirable to be classed; and to have the same condition with them, was no
misery. For as we must necessarily feel extreme grief, when any evil happens to us
which the children of God have never experienced, so it is a singular consolation
when we know that we suffer nothing different from them; nay, when we know that
we have to sustain the same yoke with them.
When JOB heard from his friends,
“Turn to the saints, can you find any like to thee?”
(Job 5:1,)
it was the voice of Satan, because he wished to drive him to despair. When, on the
other hand, the Spirit by the mouth of James designs to raise us up to a good hope,
he shews to us all the fore-going saints, who as it were stretch out their hand to us,
and by their example encourage us to undergo and to conquer afflictions.
The life of men is indeed indiscriminately subject to troubles and adversities; but
James did not bring forward any kind of men for examples, for it would have
AVAILED nothing to perish with the multitude; but he chose the prophets, a
fellowship with whom is blessed. othing so breaks us down and disheartens us as
the feeling of misery; it is therefore a real consolation to know that those things
commonly deemed evils are aids and helps to our salvation. This is, indeed, what is
far from being understood by the flesh; yet the faithful ought to be convinced of
this, that they are happy when by various troubles they are proved by the Lord. To
convince us of this, James reminds us to consider the end or design of the afflictions
endured by the prophets; for as our own evils we are without judgment, being
influenced by grief, sorrow, or some other immoderate feelings, as we see nothing
under a foggy sky and in the midst of storms, and being tossed here and there as it
were by a tempest, it is therefore necessary for us to cast our eyes to another
quarter, where the sky is in a manner serene and bright. When the afflictions of the

119. saints are related to us, there is no one who will allow that they were miserable, but,
on the contrary, that they were happy.
Then James has done well for us; for he has laid before our eyes a pattern, that we
may learn to look at it whenever we are tempted to impatience or to despair: and he
takes this principle as granted, that the prophets were blessed in their afflictions, for
they courageously sustained them. Since it was so, he concludes that the same
judgment ought to be formed of us when afflicted.
And he says, the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord; by which he
intimates that they were accepted and approved by God. If, then, it had been useful
for them to have been FREE from miseries, doubtless God would have kept them
free. But it was otherwise. It hence follows that afflictions are salutary to the
faithful. He, therefore, bids them to be taken as an example of suffering affliction.
But patience also must be added, which is a real evidence of our obedience. Hence
he has joined them both together.
BARCLAY, "THE TRIUMPHA T PATIE CE (James 5:10-11)
5:10-11 Brothers, take as an example of patience in hardship the prophets who
spoke in the name of the Lord. Look you, we count those who endure blessed. You
have heard of Job's steadfast endurance and you have seen the conclusion of his
troubles which the Lord gave to him, and you have proof that the Lord is very kind
and merciful.
It is always a comfort to feel that others have gone through what we have to go
through. James reminds his readers that the prophets and the men of God could
never have done their work and borne their witness had they not patiently endured.
He reminds them that Jesus himself had said that the man who endured to the end
was blessed for he would be saved (Matthew 24:13).
Then he QUOTES the example of Job, of whom in the synagogue discourses they
had often heard. We generally speak of the patience of Job which is the word the
King James Version uses. But patience is far too passive a word. There is a sense in
which Job was anything but patient. As we read the tremendous drama of his life we
see him passionately resenting what has come upon him, passionately questioning
the conventional arguments of his so-called friends, passionately agonizing over the
terrible thought that God might have forsaken him. Few men have spoken such
passionate words as he did; but the great fact about him is that in spite of all the
agonizing questionings which tore at his heart, he never lost his faith in God.
"Behold, he will slay me; I have no hope;" (Job 13:15). "My witness is in heaven,
and he that vouches for me is on high" (Job 16:19). "I know that my REDEEMER
lives" (Job 19:25). His is no unquestioning submission; he struggled and questioned,
and sometimes even defied, but the flame of his faith was never extinguished.
The word used of him is that great ew Testament word hupomone (Greek #5281),
which describes, not a passive patience, but that gallant spirit which can breast the
tides of doubt and sorrow and disaster and come out with faith still stronger on the

120. other side. There may be a faith which never complained or questioned; but still
greater is the faith which was tortured by questions and still believed. It was the
faith which held grimly on that came out on the other side, for "the Lord blessed the
latter days of Job more than his BEGI I G" (Job 42:12).
There will be moments in life when we think that God has forgotten, but if we cling
to the remnants of faith, at the end we, too, shall see that God is very kind and very
merciful.
THE EEDLESS ESS A D THE FOLLY OF OATHS (James 5:12)
5:12 Above all things, my brothers, do not swear, neither by heaven nor by earth
nor by any other oath. Let your yes be a simple yes and your no a simple no, lest you
fall under judgment.
James is repeating the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew
5:33-37), teaching which was very necessary in the days of the early church. James
is not thinking of what we call bad language but of CO FIRMI G a statement or a
promise or an undertaking by an oath. In the ancient world, there were two evil
practices.
(i) There was a distinction--especially in the Jewish world--between oaths which
were binding and oaths which were not binding. Any oath in which the name of God
was directly used was considered to be definitely binding; but any oath in which
direct mention of the name of God was not made was held not to be binding. The
idea was that, once God's name was definitely used, he became an active partner in
the transaction, but he did not become a partner unless his name was so introduced.
The result of this was that it became a matter of skill and sharp practice to find an
oath which was not binding. This made a mockery of the whole practice of
CO FIRMI G anything by an oath.
(ii) There was in this age an extraordinary amount of oath-taking. This in itself was
quite wrong. For one thing, the value of an oath depends to a large extent on the fact
of it being very seldom necessary to take one. When oaths became a commonplace,
they ceased to be respected as they ought to be. For another thing, the practice of
taking frequent oaths was nothing other than a proof of the prevalence of lying and
cheating. In an honest society no oath is needed; it is only when men cannot be
trusted to tell the truth that they have to be put upon oath.
In this the ancient writers on morals thoroughly AGREED with Jesus. Philo says,
"Frequent swearing is bound to beget perjury and impiety." The Jewish Rabbis
said, "Accustom not thyself to vows, for sooner or later thou wilt swear false oaths."
The Essenes forbade all oaths. They held that if a man required an oath to make
him tell the truth, he was already branded as untrustworthy. The great Greeks held
that the best guarantee of any statement was not an oath but the character of the
man who made it; and that the ideal was to make ourselves such that no one would
ever think of demanding an oath from us because he would be certain that we would
always speak the truth.

121. The ew Testament view is that every word is spoken in the presence of God and
ought, therefore, to be true; and it would agree that the Christian must be known to
be a man of such honour that it will be quite unnecessary ever to put him on oath.
The ew Testament would not entirely condemn oaths but it would deplore the
human tendency to falsehood which on occasion makes oaths necessary.
BE SO , "James 5:10-11. Take the prophets — Once persecuted like you, even for
speaking in the name of the Lord — The very men that gloried in having the
prophets, yet could not bear their message. or did either the holiness or the high
commission of these messengers of God screen them from suffering; for an example
of suffering affliction — Or persecution from the persons to whom they brought
divine revelations; and of patience — In suffering. Behold, we count them happy —
We commend them, and believe them to be the beloved children of God; who endure
— Bear their sufferings with patience, meekness, and a contented mind. The
apostle’s mentioning this immediately after he had proposed the prophets as an
example of patience in suffering, shows that he herein alludes to Christ’s words,
(Matthew 5:11,) Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, &c., for so persecuted
they the prophets that were before you. Ye have heard of the patience of Job —
Under his peculiarly heavy sufferings; and have seen the end of the Lord — Ye have
seen, in the history of that good man, what a happy issue the Lord gave to his
sufferings; or how much to his honour and comfort his various and heavy afflictions
concluded; that the Lord is very pitiful, &c. — And that it is with the bowels of an
affectionate father that he CORRECTS his beloved children, and not for his own
gratification, but with a view to their eternal advantage.
COFFMA , "Take, brethren, for an example of suffering and of patience, the
prophets who spake in the name of the Lord.
The mention of "prophets" suggests that there were many of these whose lives were
good examples of suffering and of patience; but, in the next verse, James would
mention only the example of Job, perhaps singling out this one because of the
significant time element involved in his example, exactly the crucial factor in the
problem of the brethren ADDRESSED by James. ote the repeated use of
"brethren" (James 5:7,10).
COKE, "James 5:10. Take, my brethren, the prophets, &c.— "You may think that
YOUR present calamities are great and heavy, and so indeed they are; but your case
is not singular; (Lamentations 1:12.) others have suffered as much before you, and
those some of the most eminent and holy men. Learn, therefore, from their example,
to suffer ill usage with patience."
ELLICOTT, "(10) For an example.—Another reason for endurance, an example of
affliction and patience, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. These are
the bright ones in THE CLOUD of witnesses, of whom the Epistle to the Hebrews
(Hebrews 12:1) speaks, who, like Daniel, “stopped the mouths of lions”; like
Jeremiah and Elijah, “escaped the edge of the sword;” “out of weakness were made
strong”; who “were stoned,” like Zachariah; “sawn asunder,” like Isaiah; “slain

122. with the sword,” like Urijah and John; “of whom the world was not worthy.” Thus
the saints of the Old Covenant are held up for honour and imitation to those of the
ew. James was not advocating a religion alien to that of Moses, but building again
more widely “the ruins of the tabernacle which had fallen down,” that “all the
Gentiles might seek after the Lord.” (Comp. his speech in the synod, Acts 15:13-21.)
BURKITT, "Here the apostle exhorts suffering Christians to patience, by the
example of the Old Testament saints, who were exceeding dear to God,
EMPLOYED in special services for God, yet exercised with long and sharp
afflictions for him. ow, their nature was as tender and as frail as ours, and we have
the same blessed Spirit to comfort and assist us with them.
ote thence, 1. That the examples of excellent persons who have gone in the thorny
path of affliction before us, and beaten it for us, are of excellent use to suppress our
fears, to support our spirits under all our conflicts, and to rouse our courage in all
our encounters.
ote, 2. That it is our great duty to eye the encouraging examples of those that have
trod the path of sufferings before us, and strive to imitate and follow such worthy
patterns. The first sufferers had the hardest task; strange and untried torments are
most terrible; they knew not the strength of their enemy which they were to engage,
but we fight with an enemy which has been often beaten and triumphed over by our
brethren that went before us; certainly we that live in these last times have the best
helps that ever any had to subdue our fears; Take we then the prophets, and
primitive saints, for an example both of grievous sufferings and of great patience.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, "An example of suffering affliction—
Good examples
Man is so formed by nature that examples, whether good or bad, have a great influence
upon him.
The bad, indeed, have more power to corrupt than the good to reform the world:
nevertheless, upon all who are well disposed, good examples are not without a
considerable effect. Good examples in general tend to establish us in the belief of the
infinite advantages of true religion, which appears with most convincing evidence when,
in the lives and actions of those who profess it, we behold a lovely counterpart of its
Divine doctrines and admirable precepts. The cause is known by its effects, the fountain
by its streams. Good examples are further advantageous as they are corrective: they
strongly operate upon the principles of an ingenuous shame, and therefore contribute to
reform the vicious and to improve the virtuous. We may also observe that such good and
amiable models are powerfully attractive. Their lustre is truly bright, their beauty truly
alluring: they seize on our esteem, steal our affections, and so insinuate themselves into
the soul as by insensible degrees to transform it into their own likeness. When the
sincere follower of Christ contemplates the illustrious patterns held up to him in
Scripture, he will naturally be led to reflect that he is not single in the difficulties of the
human race. Through the Divine blessing and assistance he will determine to tread the
same path, and, like them, despise the allurements and terrors of the world. It is highly
useful to attend not only to the patterns proposed in Scripture, but also to all those good
examples which through any other means fall within the sphere of our knowledge; more

123. particularly of such persons as have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, and have
with heroic fortitude borne witness to the truth in the face of sufferings and death. If we
have borne any particular relation to persons eminent for piety and virtue, their
examples ought to be peculiarly beneficial to us. It may be presumed that, by our greater
affection for such endeared friends, we shall be better prepared to receive the influence
of their good examples. If we have had the benefit of their instructions and reproofs, of
their admonitions, prayers and counsels, we shall be the more inexcusable if we are not
disposed to resemble them. Eminent examples of piety and virtue, whether near or more
remote, are like lights set up in the world for the direction of mankind in general, and for
the comfort of the good: some of these, like the luminaries of heaven, extend their
influence to all nations and times. In order to induce us to imitate those excellent
examples which are held forth to us in Scripture, or which by any other means come
within the circle of our knowledge, let us attend to the following encouraging
considerations.
1. We serve the same God and Father. He is as deserving of the zeal and fidelity of
His servants now as ever, has the same blessings treasured up in Himself, the same
power in heaven, and the same care of His people here on earth. If we cultivate
repentance and faith, piety and virtue, we have the same hopes of acquiring His
favour, for He is “no respecter of persons.”
2. Another encouraging circumstance is that we profess the same doctrine in general
even with those who lived before the time of Christ.
3. Again, we are blessed with the same assistance, we are favoured with the same
outward means and institutions, we are blessed with the public worship of God, the
benefit of prayer, of the preaching His Word, and of the administration of the
sacraments; we have moral and religious treatises in abundance, doctrinal, practical
and devotional. Nor is there any want of internal assistance and consolation that
either our own weakness, the irregularity of our passions, or the temptations with
which we are encompassed, may render necessary to encourage us in our Christian
course.
4. To conclude all, let it be considered that we have the promise and expectation of
the same reward with them. Attentively, therefore, let us eye all the good examples
with which we are acquainted that we may catch a portion of that heavenly ardour
which animated them. (B. C. Sowden.)
What is affliction?
Affliction is the dark soil in which is deposited the heavenly seed, that germinates, and
brings forth fruit to the glory of God. Affliction is a furnace, in whose ardent flame the
Refiner of souls is consuming our human imperfections. Affliction is a rod, under whose
kindly chastisement the Father of Spirits is educating us for immortality. Affliction is a
baptism, from whose cleansing wave the saints of the Most High come forth fit for the
marriage-supper of the Lamb. Affliction is a cup, whose bitter draught is administered
by the good Physician to purify our spiritual natures. Affliction is a dark cloud, on which
the God of covenant has painted the rainbow of hope, and which He has irradiated with
the halo of celestial glory. Would you, then, bring forth much fruit? would you be
purified of remaining imperfections? would you be trained for immortality? would you
be fitted for the marriage-supper? would you be sanctified in your spiritual nature?
would you be encircled in the bow of promise or adorned with the halo of glory? You

124. must needs suffer affliction; for “it is through much tribulation we must enter the
kingdom.”
The uses of affliction
1. God visits with sickness to cause careless sinners to bethink themselves
concerning their souls’ estate, who, perhaps, never had a serious thought about it
before.
2. God visits us with sickness in order to instruct and teach us things we know not
(Psa_90:12). The path of the cross is the path of light.
3. God sends such trials and distresses in order to mortify and kill sin in us.
4. God sends sickness to awaken in us the spirit of prayer and supplication, and
make us more earnest and importunate in our addresses to the throne of grace.
5. Another end is to loosen our hearts from the things of the world, and cause us to
look and long for heaven.
6. God designs to make the world bitter, and Christ sweet to us.
7. God visits with sickness and distress in order both to prove and improve His
people’s graces (Deu_8:2; Rev_2:10). Grace is hereby both tried and strengthened.
8. God’s aim is to awaken us to redeem time, to prepare for flitting, and clear up our
evidence for heaven. (The Study.)
And of patience
Patience aids every virtue
Patience to the soul is as bread to the body, the staff of either the natural or spiritual life;
we eat bread with all our meats, both for health and relish; bread with flesh, bread with
fish, bread with broths and fruits. Such is patience to every virtue; we must hope with
patience, and pray in patience, and love with patience, and whatsoever good thing we do,
let it be done in patience.
Patience reduces pain
As the lid is made to open and shut, to save the eye; so patience is set to keep the soul,
and save the heart whole to cheer the body again. Therefore, if you mark when you can
go by an offence and take a little wrong, and suffer trouble quietly, you have a kind of
peace and joy in your heart, as if you had gotten a victory; and the more your patience is,
still the less your pain is. For as a light burden, borne at the arm’s end, weigheth heavier
by much than a burden of treble weight if it be borne upon the shoulders, which are
made to bear; so if a man set impatience to bear a cross, which is not fit to bear, it will
grumble and murmur, and start and shrink, and let the burden fall upon his head; like a
broken staff which promiseth to help him over the water, and leaveth him in the ditch.
But if you put it to patience, and set her to bear it which is appointed to bear, she is like
the hearty spies that came from Canaan, and said, “It is nothing to overcome them”; so
patience saith, “It is nothing to bear, it is nothing to fast, it is nothing to watch, it is
nothing to labour, it is nothing to be envied, it is nothing to be backbited, it is nothing to
be imprisoned; “In all these things we are more than conquerors.” (Henry Smith.)

125. 11 As you know, we count as blessed those who
have persevered. You have heard of Job’s
perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally
brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and
mercy.
BAR ES, "Behold, we count them happy which endure - The word rendered
“we count them happy” (µακαρίζοµεν makarizomen,) occurs only here and in Luk_1:48,
where it is rendered “shall call me blessed.” The word µακάριος makarios (blessed, or
happy,) however, occurs often. See Mat_5:3-11; Mat_11:6; Mat_13:6, et soepe. The sense
here is, we speak of their patience with commendation. They have done what they ought
to do, and their name is honored and blessed.
Ye have heard of the patience of Job - As one of the most illustrious instances of
patient sufferers. See Job_1:21. The book of Job was written, among other reasons, to
show that true religion would bear any form of trial to which it could be subjected. See
Job_1:9-11; Job_2:5-6.
And have seen the end of the Lord - That is, the end or design which the Lord
had in the trials of Job, or the result to which he brought the case at last - to wit, that he
showed himself to be very merciful to the poor sufferer; that he met him with the
expressions of his approbation for the manner in which he bore his trials; and that he
doubled his former possessions, and restored him to more than his former happiness
and honor. See Job 13. Augustine, Luther, Wetstein, and others, understand this as
referring to the death of the Lord Jesus, and as meaning that they had seen the manner
in which he suffered death, as an example for us. But, though this might strike many as
the true interpretation, yet the objections to it are insuperable.
(1) It does not accord with the proper meaning of the word “end,” (τέλος telos). That
word is in no instance applied to “death,” nor does it properly express death. It
properly denotes an end, term, termination, completion; and is used in the
following senses: -
(a) To denote the end, the termination, or the last of anything, Mar_3:26; 1Co_
15:24; Luk_21:9; Heb_7:3;
(b) An event, issue, or result, Mat_26:58; Rom_6:21; 2Co_11:18;
(c) The final purpose, that to which all the parts tend, and in which they terminate,
1Ti_1:5;

126. (d) Tax, custom, or tribute - what is paid for public ends or purposes, Mat_17:25;
Rom_13:7.
(2) This interpretation, referring it to the death of the Saviour, would not accord with
the remark of the apostle in the close of the verse, “that the Lord is very merciful.”
That is, what he says was “seen,” or this was what was particularly illustrated in
the ease referred to. Yet this was not particularly seen in the death of the Lord
Jesus. He was indeed most patient and submissive in his death, and it is true that
he showed mercy to the penitent malefactor; but this was not the particular and
most prominent trait which he evinced in his death. Besides, if it had been, that
would not have been the thing to which the apostle would have referred here. His
object was to recommend patience under trials, not mercy shown to others; and
this he does by showing:
(a) That Job was an eminent instance of it, and,
(b) That the result was such as to encourage us to be patient.
The end or the result of the divine dealings in his case was, that the Lord was “very
pitiful and of tender mercy;” and we may hope that it will be so in our case, and should
therefore be encouraged to be patient under our trials.
That the Lord is very pitiful - As he showed deep compassion in the case of Job,
we have equal reason to suppose that he will in our own.
CLARKE, "We count them happy which endure - According to that saying of
our blessed Lord, Blessed are ye when men shall persecute and revile you - for so
persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Mat_5:11, Mat_5:12, etc.
Ye have heard of the patience of Job - Stripped of all his worldly possessions,
deprived at a stroke of all his children, tortured in body with sore disease, tempted by
the devil, harassed by his wife, and calumniated by his friends, he nevertheless held fast
his integrity, resigned himself to the Divine dispensations, and charged not God
foolishly.
And have seen the end of the Lord - The issue to which God brought all his
afflictions and trials, giving him children, increasing his property, lengthening out his
life, and multiplying to him every kind of spiritual and secular good. This was God’s end
with respect to him; but the devil’s end was to drive him to despair, and to cause him to
blaspheme his Maker. This mention of Job shows him to have been a real person; for a
fictitious person would not have been produced as an example of any virtue so highly
important as that of patience and perseverance. The end of the Lord is a Hebraism for
the issue to which God brings any thing or business.
The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy - Instead of πολυσπλαγχνος, which
we translate very pitiful, and which might be rendered of much sympathy, from πολυς,
much, and σπλαγχνον, a bowel, (because any thing that affects us with commiseration
causes us to feel an indescribable emotion of the bowels), several MSS. have
πολυευσπλαγχνος, from παλυς, much, ευ, easily, and σπλαγχνον, a bowel, a word not easy
to be translated; but it signifies one whose commiseration is easily excited, and whose
commiseration is great or abundant.

127. GILL, "Behold, we count them happy which endure,.... Affliction, with courage,
constancy, and patience, and hold out to the end; for such shall be saved; theirs is the
kingdom of heaven; they are happy now, and will be so hereafter: the Spirit of God, and
of glory, now rests upon them; and it is an honour done them that they are counted
worthy to suffer for Christ; and they will be glorified with him to all eternity; the
consideration of which may serve to encourage and increase patience.
Ye have heard of the patience of Job; from the account which is given of him, and
his patience, in the book that bears his name; how he behaved under every trial, which
came one upon the back of another; as the plundering of his substance, the loss of his
children, and of the health of his body; and yet in all this Job sinned not, nor murmured
against God, nor charged him foolishly, and was a mirror of patience; and though he
afterwards let fall some expressions of impatience, yet he was humbled for them, and
brought to repentance: this shows, that as the Apostle James, so the Jews, to whom he
writes, believed that there had been really such a man as Job; and that the book which
bears his name is an authentic piece of holy Scripture, and contains a narrative of
matters of fact; or otherwise this reference to him would have been impertinent. How
long Job endured the chastenings of the Lord cannot be said. The Jews (y) say they
continued on him twelve months, which they gather from Job_7:3.
And have seen the end of the Lord; that is, the happy end, or exodus, out of all his
troubles; which the Lord gave "to him", as the Oriental versions add; for he gave him
twice as much as he had before, and blessed his latter end more than his beginning,
Job_42:10. Some understand this of the Lord Jesus Christ, both of his great patience in
sufferings, in which he is an example to his people, and they would do well to look to,
and consider him; and of the end of his sufferings, his glorious resurrection from the
dead, and session at the right hand of God, where he is crowned with glory and honour;
but the former sense is best:
that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy; as to Job, so to all his people;
his paternal relation to them engages his pity towards them; nor does he willingly afflict
them; and when he does, he sympathizes with them; he is afflicted with them, and in his
pity redeems them; his heart moves towards them, and he earnestly remembers them,
and works deliverance for them in his own time and way; and therefore it becomes them
to be patient.
HE RY, "(Jam_5:11): We count those happy who endure: we look upon righteous
and patient sufferers as the happiest people. See Jam_1:2-12. (5.) Job also is proposed as
an example for the encouragement of the afflicted. You have hard of the patience of Job,
and have seen the end of the Lord, etc., v. 11. In the case of Job you have an instance of a
variety of miseries, and of such as were very grievous, but under all he could bless God,
and, as to the general bent of his spirit, he was patient and humble: and what came to
him in the end? Why, truly, God accomplished and brought about those things for him
which plainly prove that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. The best way to
bear afflictions is to look to the end of them; and the pity of God is such that he will not
delay the bringing of them to an end when his purposes are once answered; and the
tender mercy of God is such that he will make his people an abundant amends for all
their sufferings and afflictions. His bowels are moved for them while suffering, his
bounty is manifested afterwards. Let us serve our God, and endure our trials, as those
who believe the end will crown all.

128. JAMISO , "count them happy — (Mat_5:10).
which endure — The oldest authorities read, “which have endured,” which suits the
sense better than English Version: “Those who in past days, like the prophets and Job,
have endured trials.” Such, not those who “have lived in pleasure and been wanton on
the earth” (Jam_5:5), are “happy.”
patience — rather, “endurance,” answering to “endure”: the Greek words similarly
corresponding. Distinct from the Greek word for “patience” Jam_5:10. The same word
ought to be translated, “endurance,” Jam_1:3. He here reverts to the subject which he
began with.
Job — This passage shows the history of him is concerning a real, not an imaginary
person; otherwise his case could not be quoted as an example at all. Though he showed
much of impatience, yet he always returned to this, that he committed himself wholly to
God, and at last showed a perfect spirit of enduring submission.
and have seen — (with the eyes of your mind). Alford translates from the old and
genuine reading, “see also,” etc. The old reading is, however, capable of being translated
as English Version.
the end of the Lord — the end which the Lord gave. If Job had much to “endure,”
remember also Job’s happy “end.” Hence, learn, though much tried, to “endure to the
end.”
that — Alford and others translate, “inasmuch as,” “for.”
pitiful ... of tender mercy — The former refers to the “feeling”; the latter, to the
act. His pity is shown in not laying on the patient endurer more trials than he is able to
bear; His mercy, in His giving a happy “end” to the trials [Bengel].
CALVI , "11The patience of Job. Having spoken generally of the prophets, he now
refers to an example remarkable above others; for no one, as far as we can learn
from histories, has ever been overwhelmed with troubles so hard and so various as
JOB; and yet he emerged from so deep a gulf. Whosoever, then, will imitate his
patience, will no doubt find God’s hand, which at length delivered him, to be the
same. We see for what end his history has been written. God suffered not his servant
Job to sink, because he patiently endured his afflictions. Then he will disappoint the
patience of no one.
If, however, it be asked, Why does the Apostle so much commend the patience of
Job, as he had displayed many signs of impatience, being carried away by a hasty
spirit? To this I reply, that though he sometimes failed through the infirmity of the
flesh, or murmured within himself, yet he ever surrendered himself to God, and was
ever willing to be restrained and ruled by him. Though, then, his patience was
somewhat deficient, it is yet deservedly commended.
The end of the Lord. By these words he intimates that afflictions ought ever to be
estimated by their end. For at first God seems to be far away, and Satan in the
meantime revels in the confusion; the flesh suggests to us that we are forsaken of
God and lost. We ought, then, to extend our view farther, for near and around us

129. there appears no light. Moreover, he has called it the end of the Lord, because it is
his work to give a PROSPEROUS issue to adversities. If we do our duty in bearing
evils obediently, he will by no means be wanting in performing his part. Hope
directs us only to the end; God will then shew himself very merciful, how ever rigid
and severe he may seem to be while afflicting us. (140)
COFFMA , "Behold, we call them blessed that endured: ye have heard of the
patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, how that the Lord is full of pity,
and merciful.
We call them blessed that endured ... The true meaning of "patience" in this section
is inherent in this. In the sense of stoicism, Job would hardly classify as "patient";
however, he endured despite every temptation.
The patience of Job ... "Job is mentioned only here in the ew Testament,"[34]
however, the book of Job is QUOTED in 1 Corinthians 3:19, which refers to Job
5:13.
The Lord is full of pity, and merciful ... Punchard suggested that James here "in the
fullness of his gratitude, COI ED a word for this single phrase. `Great-hearted'
would be close to its meaning,"[35]
The particular purpose served by the I TRODUCTIO of Job as an example here
was explained by James Moffatt thus:
(The point of this is that) patient endurance can sustain itself on the conviction that
hardships are not meaningless, but that God has some end or purpose in them
which he will accomplish.[36]SIZE>
The marvelous endurance of Job's faith in God is inherently visible in his reaction
to one disaster after another. When death overtook his family, he said, "The Lord
gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21).
When even his wife suggested that he curse God and die, he said, "What, shall we
receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" (Job 2:10). When
his philosophical friends accused him of sin, citing the calamities which had
overwhelmed him as proof of it, he said, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him"
(Job 13:15).
[34] Walter W. Wessel, op. cit., p. 962.
[35] E. G. Punchard, op. cit., p. 378.
[36] James Moffatt, The Moffatt ew Testament Commentary, James (Garden City,
.Y.: 1928), p. 74.
COKE, "James 5:11. Behold, we count them happy which endure.— "Do we look
upon them as forsaken of God, because they were persecuted for righteousness'
sake? Or will any wise person say, that their sufferings were any token of the divine
displeasure?—On the contrary, Behold we applaud such martyrs and confessors,

130. and pronounce those happy, who have bravely endured the greatest injuries which
tyrants and persecutors could inflict, rather than part with their integrity." The
apostle speaks of this not only as his own judgment, but that of all Christians who
judged aright, and understood the nature of things. And it is indeed a judgment in
which all Christians should be AGREED. The word ΄ακαριζειν signifies to
pronounce or ACCOU Tothers blessed; but the Papists, to countenance their
practice of beatifying, or making saints in the church, have translated this text,—
Behold, we beatify those who have suffered with constancy.
ELLICOTT, "(11) We count them happy which endure.—Rather read it, we count
them blessed which endure; or, as some critics would have it, endured. (See
Matthew 5:11, and 1 Peter 2:19.) The heathen philosopher Solon called no one
“happy” upon earth; but, with the mystery of pain around him, cried sadly, “Look
to the end.” And the sated and weary soul of Solomon had no better thought than to
praise “the dead which are ALREADY dead, more than the living” (Ecclesiastes
4:2). How different the teaching of St. James, himself taught by the example of the
suffering Christ: verily, “he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than”
the greatest and the wisest who know not of its light and peace (Matthew 11:11).
The patience of JOB.—The earliest notions current in the world were, doubtless,
that on the whole prosperity came to those who lived morally and physically well,
while adversity in body or mind followed closely on the wicked and improvident. It
is easy to see how these opinions, even among the happier races who had not
wandered far from God, gradually hardened into stern rules of judgment, by which
each man saw in the chances and calamities of life an immediate effort of an
avenging Deity. This was ages before a pious Asaph (Psalms 73) could reflect on the
contradiction of experience in this matter, and be troubled at the “prosperity” of the
wicked; or before the wise king could notice (Ecclesiastes 7:15; Ecclesiastes 8:14) the
just man perishing “in his righteousness,” and the unjust prolonging “his days in
wickedness”; “the fishes taken in an evil net,” and “the birds caught in the snare”
(Ecclesiastes 9:12). It was ages earlier still than the presence of that Wiser than
Solomon, who spoke of the hapless “eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell”—
“Think ye that they were sinners above all?” (Luke 13:4-5). Job’s friends were so
certain of his misdeeds, that they would not hear his self-defence; if God tried his
endurance, man surely afflicted his patience. We can hear the three in council
against him, becoming more zealous as they believe themselves the defenders of
God’s justice. (See Job 4-22) They are shocked at Job’s obstinacy, and annoyed into
vehement accusation against him, because he will “hold fast” to his “integrity.” It is
a damning proof to them of his guilt. ot only had he been wicked, but now actually
he is impious and rebellious; such conduct is not to be borne. “Is not thy wickedness
great?” says Eliphaz (Job 22:5). Thou must have—nay, “thou hast taken a pledge
from thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing;” thou couldst
not—nay, “thou hast not given water to the weary, and thou hast withholden bread
from the hungry:” truly thine iniquities are infinite.” ow, we know Job was
innocent; God Himself bears witness to it (Job 1:8). And finally the suffering,
patient, righteous man was declared to have spoken wisely: as Eliphaz, Bildad, and
Zophar the contrary. They—types of a censorious piety—had conceived of God by

131. their own faulty notions of religion, and fondly deemed they could enter into the
motives of the Most High. Job for awhile had seemed to CLOUD his own belief with
baser attributes, as (Job 16 et seq.) to a God who causelessly dealt in cruelty and
pain; but through such fleeting mistakes he rose at last to the full conviction of His
perfect truth and justice. It might be that He gave happiness to those who sought
Him; it might be He allowed them misery—as the world would call it; but this nor
that had part in the matter at issue. Earthly blessings “He gives to whom He wills,
or leaves to the powers of nature to distribute among those who fulfil the laws”
thereof; but “to serve him and love Him is higher and better than any mundane
welfare, though it be with wounded feet and bleeding forehead, or an ash-heap and
filthy sores” (Froude). This was the faith to which Job attained: higher, “clearer,
purer, there is not possible to man.” In such like “patience” it were well for us that
we should “possess our souls” (Luke 21:19).
And have seen the end of the Lord.—Better thus, Ye have heard . . . see also the end
of the Lord. The reference is at once past and future: consider, i.e., what God
wrought in the end of trial, on the faithful of old time, like JOB; learn from it how
great a deliverance He will also work for you. But “if ye will not believe, surely ye
shall not be established” (Isaiah 7:9). It is a mistake to understand here any allusion
to the death of Christ, as if the Apostle spoke to those who witnessed it.
That the Lord is very pitiful.—St. James, in the fulness of his gratitude, seems to
have COI ED a word for this single place. “Great-hearted” would be close to its
meaning; but originally the bowels were thought to be the seat of the affections, and
hence such terms of expression: as also in Genesis 43:30; 1 Kings 3:26; Isaiah 63:15;
Lamentations 1:20; Philippians 1:8; 1 John 3:17, et al.
“The Lord” here is Jehovah: under which name the Lord spake and wrought before
He was made man. See Bishop Pearson On the Creed, in Article 2, proving the
significance of κίριος, or Lord, as the right TRA SLATIO of the Hebrew El,
Elohim, Shaddai, Adonai, and Jehovah. And compare Isaiah 40:3 with Matthew
3:1; Malachi 3:1 with Matthew 11:10 and Jeremiah 23:6.
BURKITT, "That is, all persons do judge and pronounce those that have suffered
death, for righteousness sake, to be in a very happy condition; though they live
persecuted, yet they die sainted. Living saints are an eye sore; by the strictness of
their lives, and the severity of their reproofs, they torment a wicked world; but dead
saints do not stand in the way of their lusts, they will therefore have a good word for
the dead saints, whilst they hate and persecute the living; Behold, we count them
happy which endure.
That is, "Ye have heard how eminent JOB was, both for his sufferings and his
patience, and you have seen (it is set before YOUR eyes in his story) what an end the
Lord made with him, giving him double in this world for what he lost; therefore,
though you may be losers for God, yet fear not that you shall be losers by him."
Learn hence, 1. That it is good and useful in our afflictions, to propound JOB'S

132. pattern and example to our own imitation. He was famous for his suffering, and as
famous for his patience: do you suffer various kinds of affliction? Do you suffer in
your body, in your spirit, in your nearest relations, in your dearest earthly
comforts? And under all these do you suffer the heaviest censures for hypocrisy?
It is but Job's portion, and if you compare notes, not half of his condition neither: so
for his patience, let us propound that for our pattern too, and take this
encouragement to do it, namely, that though Job discovered much impatience,
cursing the day of his birth, &c. yet that is not here mentioned, but mercifully
pitied, and pardoned, and graciously overlooked. Where the heart is upright with
God, infirmities are not mentioned by him.
Learn, 2. That our afflictions ought not so much to be considered in their nature
and BEGI I G, as in their issue and end. You have seen the end of the Lord. God
gives always a gracious end, and a glorious end, to the afflictions of his people, and
sometimes a temporal end also. Job had all these: let us, under the rod, wait upon
God with Job's patience, and he will give us Job's end.
Learn, 3. What an affectionate regard God bears to his children in and under all
their heavy sufferings; he is full of bowels, as the word signifies, truly
compassionate, very pitful and of tender mercy. As he has pardon for their sins, so
he has pity for their afflictions; he is pitiful as well as merciful, yea, very pitiful, and
of tender mercy.
Observe, lastly, that the book of Job is a real history, not a parable. There was such
a man as Job, how else could his patience be propounded as a pattern? And whence
is it that we find him UMBEREDwith oah and Daniel? Ezekiel 14:14. As they
were real persons, and truly prevalent in prayer, so was he, Job 42:10.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, "We count them happy which endure
Endurance
Most natural words for an apostle to use.
He lived in the days of persecution. He was the head of that Church in which his
namesake James was slain, Peter imprisoned, and Stephen stoned. But when
persecution ceases, when times of rest and quiet come, have the words still a meaning to
us? Yes; they are as true as ever now. He alone who has endured is truly happy. An easy
life brings not out the powers of the soul. It only tries the surface; it does not search
what is deeper. This kind of life, doubtless, is good for some. God knows what is best for
each. He has given to some few opportunities, slight abilities, regular duties. He has
taken the stones of stumbling and the rocks of offence out of their way. Quietly and
gently, yet surely, as we hope, do they travel forward to a truer and more perfect rest.
This, then, is happiness. And yet not happiness in itself of the highest kind. They that
endure are the truly happy. For—
1. Consider we are all sinners. Surely we should be thankful for that which makes us
know ourselves; which gives us self-knowledge; which forces us to search ourselves,
probe our hearts, and test our conduct; which awakes us from sleep; which calls

133. forth dormant powers, and raises us into activity. Trials are as prophets of old; they
are clothed in a sad dress, but they warn us. They tell us what is true happiness—not
to enjoy, not to be careless, not to laugh; but to work hard, to labour steadily, to
endure what has to be endured.
2. This was the life of Christ. Would you prefer to it the life of any prince, noble,
prosperous merchant, merry-hearted youth? Doubtless they are happy in their way.
But as gold is better than silver, so is the happiness of Christ a far higher happiness
than theirs. And why do we count Christ’s life blessed? Because He endured.
3. This is that which does most good, and that which does most good is the happiest.
He who attacks sin and ignorance, he who seeks out misery to relieve it, does the
most direct good. Now, attack evil, ignorance, misery, we cannot, except with a
contest. They are deeply seated. Then comes the struggle. With the struggle comes
the endurance, the labour, the toil, the disappointment, the renewed struggle, more
endurance.
4. Surely the right thing is work now, rest hereafter. Things show best by contrast.
‘Tis the shadow that shows us what light is. It is ungenerous to wish to win heaven
lightly. Should we expect, or even desire, ever to sail over an unruffled sea? Should
the sea be as calm as the harbour? Should we be satisfied with the merits of Christ?
Is there not something to be filled up? “What is all that that is said about a great
struggle, a race, a wrestling, a combat? Do we need no inward strivings, no hidden
battle, no earnest prayers, no sorrowing for sin? We count the dead blessed who have
endured; not simply as if so much affliction and sorrow and pain were so much
expiation and satisfaction; but we count, as Christians, him happy who has endured
after the pattern and model of Christ’s endurance. Nothing else can give us
confidence or inspire us with a well-grounded hope. He who is dead may have had
less or more to endure; still, something, be he who he may, he must have had to
endure. This is the question: Has he endured it with a Christian patience? That
which we would think of others, let us each think of ourselves. Endurance should
form and fashion our character, try our powers, call out our activity, test our
disposition, regulate our temper, teach us confidence in God, wean our souls from
the world, join us nearer to the Divine life through Christ; at the same time make us
more human, enable us to feel for others’ trials; on every side should it strengthen
and improve us, so that in all sincerity we may bless God our Father, for that He has
not left us without trouble, for that He has not sent us pain, for that He has made us
to have not an over-easy life. (James Lonsdale, M. A.)
Suffering
It seems to me a perfectly fair question to ask, Was there ever any fully-developed soul
who did not suffer intensely, and in that suffering develop the forces and talents within
it, rising almost to the level of genius? Have you never felt in the presence of some
mighty spirit, born with unusual powers, capable of accomplishing mighty things, rising
in the sublimity of his forces to the transcendent heights of genius, yet never having been
burned to the fibres of his soul by the consuming fire of pain and agony—have you not
felt in the presence of such a life that, when the supreme moment of Christlike agony
shall have come to him, he will burst the bonds binding him by reason of his limitations,
and through the fires of his suffering spring into hitherto unknown powers and
capabilities? Shall we dare to say that Lincoln could have been a Lincoln without his
sufferings? Dante a Dante without his? Luther, Melancthon, Ridley, Cranmer, St.

134. Augustine? Oh, how the pain of sin entered St. Augustine’s soul; how the biting chisel of
violated law cut the fair beauty of holiness, engraved his character! and through his
confessions we are enabled to see the process through which the angel of his spirit was
let out. Dare we say that St. Augustine would have been what he was without all his
sufferings? (S. R. Fuller.)
The goodly discipline
It is the supreme exercise of faith to believe in its goodness; to accept it as a beautiful, a
precious, yea, even a blessed part of the heritage of benediction which we enjoy. It is
hard to believe in the goodness of toil, and to break forth into praise as the nerves throb,
and the flesh quivers under the strain. It is far harder to praise when the fibres of the
soul are throbbing with anguish, and the heart reels under a pressure which it can no
longer endure. The real question is, What is in the child’s heart, not when it is
tormented, but when it is in its right mind, and the hidden nature is free to express itself,
to make known its secret thought, and to declare its love. If that be right with God, as
Job’s was, the plaints and meanings enter into a compassionate ear, and are so many
pleas, like the infant’s cry, for loving glances, tender touches, wooing words, and all the
gentle efforts by which the Father strives to draw the moaning child to His bosom, and
to hush him to rest in the arms of His love. It is a state of gracious discipline to which we
are called in this life; not a home, not a rest, but a school of culture, a wilderness of
pilgrimage, in which salvation is not through possession, but through hope. And for this
goodly heritage, this scene and school of discipline, I call you this day to praise. For man
constituted as he is, or rather as he has made himself by sin, tasks are good, and the
sentence of toil is good. It is good to bring him back into that harmony with the Divine
law from which he had withdrawn himself; good to remind him that he is living in God’s
world, and not in his own, and that he must study and obey humbly the laws of its
constitution if he would lift his hand, draw his breath, and eat his bread, The lesson was
made hard; the work was to deepen into toil that would strain every fibre, and start every
pore, that the lesson might be driven home, and that powers might be drawn forth and
cultivated which, when the painful process of their first training was over, would be
instruments of power and inlets of joy to the being through all the ages of eternity.
Discipline takes up and carries on this ministry of the tasks of life. It carries it up into
higher regions—the regions of spiritual experience and power. It is a still stronger and
sharper reminder to man that he has placed himself in collision with the whole system of
things around him, by the transgression of the Divine commandment; and that
submission, believing submission, to the will which is above him, is the one secret of
peace and blessedness. It would be very terrible for man, the sinner, in the physical
world, if he could command successfully the stones to be made bread—that is, if he could
make things obey him instead of God. It would but make for him a fool’s paradise for a
moment, which his own selfish passions would soon convert into a hell. It would be still
more terrible, were it possible for man, if he could lie, and cheat, and steal, or be
arrogant, self-willed, lustful, tyrannous, or unjust, and live peaceably, free from storm
and inward and outward wretchedness. If he could play the tyrant in his home, and find
it a house of benediction, or in his state, and find it prosperous and strong; if he could
play the hypocrite or the satyr in his own soul, and be honoured and loved of all men,
live in peace and die in hope, it would be a training for a miserable and lost eternity. The
pain of life throws back man’s thought on his sin. He sees, or is meant to see, how his
own selfishness, injustice, impurity, are armed with scourges to smite him, and will bury
their thongs in his quivering flesh, and stain them with the starting blood, before they

135. leave him to dream, if he can, that the way of the transgressor is peace. But it would be a
dark mistake to imagine that the whole meaning of life’s discipline has relation to
transgression, and that when it has convinced a man of sin, and set right his relations
with the laws of the world around him, its work is done. The end of the Lord in much of
our affliction is not so much to convert as to elevate, purify, and conform unto Himself.
There is a strange absence of bitterness in this form of suffering; the pain may be terribly
sharp, while within there is the perfect peaceful consciousness that the chastisement is
the most tender and even yearning manifestation of the Divine love. Those deeply
experienced in suffering learn lessons of unselfish thought and activity, of devotion to
great ends of human good, of comfort, of healing, of teaching, of ministering, which
make them the helpers and saviours of society. And what is true of the greatest, is true in
minor measure of minor ministries of blessing. It is those who have learnt much in God’s
high-school of discipline who best understand His mind and methods, and are His
servants and ministers for the instruction of the world. It is suffering which unveils to us
life’s inner mysteries, solves for us its deepest problems, shows us the true treasure-
house of the wealth of being, and brings uncertain riches and possessions to their true
weight—but a slight one—in the scale of life. The sorrowful find how little gifts and
possessions can content them, can lighten their burden or soothe their pangs. They are
open to the teaching which bids them “lay up treasures in heaven”; they know that a
soul’s wealth lies absolutely in fellowship, sympathy, and love, and the fruit of noble,
unselfish work. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Afflictions are blessings in disguise
A young man, who had long been confined with a diseased limb, and was near
dissolution, said to a friend: “What a precious treasure this affliction has been to me! It
saved me from the folly and vanity of youth; it made me cleave to God as my only
portion, and to eternal glory as my only hope; and I think it has now brought me very
near my Father’s house.”
Benefit of afflictions
A minister was recovering from a dangerous illness, when one of his friends addressed
him thus: “Sir, though God seems to be bringing you up from the gates of death, yet it
will be a long time before you will sufficiently recover your strength and vigour of mind
to preach as usual.” The good man answered, “You are mistaken, my friend; for this six
weeks’ illness has taught me more divinity then all my past studies and all my ten years’
ministry put together.”
Benefit of adversity
We are told of a merchant who lost his all in a storm, and then went to Athens to study
philosophy. He soon discovered that it was better to be wise than to be wealthy, and
said, “I should have lost all unless I had lost much.”
The honour of endurance
There lies a ship out in the stream I It is beautiful in all its lines. It has swung out from
the pier, and is lying at anchor yonder; and men, as they cross the river on the ferry-
boats, stand, and look at it, and admire it; and it deserves admiration. But it has never
been out of port: there it stands, green, new, untried; and yet everybody thinks it is
beautiful. It is like childhood, which everybody thinks is beautiful, or ought to be. There
comes up the bay, and is making towards the navy-yard, another ship. It is an old ship-

136. of-war. It has been in both oceans, and has been round the world many times. It has
given and taken thunder-blows under the flag of its country. It is the old Constitution,
we will suppose. She anchors at the navy-yard. See how men throng the cars, and go to
the navy-yard, to get a sight of her I See how the sailors stand upon the deck, and gaze
upon her I Some of them, perchance, have been in her; and to them she is thrice
handsomer than any new vessel. This old war-beaten ship, that carries the memory of
many memorable campaigns, lies there; and they look at its breached bow, its shattered
rigging, its coarse and rude lines, its dingy sides, which seemed long since to have parted
company with paint; and every one of them feels, if he is a true patriot, “God bless you!
old thing; God bless you!” (H. W. Beecher.)
Secret of silent endurance
There lived in a village near Burnley a girl who was persecuted in her own home because
she was a Christian. She struggled on bravely, seeking strength from God, and rejoicing
that she was a partaker of Christ’s sufferings. The struggle was too much for her, but He
willed it so; and at length her sufferings were ended. When they came to take off the
clothes from her poor dead body, they found a piece of paper sewn inside her dress, and
on it was written, “He opened not His mouth.” (Baxendale’s Anecdotes.)
Suffering, the common lot
The Mexicans to their new-born offspring, “Child, thou art come into the world to suffer.
Endure and hold thy peace.” (Longfellow.)
The patience of Job
The pearl patience
We need to be reminded of what we have heard, for we are far too ready to forget. We
are also so slow to meditate upon what we have heard that it is profitable to have our
memories refreshed. We have, however, I trust, gone beyond mere hearing, for we have
also seen in the story of Job that which it was intended to set vividly before our mind’s
eye. I count it no small enrichment of our mind to have heard of the patience of Job, it
comforts and strengthens us in our endurance; but it is an infinitely better thing to have
seen the end of the Lord, and to have seen the undeviating tenderness and pity which are
displayed even in His sorest chastisements. This is indeed a choice vein of silver, and he
that hath digged in it is far richer than the more superficial person who has only heard of
the patience of Job, and so has only gathered surface-truth. “The patience of Job,” as we
hear of it, is like the shell of some rare nut from the Spice Islands, full of fragrance; but
“the end of the Lord,” when we come to see it, is as the kernel, which is rich beyond
expression with a fulness of aromatic essence. Note well the reason why the text reminds
us of what we have heard and seen. When we are called to the exercise of any great
virtue, we need to call in all the helps which the Holy Spirit has bestowed upon us. All
our wealth of hearing and seeing we shall have need to spend in our heavenly warfare. In
the present case the virtue we are called to exercise is that of patience, and therefore to
help us to do it we are reminded of the things that we have heard and seen, because it is
as difficult as it is necessary, and as hard to come at as it is precious when it is gained.
The text is preceded by a triple exhortation to patience. We are most of us deficient in

137. this excellent grace, and because of it we have missed many privileges, and have wasted
many opportunities in which we might have honoured God, might have commended
religion, and might have been exceedingly profited in our souls. Affliction has been the
fire which would have removed our dross, but impatience has robbed the mental metal
of the flux of submission which would have secured its proper purification. It is
unprofitable, dishonourable, weakening; it has never brought us gain, and never will. I
suppose we are three times exhorted to patience because we shall need it much in the
future. Between here and heaven we have no guarantee that the road will be easy, or that
the sea will be glassy. We have no promise that we shall be kept like flowers in a
conservatory from the breath of frost, or that, like fair queens, we shall be veiled from
the heat of the sun.
I. IT IS NOT AN UNHEARD OF VIRTUE TO BE PATIENT, “Ye have heard of the
patience of Job.”
1. Observe well that the patience of Job was the patience of a marl like ourselves,
imperfect and full of infirmity; for, as one has well remarked, we have heard of the
impatience of Job as well as of his patience. The traces of imperfection which we see
in Job prove all the more powerfully that grace can make grand examples out of
common constitutions, and that keen feelings of indignation under injustice need not
prevent a man becoming a model of patience.
2. “Ye have heard of the patience of Job,” that is, the patience of a greatly tried man.
That is a very trite yet needful remark: Job could not have exhibited patience if he
had not endured trial; and he could not have displayed a patience whose fame rings
down the ages, till we have heard of it, if he had not known extraordinary affliction.
(1) Reflect, then, that it was the patience of a man who was tried in his estate. All
his wealth was taken!
(2) Job was caused to suffer sharp relative troubles. All his children were
snatched away without a warning, dying at a festival, where, without being
culpably wrong, men are usually unguarded. He sits among the ashes a childless
man. “Ye have heard of the patience of Job.” Oh, to have patience under
bereavements, patience even when the insatiate archer multiplies his arrows!
(3) “Ye have heard of the patience of Job” under personal affliction. It is well said
by one who knew mankind cruelly well, that “we bear the afflictions of other
people very easily”; but when it touches our bone and our flesh trial assumes an
earnest form, and we have need of unusual patience. Such bitter pain Job must
have suffered.
(4) In addition to all this, Job bore what is perhaps the worst form of trial—
namely, mental distress. The conduct of his wife must have muchgrieved him
when she tempted him to “Curse God, and die.” And then those “miserable
comforters,” how they crowned the edifice of his misery! They rubbed salt into
his wounds, they cast dust into his eyes, their tender mercies were cruel, though
well-intentioned. Woe to the man who in his midnight hour is hooted at by such
owls; yet the hero of patience sinned not: “Ye have heard of the patience of Job.”
Job’s was in all respects a most real trouble, he was no mere dyspeptic, no
hysterical inventor of imaginary evil; his were no fancied losses nor minor
calamities.
3. The patience of Job was the patience of a man who endured up to the very end. No
break-down occurred; at every stage he triumphed, and to the utmost point he was

138. victorious. Traces of weakness are manifest, but they are grandly overlaid by
evidences of gracious power. The enemy could not triumph over Job, he threw him
on a dunghill, and it became his throne, more glorious than the ivory throne of
Solomon. The boils and blains with which the adversary covered the patriarch were
more honour to him than a warrior’s gilded corslet. Never was the arch-fiend more
thoroughly worsted than by the afflicted patriarch, and instead of pitying the
sufferer, my pity curdles into contempt for that fallen spirit who must there have
gnawed his own heart as he saw himself foiled at all points by one who had been put
into his power, and one too of the feeble race of man.
4. We may once more say that the patience of Job is the virtue of one who thereby
has become a great power for good. “Ye have heard of the patience of Job,” yes, and
all the ages have heard of the patience of Job, and hell has heard of it too; and not
without results in each of the three worlds. Among men the patience of Job is a great
moral and spiritual force. If Job was patient under trial and affliction, why should
not I be patient too? He was but a man; what was wrought in one man may be done
in another. He had God to help him, and so have I; he could fall back upon the living
Redeemer, so can I and why should I not?
II. IT IS NOT AN UNREASONABLE VIRTUE TO BE PATIENT, for according to our text
there is great love and tenderness in it, “Ye have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord
is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.”
1. We must have seen in Job’s story, if we have regarded it aright, that the Lord was
in all. God was not away while His servant suffered; in fact, if there was any place
where the thoughts of God were centred more than anywhere else in providence at
that time, it was where the perfect and upright man was bearing the brunt of the
storm.
2. The Lord was ruling too. He was not present as a mere spectator but as still
master of the situation,
3. Moreover, the Lord was blessing Job by all his tribulation. Untold blessings were
coming to the grand old man while he seemed to be losing all. It was not simply that
he obtained a double portion at the end, but all along, every part of the testing
process wrought out his highest good.
4. And when we come to look all Job’s life through, we see that the Lord in mercy
brought him out of it all with unspeakable advantage. He who tested with one hand
supported with the other. Such is the case with all afflicted saints. We may well be
patient under our trials, for the Lord sends them; He is ruling in all their
circumstances, He is blessing us by them, He is waiting to end them, and He is
pledged to bring us through. Shall we not gladly submit to the Father of our spirits?
(C. H. Spurgeon.)
The patience of Job
His impatience is not once mentioned against him; but he is crowned and chronicled
here for his patience. God passeth by infirmities where the heart is upright. (J. Trapp.)
The secret of patience

139. A Christian friend, visiting a good man under great distress and afflicting dispensations,
which he bore with such patient and composed resignation as to make his friend wonder
and admire it, inquired how he was enabled so to comfort himself. The good man said,
“The distress I am under is indeed severe; but I find it lightens the stroke very much to
creep near to Him who handles the rod.” (W. Denton.)
Christian patience
As Richard Baxter lay dying, in the midst of exquisite pains which arose from the nature
of his disease, he said, “I have a rational patience and a believing patience, though sense
would recoil. Lord, when Thou wilt, what Thou wilt, how Thou wilt.”
Learning patience
There is no such thing as preaching patience into people unless the sermon is so long
that they have to practise it while they hear. No man can learn patience except by going
out into the hurly-burly world, and taking life just as it blows. Patience is but lying-to
and riding out the gale. (H. W. Beecher.)
Impatience under affliction
The truth is, when we are under any affliction, we are generally troubled with a malicious
kind of melancholy; we only dwell and pore upon the sad and dark occurrences of
Providence; but never take notice of the more benign and bright ones. Our way in this
world is like a walk under a row of trees, checkered with light and shade: and because we
cannot all along walk in the sunshine, we therefore perversely fix only upon the darker
passages, and so lose all the comfort of our comforts. We are like froward children who,
if you take one of their playthings from them, throw away all the rest in spite. (Bp.
Hopkins.)
Trial beneficent
There is a glass containing a liquid. There is a sediment at the bottom of the glass, but it
is all perfectly clear above, as clear as the water from the spring. But shake the glass, and
the whole liquid becomes muddy. That was there before, but it was not perceived
because all was still. Shake it, and it comes up. Do you understand that, Christian? You
thought you were all right; you thought you were walking with God, but temptation
came and showed you what you were. Job said, “Once have I spoken”—ah! and
wrongly—but now, “I will not answer.” “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear,
but now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
“Behold, I am vile.” Christian I your experience will not have been lost if it has taught
you to know yourself. (S. H. Langston, M. A.)
Give God time
Suppose a man takes a great contract to build some large edifice in three or five years,
and you go in three or five months, and criticise his work, and find fault with this and
that. Would it not be unjust? Would he not say, “Please to wait until the work is

140. completed before you pass your judgment upon it: then I will hear what you have to say
about it.” God has a time in which to complete His work; and you are not to judge before
the time. “He that believeth shall not make haste.” And when you see the end, you will be
brought not only to submit to it but to approve it, and to see it is right. (S. H. Langston,
M. A.)
The gladness of the gardener
It was said that a garden once became jealous of a park which adjoined it, because of a
certain wonderfully beautiful bed of flowers with which the border between them was
graced. The garden prayed the husbandman that she might have a bed of flowers too.
“Oh, but you cannot water it if you have it. You have no fountain; it would die.” But the
garden persisted: “Why could I not have a fountain put in?” The request was
immediately granted. Axemen came in and hewed down trees; the sward was torn up
with terribly large ploughshares; the garden groaned with pain, and hardly held still.
Then the subsoil was probed for wandering and perilous roots, and the garden felt as if
all its nerves were to quiver with unendurable agony. Then came men with spades, and
channels of stone for drainage were laid; and by and by rocks were blasted with an awful
roar of thunderbolts; and the garden screamed that it was aching with intolerable
torments and lacerations. But nobody listened; there were nights that succeeded,
concerning whose dreadful experiences that garden could never be made to speak in the
after years. But one morning the surprise came; there was a rush of crystal spray in the
air overhead, and the sunshine kindled it into rainbows. There was never a fountain like
that fountain in any paradise of a prince. And the cool streams fell like gentle rain down
on the bedof tulips and roses, the blossoming branches and the flowering shrubs. There
was never a glory of hue and perfume, of nodding plumes and beading coronals, never
such a bed of flowers in any parterre of a princess, as that. The garden, in deep quiet had
nothing to say; it was very tired. But things would not need to be done over again. You
see it requires courage to bear these agonies of tearing; but when the fountain plays, and
the plants flourish, and the gardener comes in for a visit, the garden forgets the anguish
in the discovery that the gardener is glad—glad for her sake. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Affliction profitable
Thomas Fuller wrote in reference to his own sufferings in the Civil War, “I have observed
that towns which have been casually burnt, have been built again, more beautifully than
before; mud walls afterwards made of stone; and roofs, formerly but thatched, after
advanced to be tiled. The apostle tells me that I must not think it strange concerning the
fiery trial which is to happen unto me. May I likewise prove improved by it. Let my
renewed soul, which grows out of the ashes of the old man, be a more pious fabric and
stronger structure: so shall affliction be my advantage.” (Tinling’s Illustrations.)
The inward glory of affliction
The outside of a stained window looks dingy and unsightly, it has no beauty or
attraction; and so the coloured windows of pain, sickness, or bereavement may, to the
children of this world, appear gloomy and uninviting; but from within what a grand and
radiant sight is disclosed!—the common, familiar sights of this world are hidden, but

141. what tiring light and glory is revealed within. (H. Macmillan.)
God’s purpose in troubles
Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things. Far up the
mountainside lies a block of granite, and says to itself, “How happy am I in my serenity—
above the winds, above the tree, almost above the flight of the birds! Here I rest age after
age, and nothing disturbs me!” Yet what is it? It is only a bare block of granite, jutting
out of the cliff, and its happiness is the happiness of death. By and by comes the miner,
and with strong and repeated strokes he drills a hole in its top, and the rock says, “What
does this mean?” Then the black powder is poured in, and with a blast that makes the
mountain echo the block is blown asunder, and goes crashing down into the valley. “Ah!”
it exclaims, as it falls, why this rending?” Then some one saws to cut and fashion it; and
humbled now, and willing to be nothing, it is borne away from the mountain and
conveyed to the city. Now it is chiselled and polished, till, at length, finished in beauty,
by block and tackle it is raised with mighty hoistings, high in the air, to be the top-stone
on some monument of the country’s glory. (H. W. Beecher.)
Wisdom of trials
Unthinking people would like a world where corn should grow spontaneously and plenty
ever lie ready to hand. They would have their path beautified by flowers fairer than those
of Eden, and refreshed by zephyrs balmier than those of the sunny south. They would
banish care, and make work obsolete, How would all this issue? Doubtless in the
degeneracy of our race into a crowd of soft and slothful Sybarites. God is too wise for
this. He knows comfort to be of far less importance than character, and acts on that
knowledge. (S. Coley.)
The Lord is very pitiful
The pitifulness of the Lord the comfort of the afflicted
We are far too apt to entertain hard thoughts of God. The horrible atheism of our
depraved nature continually quarrels with the Most High; and when we are under His
afflicting hand, and things go cross to our will, the evil of our nature becomes sadly
evident. Let us never forget that our hard speeches and our suspicions of our God have
always been libels upon Him. On taking a survey of our whole life, we see that the
kindness of God has run all through it like a silver thread. Goodness and mercy have
followed us all our days, even pursuing us when we have wickedly fled from them. Even
our apparent ills have been real blessings. Let each restored man say, “He healeth all my
diseases.” Let each tried one now say, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the
Lord delivereth him out of them all.” Let the aged man bring the Spoils of his experience
and lay them down at the feet of the Lord who hitherto hath helped him. Our desire will
be to help one another to avoid future mumurings.
I. Notice that when James is exhorting us to full confidence in God in the hour of trial,
He gives us AN INSTRUCTIVE INSTANCE. He quotes the story of Job. Observe that
when this apostle introduces Job it is with the view of pointing out the tender mercy of
God in his case; and he begins by saying, “Behold, we count them happy which endure.”

142. 1. The pitifulness and tender mercy of God are to be seen in the happiness of those
who are called to suffer. “We count them happy which endure.”
This arithmetic is only known to faith, and must be learned of the Lord Jesus “We”—that
is, the Church of God—count them happy who are counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s
sake. I may venture to say that the more sensible part of mankind in some measure
concur with the people of God in this accounting. We count that man happy who has
passed through trial and hardship with a brave endurance. Such life is of an interesting
and manly kind; but life without struggle and difficulty is thin and tasteless. How can a
noble life be constructed if there be no difficulty to overcome, no suffering to bear?
When we see what poor, paltry things those are who are nursed in the lap of luxury, and
consequently never come to a real manhood, “we count them happy that endure.” This
counting is not mere fancy, but it is a correct estimate: there is a happiness in affliction
which none will doubt who have tasted it. When we look to the end of affliction, when we
see all its comfortable fruit, when we mark what it corrects, and observe what it
produces, we judge that it is no mean blessing. Happy is the man who has been enabled
to endure; he rises from the deeps of woe like a pearl-finder from the sea, rich beyond
comparison. The people of God find themselves more buoyant in the saltest seas of
sorrow than in other waters. The Cross does in very deed raise us nearer to Christ when
it is fully sanctified. Rare gems glisten in the mines of adversity. We never get so near to
the source of all heavenly consolation as when earthly comfort is removed far away. God
seemeth never so much a Husband to any as to the widow; and never so much a Father
as to the fatherless. Endurance also works in the child of God a close clinging to God,
which produces near and dear communion with Him. Sorrows reveal to us the Man of
Sorrows. Griefs waft us to the bosom of our God. Beside, the Lord has a choice way of
manifesting Himself unto His servants in their times of weakness. He draws the curtain
about the bed of His chosen sufferer, and at the same time He withdraws another
curtain which aforetime concealed His glory, He takes away the delights of health and
vigour, and then He implants energy of another and a higher order, so that the inner
man waxeth mighty while the outer man decayeth. So wondrously doth grace work
beyond nature that it transfigures bodily sickness into spiritual health.
2. Now notice here the notability—I had almost said the nobility—of endurance. As
one truly says, Job’s bones had lain to this day in the common charnel-house of
oblivion if it had not been for his sufferings and his patience. “Ye have heard of the
patience of Job.” But you would never have heard of Job if he had always been
prosperous. Even in worldly histories it is by enduring hardness that men build their
memorials. Who that has read the classics has not heard of Mutius Scaevola? and
why? He was a valiant man, but he did not win his name by a common deed in battle.
His fights are unrecorded; but you have heard of his laying his right hand upon the
burning coals of an altar, to let Porsenna see how a Roman could endure pain
without shrinking. When he suffered his right hand to burn he was writing his name
in his country’s annals. A thousand instances prove that only by endurance can
names be graven in the brass of history. To make a man a man, to bring his manhood
forward, and to make other men see it, there must be endurance.
3. Once again, in order to see the pitifulness of God in sorrow, we must see the
Lord’s end in it; for, saith the apostle, “Ye have seen the end of the Lord.” God’s end
in affliction is that which proves that He is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. We see
not so much how grace works as what it works. The design of the Lord is more to be
noted than the method He pursues.
(1) First, remember that the Lord’s end in sending affliction to His people is

143. corrective. Sanctified sorrow is a sharp frost which kills the germs of spiritual
disease.
(2) Moreover, affliction is sent for the display of grace. Our graces lie asleep
within us, like slumbering soldiers, until affliction strikes its terrible drum and
awakens them. You know not what spirit you are of till you have been under
tribulation. You count yourself rich, but in the fire your gold is tested. You reckon
that your house is well built, but the flames find out the wood, and hay, and
stubble. Self-knowledge is never sure if it come not of tests and temptations.
Therefore we count them happy that endure, because they are less likely to be
deceived. God is to be praised for the discovery of our graces, for thus affliction
becomes a blessing without disguise.
(3) Further, our trials are an education for the future. I do not think that Job was
fit to have any more substance until his heart had been enlarged by trouble; then
he could bear twice as much as before. Prosperity softens and renders us unfit for
more of itself; but adversity braces the soul and hardens it to patience. Beloved, I
would not have you forget that “the end of the Lord” is always with His tried
people to give them greater happiness as the result of it. Mark, in Job_31:40 it is
written, “The words of Job are ended,” ended amid thistles and cockle; but the
end of the Lord was very different, for He loaded His servant with pieces of
money and earrings of gold, and blessed his latter end more than his beginning.
Thine end, O thou that art tossed with tempest and not comforted, shall come
forth from thy God when He shall lay thy stones with fair colours and thy
foundations with sapphires. He will restore thy soul even in this life, and give
thee joy and rest out of thy sorrow. As for the life to come, how little do we take it
into our estimate! It is as the main ocean, and this life is no better than the village
brook. The sorrows of time are a mere pin’s prick at the most, if we contrast them
with the joy eternal. What shall we think of these temporary inconveniences
when we reach eternal felicity?
II. OUR APOSTLE MAKES CONSOLING STATEMENT: “The Lord is very pitiful, and of
tender mercy.”
1. Observe that this is the teaching of God’s holy Word; and therefore if we have at
this moment no evidence of it perceptible to sight or sense, we are bound to believe it
all the same. Do not be persuaded by man or devil to think ill of thy God. He has a
father’s heart even when He makes thee feel the strokes of His hand. Thy God cannot
be unkind to thee. He cannot forsake thee.
2. But further, the text tells us that this truth may be seen; and while it is a matter of
faith, yet it may be also a matter of sight. Beloved, it is true the Lord has burdened
thee; is it not also true that He has sustained thee? Above is the billow, but
“underneath are the everlasting arms.” See the pitifulness of God in this! How often
the mercy of God is seen in sickness and suffering by His mitigating the pain and
loss! Those who are washed in the blood of Jesus shall never be drowned in the sea
of sorrow. Observe also the tender pity of God in forgiving the sin of His suffering
people. When your child has a fever, it may be he is fretful, and begins to talk
foolishly. Maybe he talks unkind things against those very persians whom in his
heart he loves best. Do you ever say to the child afterwards, “John, I am very grieved
that you said such shocking things about me and about your mother”? Far from it;
you say, “Poor dear, he does not know what he is talking about; he is wandering ill
his mind.” So does God deal with our naughtiness when we are under His hand;
when He sees that it is rather weakness than wilfulness, He is very pitiful and full of

144. compassion, and blots out the transgressions of His people.
3. See how the tenderness and pitifulness of God are also seen in the revelations lie
makes to His saints. So also in the overrulings of our sorrows His love is
conspicuous. He often sends a great sorrow that we may not be compelled to bear a
greater one. Thank God for the preventive operations of His providence! Bless Him,
above all, for the sweet rewards that come to His tried people when afterwards they
bear the comfortable fruits of His righteousness, and especially when He comes to
them in the riches of His grace, and turns their midnight into everlasting day. In
closing the second head i should like to say I wish we could all read the original
Greek; for this word, “The Lord is very pitiful,” is a specially remarkable one. It
means literally that the Lord hath “many bowels,” or a great heart, and so it indicates
great tenderness. The other word is the complement of the first—“and of tender
mercy.” There is then, you see, in these two words, pity for misery and mercy for sin:
there is inward pity in the heart of God, and outward action in the mercy of God;
there is sympathy for suffering, and grace for guilt. These two things make up what
we want.
III. THE LESSONS TO BE LEARNED out of the whole subject.
1. The first is, be patient. The Lord never grieves us because lie likes to grieve us. “He
doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” There is a needs be for
every sorrow. Lie still, brother; let the Good Shepherd clip as lie pleases; though He
may cut very close to the skin, He is very pitiful, and would only rid thee of that
which would harm thee.
2. The next lesson is, be penitent. Seek the Lord while lie may be found, call upon
Him while He is near. He welcomes all who repent; He is eager to forgive; delay no
longer.
3. The last lesson is, be pitiful. If God be pitiful and of tender mercy, children of God,
you are to imitate Him and to be pitiful too. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
And of tender mercy
The mercy of God
Probably no one who believes that God is, disbelieves that He is merciful. But wherein
the action of His mercy takes effect is not so clear but that minds may differ about it.
Sometimes we figure the mercy of God acting like the mercy of man in granting
exemption from responsibilities and liabilities. Mercy is said to be shown to a convict
when the penalty imposed by law is in part or altogether remitted.
There are difficulties in the way of thus construing the action of God’s mercy. One is its
contrariety to what we see of God in nature, in whose phenomena we can nowhere see
any cut-off interposed between causes and effects, but a stringently maintained law of
consequences. That this law of nature is also a law of moral nature seems to be attested
by the spiritual maxim: “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Another
difficulty in the way of supposing that the mercy of God works by remission of
consequences, like the mercy of man, is in the doubtful utility of such a method. It is
hardly to be doubted that the moral tone of society would be far more healthful than it is
were there less interference, in the name of mercy, with the consequences of violated
law. For a man to imagine he may lie or steal, and escape the evil consequence, is most
immoral and dangerous. It fosters this illusion, whenever a weak, good nature averts

145. from a guilty back the scourge of just consequence, Mercy does not seek first to make
men comfortable, but to make them morally sound and strong in conformity to right.
For this, a strict subjection to the consequences of conduct, whether in the State or in
the family, is indispensable. It is not in the way of release from any part of our just
responsibilities that we must think of the mercy of God. “Every man shall bear his own
burden.” Quite congruous with this is a saying in Psa_62:1-12, where we shall find the
mercy of God if we are thus strictly subjected to the law of consequences: “To Thee, O
Lord, belongeth mercy; for Thou renderest to everyman according to his work.” While
this affirms the benevolence of strictly holding us to accountability for whatever is our
work, it also permits us to think of a procedure which—at least, in comparison with
human judgments—deserves to be called merciful. When we discriminate in a man’s
work that which is strictly his from that which is the work of his parents, or teachers, or
of disease, or of the spirit of his time, even a wicked man appears less culpable. Many a
man shows the work of his father, or of his surroundings, mixed with his own. If
childhood has been subjected to a training which stunts virtue or piety, the resulting vice
or scepticism of the man is not all his work. To unravel the tangled skein of
responsibility, to crown each man with the pearls or thorns which are due to the work
that is strictly his, is the perogative of that Divine judgment which the sinner, thus dealt
with, may well deem merciful. In what appears to us the most execrable life, Omniscient
may discriminate in the wreck the contributing agency of more than one wrongdoer.
Where human judgments are unmerciful in loading one with the guilt of many, the
mercy of God appears in apportioning to each no more than is strictly his own. To this
we have to add the work of mercy in the forgiveness of sins—the blotting out of offences
by the kiss that makes the prodigal again atone with the father—the inspirations of filial
trust in the grace of God, by which the forgiven one is empowered to retrieve and repair
the past, till the tear of repentance is dry in the joy of a complete remission of his sins.
(J. M.Whiton, Ph. D.)
SBC, "Note:—
I. The character here given to God: "The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy." (1)
"Pitiful." Pity is a feeling for, a feeling with, the distressed. The pity of God is of high
quality and eminent degree. (2) "Of tender mercy." It is kindness to the sinful, to the
guilty and undeserving and ill-deserving. Tender mercy is mercy easily excited, not like a
flow of water produced by machinery, but like a stream of water from a spring or well.
The merciful Father is of tender mercy, and the tenderness of that mercy has not been
produced by Christ; it is, on the other hand, expressed and manifested by Christ.
II. The character manifested. Observe the unfolding of this beauteous and glorious
character. God has a purpose in all the afflictions of His saints, which when developed
reveals God as very pitiful and of tender mercy. (1) Here, then, is something to believe.
(2) Here is something to be ultimately seen: the end of the Lord. To be seen, there is the
coming out of tribulation; to be seen, the being better and more happy for that
tribulation; the comparison between the sufferings of the present time and the glory
revealed; the light and transient appearance of affliction when in conjunction with an
eternal weight of glory; the high purpose and supreme wisdom of God in the suffering of
affliction; the end seen to be better than the beginning; and God proved, demonstrated,
to be "very pitiful and of tender mercy."
S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 28.

146. 12 Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not
swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything
else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or
“ o.” Otherwise you will be condemned.
BAR ES, "But above all things - That is be especially careful on this point;
whatever else is done, let not this be. The manner in which James speaks of the practice
referred to here, shows that he regarded it as a sin of a very heinous nature; one that was
by all means to be avoided by those whom he addressed. The habit of swearing by
various things was a very common one among the Jews, and it was important to guard
those who from among them had been converted to Christianity on that subject.
Swear not - See this command illustrated in the notes at Mat_5:33-34. Nearly the
same things are mentioned here, as objects by which they were accustomed to swear,
which are referred to by the Saviour.
But let our yea be yea - Let there be a simple affirmation, unaccompanied by any
oath or appeal to God or to any of his works. A man who makes that his common
method of speech is the man who will be believed. See the notes at Mat_5:37.
Lest you fall into condemnation - That is, for profaning the name of God. “The
Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain,” Exo_20:7.
CLARKE, "Above all things - swear not - What relation this exhortation can
have to the subject in question, I confess I cannot see. It may not have been designed to
stand in any connection, but to be a separate piece of advice, as in the several cases
which immediately follow. That the Jews were notoriously guilty of common swearing is
allowed on all hands; and that swearing by heaven, earth, Jerusalem, the temple, the
altar, different parts of the body, was not considered by them as binding oaths, has been
sufficiently proved. Rabbi Akiba taught that “a man might swear with his lips, and annul
it in his heart; and then the oath was not binding.” See the notes on Mat_5:33, etc.,
where the subject is considered in great detail.
Let your yea be yea, etc. - Do not pretend to say yea with your lips, and annul it in
your heart; let the yea or the nay which you express be bona fide such. Do not imagine
that any mental reservation can cancel any such expressions of obligation in the sight of
God.

147. Lest ye fall into condemnation - ᅿνα µη ᆓπο κρισιν πεσητε· Lest ye fall under
judgment. Several MSS. join ᆓπο and κρισιν together, ᆓποκρισιν, and prefix εις, into,
which makes a widely different reading: Lest ye fall into hypocrisy. Now, as it is a fact,
that the Jews did teach that there might be mental reservation, that would annul the
oath, how solemnly soever it was taken; the object of St. James, if the last reading be
genuine, and it is supported by a great number of excellent MSS., some versions, and
some of the most eminent of the fathers, was to guard against that hypocritical method
of taking an oath, which is subversive of all moral feeling, and must make conscience
itself callous.
GILL, "But above all things, my brethren, swear not,.... As impatience should
not show itself in secret sighs, groans, murmurings, and repinings, so more especially it
should not break forth in rash oaths, or in profane swearing; for of such sort of swearing,
and of such oaths, is the apostle to be understood; otherwise an oath is very lawful, when
taken in the fear and name of God, and made by the living God, and is used for the
confirmation of anything of moment, and in order to put an end to strife; God himself,
and the Lord Jesus Christ, and angels, and good men, are in Scripture sometimes
represented as swearing: and that the apostle is so to be understood, appears from the
form of swearing prohibited,
neither by the heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath; of the
like kind; such as are forbidden, and cautioned, and reasoned against by our Lord, in
Mat_5:34 to which the apostle manifestly refers; See Gill on Mat_5:34, Mat_5:35, Mat_
5:36.
But let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay; that is, whenever there is an occasion
for affirming, or denying anything, let it be done nakedly, simply, and absolutely,
without any form of oath annexed to it; for whatever addition of that kind is made comes
from evil, and tends to it, and is evil:
lest ye fall into condemnation; by the Lord; for either false, or rash, or profane
swearing; for he will not suffer it to go unpunished; see Exo_20:7. Some copies read,
"lest ye fall into hypocrisy"; or dissimulation, and get into a habit and custom of lying
and deceiving, as common swearers do; and so reads the Arabic version.
HE RY, "This epistle now drawing to a close, the penman goes off very quickly from
one thing to another: hence it is that matters so very different are insisted on in these
few verses.
I. The sin of swearing is cautioned against: But above all things, my brethren, swear
not, etc., Jam_5:12. Some understand this too restrictedly, as if the meaning were,
“Swear not at your persecutors, at those that reproach you and say all manner of evil of
you; be not put into a passion by the injuries they do you, so as in your passion to be
provoked to swear.” This swearing is no doubt forbidden here: and it will not excuse
those that are guilty of this sin to say they sear only when they are provoked to it, and
before they are aware. But the apostle's warning extends to other occasions of swearing
as well as this. Some have translated the words, pro pantōn - before all things; and so
have made sense of this place to be that they should not, in common conversation,
before every thing they say, put an oath. All customary needless swearing is
undoubtedly forbidden, and all along in scripture condemned, as a very grievous sin.

148. Profane swearing was very customary among the Jews, and, since this epistle is directed
in general to the twelve tribes scattered abroad (as before has been observed), we may
conceive this exhortation sent to those who believed not. It is hard to suppose that
swearing should be one of the spots of God's children, since Peter, when he was charged
with being a disciple of Christ and would disprove the charge, cursed and swore, thereby
thinking most effectually to convince them that he was no disciple of Jesus, it being well
known of such that they durst not allow themselves in swearing; but possibly some of
the looser sort of those who were called Christians might, among other sins here charged
upon them, be guilty also of this. It is a sin that in later years has most scandalously
prevailed, even among those who would be thought above all others entitled to the
Christian name and privileges. It is very rare indeed to hear of a dissenter from the
church of England who is guilty of swearing, but among those who glory in their being of
the established church nothing is more common; and indeed the most execrable oaths
and curses now daily wound the ears and hearts of all serious Christians. James here
says,
1. Above all things, swear not; but how many are there who mind this the least of all
things, and who make light of nothing so much as common profane swearing! But why
above all things is swearing here forbidden? (1.) Because it strikes most directly at the
honour of God and most expressly throws contempt upon his name and authority. (2.)
Because this sin has, of all sins, the least temptation to it: it is not gain, nor pleasure, nor
reputation, that can move men to it, but a wantonness in sinning, and a needless
showing an enmity to God. Thy enemies take thy name in vain, Psa_139:20. This is a
proof of men's being enemies to God, however they may pretend to call themselves by
his name, or sometimes to compliment him in acts of worship. (3.) Because it is with
most difficulty left off when once men are accustomed to it, therefore it should above all
things be watched against. And, (4.) “Above all things swear not, for how can you expect
the name of God should be a strong tower to you in your distress if you profane it and
play with it at other times?” But (as Mr. Baxter observes) “all this is so far from
forbidding necessary oaths that it is but to confirm them, by preserving the due
reverence of them.” And then he further notes that “The true nature of an oath is, by our
speech, to pawn the reputation of some certain or great thing, for the averring of a
doubted less thing; and not (as is commonly held) an appeal to God or other judge.”
Hence it was that swearing by the heavens, and by the earth, and by the other oaths the
apostle refers to, came to be in use. The Jews thought if they did but omit the great oath
of Chi-Eloah, they were safe. But they grew so profane as to swear by the creature, as if it
were God; and so advanced it into the place of God; while, on the other hand, those who
swear commonly and profanely by the name of God do hereby put him upon the level
with every common thing.
2. But let your yea be yea, and your nay nay; lest you fall into condemnation; that is,
“let it suffice you to affirm or deny a thing as there is occasion, and be sure to stand to
your word, an be true to it, so as to give no occasion for your being suspected of
falsehood; and then you will be kept from the condemnation of backing what you say or
promise by rash oaths, and from profaning the name of God to justify yourselves. It is
being suspected of falsehood that leads men to swearing. Let it be known that your keep
to truth, and are firm to your word, and by this means you will find there is no need to
swear to what you say. Thus shall you escape the condemnation which is expressly
annexed to the third commandment: The Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his
name in vain.”
JAMISO , "But above all — as swearing is utterly alien to the Christian meek

149. “endurance” just recommended.
swear not — through impatience, to which trials may tempt you (Jam_5:10, Jam_
5:11). In contrast to this stands the proper use of the tongue, Jam_5:13. James here
refers to Mat_5:34, etc.
let your yea be yea — Do not use oaths in your everyday conversation, but let a
simple affirmative or denial be deemed enough to establish your word.
condemnation — literally, “judgment,” namely, of “the Judge” who “standeth before
the doors” (Jam_5:9).
CALVI , "12But above all things. It has been a common vice almost in all ages, to
swear lightly and inconsiderately. For so bad is our nature that we do not consider
what an atrocious crime it is to profane the name of God. For though the Lord
strictly commands us to reverence his name, yet men devise various subterfuges, and
think that they can swear with impunity. They imagine, then, that there is no evil,
provided they do not OPE LY mention the name of God; and this is an old gloss.
So the Jews, when they swore by heaven or earth, thought that they did not profane
God’s name, because they did not mention it. But while men seek to be ingenious in
dissembling with God, they delude themselves with the most frivolous evasions.
It was a vain excuse of this kind that Christ condemned in Matthew 5:34. James,
now subscribing to the decree of his master, commands us to abstain from these
indirect forms of swearing: for whosoever swears in vain and on frivolous occasions,
profanes God’s name, whatever form he may give to his words. Then the meaning is,
that it is not more lawful to swear by heaven or by the earth, than OPE LY by the
name of God. The reason is mentioned by Christ — because the glory of God is
everywhere inscribed, and everywhere shines forth. ay, men take the words,
heaven and earth, in their oaths, in no other sense and for no other purpose, than if
they named God himself; for by thus speaking they only designate the Worker by
his works.
But he says, above all things; because the profanation of God’s name is not a slight
offense. The Anabaptists, building on this passage, condemn all oaths, but they only
shew their ignorance. For James does not speak of oaths in general, nor does Christ
in the passage to which I have referred; but both condemn that evasion which had
been devised, when men took the liberty to swear without expressing the name of
God, which was a liberty repugnant to the prohibition of the law.
And this is what the words clearly mean, either by heaven, neither by the earth.
For, if the question had been as to oaths in themselves, to what purpose were these
forms mentioned? It then appears evident that both by Christ and by James the
puerile astuteness of those is reproved who taught that they could swear with
impunity, provided they adopted some circuitous expressions. That we may, then,
understand the meaning of James, we must understand first the precept of the law,
“Thou shalt not take the name of God in vain. ” It hence appears clear, that there is
a right and lawful use of God’s name. ow, James condemns those who did not

150. indeed dare in a direct way to profane God’s name, but endeavored to evade the
profanation which the law condemns, by circumlocutions.
But let YOUR yea be yea. He brings the best remedy to correct the vice which he
condemns, that is, that they were habitually to keep themselves to truth and
faithfulness in all their sayings. For whence is the wicked habit of swearing, except
that such is the falsehood of men, that their words alone are not believed? For, if
they observed faithfulness, as they ought, in their words, there would have been no
necessity of so many superfluous oaths. As, then, the perfidy or levity of men is the
fountain from which the vice of swearing flows, in order to take away the vice,
James teaches us that the fountain ought to be removed; for the right way of healing
is TO BEGI with the cause of illness.
Some copies have, “Let your word (or speech) be, yea, yea; no, no.” The true
reading however, is what I have given, and is commonly received; and what he
means I have ALREADY explained, that is, that we ought to tell the truth, and to be
faithful in our words. To the same purpose is what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:18,
that he was not in his preaching yea and nay, but pursued the same course from the
BEGI I G.
Lest ye fall into condemnation. There is a different reading, owing to the affinity of
the words ὑπὸ κρίσιν and ὑπόκρισιν (141) If you read, “into judgment” or
condemnation, the sense will clearly be, that to take God’s name in vain will not be
unpunished. But it is not unsuitable to say, “into hypocrisy;” because when
simplicity, as it has been already said, prevails among us, the occasion for
superfluous oaths is cut off. If, then, fidelity appears in all we say, the dissimulation,
which leads us to swear rashly, will be removed.
BE SO , "James 5:12. But above all things, swear not — However provoked. The
Jews were notoriously guilty of common swearing, though not so much by God
himself as by some of his creatures. The apostle here forbids these oaths, as well as
all swearing in common conversation. It is very observable how solemnly the apostle
introduces this command; above all things, swear not; as if he had said, Whatever
you forget, do not forget this. This abundantly demonstrates the horrible iniquity of
the crime. But he does not forbid the taking of a solemn oath before a magistrate.
either by any other oath — amely, unlawful or unnecessary; but let your yea be
yea, and your nay, nay — Let your discourse be CO FIRMED with a bare
affirmation or denial; and use no higher asseverations in common discourse. But let
your words stand firm; and whatever ye say, take care to make it good; lest ye fall
into condemnation — Expose yourselves to God’s judgments.
COFFMA , "But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by the heaven,
nor by the earth, nor by any other oath: but let YOUR yea be yea, and your nay,
nay; that ye fall not under judgment.
Above all ... This should be understood merely in the sense of "especially." It was a
common sin of that day to punctuate ordinary conversation with all kinds of
imprecations and oaths used as a device for establishing credibility. Apparently,

151. many to whom James wrote were guilty of this, hence the emphasis upon it.
Dummelow's paraphrase is: "Avoid especially the use of an oath to strengthen your
assertions in ordinary conversation."[37] The words "above all" have the additional
utility of identifying the admonition here as having been given originally by the
Lord Jesus Christ himself (Matthew 5:34,37). Agreement is felt with Roberts and
many others who have insisted that "This passage has nothing to do with solemn
and serious and religious oaths."[38] Christ himself permitted himself to be placed
under oath for his Great Confession (Mark 14:61,62). The inherent CO ECTIO
of this verse with the foregoing is plain in that it was dealing with the demeanor and
attitude of those awaiting "the coming of the Lord" in judgment against Jerusalem.
For fuller discussion of the question of oaths, see in my Commentary on Matthew, p.
67.
[37] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 1037.
[38] J. W. Roberts, op. cit., p. 155.
COKE, "James 5:12. But above all things—swear not,— Some consider this verse as
joined to what goes before, to intimate that they were to be aware of impatience, and
particularly as it might lead them into rash and profane swearing, as men in a
passion are more apt to swear. The δε, but, favours this connection; though as the
word δε is often used by way of transition only, and this has so much the air of a
general rule, it may well be considered as such, and as distinct from the rest. They
were not to swear profanely at any time, either in affliction or prosperity; and
ACCORDI GLY the apostle here very strongly condemns the vice in general.
When he says, Above or before all things, swear not, it is not to be supposed that he
reckons this as the greatest of all crimes; but he condemns it in an earnest manner,
as one very great vice to which the Jews were remarkably addicted, and as a horrid
habit which required much care and attention to shake it off. See what has been said
on this subject, Matthew 5:33-37.
ELLICOTT, "(12) The question of the lawfulness of oaths has oftentimes perplexed
alike the DOCTORS of the Church and its simpler hearers of God’s word. The text,
taken as it stands, would support the views of the Essenes, and many of the
Paulicians, and other ancient sectaries. With equal force it might be urged by the
followers of Peter Waldo, or the Unitas Fratrum (the Moravians), or the Society of
Friends.
Swear not.—The words are put quite distinctly in Greek and English—neither by
the heaven, nor by the earth. And it sounds like special pleading, worthy of a rabbi,
to hear such a divine as Huther say that “swearing by the name of God is not
mentioned,” nor accordingly is such an oath prohibited. “We must not imagine,” he
CO TI UES (and his argument had best be fairly given), “that this is included in
the last member of the clause, the Apostle evidently intending by it (i.e., ‘neither by
any other oath’) to point only at certain formulæ, of which several are mentioned in
Matthew 5:34-37. Had he intended to forbid swearing by the name of God he would
most certainly have mentioned it expressly; for not only is it in the Law, in

152. contradistinction to other oaths, commanded (see Deuteronomy 6:13; Deuteronomy
10:20; Psalms 63:11), but in the prophets is announced as a token of the future
turning of men to God” (Isaiah 65:16; Jeremiah 12:16; Jeremiah 23:7-8). There
were, we learn, many subtle distinctions in Jewish oaths; and the unlucky foreigner
who trusted in an apparently firm one, too often found out his mistake. Certainly all
such subterfuges are utterly condemned; and further, every word which breaks the
letter or spirit of God’s Third Commandment. As to the higher judicial forms of
oaths, remembering that our Lord answered such before Caiaphas (Matthew 26:63-
64), we can fearlessly conclude, with the 39th Article of Religion, that “a man may
swear, when the magistrate requireth, in a cause of faith and charity, so it be done
ACCORDI Gto the prophet’s teaching—in justice, judgment, and truth.”
Let YOUR yea be yea . . .—Your word be as your bond, needing no strengthening
by any invocation of God, or holy things, “lest ye fall into judgment”—not
“condemnation,” though certainly such might follow.
BURKITT, "Observe, that an oath here is not absolutely forbidden, but restrained:
Above all things, my brethren.
ote, with what vehemency and earnestness the apostle speaks, Swear not, that is,
swear not vainly and rashly, swear not lightly and profanely, swear not unduly, by
any of the creatures, (but by the Creator only), which was a sin that the Jews were
dreadfully guilty of: But let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay: accustom
yourselves to a true simplicity and plainness of speech, in affirming or DE YI G,
letting oaths alone, lest ye fall into condemnation; that is, plainly, into the
condemnation of hell.
Learn hence, 1. That rash and vain swearing, or profane oaths, are a high abuse of
the dreadful name of God, and a mighty provocation to him: verily there is no sin
that doth more weary the patience of God, because there is no sin that doth more
banish the fear of God out of our hearts.
Learn, 2. That the great end of speech being to communicate the sense of our minds
to each other, we ought to use such plainness and simplicity in speaking, that we
may believe one another without oaths, or more solemn religious asservations.
But yet, 3. To take an oath upon a solemn occasion, when lawfully called thereunto,
is a Christian and necessary duty.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRTOR, "
Swear not,—
Against rash and vain swearing
I.
Let us consider THE NATURE OF AN OATH, and what we do when we adventure to
swear. It is an “assuming the name of our God,” and applying it to our purpose, to
countenance and confirm what we say. It is an invocation of God as a most faithful
witness, concerning the truth of our words, or the sincerity of our meaning. It is an

153. appeal to God as a most upright Judge, whether we do prevaricate in asserting what we
do not believe true, or in promising what we are not firmly resolved to perform. It is a
formal engagement of God to be the Avenger of our trespassing in violation of truth or
faith. It is a “binding our souls” with a most strict and solemn obligation, to answer
before God, and to undergo the issue of His judgment about what we affirm to
undertake. Whence we may collect that swearing doth require great modesty and
composedness of spirit, very serious consideration and solicitous care that we be net
rude and saucy with God, “in taking up His name,” and prostituting it to vile or mean
uses; that we do not abuse or debase His authority, by citing it to aver falsehoods or
impertinences; that we do not slight His venerable justice, by rashly provoking it against
us; that we do not precipitantly throw our souls into most dangerous snares and
intricacies.
II. We may consider THAT SWEARING, AGREEABLY TO ITS NATURE AND
TENDENCY, IS REPRESENTED IN HOLY SCRIPTURE AS A SPECIAL PART OF
RELIGIOUS WORSHIP; in the due performance of which we avow God for the Governor
of the world, piously acknowledging His principal attributes and special prerogatives; it
also intimates a pious trust and confidence in Him. If we do presume to offer this
service, we should do it in the manner appointed by God Himself; the cause of it must be
very needful or expedient, the design honest and useful; otherwise we desecrate
swearing, and are guilty of profaning a most sacred ordinance,
III. We may consider THAT THE SWEARING PROHIBITED IS VERY NOXIOUS TO
HUMAN SOCIETY. AS by the rare and reverent use of oaths their dignity is upheld, and
their obligation kept fast; so by the frequent and negligent application of them, by the
prostituting them to every mean and toyish purpose, their respect will be quite lost, their
strength will be loosed, they will prove unserviceable to public use.
IV. Let us consider THAT RASH AND VAIN SWEARING IS VERY APT OFTEN” TO
BRING THE PRACTISER OF IT INTO THAT MOST HORRIBLE SIN OF PERJURY. For
“false swearing,” as Philo saith, “naturally springeth out of much swearing”; and “he”
saith St. Chrysostom, “that sweareth continually, both willingly and unwillingly, both
ignorantly and knowingly, both in earnest and in sport, being often transported by anger
and many other things, will frequently forswear. It is confessed and manifest, that it is
necessary for him that sweareth much to be perjurious.”
VI. Likewise THE USE OF RASH SWEARING WILL OFTEN ENGAGE A MAN IN
UNDERTAKINGS VERY INCONVENIENT AND DETRIMENTAL TO HIMSELF.
VII. Let us consider THAT SWEARING IS A SIN OF ALL OTHERS PECULIARLY
CLAMOROUS, AND PROVOCATIVE OF DIVINE JUDGMENT. God is hardly so much
concerned, or in a manner constrained, to punish any other sin as this. He is bound in
honour and interest to vindicate His name from the abuse, His authority from the
contempt, His holy ordinance from the profanation, which it cloth infer.
VIII. Farther (passing over the special laws against it, the mischievous consequences of
it, the sore punishments appointed to it), we may consider THAT TO COMMON SENSE
VAIN SWEARING IS A VERY UNREASONABLE AND ILL-FAVOURED PRACTICE,
GREATLY MISBECOMING ANY SOBER, WORTHY, OR HONEST PERSON”; but
especially most absurd and incongruous to a Christian.
IX. THE PRACTICE OF SWEARING GREATLY DISPARAGES HIM THAT USES IT,
AND DEROGATES FROM HIS CREDIT, INASMUCH AS IT SIGNIFIES THAT HE
DOES NOT CONFIDE IN HIS OWN REPUTATION; by it he authorises others to
distrust him; it renders what he says to be in reason suspicious, as discovering him to be

154. void of conscience and discretion, etc.
X. TO EXCUSE THESE FAULTS THE SWEARER WILL DE FORCED TO CONFESS
THAT HIS OATHS ARE NO MORE THAN WASTE AND INSIGNIFICANT WORDS;
deprecating the being taken for serious, or to be understood that he means anything by
them.
XI. But farther, ON HIGHER ACCOUNTS THIS IS A VERY UNCIVIL AND
UNMANNERLY PRACTICE: some vain persons take it for a genteel and graceful
accomplishment; but in truth there is no practice more crossing the genuine nature of
gentility, or misbecoming persons well born and well bred.
XII. Moreover, the words of our Lord, when He forbad this practice, SUGGEST
ANOTHER CONSIDERATION AGAINST IT DEDUCIBLE FROM THE CAUSES AND
SOURCES OF IT.
XIII. Farther, THIS OFFENCE MAY BE AGGRAVATED BY CONSIDERING THAT IT
HATH NO STRONG TEMPTATION ALLURING TO IT; that it gratifies no sense, yields
no profit, procures no honour: the vain swearer has not the common plea of human
infirmity to excuse him.
XIV. Let us consider that, as we ourselves with all our members and powers were chiefly
designed and made to glorify our Maker, which is our greatest privilege, so OUR
TONGUE AND SPEAKING FACULTY WERE GIVEN US TO DECLARE OUR
ADMIRATION AND REVERENCE OF HIM, exhibit our love and gratitude towards
Him, to profess our trust in Him, to celebrate His praises and avow His benefits:
wherefore to apply this to any impious discourse, and to profane His holy name, is an
unnatural abuse of it, and horrid ingratitude towards Him. Likewise a secondary and
worthy use of speech is to promote the good of our neighbour, according to the precept
of the apostle (Eph_4:29), but the practice of vain swearing serves to corrupt him, and
instil into him a contempt of religion.
XV. Lastly, we should consider TWO THINGS; first, that our blessed Saviour, who did
and suffered so much for us, and who said, “If ye love Me, keep My commandments,”
thus positively hath enjoined: “But I say unto you, swear not at all”: secondly, we shall
consider well the reason with which St. James enforces the point, and the sting in the
close of the text; “but above all things, my brethren, swear notlest ye fall into
condemnation.” (L Barrow, D. D.)
The prohibition of swearing
There was an old saying, now unhappily quite grotesque in its incongruity with facts,
that “an Englishman’s word is as good as his bored.” What Christ and St. James say is
that a Christian’s word should be as good as his oath. There ought to be no need of
oaths. Anything over and above simple affirming or denying “cometh of the evil one.” It
is because Satan, the father of lies, has introduced falsehood into the world that oaths
have come into use. Among Christians there should be no untruthfulness, and therefore
no oaths. The use of oaths is an index of the presence of evil; it is a symptom of the
prevalence of falsehood. But the use of oaths is not only a sign of the existence of
mischief, it is also apt to be productive of mischief. It is apt to produce a belief that there
are two kinds of truth, one of which it is a serious thing to violate, viz., when you are on
your oath; but the other of which it is a harmless, or at least a venial thing to violate, viz.,
when falsehood is only falsehood, and not perjury. And this, both among Jews and

155. among Christians, produces the further mischievous refinement that some oaths are
more binding than others, and that only when the most stringent form of oath is
employed is there any real obligation to speak the truth. How disastrous all such
distinctions are to the interests of truth, abundant experience has testified:’ for a
common result is this—that people believe that they are free to lie as much as they
please, so long as the lie is not supported by the particular kind of oath which they
consider to be binding. But the main question is whether the prohibition is absolute;
whether our Lord and St. James forbid the use of oaths for any purpose whatever; and it
must be admitted that the first impression which we derive from their words is that they
do. Tilts view is upheld by not a few Christians as the right interpretation of both
passages. But further investigation does not confirm the view which is derived from a
first impression as to the meaning of the words. Against it we have, first, the fact that the
Mosaic Law not only allowed, but enjoined the taking of an oath in certain
circumstances; and Christ would hardly have abrogated the law, and St. James would
hardly have contradicted it, without giving some explanation of so unusual a course;
secondly, the indisputable practice of the early Church, of St. Paul, and of our Lord
Himself. (A. Plummer, D. D.)
A warning against oaths
1. It has not been an uncommon thing for men to take vows in trouble, as if they
would do them any good. They have promised if certain ends could be attained to
pursue certain courses of life: and sometimes to give a supposed greater efficacy,
they have bound themselves with oaths. The Hebrew Christians in the first century
were peculiarly exposed to this. The evil of it lay in transferring their confidence from
the grace and power of God to the vows they were making, and thus begetting in
them a strong tendency to confidence in magic.
2. It may have been a warning to |hem, not to swear when they were brought before
Roman magistrates, or were in the company of Pagan persecutors, in order to show
by such words that they were not Christians.
3. The injunction might have applied to the temptation there was among them to
conspire together in sworn bands against their persecutors; as was frequently the
case in their own age and has been ever since. James saw the futility of all seditious
movements. He saw that it plunged his brethren only into deeper and deeper
troubles; wherefore, he besought them not to seek such modes of relief, not to bind
themselves to others, or others to themselves, in order to effect deliverance, but to
put all in the hand of God.
4. But whether any or all of these considerations were in the mind of our author, it is
quite certain that he pronounced a very emphatic denunciation against profanity.
This is a sin against God and against one’s self. It is a sin against God, because it
deprives Him of the honour due to His name, and is in direct disobedience to His
command. The sin is not mitigated by modifications of phraseology. In the next
place, it is hurtful to any man to become an habitual swearer. It is an effectual bar to
his ever being great. It is utterly impossible, whatever other gifts and opportunities
be afforded, that a man shall ever reach the utmost possible greatness of humanity,
who himself fails to have reverence for that which is great. Reverence is the spring of
all aspiration, the foundation for all lofty upbuilding of character. (C. F. Deems, D.
D.)

156. Profane swearing
The vice of profane swearing (and all swearing about ordinary matters is profane) is a
strange one. Where is the pleasure of it? Where, before it becomes a fashion or a habit, is
the temptation to it? Where, in any case, is the sense of it? There is pleasure in gluttony,
in drunkenness, in lust, in pride, in avarice, in revenge. But where is the pleasure in an
oath? The sensualist, the hypocrite, the miser, and the murderer can at least plead
strong temptation, can at least urge that they get something, however pitiful, in
exchange for eternal loss. But what can the blasphemer plead? what does he get in
exchange for his soul? In times of strong excitement it is no doubt a relief to the feelings
to use strong language; but what is gained by making the strong language trebly culpable
by adding blasphemy to it? Besides which, there is the sadly common case of those who
use blasphemous words when there is no temptation to give vent to strong feeling in
strong language, who habitually swear in coldblood. Let no one deceive himself with the
paltry excuse that he cannot help it, or that there is no harm in it. A resolution to do
something disagreeable every time an oath escaped one’s lips would soon bring about a
cure. And let those who profess to think that there is no harm in idle swearing ask
themselves whether they expect to repeat that plea when they give an account for every
idle word at the day of judgment (Mat_12:36). (A. Plummer, D. D.)
Judicial oaths
That the condemnation does not extend to the solemn judicial use of oaths we see in the
facts—
1. That our Lord answered when questioned as on oath by Caiaphas Mat_26:63-64);
and—
2. That St. Paul at times used modes of expression which are essentially of the nature
of an oath (2Co_1:23; Rom_1:9; Gal_1:20; Php_1:8). (Dean Plumptre.)
The practice of the Essenes
It is not without interest to note that in this respect the practice of the Essenes, in their
efforts after holiness, was after the pattern of the preaching of St. James. They, too,
avoided oaths as being no less an evil than perjury itself (Josephus, “Wars” 2:8, 85).
They, however, with a somewhat strange inconsistency, bound the members of their own
society by “tremendous oaths” of obedience and secrecy. (Dean Plumptre.)
Evil of swearing
Swear not at all, lest by swearing ye come to a facility of swearing; flora a facility to a
custom; and from a custom ye fall into perjury. (Augustine.)
EBC, "THE PROHIBITION OF SWEARING - THE RELATION OF THE
LANGUAGE OF ST. JAMES TO RECORDED SAYINGS OF CHRIST.
THE main portion of the Epistle is already concluded. St. James has worked through his
chief topics back to the point from which he started, viz., the blessedness of steadfast

157. and patient endurance of trials and temptations. But one or two other subjects occur to
him., and he reopens his letter to add them by way of a farewell word of counsel.
One of the leading thoughts in the letter has been warning against sins of the tongue.
(Jas_1:19; Jas_1:26; Jas_3:1-12; Jas_4:11; Jas_4:13; Jas_5:9) He has spoken against
talkativeness, unrestrained speaking, love of correcting others, railing, cursing, boasting,
murmuring. One grievous form of sinful speech he has not mentioned particularly; and
about this he adds a strong word of warning in this postscript to the Epistle: "Above all
things, my brethren, swear not."
Two questions are raised by this remarkable prohibition-first, the exact meaning of it,
especially whether it forbids swearing for any purpose whatever; and secondly, its
relation to the almost identical prohibition uttered by Christ in the Sermon on the
Mount. (Mat_5:35-36) It will be obvious that whatever this relation may be, the
meaning of our Lord’s injunction determines the meaning of St. James in his injunction.
It is hardly worth arguing that he did not mean either more or less than Christ meant.
1. The immediate context of the prohibition is worth noting in each case; it seems to
throw light upon the scope of the prohibition. Jesus Christ, after saying "Swear not at
all; neither by the heaven nor by the earth…But let your speech be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay,"
goes on to forbid retaliation of injuries, and to enjoin love towards enemies. St. James
enjoins longsuffering towards enemies, thence goes on to forbid swearing, and then
again returns to the subject of how to behave under affliction and ill-treatment: "Is any
among, you suffering? let him pray." Prayer, not cursing and swearing, is the right
method of finding relief. There is, therefore, some reason for thinking that both in the
Sermon on the Mount and here the prohibition of swearing has special reference to
giving vent to one’s feelings in oaths when one is exasperated by injury or adversity. No
kind of oath is allowable for any such purpose. But it is quite clear that this is not the
whole meaning of the injunction in either place. "But let your speech be, Yea, yea; Nay,
nay"; and, But let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay, manifestly refers to strengthening
affirmations and negations by adding to them the sanction of an oath. There was an old
saying, now unhappily quite grotesque in its incongruity with facts, that "an
Englishman’s word is as good as his bond." What Christ and St. James say is that a
Christian’s word should be as good as his oath. There ought to be no need of oaths.
Anything over and above simple affirming or denying "cometh of the Evil One." It is
because Satan, the father of lies, has introduced falsehood into the world that oaths have
come into use. Among Christians there should be no untruthfulness, and therefore no
oaths. The use of oaths is an index of the presence of evil; it is a symptom of the
prevalence of falsehood.
But the use of oaths is not only a sign of the existence of mischief, it is also apt to be
productive of mischief. It is apt to produce a belief that there are two kinds of truth, one
of which it is a serious thing to violate, viz., when you are on your oath; but the other of
which it is a harmless, or at least a venial thing to violate, viz., when falsehood is only
falsehood, and not perjury. And this, both among Jews and among Christians, produces
the further mischievous refinement that some oaths are more binding than others, and
that only when the most stringent form of oath is employed is there any real obligation
to speak the truth. How disastrous all such distinctions are to the interests of truth,
abundant experience has testified: for a common result is this; -that people believe that
they are free to lie as much as they please, so long as the lie is not supported by the
particular kind of oath which they consider to be binding.
Thus much, then, is evident, that both our Lord and St. James forbid the use of oaths

158. (1) as an expression of feeling,
(2) as a confirmation of ordinary statements; for the prohibitions plainly mean as much
as this, and we know from other sources that these two abuses were disastrously
common among both Jews and Gentiles at that time.
That converts to Christianity were exempt from such vices is most improbable; and
hence the need that St. James should write as he does on the subject.
But the main question is whether the prohibition is absolute; whether our Lord and St.
James forbid the use of oaths for any purpose whatever; and it must be admitted that
the first impression which we derive from their words is that they do. This view is
upheld by not a few Christians as the right interpretation of both passages. Christ says,
"Swear not at all (µησαι ολως). . . But let your speech be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay." St. James
says, "Swear not, neither by the heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath (µητε
αλλον τινα ορκον); but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay." In both cases we have an
unqualified prohibition of what is to be avoided, followed by a plain command as to what
is to be done.
But further investigation does not confirm the view which is derived from a first
impression as to the meaning of the words. Against it we have, first, the fact that the
Mosaic Law not only allowed, but enjoined the taking of an oath in certain
circumstances; and Christ would hardly have abrogated the law, and St. James would
hardly have contradicted it, without giving some explanation of so unusual a course;
secondly, the indisputable practice of the early Church, of St. Paul, and of our Lord
Himself.
In Deuteronomy we read, "Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; and Him. shalt thou serve,
and shalt swear by His Name"; (Deu_6:13) and, "to Him shalt thou cleave, and by His
Name shalt thou swear." (Deu_10:20) The Psalmist says, "The king shall rejoice in God:
every one that sweareth by Him shall glory: but the mouth of them that speak lies shall
be stopped." (Psa_63:11) Isaiah says, "He that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the
God of truth"; (Isa_65:16) and still more strongly Jeremiah: "Thou shalt swear, As the
Lord liveth, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness"; (Jer_4:2) and, "If they will
diligently learn the ways of My people, to swear by My Name, As the Lord liveth; even as
they taught My people to swear by Baal; then shall they be built up in the midst of My
people." (Jer_12:16. Comp. Jer_23:7-8) An absolute prohibition of all swearing would
have been so surprisingly at variance with these passages of Scripture that it is difficult
to believe that it would have been made without any allusion to them. Even the Essenes,
who were very strict about swearing, and considered it to be worse than perjury (for a
man is condemned already who cannot be believed except upon his oath), imposed
"terrific oaths" (ορκους φρικωδεις) upon those who wished to enter their community,
before admitting them (Josephus, "Bell. Jud," 2 8:6,7"; Ant.," XV 10:4); and we can
hardly suppose that St. James means to take up a more extreme position than that of the
Essenes.
But even if we suppose that he does mean this we have grill to explain the practice of
those who were well aware of Christ’s command respecting swearing, and certainly had
no intention of deliberately violating it. If the first Christians were willing on certain
occasions to take certain oaths, it must have been because they were fully persuaded that
Jesus Christ had not forbidden them to do so. When called upon by heathen magistrates
to take an oath, the distinction which they drew was not between swearing and not

159. swearing, but between taking oaths that committed them to idolatry and oaths which did
nothing of the kind. The latter oaths they were willing to take. Thus Tertullian says that
they would not swear by the genii of the emperors, because these were supposed to be
demons; but by the safety of the emperors they were willing to swear ("Apol.," 32).
Origen writes to much the same effect ("Con. Celsum," 8, 65). The oath by the genius, or
numen, or "fortune" (τυχη) of the emperor was recognized as a formula for abjuring
Christianity. Thus the proconsul presses Polycarp again and again: "Swear by the genius
of Caesar; swear the oath, and I will release thee" ("Mart. Pol.," 9, 10.); and the fear of
being betrayed into an act of idolatry was one of the main reasons why the early
Christians disliked taking oaths. But there was also the feeling that for Christians oaths
ought to be quite unnecessary. Thus Clement of Alexandria says that the true Christian
ought to maintain a life calculated to inspire such confidence in those without that an
oath would not even be demanded of him. And of course, when he swears, he swears
truly; but he is not apt to swear, and rarely has recourse to an oath. And his speaking the
truth on oath arises from his harmony With the truth ("Strom.," 7, 8.). Pelagius
maintained that all swearing was forbidden; but Augustine contends, on the authority of
Scripture, that oaths are not unlawful, although he would have them avoided as much as
possible ("Ep.," 157. Comp. "Epp.," 125, 126).
But there is not only the evidence as to how the primitive Church understood the words
of Christ and of St. James; there is also the practice of St. Paul, who frequently calls God
to witness that he is speaking the 2Co_1:23; 2Co_11:31; 2Co_12:19; Gal_1:20; Php_1:8,
or uses other strong asseverations which are certainly more than plain Yea and Nay.
(Rom_9:11; 1Co_15:31; 2Co_1:18; 2Co_11:10) Augustine quotes St. Paul in defense of
swearing, but adds that St. Paul’s swearing, when there was weighty reason for it, is no
proof that we may swear whenever we think proper to do so. And in the Epistle to the
Hebrews the fact that men swear in order to settle disputes is mentioned without any
intimation that the practice is utterly wrong. On the contrary, we are told that God has
condescended to do the same, in order to give us all the assurance in His power. (Heb_
6:16-18)
Lastly, we have the convincing fact that Jesus Christ allowed Himself to be put upon His
oath. After having kept silence for a long time, He was adjured by the High Priest to
answer; and then He answered at once. The full meaning of the High Priest’s words are,
"I exact an oath of Thee (εξορκιζω σε) by the Living God". (Mat_26:63-64) Had this been
an unlawful thing for the High-priest to do, our Lord would have kept silence all the
more, or would have answered under protest.
2. It remains to consider the relation of the prohibition of swearing in this Epistle to the
almost identical prohibition in the Sermon on the Mount. Is St. James quoting Christ’s
words? and if so, whence did he derive his knowledge of them?
No one who compares the two passages will believe that the similarity between them is
accidental. Even if such a hypothesis could reasonably be entertained, it would be
shattered by the number of other coincidences which exist between passages in this
Epistle and the recorded words of Christ. In this instance we have the largest amount of
coincidence; and therefore the discussion of this point has been reserved until this
passage was reached, although numerous other cases of coincidence have already
occurred.
The remark is sometimes made that there are more quotations of Christ’s words in the
Epistle of St. James than in all the Epistles of St. Paul, or than in all the other books of
the New Testament other than the Gospels. It would be better to word the remark

160. somewhat differently, and say that there are more coincidences which cannot be
fortuitous between this Epistle and the recorded words of Christ than in all the Epistles
of St. Paul; or that there is far more evidence of the influence of Christ’s discourses upon
the language of St. James than there is of any such influence upon the language of St.
Paul. St. Paul tells us much about Christ and His work, but he very rarely reproduces any
of His sayings. With St. James it is exactly the opposite; he says very little indeed about
Christ, but, without quoting them as such, he frequently reproduces His words. It will be
found that the largest number of these coincidences are between St. James and sayings
that are recorded by St. Matthew, especially in the Sermon on the Mount. But this does
not warrant us in asserting that St. James must have seen St. Matthew’s Gospel or any
other written Gospels. The coincidences, as will be seen, are not of a character to show
this. Moreover, it is extremely doubtful whether any of the Gospels were written so early
as A.D. 62, the latest date which can be given to our Epistle; and if any earlier date be
assigned to it, the improbability of the writer’s having seen a written Gospel becomes all
the greater. The resemblances between the words of St. James and the recorded words of
Christ are such as would naturally arise if he had himself heard Christ’s teaching, and
was consciously or unconsciously reproducing what he remembered of it, rather than
such as would be found if he had had a written document to quote from. If this be so, we
have a strong confirmation of the view adopted at the outset, that this Epistle is the work
of the Lord’s brother, who had personal experience of Christ’s conversation, and was
independent of both the oral and the written tradition of His teaching. It will be worth
while to tabulate the principal coincidences, so that the reader may be able to judge for
himself as to their significance. They suffice to show how full the mind of St. James must
have been of the teaching of Jesus Christ, and they lead to the highly probable conjecture
that in other parts of the Epistle we have reminiscences of Christ’s words of which we
have no record in the Gospels. It is not likely that St. James has remembered and
reproduced only those sayings of which there is something recorded by the Evangelists.
ST. MATTHEW. ST. JAMES
1. Blessed are they that have been
persecuted for righteousness sake: for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed
are ye when men shall reproach you, and
persecute you, and say all manner of evil
against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice
and be exceeding glad: for great is your
reward in heaven: for so persecuted they
the prophets which were before you
(Mat_5:10-12).
Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye
fall into manifold temptations; knowing
that the proof of your faith worketh
patience (Jam_1:2-3). Take, brethren,
for an example of suffering and of
patience, the prophets who spake in the
name of the Lord. Behold, we call them
blessed which endured (Jam_5:10-11).
2. Ye therefore shall be perfect as your
heavenly Father is perfect (Mat_5:48).
And let patience have its perfect
work,that ye may be perfect and entire,
lacking in nothing (Jam_1:4).
3. Ask and it shall be given you; seek,
and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be
opened unto you: for every one that
asketh receiveth (Mat_7:7-8).
But if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him
ask of God who giveth to all liberally and
upbraideth not; and it shall he given him
(Jam_1:5).

161. 4. Blessed are the prior in spirit for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Mat_
5:3. Comp. Luk_6:20).
Let the brother of low degree glory in
his high estate (Jam_1:9). Did not God
choose them that are poor as to the
world to be rich in faith, and heirs of
the kingdom (Jam_2:5)
5. Not everyone that saith unto Me,
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the
kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth
the will of My Father which is in
heaven . . . And every one that heareth
these words of Mine and doeth them
not, shall be likened unto a foolish
man, which built his house upon the.
sand (Mat_7:21; Mat_7:26).
Be ye doers of the word, and not
hearers only, deluding your own selves.
For if anyone is a hearer of the word,
and not a deer, he is like unto a man
beholding his natural face in a mirror
(Jam_1:22-23).
6. Blessed are the merciful: for they
shall obtain mercy (Mat_5:7). If ye
forgive not men their trespasses,
neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses (Mat_6:15). With what
judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged
(Mat_7:2).
So speak ye, and so do, as men that are
to be judged by a law of liberty. For
judgment is without mercy to him that
hath showed no mercy: mercy glorieth
against judgment (Jam_2:12-13).
7. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or
figs of thistles? (Mat_7:16).
Can a fig-tree, my brethren, yield
olives, or a vine figs? (Jam_3:12).
8. No man can serve two masters: for
either he will hate the one, and love
the other; or else he will hold to one,
and despise the other. Ye cannot serve
God and Mammon (Mat_6:24).
Know ye not that the friend-ship of the
world is enmity with God? Whosoever,
therefore would he is friend of the
world maketh himself an enemy of God
(Jam_4:4).
9. Whosoever shall humble himself
shall be exalted (Mat_23:12).
Humble yourselves in the sight of the
Lord, and He shall exalt you (Jam_
4:10).
10. Be not therefore anxious for the
morrow (Mat_6:34).
Whereas ye know not what shall be on
the morrow (Jam_4:14).
11. Lay not up for yourselves treasures
upon the earth, where moth and rust
doth consume (Mat_6:19)
Your riches are corrupted, and your
garments are moth-eaten. Your gold
and your silver are rusted (Jam_5:2-
3).

162. 12. Swear not at all; neither by the
heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor
by the earth, for it is the footstool of His
feet; nor by Jerusalem. for it is the city of
the great King. Neither shalt thou swear
by thy head for thou canst not make one
hair white or black. But let your speech,
be Yea, yea; Nay, nay: and whatsoever is
more than these is of the evil one (Mat_
5:34-37)
But above all things, my brethren,
swear not, neither by the heaven, nor by
the earth, nor by any other oath. But
let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay;
that ye fall not under judgment (Jam_
5:12).
These twelve parallels are by no means exhaustive, but they are among the most striking.
The following are worthy of consideration, although those which have been quoted
above are more than sufficient for our purpose:-
(Mat_1:19; Jas_5:19)
(Mat_1:20; Mat_5:22)
(Mat_2:8; Mat_7:12)
Mat_2:10-11; Jas_5:2-7)
(Mat_3:17-17; Jas_5:9)
(Mat_4:3; Mat_7:8)
Let us now consider some coincidences between the language of St. James and our
Lord’s words as recorded by the other three Evangelists.
ST. MARK ST. JAMES.
13. Whosoever shall say unto this
mountain, Be thou taken up and cast
into the sea; and shall not doubt
(διακριθη) in his heart, but shall believe
that what he saith cometh to pass; he
shall have it (Mar_11:23).
If any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask
of God, who giveth to all liberally and
upbraideth not. But let him ask in
faith,nothingdoubting(διακρινοµενος):for
he that doubteth, etc. (Jam_1:5-6).
14. They shall deliver you up to councils;
and in synagogues shall ye be beaten
(Mar_13:9)
Do not the rich oppress you, and
themselves drag you before the
judgment-seats? (Jam_2:6).
15. Know ye that he is nigh, even at the
doors (Mar_13:29; Mat_24:33)
Behold, the Judge standeth before the
doors (Jam_5:9).
ST. LUKE. ST. JAMES.
16. Woe unto you, ye that laugh now! for
ye shall mourn and weep (Luk_6:25)
Let your laughter be turned to
mourning, and your joy to heaviness
(Jam_4:9).

163. 17. Woe unto you that are rich for ye
have received your consolation (Luk_
6:24).
Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl for
your miseries that are coming upon you
(Jam_5:1)
ST. JOHN. ST James.
18. If ye know these things, blessed are
ye if ye do them (Joh_13:17).
Being not a hearer that forgetteth. but a
doer that worketh, this man shall be
blessed in his doing (Jam_1:25).
19. If ye were of the world, the world
would love its own: but because ye are
not of the world,…therefore the world
hateth you (Joh_15:19. Comp. Joh_
17:14).
Know ye not that the friend-ship of the
world is enmity with God? Whosoever
therefore would be a friend of the world
maketh himself an enemy of God (Jam_
4:4).
It will be observed that these reminiscences of the teaching of Christ are all of one kind.
They are all of them concerned with the morality of the Gospel, with Christian conduct
and Christian life. Not one of them is doctrinal, or gives instruction as to the Christian
creed. This, again, is what we might expect if the brother of the Lord is the writer of the
Epistle. At the time when he listened to his Divine Brother’s teaching he did not believe
on Him. The doctrinal part of His discourses was precisely that part which did not
impress him; it seemed to him as the wild fancies of an enthusiast. (Mar_3:21) But the
moral teaching of Jesus impressed many of those who rejected His claims to be the
Messiah and it is this element which St. James remembers.
Before concluding, let us return to the moral precept contained in the verse which we
have been considering: "Above all things, my brethren, swear not." The prohibition has
not ceased to be necessary, as our daily, experience proves. The vice of profane swearing
(and all swearing about ordinary matters is profane) is a strange one. Where is the
pleasure of it? Where, before it becomes a fashion or a habit, is the temptation to it?
Where, in any case, is the sense of it? There is pleasure in gluttony, in drunkenness, in
lust, in pride, in avarice, in revenge. But where is the pleasure in an oath? The sensualist,
the hypocrite, the miser, and the murderer can at least plead strong temptation, can at
least urge that they get something, however pitiful, in exchange for eternal loss. But what
can the blasphemer plead? what does he get in exchange for his soul? In times of strong
excitement it is no doubt a relief to the feelings to use strong language; but what is
gained by making the strong language trebly culpable by adding blasphemy to it?
Besides which, there is the sadly common case of those who use blasphemous words
when there is no temptation to give vent to strong feeling in strong language, who
habitually swear in cold blood. Let no one deceive himself with the paltry excuse that he
cannot help it, or that there is no harm in it. A resolution to do something disagreeable
every time an oath escaped one’s lips would soon bring about a cure. And let those who
profess to think that there is no harm in idle swearing ask themselves whether they
expect to repeat that plea when they give an account for every idle word at the day of
judgment. (Mat_12:36)
HAWKER 12-20, "But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven,
neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay,
nay; lest ye fall into condemnation. (13) Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any
merry? let him sing psalms. (14) Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the

164. church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: (15)
And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have
committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. (16) Confess your faults one to another, and
pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous
man availeth much. (17) Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he
prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of
three years and six months. (18) And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the
earth brought forth her fruit. (19) Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one
convert him; (20) Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of
his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
I include the whole of these verses under one reading, for shortness sake. The things
here spoken of are too plain to need much observation. Prayer is here held forth in its
own strong features. For that prayer which is awakened by grace, cannot fail to be
answered in mercy. What the Apostle calls effectual, fervent prayer, means, in the
original, in wrought prayer. And it is in wrought by the Great Author and Enditer of
prayer, the Holy Ghost. Moreover, it is it! direct correspondence to the will of God, our
Father, Rom_8:26-27. And no less in perfect harmony with the intercession of the Lord
Jesus Christ, Joh_16:13-14; Joh_16:24. The righteous man here alluded to, can be no
other than Christ, who is, as John saith, our Advocate, 1Jn_2:2. Elias, that is, Elijah, is
spoken of by name, in proof how far the efficacy of inwrought prayer will reach. But, that
the answer to his prayers, arose not from any merit in himself, but wholly from being
accepted in Christ, is evident from what is said of him, a man subject to like passions as
we are; that is, born in the Adam-nature of the same fallen seed, of whom it is truly said,
there is none that doeth good, no not one, Rom_3:12. See the history of the success of
Elias’ prayer, 1Ki_17:1 and 1Ki_18:41 to the end.
I beg the Reader to attend, with some degree of earnestness, to the two last verses in this
Chapter, in order for the right apprehension. By the sinner here said to be converted
from error, cannot be supposed is meant one that was before unregenerate, for the
Apostle calls them brethren, and saith to them, if any of you do err. And though the Lord
is pleased, sometimes in the first awakenings from sin, to use instruments for this
purpose, yet, nowhere is it said, that these instruments convert. This is the Lord’s sole
work. Creating-work, and renewing-work, are both the Lord’s. It should seem to imply
no more than this, that if a child of God hath backslidden from the Lord, absented
himself from ordinances, neglected the means of grace, brought reproach upon the cause
of the Lord Christ, by his behaviour, and, for a while, seemeth to have gone back into the
world; and if the Lord, so disposing, sends one of his faithful ones, whether a minister,
or any other, after him, and under the Lord’s blessing he is brought back to the footsteps
of the flock, tell him, saith the Apostle, that he shall save a soul from death, that is, the
dead and dying state into which he had fallen, and shall be instrumental in the Lord’s
hand, to hide a multitude of sins; that is, not his sins whom the Lord employs in this
service, but the other’s, whose sins lay before open and uncovered to every observer’s
view. That this must be the real sense of the passage, is evident from the plainest truths
of God’s Holy Word. The saving a soul from death, can belong to none but God. Neither
can salvation be found, but in Christ, Act_4:12. And the conversion of the heart to God,
at the first, and the recovery of the soul in all the after-falls and deadenings of it, belong
only to the province of the Holy Ghost. But what a very sweet and gracious
encouragement is this scripture to the Church at large, and especially to those who labor
in the word and doctrine, to search, and seek out, as Jesus saith he will, and as Jesus
certainly doth, by his Holy Spirit, the sheep of Christ’s fold, in all places whither they are
scattered, in the dark and cloudy day. Precious Lord! do as thou hast said! Eze_34:12.

165. The Prayer of Faith
13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them
pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of
praise.
BAR ES, "Is any among you afflicted? - By sickness, bereavement,
disappointment, persecutions, loss of health or property. The word used here refers to
suffering evil of any kind, (κακοπαθεሏ kakopathei.)
Let him pray - That is, prayer is appropriate to trial. The mind naturally resorts to it,
and in every way it is proper. God only can remove the source of sorrow; he can grant
unto us “a happy issue out of all our afflictions;” he can make them the means of
sanctifying the soul. Compare 2Ch_33:12; Psa_34:4; Psa_107:6, Psa_107:13, Psa_
107:28. It matters not what is the form of the trial, it is a privilege which all have to go to
God in prayer. And it is an inestimable privilege. Health fails, friends die, property is
lost, disappointments come upon us, danger threatens, death approaches - and to whom
shall we go but to God? He ever lives. He never fails us or disappoints us if we trust in
him, and his ear is ever open to our cries. This would be a sad world indeed, if it were not
for the privilege of prayer. The last resource of millions who suffer - for millions suffer
every day - would be taken away, if men were denied the access to the throne of grace. As
it is, there is no one so poor that he may not pray; no one so disconsolate and forsaken
that he may not find in God a friend; no one so broken-hearted that he is not able to bind
up his spirit. One of the designs of affliction is to lead us to the throne of grace; and it is
a happy result of trials if we are led by our trials to seek God in prayer.
Is any merry? - The word merry now conveys an idea which is not properly found in
the original word here. It refers now, in common usage, to light and noisy pleasure; to
that which is jovial; to that which is attended with laughter, or which causes laughter, as
a merry jest. In the Scriptures, however, the word properly denotes “cheerful, pleasant,
agreeable,” and is applied to a state of mind free from trouble - the opposite of affliction
- happy, Pro_15:13, Pro_15:15; Pro_17:22; Isa_24:7; Luk_15:23-24, Luk_15:29, Luk_
15:32. The Greek word used here (εᆒθυµεሏ euthumei) means, literally, “to have the mind
well” (εሞ eu and θυµᆵς thumos;) that is, to have it happy, or free from trouble; to be
cheerful.
Let him sing psalms - That is, if anyone is happy; if he is in health, and is
prospered; if he has his friends around him, and there is nothing to produce anxiety; if
he has the free exercise of conscience and enjoys religion, it is proper to express that in

166. notes of praise. Compare Eph_5:19-20. On the meaning of the word here rendered “sing
psalms,” see the notes at Eph_5:19, where it is rendered “making melody.” It does not
mean to sing psalms in contradistinction from singing hymns, but the reference is to any
songs of praise. Praise is appropriate to such a state of mind. The heart naturally gives
utterance to its emotions in songs of thanksgiving. The sentiment in this verse is well
expressed in the beautiful stanza:
In every joy that crowns my days,
In every pain I bear,
My heart shall find delight in praise,
Or seek relief in prayer.
- Mrs. Williams.
CLARKE, "Is any among you afflicted? let him pray - The Jews taught that the
meaning of the ordinance, Lev_13:45, which required the leper to cry, Unclean! unclean!
was, “that thus making known his calamity, the people might be led to offer up prayers
to God in his behalf,” Sota, page 685, ed. Wagens. They taught also, that when any
sickness or affliction entered a family, they should go to the wise men, and implore their
prayers. Bava bathra, fol. 116, 1.
In Nedarim, fol. 40, 1, we have this relation: “Rabba, as often as he fell sick, forbade
his domestics to mention it for the first day; if he did not then begin to get well, he told
his family to go and publish it in the highways, that they who hated him might rejoice,
and they that loved him might intercede with God for him.”
Is any merry? let him sing psalms - These are all general but very useful
directions. It is natural for a man to sing when he is cheerful and happy. Now no subject
can be more noble than that which is Divine: and as God alone is the author of all that
good which makes a man happy, then his praise should be the subject of the song of him
who is merry. But where persons rejoice in iniquity, and not in the truth, God and sacred
things can never be the subject of their song.
GILL, "Is any among you afflicted?.... As the people of God generally are; they are
commonly a poor, and an afflicted people; at least there are many among them that are
so, and many are their afflictions: those whom Christ loves, as he did Lazarus, are not
free from sicknesses and diseases; and these are rather signs of love than arguments
against it; and when this is the case of any of the saints, what is to be done?
let him pray; to God that can save him; in the name of Christ; under the influence of
the Spirit; believing in the word of promise. Times of afflictions are proper times for
prayer; there is then more especially need of it; and God sometimes lays his afflicting
hand upon his people, when they have been negligent of their duty, and he has not heard
of them for some time, in order to bring them near to him, to seek his face, pay him a
visit, and pour out a prayer before him; see Psa_50:15.
Is any merry? in good heart and spirit, in a good frame of mind, as well as in
prosperous circumstances, in soul, body and estate:

167. let him sing psalms; let him not only be inwardly joyful, as he should be in prosperity,
and be thankful to God for his many mercies, temporal and spiritual, he enjoys; but let
him express it vocally, and melodiously, by singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs:
not that these are the only persons that are to sing psalms, or this the only time, any
more than that afflicted persons are the only ones that are to pray, or the time of
affliction the only time of prayer; but as affliction more especially calls for prayer, so
spiritual joy, and rejoicing in prosperous seasons, for singing of psalms: weeping, and
singing of psalms, were thought, by the Jews, inconsistent. Kimchi, on the title of the
third psalm, observes, that their Rabbins say, that when David went up the ascent of the
Mount of Olives, he wept; and if he wept, why is this called a psalm? and if a psalm, ‫למה‬
‫,בכה‬ "why did he weep?"
HE RY, "As Christians we are taught to suit ourselves to the dispensations of
Providence (Jam_5:13): Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry? Let
him sing psalms. Our condition in this world is various; and our wisdom is to submit to
its being so, and to behave as becomes us both in prosperity and under affliction.
Sometimes we are in sadness, sometimes in mirth; God has set these one over against
the other that we may the better observe the several duties he enjoins, and that the
impressions made on our passions and affections may be rendered serviceable to our
devotions. Afflictions should put us upon prayer, and prosperity should make us abound
in praise. Not that prayer is to be confined to a time of trouble, nor singing to a time of
mirth; but these several duties may be performed with special advantage, and to the
happiest purposes, at such seasons. 1. In a day of affliction nothing is more seasonable
than prayer. The person afflicted must pray himself, as well as engage the prayers of
others for him. Times of affliction should be praying times. To this end God sends
afflictions, that we may be engaged to seek him early; and that those who at other times
have neglected him may be brought to enquire after him. The spirit is then most humble,
the heart is broken and tender; and prayer is most acceptable to God when it comes from
a contrite humble spirit. Afflictions naturally draw out complaints; and to whom should
we complain but to God in prayer? It is necessary to exercise faith and hope under
afflictions; and prayer is the appointed means both for obtaining and increasing these
graces in us. Is any afflicted? Let him pray. 2. In a day of mirth and prosperity singing
psalms is very proper and seasonable. In the original it is only said sing, psalletō, without
the addition of psalms or any other word: and we learn from the writings of several in
the first ages of Christianity (particularly from a letter of Pliny's, and from some
passages in Justin Martyr and Tertullian) that the Christians were accustomed to sing
hymns, either taken out of scripture, or of more private composure, in their worship of
God. Though some have thought that Paul's advising both the Colossians and Ephesians
to speak to one another psalmois kai humnois kai ōdais pneumatikais - in psalms, and
hymns, and spiritual songs, refers only to the compositions of scripture, the psalms of
David being distinguished in Hebrew by Shurim, Tehillim, and Mizmorim, words that
exactly answer these of the apostle. Let that be as it will, this however we are sure of, that
the singing of psalms is a gospel ordinance, and that our joy should be holy joy,
consecrated to God. Singing is so directed to here as to show that, if any be in
circumstances of mirth and prosperity, he should turn his mirth, though alone, and by
himself, in this channel. Holy mirth becomes families and retirements, as well as public
assemblies. Let our singing be such as to make melody with our hearts unto the Lord,
and God will assuredly be well pleased with this kind of devotion.

168. JAMISO , "afflicted — referring to the “suffering affliction” (Jam_5:10).
let him pray — not “swear” in rash impatience.
merry — joyous in mind.
sing psalms — of praise. Paul and Silas sang psalms even in affliction.
CALVI , "13Is any among you afflicted? he means that there is no time in which
God does not invite us to himself. For afflictions ought to stimulate us to pray;
prosperity supplies us with an occasion to praise God. But such is the perverseness
of men, that they cannot rejoice without forgetting God, and that when afflicted
they are disheartened and driven to despair. We ought, then, to keep within due
bounds, so that the joy, which usually makes us to forget God, may induce us to set
forth the goodness of God, and that our sorrow may teach us to pray. For he has set
the singing of psalms in opposition to profane and unbridled joy; and thus they
express their joy who are led, as they ought to be, by prosperity to God.
BARCLAY, "A SI GI G CHURCH (James 5:13-15)
5:13-15 Is any among you in trouble? Let him pray. Is any in good spirits? Let him
sing a hymn. Is any among you sick? Let him call in the elders of the Church; and
let them anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord, and pray over him; and the
believing prayer will restore to health the ailing person, and the Lord will enable
him to rise from his bed; and even if he has committed sin, he will receive
forgiveness.
Here we have set out before us certain dominant characteristics of the early church.
It was a singing church; the early Christians were always ready to burst into song.
In Paul's description of the meetings of the Church at Corinth, we find singing an
integral part (1 Corinthians 14:15; 1 Corinthians 14:26). When he thinks of the
grace of God going out to the Gentiles, it reminds him of the joyous saying of the
Psalmist: "I will praise thee among the Gentiles, and sing to thy name" (Romans
15:9; compare Psalms 18:49). The Christians they speak to each other in psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in their hearts to the Lord
(Ephesians 5:19). The word of Christ dwells in them, and they teach and admonish
each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with
THA KFUL ESS in their hearts to the Lord (Colossians 3:16). There was a joy in
the heart of the Christians which issued from their lips in songs of praise for the
mercy and the grace of God.
The fact is that the heathen world has always been sad and weary and frightened.
Matthew Arnold wrote a poem describing its bored weariness.
"On that hard Pagan world disgust
And secret loathing fell;

169. Deep weariness and sated lust
Made human life a hell.
In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;
He drove abroad in furious guise
Along the Appian Way;
He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,
And crowned his hair with flowers--
o easier nor no quicker past
The impracticable hours."
In contrast with that weary mood the accent of the Christian is singing joy. That
was what impressed John Bunyan when he heard four poor old women talking, as
they sat at a door in the sun: "Methought they spake, as if joy did make them
speak." When Bilney, the martyr, grasped the wonder of REDEEMI Ggrace, he
said, "It was as if dawn suddenly broke on a dark night." Archibald Lang Fleming,
the first Bishop of the Arctic, tells of the saying of an Eskimo hunter: "Before you
came the road was dark and we were afraid. ow we are not afraid, for the
darkness has gone away and all is light as we walk the Jesus way."
Always the church has been a singing Church. When Pliny, governor of Bithynia,
wrote to Trajan, the Roman Emperor, in A.D. 111 to tell him of this new sect of
Christians, he said that his information was that "they are in the habit of meeting
on a certain fixed day before it is light, when they sing in alternate verses a hymn to
Christ as God." In the orthodox Jewish synagogue, since the Fall of Jerusalem in
A.D. 70, there has been no music, for, when they worship, they remember a tragedy;
but in the Christian Church, from the BEGI I G until now, there has been the
music of praise, for the Christian remembers an Infinite love and enjoys a present
glory.
A HEALI G CHURCH (James 5:13-15 CO TI UED)
Another great characteristic of the early church was that it was a healing Church.
Here it inherited its tradition from Judaism. When a Jew was ill, it was to the Rabbi
he went rather than to the doctor; and the Rabbi anointed him with oil--which
Galen the Greek doctor called "the best of all medicines"--and prayed over him.
Few communities can have been so devotedly attentive to their sick as the early
church was. Justin Martyr writes that numberless demoniacs were healed by the

170. Christians when all other exorcists had been helpless to cure them and all drugs had
been U AVAILI G. Irenaeus, writing far down the second century, tells us that the
sick were still healed by having hands laid on them. Tertullian, writing midway
through the third century, says that no less a person than the Roman Emperor,
Alexander Severus, was healed by anointing at the hands of a Christian called
Torpacion and that in his gratitude he kept Torpacion as a guest in his palace until
the day of his death.
One of the earliest books concerning Church administration is the Canons of
Hippolytus, which goes back to the end of the second century or the beginning of the
third. It is there laid down that men who have the GIFT of healing are to be
ordained as presbyters after investigation has been made to ensure that they really
do possess the gift and that it comes from God. That same book gives the noble
prayer used at the consecration of the local bishops, part of which runs: "Grant
unto him, O Lord...the power to break all the chains of the evil power of the
demons, to cure all the sick, and speedily to subdue Satan beneath his feet." In the
Clementine Letters the duties of the deacons are laid down; and they include the
rule: "Let the deacons of the Church move about intelligently and act as eyes for the
bishop.... Let them find out those who are sick in the flesh, and bring such to the
notice of the main body who know nothing of them, that they may visit them, and
supply their wants." In the First Epistle of Clement the prayer of the Church is:
"Heal the sick; raise up the weak; cheer the faint-hearted." A very early Church
code lays it down that each congregation must appoint at least one widow to take
care of women who are sick. For many centuries the Church consistently used
anointing as a means of healing the sick. In fact it is important to note that the
sacrament of unction, or anointing, was in the early centuries always designed as a
means of cure, and not as a preparation for death as it now is in the Roman Catholic
Church. It was not until A.D. 852 that this sacrament did, in fact, become the
Sacrament of Extreme Unction, administered to prepare for death.
The Church has always cared for her sick; and in her there has always resided the
gift of healing. The social gospel is not an appendix to Christianity; it is the very
essence of the Christian faith and life.
BE SO , "James 5:13. Is any among you afflicted? let him pray — That he may be
supported under his affliction, so as to be enabled to bear it with patience and
resignation to the divine will, and find it to be sanctified to him, and made the
means, as of exercising, so also of increasing his grace, and of purifying him as gold
and silver are purified in the furnace. Is any merry? — Is any in health, and in a
PROSPEROUScondition, and under no peculiar trial; let him sing psalms — Let
him give thanks to God, and express his thankfulness by singing psalms or hymns of
praise. The purport of the verse is, that, as believers in Christ, we ought to employ
ourselves in such private religious exercises as are suitable to our present
circumstances and frame of mind. “When rendered cheerful by contemplating the
manifestations which God hath made of his perfections in the works of creation,
providence, and redemption, or by any blessing bestowed on ourselves, we are to
express our joy, not by drinking, and singing profane, lewd songs, but by hymns of

171. praise and thanksgivings offered to God for all his mercies, Ephesians 5:18-19. On
the other hand, when afflicted, we are to pray; that being the best means of
producing in ourselves patience and resignation. But as the precept concerning our
singing psalms, when cheerful, does not imply that we are not to pray then; so the
precept concerning prayer in affliction, does not imply that we are not to express
our joy in suffering ACCORDI G to the will of God, by singing psalms or hymns,
as Paul and Silas did in the jail at Philippi.” — Macknight.
COFFMA , "Is any among you suffering? let him pray. Is any cheerful? let him
sing praise.
Here BEGI S a series of separate admonitions making up the final section of the
epistle.
Any suffering? ... let him pray ... This was, and is, the general rule for suffering of
all kinds; and it included even the SPECIAL cases alluded to in James 5:14 a
moment later. In a sense, all healing is divine. Over the main portal of the great
Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan, .Y., there are engraved the words:
"All healing is of God; physicians only bind up the wounds."
Any cheerful? ... let him sing praise ... Singing, from the earliest ew Testament
times, was used by the church for the purpose of sanctifying times of emotion,
whether joyful or sorrowful. As Harper pointed out, "Christian singing is supposed
to be the medium of the light and joyful as well as more serious sentiments."[39]
It is regrettable that commentators, for example, Tasker, and others drag into the
interpretation of this verse an attempted justification of instrumental music in
Christian worship, thus:
[@Psallo] originally meant to play by touching a stringed instrument ... it describes
the stirring of the soul ... it refers to every sounding of God's praises, whether in the
company of others or alone, whether vocally with or without musical
accompaniment, or silently.[40]SIZE>
It is a fact eloquently stated by F. F. Bruce that (concerning the Greek words
[@psallo] and [@psalmos] as used in this place) "Both are irrelevant to the question
of instrumental accompaniment, one way or the other."[41] For those interested in
pursuing the subject further, the scholarly work of J. W. Roberts settles the
question completely. " othing in the context indicates a meaning other than that of
vocal music."[42] o matter what the "original meaning" of [@psallo] might have
been, the instrument to be "plucked" is given in the sacred text; and it is not a
mechanical instrument, but the human voice.
God's church is a singing church. As early as 111 A.D., when Pliny wrote the
Emperor Trajan that the Christians assembled very "early on a fixed day and sang
by turns a hymn to Christ as God,"[43] until the present day, the churches of Christ
ring with the songs of praise and adoration. What a contrast this is with every other
religion ever known!

172. In the orthodox Jewish synagogue, since the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, there has
been no music, for, when they worship, they remember a tragedy; but, in the
Christian church, from the BEGI I G until now, there has been the music of
praise.[44]SIZE>
The Moslem shouts from his minaret at morning, noon and night, "To prayer! To
prayer!" The pagan temples for centuries resounded to the brassy cacophony of
trumpets and horns. The primitives of the African interior beat their tom-toms.
Only the Christian sings!
[39] A. F. Harper, op. cit., p. 245.
[40] R. V. G. Tasker, op. cit., p. 128.
[41] F. F. Bruce, Answers to Questions (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1972), p. 107.
[42] J. W. Roberts, op. cit., p. 163.
[43] Henry Bettenson, Documents of the Christian Church ( ew York and London:
Oxford U IVERSITY Press, 1947), p. 6.
[44] William Barclay, op. cit., p. 129.
COKE, "James 5:13. Is any among you afflicted? &c.— These two directions
concerning prayer when they were afflicted, and praise when they were easy and
cheerful, seem to refer to private devotion, and not to their public worship: for if
one person was afflicted, and another quite easy, what might suit one, would,
ACCORDI G to this rule of the apostle, have been unfit for the other: accordingly
it is put in the singular number.
ELLICOTT, "(13) We now pass on to advice of different kinds—to the heavy-laden
or light-hearted, to the suffering and afflicted. Prayer is to be the refuge of one,
praise the safeguard of another; the whole life is to revolve, as it were, around the
throne of God, whether in the night of grief or day of joy.
Let him pray.— o worthier comment can be found than Montgomery’s hymn—
“Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near.”
Long petitions, or many, cannot be always made; mind and body may be too weak
and ill; but ejaculations—“Arrows of the Lord’s deliverance,” as Augustine called

173. them, “shot out with a sudden quickness”—these are ever in the power of the
beleaguered Christian. And—
“More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of.”
Let him sing.—The word originally APPLIED to instrumental music, the Eastern
accompaniment of “psalms.” Praise, like prayer, ought to be individual as well as
congregational. Hymns might be used by all in their devotions, and could not fail to
be a blessing; while for those who have God’s great gift of music, it were surely
better to sing—as the Apostle urges—than to say. There is a sadness latent in the
most jubilant of earthly tunes, but not so with the heavenly; and quiring angels do
not scorn to catch our humblest notes, and weave them in their endless song, if they
be raised in thankfulness to Him Whom they and all creation praise.
BURKITT, "Here observe, 1. That affliction is a praying season. Prayer is a duty
never out of season, but never more in season than in and under affliction.
Observe, 2. That though the time of affliction be a special time when a saint prayeth,
yet it is not the only time, he prays at all times, because he loves to pray; he prays
then, because he especially stands then in need of prayer. A carnal heart has no
mind to the duty: he visits not God unless God visits him; but a good man prays
CO TI UALLY, prays without ceasing, in health and sickness, in poverty and
want; when the candle of the Lord shines about his tabernacles, as well as when he
walketh through darkness.
He that prays, makes music in the ears of God: he that sings psalms, performs a
duty suitable to his condition. Several conditions require several duties, and all
duties are to be performed suitably to our several conditions. Singing is proper to a
PROSPEROUS state; both to sing God's praises, and to sing to his praise; prayer is
proper to an afflicted condition; it is our best remedy, because it leads us to God our
best refuge: therefore if any be afflicted, let him pray to God to alleviate and
sanctify his affliction. Is any merry? let him sing psalms of praise to that God who
hath given him this cheerfulness of spirit.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, "Is any among you afflicted? let him pray.
Aflliction’s resource
The apostle here suggests the grand resource for affliction—it is God. We would render
the word “pray,” not in its narrower import of mere petitioning, but in its more enlarged
construction, of converse, of fellowship, with God.
I. GOD, THE EXCHANGE, THE COMPENSATION, FOR FORFEITED JOYS. If the poor
child of adversity would be persuaded to lift himself from that scene of his sore travail to
the fountain of supreme blessedness, to soar from that shipwreck of his creature joys to
the uncreated centre of joy, then would he solve the grand moral of affliction. There is
nothing but mockery in those spurious expedients of relief to which the worldling

174. resorts. But there is ineffable beatitude in God. What a transition! From “broken
cisterns, which can hold no water,” to “the fountain of living waters”; from fallacious and
treacherous joys to the fountain of perennial joy; from the very wreck and demolition of
earthly hopes to Him who is the sun and consummation of all hope. Even believers are
slow to make God their prime solace. They are prone to transfer themselves to some new
idol when one has been taken away; to dear with a morbid tenacity on visions of the
past; to feed on the dust and ashes of their own profuse lamentations—the morose
wakings of excessive grief. To all such the watchword prescribes itself—Betake you to
God.
II. GOD, THE CENTRE OF THE SOUL’S FELLOWSHIP. It is very marked, in the
history of affliction, what a charm communion of mind with mind exerts. If there be any
unison of sentiment at all, the reciprocity which occurs is most congenial; in point of fact
it is one of the expedients to which affliction betakes itself to arrest the converse of
kindred minds. There is probably no more potent creature resource. And we have only to
estimate what a transcendent charm must lie in fellowship with God, in communion
with Him who is consummate wisdom and excellence, and truth and benignity.
III. GOD, THE FOUNTAIN OF EXHAUSTLESS SYMPATHIES. There is nothing which
exerts such a charm in the hour of adversity as tender, sensitive fellow-feeling. And
hence the downcast and sorrowful seek some sympathetic bosom into which they may
pour their griefs. But for a sympathy surpassing all other sympathies, we point you to
Christ. Repair to that bosom, all fraught with fellow-feeling; throw thyself into the
embrace of that yearning tenderness.
IV. GOD, A PRESENT HELP IN TROUBLE. There are two aspects in which this holds
good. On the one hand, God is specially ready to ]end His ear in the day of His people’s
affliction; and, next, the succour which He supplies is specially adapted to their
emergency. (Adam Forman.)
Prayer in affliction
The family of the afflicted is a large one, and a wide-spread one. It forms a great nation
on the earth; and its members are to be found in every country, and in every rank and
condition of life. It is an old nation. The first human beings were the first members of it;
and an unbroken succession has kept it up ever since. This is the one nation in the world
that shows no symptom of decline or fall. It is an honourable nation. There was One
belonged to it whose name hallows it: our Blessed Redeemer was a Man of sorrows. The
wisest of men found that in much wisdom is much grief. Great forms of majesty: the just
whose memory is blessed, the kind whose memory is loved, the ancient seer, the inspired
apostle, the crowned martyr rise before the mind as it recalls the past, and reads the long
roll of afflicted men. It is our own nation. Affliction is the birthright of all. Some of you
feel it is so at this moment. Many have found it so, in the experience of departed days.
All will find it so, sooner or later. “Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray.” This is not
the prescription of mere worldly wisdom, for the cure of great grief. There is no difficulty
in this world in finding people who will give you advice as to what you ought to do, when
great sorrow comes your way; Try change of scene, they will say; Go to places that
suggest no sad associations and call up no bitter thoughts: Open your heart to the tide of
cheerfulness that is flowing all around you. Or perhaps they may say, Go into society.
Mix with your fellow-men. Or they will bid you trust to time—time the never-failing
comforter. Or, if nothing else will do—if your affliction be one that clings to your life, and
makes the condition of your being—then the worldly counsel would be to bear your grief

175. like a man. Now I do not mean to say, nor did the apostle mean to say, but what there is
some wisdom and some good in all these things. Still, the good man did not think that
any of these ways of meeting affliction was the best. His way is very shortly named. “Is
any among you afflicted? Let him pray!” No matter what be the cause of your affliction:
no matter what be the particular pang with which it rends your heart: no matter what be
the constitution of your body, or the complexion of your mind: here is a remedy which
the apostle prescribes, without explanation or restriction, for all sorts and conditions of
men. Surely then, if the apostle be right, there must be something very strange about
prayer. The diseases of the body are many; but then the remedies which physicians
prescribe for their cure are very various. But it seems that St. James was of opinion that
no afflicted man could ever do wrong when he turned to prayer. And probably we may
find the reason why the apostle attached such a mighty efficacy to prayer, when we
consider two things about it.
1. First, the afflicted person should pray, because prayer is the best way to bring
about the removal of his affliction. In speaking to Christian people, it is needless to
say that prayer does not consist of words vaguely cast adrift with no clear end: prayer
is a real speaking to a God who hears: a real asking Him for something, about which
He will consider whether or not it be good for us: and then our asking, if it be good
for us, will truly induce Him to give it us. And yet, I fear that all of us are often very
far from properly feeling what a great reality there is in the power of prayer. When a
friend you loved lay sick of some dangerous malady, tossing restlessly on a sleepless
pillow; and when you had mixed the composing draught and given it to his feverish
lips, and then lifted up your heart to God on his behalf, did you feel that that prayer
might be just as real a cause of repose or of convalescence as anything that medical
skill could suggest, or careful love supply? When you were involved in some
perplexing entanglement, were you sure that the silent moments you spent in prayer
to your Maker, were just as useful towards clearing up the way before you, as all the
address and prudence you were master of? Or, when sickness came your way, and
you counted weary days of unrest and suffering, were you then sure that the morning
and evening supplication might stand you in better steal than all your physician’s
skill? Do you, in short, remember every day of your life, that prayer is the best step
towards any end you are aiming at; and that, of all the means that tend to bring
about the purpose you are seeking to accomplish, prayer is the very last that you can
in prudence omit? If you fail to do all this, you are showing by your practice that you
do not truly feel the power of the agency which by prayer you can set in motion.
2. But I dare not say that prayer will certainly take away the affliction for the removal
of which you ask. It will do so only if it be God’s will it should; and He knows best
whether your prayer should be directly granted. It cannot be, then, that St. James
would have the afflicted pray, merely because by prayer they might reasonably expect
to get quit of their affliction: there must be something about prayer even more
salutary than its virtue to change the natural course of events: and apart altogether
from the hope that thus he may find escape from the cause of his sorrow, there must
be good reason in the nature of things why the afflicted man should pray. And such
reason there is. Prayer has been the talisman that has made years of constant pain to
be remembered as the happiest period of life; prayer is that which has made many a
poor sufferer tell that it was good for him or her to be afflicted, for affliction had
been the sharp spur to turn those feet into the narrow way, which otherwise might
have trodden the broad road to perdition. Prayer, earnest prayer offered in the
Saviour’s name, never yet went for nothing. If it did not bring the thing it asked for,
it brought the grace to do without it: but it never went to the winds. These sufferers

176. found it so. Day by day, gentle resignation kept stealing into their soul, till not a
thought ever disturbed their quiet, of what they might have been and were not: and
till, from the bottom of their heart, they could pity the worldling that pitied them.
For their affliction had been the severe discipline by which God had schooled them
for a better country, and weaned their affections from the things of time and sense.
(A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)
Christian varieties
I. CHRISTIANS ARE SUBJECT TO A VARIETY OF EXPERIENCE. “Afflicted.” “Merry.”
Suffering. Enjoyment.
1. They imply the existence of two opposite principles: good and evil.
2. The susceptibility of the human heart to the influences of circumstances. Like -
AEolian harp swept by wind. Emotions rise and fall with events.
3. The unsettledness of human life.
(1) All are subject to them.
(a) Both are found at the same time in different persons.
(b) Both are found at different times in the same persons.
(2) No one rests long in either.
(a) The change from the one to the other is sometimes sudden.
(b) the change from one to the other is sometimes extreme.
(3) They are necessary—
(a) To prevent evil. Pride on the one hand; despair on the other.
(b) To promote good. Complete development of character.
(4) They are under Divine control.
II. CHRISTIANS HAVE A CORRESPONDING “VARIETY OF RELIGIOUS DUTY TO
DISCHARGE. “Pray.” “Sing psalms.” This teaches—
1. The naturalness of religion. Instinctively men pray in troubles and sing in joy.
Nothing arbitrary in piety.
2. The permanence of religion. Whether God “gives” or “takes away,” the response is,
“Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
3. The value of religion.
(1) In affliction it teaches prayer. This means communion with God. He is
almighty, loving, unchangeable.
(2) In prosperity it teaches praises.
(a) Acknowledgment of the Author of it.
(b) Satisfaction with the measure of it.
(c) Enjoyment of the possession of it. Happiness is a religious duty;
recommends religion; most resembles heaven.

177. Conclusion:
1. Misery is possible in prosperity. Belshazzar, &c.
2. Joy is possible in adversity. “Rejoice in tribulation.”
3. Uniformity of experience and duty in heaven. No prayer; no affliction. All
prosperous; all sing. (B. D. Johns.)
Discipline of affliction
When one considers the amount of affliction which exists in the world, we may well
wonder that the simple remedy in the text is as yet an untasted medicine to so many. Can
it be that it is too simple? Can it be that, as there are so many who rate the efficacy of
drugs by their loathsomeness to the taste, so men would rather seek some painful
process or mighty labour than the simple means which God’s Word provides? Such,
indeed, was the temper of Naaman (2Ki_5:11-12). And it is no uncommon temper; for
men do not like to be treated like children, and they forget that unless they are so treated
they lose the children’s blessing, the children’s kingdom! He who struggles with
affliction without prayer struggles in his own strength alone, and rejects every other.
And what is this but struggling against God; wrestling with Him, but not as Jacob did;
and, therefore, coming off from the contest crippled indeed, but without the blessing
which the patriarch won? Thus, indeed, a heart may be in some measure and in a few
cases (for in the great number nature will rebel and revenge herself) hardened, rather
than strengthened, under suffering. But a miserable comfort it would be, even though
one did achieve a heart of stone! God grant that such an one may yet be smitten of God
until the waters of healing gush forth! And in what spirit can affliction be received by
persons who must believe, whether they will or no, that it comes from the hand of God?
If not in the spirit of prayer, in what spirit besides? Must it not be even in the spirit of
cursing? And cursing is a kind of miserable prayer; a prayer for evil, and not for good; a
prayer, in fact, to the evil one instead of God. Those who have earnestly and
perseveringly tried will not be at a loss to know the advantage of obeying the precept.
But it will not be without use and interest even for them to recall the times of their trial—
how they prayed, and how they were heard, in those extremities which brought them, as
it were, immediately before the footstool and the mercy-seat of the Lord. It may be that
they have never so prayed again—so passionately, so faithfully, so importunately! And it
may be that this will explain many a failure in faith and duty, many a relapse into sin,
which seemed impossible—ay, and was impossible—in the fervour of their devotion then
I But there are many besides who have never tried. And these may ask the question, half-
wondering, half-scoffing, “What will the afflicted man gain by praying? will he obtain the
removal of his affliction?” In some cases he may obtain even this, but for the most part
he will not. He must not expect it. Why should he expect it? How can he expect it, when
he has once understood that his affliction comes from God? For what purpose but for
good does God afflict those who pray to Him? And if for good, then, what good would it
be to have the tribulation removed before it has had its perfect work?
1. The first answer to our prayers is patience under the trial. This is but little, indeed,
in itself; but it is much when compared with anything that any other comforter can
give. It makes a Christian look into his own heart; and it tells him—yea, makes him
tell himself—how far less than his sins have deserved are all the chastisements which
are laid upon him—how well, how mercifully he is dealt with by the God against
whom he has sinned. And he has the conviction borne in upon his soul that he will

178. not be tried above that he is able to bear, but that with every trial there will be given
either the grace to withstand or a way to escape,
2. From patience, such patience as the mourner receives in answer to his prayer,
there is a short, a scarcely perceptible step to comfort; and yet, short as the step is,
this is a new gift, a most precious additional blessing. It dwells and reflects on the
visitation which has called it forth; it realises His presence in the cloud; and, behold,
the cloud becomes a pillar of fire giving light in the darkness! It sees the particular
points in which mercy has tempered His judgments, and it feels; even if it cannot see,
His lovingkindness interfused throughout the whole. And those who are thus
comforted have a further and most precious privilege—to comfort others as none else
can (2Co_1:3-4). It is the privilege of those who have been themselves cast into the
furnace to give assurance of the Son of God walking with them in the midst of the
fire. But comfort is not all we want; and God therefore gives us more.
3. More guidance we need, because our duties become by every trial new and
multiplied. More strength we feel that we need, because our affliction has taught us
our own weakness. But He has said that “His strength is sufficient for us; for in our
weakness is His strength made perfect.” He has taught His apostle, and us through
him, to say, “I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me”; as surely
as Christ Himself taught us that “apart from Him we can do nothing.”
4. And thus we are led on to look to the future: and that further blessing is revealed
to us which our affliction is to work—the blessing of faith in God. By this we become
no more servants, but friends, not only believing, but knowing what God doeth; not
only obeying, but working with Him, through Christ, in His work.
5. And this brings hope with it; a hope unlike the earthly hopes which we have seen
mocking us and coming to nought; or, if fulfilled, mocking us still more, till we
loathed their fulfilment, and despised ourselves for indulging in them; but this, a
hope that maketh not ashamed; for its root is in the love of God and the Holy Spirit
which He has given us; its blossom is in the multiplying graces with which the
Saviour rewards every step in our sanctification; and its fruit is found in the certainty
of that heavenly region where hope itself can no longer find a place, but dies into
fruition, as the night dies into the morning. And can more still be said? Yes! there is
one blessing further vouchsafed even in this world to those who are sanctified and
purified by suffering, so much beyond all comfort and all hope, that the Christian
who recognises it in the saints who are with Christ trembles and shrinks from
appropriating it to himself, lest the very chastisements of God should minister to
unchristian presumption. Yet it is written—written for our comfort and our glory—
written, too, for our warning, lest we fall from such privilege and grace—that the
children whom God chastises are thereby even conformed to the likeness of that only
begotten Son who is the brightness of His Father’s glory and the express image of
His person. And if these are the earthly fruits of God’s chastisements when sanctified
by prayer, what are the heavenly? If these are even the earthly fruits—as most truly,
most assuredly they are—who that has once tasted their power would pray for the
withdrawal of his affliction, for the removal of the earthly trial which is working the
eternal blessing? As we could not, as no Christian could pray—even though it were
possible—to do away with the redeeming sufferings of His Saviour; so we may not,
cannot wish deliverance from the sufferings whereby we are made unto Him. But as
He prayed more earnestly in His agony, so must we in ours—not that the cup be
removed, unless it be God’s will, but that all His visitations may have their perfect
work in us; that we may be indeed conformed to His likeness here; and that, with

179. those who as joint-heirs with Him have entered into their inheritance, we may have
our final consummation and bliss in His glory hereafter. (Dean Scott.)
Piety in unequal temporal conditions
1. Our temporal condition is various and diverse; now afflicted, and then merry. Our
prosperity is like glass, brittle when shining. The complaint of the Church may be the
motto of all the children of God (Psa_102:10).
2. This is the perfection of Christianity, to carry an equal pious mind in unequal
conditions (Php_4:12). Most men are fit but for one condition. Some cannot carry a
full cup without spilling. Others cannot carry a full load without breaking. Sudden
alterations perplex both body and mind. It is the mighty power of grace to keep the
soul in an equal temper.
3. Several conditions require several duties. The Christian conversation is like a
wheel—every spoke taketh its turn. God hath planted in a man affections for every
condition, grace for every affection, and a duty for the exercise of every grace, and a
season for every duty. The children of the Lord are “like trees planted by the rivers of
water, that bring forth their fruit in due season” (Psa_1:3). There is no time wherein
God doth not invite us to Himself. It is wisdom to perform what is most seasonable.
4. It is of excellent advantage in religion to make use of the present affection; of
sadness, to put us upon prayer; of mirth, to put us upon thanksgiving. The soul never
worketh more sweetly than when it worketh in the force of some eminent affection.
With what advantage may we strike when the iron is hot! When the affections are
stirred up on a carnal occasion, convert them to a religious use (Jer_22:10). When
the affections are once raised, give them a right object, otherwise they are apt to
degenerate and to offend in their measure, though their first occasion was lawful.
5. Prayer is the best remedy for sorrows. Griefs are eased by groans and utterance.
We have great cause in afflictions to use the help of prayer.
(1) That we may ask patience. If God lay on a great burden, cry for a strong back.
(2) That we may ask constancy (Psa_125:3).
(3) That we may ask hope, and trust and wait upon God for His fatherly love and
care.
(4) That we may ask a gracious improvement. The benefit of the rod is a fruit of
the Divine grace, as well as the benefit of the Word.
(5) That we may ask deliverance, with a submission to God’s will Psa_34:7).
6. Thanksgiving, or singing to God’s praise, is the proper duty in the time of mercies
or comforts. It is God’s bargain and our promise, that if He would “deliver us,” we
would “glorify Him” (Psa_50:15). Mercies work one way or another; they either
become the fuel of our lusts or our praises; either they make us thankful or wanton.
Your condition is either a help or a hindrance in religion. Awaken yourselves to this
service; every new mercy calleth for a new song.
7. Singing of psalms is a duty of the gospel. (T. Manton.)

180. Prosper in affliction
Who doubteth but God did mitigate the heaviness of Joseph, although He sent not hasty
deliverance in his long imprisonment; and that as He gave him favour in the sight of the
jailer, so inwardly also He gave him consolation in spirit? (John Knox.)
Prayer and praise voaths
(Jas_5:12)
Prayer and praise, or (in one word) worship, according to St. James, is the Christian
remedy for “allaying or carrying off the fever of the mind.” (A. Plummer, D. D.)
Use of sickness
During Dr. Payson’s last illness, a friend coming into his room said, “Well, I am sorry to
see you lying there on your back.” “Do you not know what God puts us on our backs
for?” said Dr. Payson, smiling. “No,” was the answer. “In order that we may look
upward.”
Is any merry? let him sing psalms
Religious worship a remedy for excitements
Indisposition of body shows itself in a pain somewhere or other—a distress which draws
our thoughts to it, impedes our ordinary way of going on, and throws the mind off its
balance. Such, too, is indisposition of the soul, of whatever sort, be it passion or
affection, hope or fear, joy or grief. It takes us off from the clear contemplation of the
next world, ruffles us, and makes us restless. In a word, it is what we call an excitement
of mind. Excitements are the indisposition of the mind; and of these excitements in
different ways the services of Divine worship are the proper antidotes. How they are so
shall now be considered.
1. Excitements are of two kinds—secular and religious. First, let us consider secular
excitements. Such is the pursuit of gain, or of power, or of distinction. Amusements
are excitements; the applause of a crowd, emulations, hopes, risks, quarrels,
contests, disappointments, successes. In such eases the object pursued naturally
absorbs the mind, and excludes all thoughts but those relating to itself. Thus a man
is sold over into bondage to this world. He has one idea, and one only before him,
which becomes his idol. The most ordinary of these excitements, at least in this
country, is the pursuit of gain. A man may live from week to week in the fever of a
decent covetousness, to which he gives some more specious name (for instance,
desire of doing his duty by his family), till the heart of religion is eaten out of him.
Now, then, observe what is the remedy. “Is any afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry?
let him sing psalms.” Here we see one very momentous use of prayer and praise to all
of us; it breaks the current of worldly thoughts. And this is the singular benefit of
stated worship, that it statedly interferes with the urgency of worldly excitements.
Our daily prayer, morning and evening, suspends our occupations of time and sense.
And especially the daily prayers of the Church do this. It is impossible (under God’s
blessing) for any one to attend the daily service of the Church “with reverence and
godly fear,” and a wish and effort to give his thoughts to it, and not find himself
thereby sobered and brought to recollection. What kinder office is there, when a man

181. is agitated, than for a friend to put his hand upon him by way of warning, to startle
and recall him? It often has the effect of saving us from angry words, or extravagant
talking, or inconsiderate jesting, or rash resolves. And such is the blessed effect of
the sacred services on Christians busied about many things, reminding them of the
one thing needful, and keeping them from being drawn into the great whirlpool of
time and sense.
2. Next, let us consider how religious excitements are set right by the same Divine
medicine. If we had always continued in the way of light and truth, obeying God from
childhood, doubtless we should know little of those swellings and tumults of the soul
which are so common among us. Men who have grown up in the faith and fear of
God have a calm and equable piety; so much so, that they are often charged on that
very account with being dull, cold, formal, insensible, dead to the next world. Now, it
stands to reason that a man who has always lived in the contemplation and
improvement of his gospel privileges, will not feel that agitating surprise and
vehemence of joy which he would feel, and ought to feel, if he had never known
anything of them before. The jailer, who for the first time heard the news of salvation
through Christ, gave evident signs of transport. This certainly is natural and right;
still, it is a state of excitement, and, if I might say it, all states of excitement have
dangerous tendencies. Now, this advice is often given: “Indulge the excitement;
when you flag, seek for another; live upon the thought of God; go about doing good;
let your light shine before men; tell them what God has done for your soul.” By all
which is meant, when we go into particulars, that they ought to fancy that they have
something above all other men; ought to neglect their worldly calling, or at best only
bear it as a cross; to join themselves to some particular set of religionists; to take part
in this or that religious society; go to hear strange preachers, and obtrude their new
feelings and new opinions upon others, at times proper and improper. If there was a
time when those particular irregularities, which now are so common, were likely to
abound, it was in the primitive Church. Men who had lived all their lives in the
pollutions of sin unspeakable, who had been involved in the darkness of heathenism,
were suddenly brought to the light of Christian truth. Their sins were all freely
forgiven them, clean washed away in the waters of baptism. A new world of ideas was
opened upon them, and the most astonishing objects presented to their faith. What a
state of transport must have been theirs! And what an excited and critical state was
theirs! Critical and dangerous in proportion to its real blessedness; for in proportion
to the privileges we enjoy, ever will be our risk of misusing them. How, then, did they
escape that enthusiasm which now prevails, that irreverence, immodesty, and
rudeness? If at any time the outward framework of Christianity was in jeopardy,
surely it was then. How was it the ungovernable elements within it did not burst
forth and shiver to pieces the vessel which contained them? How was it that for
fifteen hundred years the Church was preserved from those peculiar affections of
mind and irregularities of feeling and conduct which now torment it like an ague?
Now, certainly, looking at external and second causes, the miracles had much to do
in securing this blessed sobriety in the early Christians. These kept them from
wilfulness and extravagance, and tempered them to the spirit of godly fear. But the
more ordinary means was one which we may enjoy at this day if we choose—the
course of religious services, the round of prayer and praise, which, indeed, was also
part of St. Paul’s discipline, as we have seen, and which has a most gracious effect
upon the restless and excited mind, giving it an outlet, yet withal calming, soothing,
directing, purifying it. Let restless persons attend upon the worship of the Church,
which will attune their minds in harmony with Christ’s law, while it unburdens them.

182. Did not St. Paul “pray” during his three days of blindness? Afterwards he was
praying in the temple, when Christ appeared to him. Let this be well considered. Is
any one desirous of gaining comfort to his soul, of bringing Christ’s presence home
to his very heart, and of doing the highest and most glorious things for the whole
world? I have told him how to proceed. Let him praise God; let holy David’s psalter
be as familiar words in his mouth, his daily service, ever repeated, yet ever new and
ever sacred. Let him pray; especially let him intercede. Doubt not the power of faith
and prayer to effect all things with God. However you try, you cannot do works to
compare with those which faith and prayer accomplish in the name of Christ. (J. H.
Newman, D. D.)
A spirit religiously cheerful
When the poet Carpani inquired of his friend Haydn how it happened that his church
music was always so cheerful, the great composer made a most beautiful reply. “I
cannot,” he said, “make it otherwise. I write according to the thoughts I feel; when I
think upon God, my heart is so full of joy that the notes dance and leap, as it were, from
my pen; and since God has given me a cheerful heart, it will be pardoned me that I serve
Him with a cheerful spirit.”
A poor voice for psalm singing
Old Thomas Fuller, who was as noted for his quaintness as for the wisdom of his
remarks, had a defective voice; but he did not refuse to praise on this account. “Lord,” he
said, “my voice by nature is harsh and untunable, and it is vain to lavish any art to better
it. Can my singing of psalms be pleasing to Thine ears, which is unpleasant to my own?
Yet, though I cannot chant with the nightingale, or chirp with the blackbird, I had rather
chatter with the swallow than be altogether silent. Now what my music wants in
sweetness, let it have in sense. Yea, Lord, create in me a new heart, therein to make
melody, and I will be contented with my old voice, until in due time, being admitted into
the choir of heaven, I shall have another voice more harmonious bestowed upon me.” So
let it be with us. Let us ever sing in the same spirit and in the same joy and hope.
True merriment
Greek. εᆒθυµεሏ—is he right set, well hung on, as we say? All true mirth is from the
rectitude of the mind, from a right frame of soul that sets and shows itself in a cheerful
countenance. (J. Trapp.)
EBC, "WORSHIP THE BEST OUTLET AND REMEDY FOR EXCITEMENT -
THE CONNECTION BETWEEN WORSHIP AND CONDUCT.
THE subject of this verse was probably suggested by that of the preceding one. Oaths are
not a right way of expressing one’s feelings, however strong they may be, and of
whatever kind they may be. There is, however, no need to stifle such feelings, or to
pretend to the world that we have no emotions. In this respect, as in many others,
Christianity has no sympathy with the precepts of Stoicism or Cynicism. It is not only
innocent, but prudent, to seek an outlet for excited feelings; the right and wrong of the
matter lie in the kind of outlet which we allow ourselves. Language of some kind, and in
most cases articulate language, is the natural instrument for expressing and giving vent
to our feelings. But we need some strong safeguard, or the consequences of freely giving

183. expression to our emotions in speech will be calamitous. This safeguard is clearly
indicated by the rules here laid down by St. James. Let the expression of strongly excited
feelings be an act of worship; then we shall have an outlet for them which is not likely to
involve us in harmful results. By the very act in which we exhibit our emotions we
protect ourselves from the evil which they might produce. The very mode of expressing
them moderates them, and serves as an antidote to their capacity for evil. Prayer and
praise, or (in one word) worship, according to St. James, is the Christian remedy for
"allaying or carrying off the fever of the mind." In all cases in which the mind is greatly
agitated, whether painfully or pleasantly, whether by sorrow, anger, regret, or by joy,
pleasure, hope, -the wise thing to do is to take refuge in an act of worship.
Mental excitement is neither right nor wrong, any more than physical hunger or thirst.
Everything depends on the method of expressing the one or gratifying the other. It will
be easy in both cases to indulge a legitimate craving in such a way as to turn a natural
and healthy symptom into a disease. Neither a heated mind nor a heated body can
without danger be kept heated, or treated as if it was at its normal temperature. The
advice of St. James is that in all cases in which our minds are agitated by strong emotion
we should turn to Him who gave us minds capable of feeling such emotion; we should
cease to make ourselves our own center, and turn our thoughts from the causes of our
excitement to Him who is the unmoved Cause of all movement and rest.
We need not tie ourselves to the distribution of prayer and praise expressed in the text.
It is the most natural and most generally useful distribution; but it is not the only one,
and perhaps it is not the highest. The precept will hold good with equal truth if we
transpose the two conclusions: "Is any among you suffering? let him sing praise. Is any
cheerful? let him pray." "In everything give thanks," says St. Paul; which involves our
frequently giving thanks in suffering. This was what Job, to whom St. James has just
directed his readers, did in his trouble. He "fell upon the ground and worshipped: and he
said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither; the Lord
gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job_1:20-21).
And the Psalmist teaches much the same lesson as St. Paul: "I will bless the Lord at all
times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth". (Psa_34:1) But if praise is as
suitable as prayer for suffering, prayer is as suitable as praise for cheerfulness. He who is
cheerful has indeed great reason to bless and praise God. He has a priceless gift, which is
a blessing to himself and to all around him, a gift which makes life brighter to the whole
circle in which he moves. We most of us take far too little pains to cultivate it, to retain it
when it has been granted to us, to regain it when we have lost it or thrown it away. Yet
cheerfulness has its dangers. The light-hearted are apt to be light-headed, and to be free
from care leads to being free from carefulness. The cheerful may easily lose sobriety, and
be found off their guard. The remedy is prayer. Prayer steadies without dimming the
bright flame of cheerfulness; and just as thanksgiving sweetens sorrow, so supplication
sanctifies joy. "Is any suffering? let him sing praise. Is any cheerful? let him pray."
But there is another advantage in making religious worship, whether public or private,
the outlet for our emotions. It secures a real connection between worship and life.
Missionaries tell us that this is a frequent difficulty in their work. It is a hard enough
thing to win converts from heathenism; but it is perhaps still harder to teach the newly
converted that the worship of God has any bearing whatever upon their conduct. This
idea is quite strange to them, and utterly alien to their whole mode of thought. They have
never been taught anything of the kind before. They have been accustomed to regard the
worship of the gods as a series of acts which must be religiously performed in order to
win the favor of the deities, or at least to avert their Wrath. But it has never occurred to
them, nor have their priests impressed upon them, that their lives must be in accordance

184. with their worship, or that the one has any connection with the other, any more than the
color of their clothes with the amount that they eat and drink. From this it follows that
when the idolater has been induced to substitute the worship of God for the worship of
idols, there still remains an immense amount to be done. The convert has still to be
taught that there can no longer be this divorce of religion from conduct, but that prayer
and praise must go hand in hand with work and life.
Converts from heathenism are by no means the only persons who are in need of this
lesson. We all of us require to be reminded of it. All of us are apt to draw far too strong a
line of distinction between Church and home, between Sunday and week-day, between
the time that we spend on our knees and that which we spend in work and recreation.
Not, alas! that we are too scrupulous about allowing worldly thoughts to invade sacred
times and places, but that we are very jealous about allowing thoughts of God and of His
service to mingle with our business and our pleasures, or at least take no pains to bring
about and keep up any such mingling. Our worship is often profaned by being shared
with the world; our work is rarely consecrated by being shared with God.
What St. James recommends here is a remedy for this. There can be no wall of partition
between conduct and religion if our feelings of joy and sorrow, of elation and
despondency, of hope and fear, of love and dislike, are daily and hourly finding
expression in praise and prayer. Our emotions will thus become instruments for moving
us towards God. So much of life is filled with either vexation or pleasure, that one who
has learned to carry out the directions here given of turning suffering into prayer, and
cheerfulness into praise, will have gone a long way towards realizing the Apostolic
command, "Pray without ceasing." As Calvin well observes, St. James "means that there
is no time in which God does not invite us to Himself. For afflictions ought to stimulate
us to pray; prosperity supplies us with an occasion to praise God. But such is the
perverseness of men that they cannot rejoice without forgetting God, and when afflicted
they are disheartened and driven to despair. We ought, then, to keep within due bounds,
so that the joy which usually makes us forget God may induce us to set forth the
goodness of God, and that our sorrow may teach us to pray."
The word used by St. James for "to sing praise" (ψαλλειν) is worthy of notice. It is the
source of the word "psalm." Originally it meant simply to touch, especially to make to
vibrate by touching: whence it came to be used of playing on stringed instruments. Next
it came to mean to sing to the harp; and finally to sing., whether with or without a
stringed accompaniment. This is its signification in the New Testament; to Romans
(1Co_14:15; Eph_5:19) sing praise to God. St. James, therefore, regards music as a
natural and reasonable mode of expressing joyous feelings; and few will care to dispute
that it is so; and it is evident that he is thinking chiefly, if not exclusively, of the joyous
Christian singing by himself, rather than of his joining in psalms and hymns in the
public worship of the congregation. A portion of Hooker’s noble vindication of music as
a part of religious worship may here with advantage be quoted.
"Touching musical harmony, whether by instrument or by voice, it being but of high and
low in sounds a due proportional disposition, such, notwithstanding, is the force thereof,
and so pleasing effects it hath in that very part of man which is most divine, that some
have been thereby induced to think that the soul itself, by nature, is or hath in it
harmony. A thing which delighteth all ages and beseemeth all states; a thing as
seasonable in grief as in joy; as decent being added unto actions of greatest weight and
solemnity, as being used when men most sequester themselves from action. The reason
hereof is an admirable facility which music hath to express and represent to the mind,
more inwardly than any other sensible mean, the very standing, rising, and falling, the

185. very steps and inflections every way, the turns and varieties of all passions whereunto
the mind is subject; yea, so to imitate them that whether it resemble unto us the same
state wherein our minds already are, or a clean contrary, we are not more contentedly by
the one confirmed, than changed and led away by the other… So that although we lay
altogether aside the consideration of ditty or matter, the very harmony of sounds being
framed in due sort, and carried from the ear to the spiritual faculties of our souls, is by a
native puissance and efficacy greatly available to bring to a perfect temper whatsoever is
there troubled, apt as well to quicken the spirits as to allay that which is too eager,
sovereign against melancholy and despair, forcible to draw forth tears Of devotion if the
mind be such as can yield them, able both to move and to moderate all affections."
"The Prophet David having therefore singular knowledge, not in poetry alone, but in
music also, judged them both to be things most necessary for the house of God, left
behind him to that purpose a number of Divinely indited poems, and was farther the
author of adding unto poetry melody both vocal and instrumental, for the raising up of
men’s hearts, and the sweetening of their affections towards God. In which
considerations the Church of Christ doth likewise at this present day retain it as an
ornament to God’s service, and a help to our own devotion. They which, under pretence
of the Law ceremonial abrogated, require the abrogation of instrumental music,
approving nevertheless the use of vocal melody to remain, must show some reason
wherefore the one should be thought a legal ceremony, and not the other" ("Ecclesiastes
Pol.," 5. 38. 1, 2).
It hardly needs to be stated that it is not necessary to be able to sing in order to observe
this precept of St. James. The "singing and making melody with our hearts to the Lord"
of which St. Paul writes to the Ephesians (Eph_5:19) is all that is necessary; "giving
thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the
Father." The lifting up of the heart is enough, without the lifting up of the voice; and if
the voice be lifted up also, it is of little account, either to the soul or to God, whether its
tones be musical, always provided that he who thus offers praise is alone, and not in the
congregation. Those who have no music in their voices, and yet persist in joining aloud
in the singing of public service, are wanting in charity. In order to gratify themselves,
they disturb the devotions of others. And that principle applies to many other things in
public worship, especially to details of ritual other than those which are generally
observed. There would be much less difficulty about such things if each member of the
congregation were to ask, "By doing this, or by refusing to do it, am I likely to distract my
neighbors in their worship?" Ought not the answer to that question to be conclusive as
regards turning or not turning to the East at the creed, bowing or not bowing the head at
the Gloria Patri, and the like? We come to church to be calmed, sobered, soothed, not to
be fretted and vexed. Let us take care that our own behavior is such as not to irritate
others. By our self-will we may be creating or augmenting mental excitement, which, as
St. James tells us, worship, whether public or private, ought to cure.
SBC, "Religious Worship a Remedy for Excitements.
St. James seems to imply in these words that there is that in religious worship which
supplies all our spiritual need, which suits every mood of mind and every variety of
circumstances, over and above the heavenly and supernatural assistance which we are
allowed to expect from it. Prayer and praise seem in his view to be a universal remedy, a
panacea, as it is called, which ought to be used at once, whatever it be that affects us.
Excitements are the indisposition of the mind; and of these excitements in different ways

186. the services ’of Divine worship are the proper antidotes. How they are so shall now be
considered.
I. Excitements are of two kinds: secular and religious. First, let us consider secular
excitements. Such is the pursuit of gain, or of power, or of distinction. A man may live
from week to week in the fever of a decent covetousness, to which he gives some more
specious names, till the heart of religion is eaten out of him. One very momentous use of
prayer and praise with all of us is that it breaks the current of worldly thoughts. Our
daily prayer morning and evening suspends our occupations of time and sense, and
especially the prayers of the Church do this. The weekly services of prayer and praise
come to us as a gracious relief, a pause from the world, a glimpse of the third heaven,
lest the world should rob us of our hope and enslave us to that hard master who is
plotting our eternal destruction.
II. Next, let us consider how religious excitements are set right by the same Divine
medicine. Is any one desirous of gaining comfort to his soul, of bringing Christ’s
presence home to his very heart, and of doing the highest and most glorious thing for the
whole world? Let him praise God; let David’s holy Psalter be as familiar words in his
mouth, his daily service, ever repeated, yet ever new and ever sacred; let him pray:
especially let him intercede. Few are rich; few can suffer for Christ; all may pray. Other
men will not pray for themselves; you may pray for them and for the general Church;
and while you pray, you will find enough in the defects of your praying to remind you of
your own nothingness and to keep you from pride while you aim at perfection.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. iii., p. 336.
James 5:13-16
The Visitation of the Sick.
I. To understand the clause which refers to anointing with oil, it must be remembered
that in those early and simple days, when little was known about the structure of the
human frame, and the healing art resolved itself very much into a rude kind of surgery,
oil was regarded as a great restorative—as, indeed, it is now—and as the best form of
medicine. In the Old Testament, Isaiah speaks of wounds and bruises which have never
been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment; and in the New
Testament, when the good Samaritan bound up the wounds of the traveller to Jericho,
he gave oil as a medicine, and wine. Hence the application of oil is here prescribed
possibly as the means which it might please God to bless to the sick man’s recovery,
possibly only as a symbol of that recovery; but whether it be the prescribed means or
symbol, no greater perversion of a Scriptural passage can be imagined than that which
has found here a warrant for what Romanists call "extreme unction," that is, anointing,
as a religious ceremonial, a patient who is given over by a physician and about to die.
While we pray for the recovery of our sick friend, we must at the same time remember
that Almighty God works by means, and apply to the patient the remedies which a
medical man prescribes; in a word, modern medicine, of whatsoever kind it be,
corresponds to the ancient oil.
II. "If we have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." The Apostle naturally means,
if in respect to his particular sickness he have committed sins. In a general sense we have
all committed sins, and it is perfectly true that there is a deep connection between sin

187. and disease; but at the same time it cannot be said of a particular case of sickness that
the patient is suffering for his own sins.
III. Visitation of the sick may be made in the way of fraternal sympathy, as well as of
ministerial duty. That gracious acknowledgment of the King in the day of final account,
"I was sick, and ye visited Me," will surely not be made to the clergy only, but to all who
have brought the accents of sympathy and the consolations of religion to the bedside of
the sick and suffering.
E. M. Goulburn, Penny Pulpit, New Series, No. 241.
Reference: Jas_5:14.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 132.
14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the
elders of the church to pray over them and anoint
them with oil in the name of the Lord.
BAR ES, "Is any sick among you? - In the previous verse the reference was to
affliction in general, and the duty there urged was one that was applicable to all forms of
trial. The subject of sickness, however, is so important, since it so often occurs, that a
specific direction was desirable. That direction is to call in the aid of others to lead our
thoughts, and to aid us in our devotions, because one who is sick is less able to direct his
own reflections and to pray for himself than he is in other form of trial. Nothing is said
here respecting the degree of sickness, whether it is that which would be fatal if these
means were used or not; but the direction pertains to any kind of illness.
Let him call for the elders of the church - Greek “presbyters.” See the notes at
Act_15:2; Act_11:30. It cannot be supposed that this refers to the apostles, for it could
not be that they would be always accessible; besides, instructions like this were designed
to have a permanent character, and to be applicable to the church at all times and in all
places. The reference, therefore, is doubtless to the ordinary religious teachers of the
congregation; the officers of the church intrusted with its spiritual interests. The spirit of
the command would embrace those who are pastors, and any others to whom the
spiritual interests of the congregation are confided - ruling elders, deacons, etc. If the
allusion is to the ordinary officers of the church, it is evident that the cure to be hoped
for Jam_5:15 was not miraculous, but was that to be expected in the use of appropriate
means accompanied by prayer.
It may be added, as worthy of note, that the apostle says they should “call” for the
elders of the church; that is, they should send for them. They should not wait for them to
hear of their sickness, as they might happen to, but they should cause them to be
informed of it, and give them an opportunity of visiting them and praying with them.
Nothing is more common than for persons - even members of the church - to be sick a

188. long time, and to presume that their pastor must know all about it; and then they
wonder that he does not come to see them, and think hard of him because he does not. A
pastor cannot be supposed to know everything; nor can it be presumed that he knows
when persons are sick, any more than he can know anything else, unless he is apprized
of it; and many hard thoughts, and many suspicions of neglect would be avoided, if,
when persons are sick, they would in some way inform their pastor of it. It should always
be presumed of a minister of the gospel that he is ready to visit the sick. But how can he
go unless he is in some way apprized of the illness of those who need his counsel and his
prayers? The sick send for their family physician; why should they presume that their
pastor will know of their illness any more than that their physician will?
And let them pray over him - With him, and for him. A man who is sick is often
little capable of praying himself; and it is a privilege to have some one to lead his
thoughts in devotion. Besides, the prayer of a good man may be of avail in restoring him
to health, Jam_5:15. Prayer is always one important means of obtaining the divine favor,
and there is no place where it is more appropriate than by the bed-side of sickness. That
relief from pain may be granted; that the mind may be calm and submissive; that the
medicines employed may be blessed to a restoration to health; that past sins may be
forgiven; that he who is sick may be sanctified by his trials; that he may be restored to
health, or prepared for his “last change” - all these are subjects of prayer which we feel to
be appropriate in such a case, and every sick man should avail himself of the aid of those
who “have an interest at the throne of grace,” that they may be obtained.
Anointing him with oil - Oil, or unguents of various kinds, were much used among
the ancients, both in health and in sickness. The oil which was commonly employed was
olive oil. See the Isa_1:6 note; Luk_10:34 note. The custom of anointing the sick with oil
still prevails in the East, for it is believed to have medicinal or healing properties.
Niebuhr (Beschrieb. von Arabien, s. 131) says, “The southern Arabians believe that to
anoint with oil strengthens the body, and secures it against the oppressive heat of the
sun, as they go nearly naked. They believe that the oil closes the pores of the skin, and
thus prevents the effect of the excessive heat by which the body is so much weakened;
perhaps also they regard it as contributing to beauty, by giving the skin a glossy
appearance. I myself frequently have observed that the sailors in the ships from Dsjidda
and Loheia, as well as the common Arabs in Tehama, anointed their bodies with oil, in
order to guard themselves against the heat. The Jews in Mocha assured Mr. Forskal, that
the Mohammedans as well as the Jews, in Sana, when they were sick, were accustomed
to anoint the body with oil.” Rosenmuller, Morgenland, in loc.
In the name of the Lord - By the authority or direction of the Lord; or as an act in
accordance with his will, and that will meet with his approbation. When we do anything
that tends to promote virtue, to alleviate misery, to instruct ignorance, to save life, or to
prepare others for heaven, it is right to feel that we are doing it in the name of the Lord
Compare, for such uses of the phrase “in the name of the Lord,” and “in my name,” Mat_
10:22; Mat_18:5, Mat_18:20; Mat_19:29; Mat_24:9; Mar_9:41; Mar_13:13; Luk_21:12,
Luk_21:17; Rev_2:3; Col_3:17. There is no reason to think that the phrase is used here
to denote any peculiar religious rite or “sacrament.” It was to be done in the name of the
Lord, as any other good deed is.
CLARKE, "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders - This was also a
Jewish maxim. Rabbi Simeon, in Sepher Hachaiyim, said: “What should a man do who
goes to visit the sick? Ans. He who studies to restore the health of the body, should first
lay the foundation in the health of the soul. The wise men have said, No healing is equal

189. to that which comes from the word of God and prayer. Rabbi Phineas, the son of
Chamma, hath said, ‘When sickness or disease enters into a man’s family, let him apply
to a wise man, who will implore mercy in his behalf.’“ See Schoettgen.
St. James very properly sends all such to the elders of the Church, who had power with
God through the great Mediator, that they might pray for them.
Anointing him with oil - That St. James neither means any kind of incantation, any
kind of miracle, or such extreme unction as the Romish Church prescribes, will be
sufficiently evident from these considerations:
1. Be was a holy man, and could prescribe nothing but what was holy.
2. If a miracle was intended, it could have been as well wrought without the oil, as
with it.
3. It is not intimated that even this unction is to save the sick man, but the prayer of
faith, Jam_5:15.
4. What is here recommended was to be done as a natural means of restoring health,
which, while they used prayer and supplication to God, they were not to neglect.
5. Oil in Judea was celebrated for its sanative qualities; so that they scarcely ever
took a journey without carrying oil with them, (see in the case of the Samaritan),
with which they anointed their bodies, healed their wounds, bruises, etc.
6. Oil was and in frequently used in the east as a means of cure in very dangerous
diseases; and in Egypt it is often used in the cure of the plague. Even in Europe it
has been tried with great success in the cure of dropsy. And pure olive oil is
excellent for recent wounds and bruises; and I have seen it tried in this way with
the best effects.
7. But that it was the custom of the Jews to apply it as a means of healing, and that
St. James refers to this custom, is not only evident from the case of the wounded
man ministered to by the good Samaritan, Luk_10:34, but from the practice of the
Jewish rabbins. In Midrash Koheleth, fol. 73, 1, it is said: “Chanina, son of the
brother of the Rabbi Joshua, went to visit his uncle at Capernaum; he was taken
ill; and Rabbi Joshua went to him and anointed him with oil, and he was restored.”
They had, therefore, recourse to this as a natural remedy; and we find that the
disciples used it also in this way to heal the sick, not exerting the miraculous power
but in cases where natural means were ineffectual. And they cast out many devils,
and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them; Mar_6:13. On this
latter place I have supposed that it might have been done symbolically, in order to
prepare the way for a miraculous cure: this is the opinion of many commentators;
but I am led, on more mature consideration, to doubt its propriety, yet dare not
decide. In short, anointing the sick with oil, in order to their recovery, was a
constant practice among the Jews. See Lightfoot and Wetstein on Mar_6:13. And
here I am satisfied that it has no other meaning than as a natural means of
restoring health; and that St. James desires them to use natural means while
looking to God for an especial blessing. And no wise man would direct otherwise.
8. That the anointing recommended here by St. James cannot be such as the Romish
Church prescribes, and it is on this passage principally that they found their
sacrament of extreme unction, is evident from these considerations:
1. St. James orders the sick person to be anointed in reference to his cure; but they
anoint the sick in the agonies of death, when there is no prospect of his recovery;
and never administer that sacrament, as it is called, while there is any hope of

190. life.
2. St James orders this anointing for the cure of the body, but they apply it for the
cure of the soul; in reference to which use of it St. James gives no directions: and
what is said of the forgiveness of sins, in Jam_5:15, is rather to be referred to
faith and prayer, which are often the means of restoring lost health, and
preventing premature death, when natural means, the most skillfully used, have
been useless.
3. The anointing with oil, if ever used as a means or symbol in working miraculous
cures, was only applied in some cases, perhaps very few, if any; but the Romish
Church uses it in every case; and makes it necessary to the salvation of every
departing soul. Therefore, St. James’ unction, and the extreme unction of the
Romish Church, are essentially different. See below.
GILL, "Is any sick among you?.... Which is often the case; the bodies of the saints,
as well as others, are liable to a variety of diseases; they are sick, and sometimes nigh
unto death, as Epaphroditus was: and then,
let him call for the elders of the church; in allusion to the elders of the
congregation of Israel, Lev_4:15. By these may be meant, either the elder members of
the church, men of gravity and soundness in the faith, persons of long standing and
experience; who have the gift and grace of prayer, and are not only capable of
performing that duty, but of giving a word of counsel and advice to the sick. It was a kind
of proverbial saying of Aristophanes the grammarian;
"the works of young men, the counsels of middle aged persons, and ευχαι γεροντων, "the
prayers of ancient men" (z):''
or rather officers of churches are meant, particularly pastors, who are so called in
Scripture; these should be sent for in times of sickness, as well as physicians; and rather
than they, since their prayers may be the means of healing both soul and body: so in
former times, the prophets of God were sent to in times of sickness, for advice and
assistance. It is a saying of R. Phinehas ben Chama (a) that
"whoever has a sick person in his house, let him go to a wise man, and he will seek mercy
for him.''
And it follows here,
and let them pray over him; or for him, for the recovery of his health:
anointing him with oil, in the name of the Lord; which some think was only done
in a common medicinal way, oil being used much in the eastern countries for most
disorders; and so these elders used ordinary medicine, as well as prayer: or rather this
refers to an extraordinary gift, which some elders had of healing diseases, as sometimes
by touching, and by laying on of hands, or by expressing some words, and so by
anointing with oil; see Mar_6:13 which extraordinary gifts being now ceased, the rite or
ceremony of anointing with oil ceases in course: however, this passage gives no
countenance to the extreme unction of the Papists; that of theirs being attended with

191. many customs and ceremonies, which are not here made mention of; that being used, as
is pretended, for the healing of the souls of men, whereas this was used for corporeal
healing; that is only performed when life is despaired of, and persons are just going out
of the world; whereas this was made use of to restore men to health, and that they might
continue longer in it, as follows.
HE RY, "We have particular directions given as to sick persons, and healing
pardoning mercy promised upon the observance of those directions. If any be sick, they
are required, 1. To send for the elders, presbuterous tēs ekkēsias - the presbyters, pastors
or ministers of the church, Jam_5:14, Jam_5:15. It lies upon sick people as a duty to
send for ministers, and to desire their assistance and their prayers. 2. It is the duty of
ministers to pray over the sick, when thus desired and called for. Let them pray over
him; let their prayers be suited to his case, and their intercessions be as becomes those
who are affected wit his calamities. 3. In the times of miraculous healing, the sick were
to be anointed with oil in the name of the Lord. Expositors generally confine this
anointing with oil to such as had the power of working miracles; and, when miracles
ceased, this institution ceased also. In Mark's gospel we read of the apostle's anointing
with oil many that were sick, and healing them, Mar_6:13. And we have accounts of this
being practiced in the church two hundred years after Christ; but then the gift of healing
also accompanied it, and, when the miraculous gift ceased, this rite was laid aside. The
papists indeed have made a sacrament of this, which they call the extreme unction. They
use it, not to heal the sick, as it was used by the apostles; but as they generally run
counter to scripture, in the appointments of their church, so here they ordain that this
should be administered only to such as are at the very point of death. The apostle's
anointing was in order to heal the disease; the popish anointing is for the expulsion of
the relics of sin, and to enable the soul (as they pretend) the better to combat with the
powers of the air. When they cannot prove, by any visible effects, that Christ owns them
in the continuance of this rite, they would however have people to believe that the
invisible effects are very wonderful. But it is surely much better to omit this anointing
with oil than to turn it quite contrary to the purposes spoken of in scripture. Some
protestants have thought that this anointing was only permitted or approved by Christ,
not instituted. But it should seem, by the words of James here, that it was a thing
enjoined in cases where there was faith for healing. And some protestants have argued
for it with this view. It was not to be commonly used, not even in the apostolical age; and
some have thought that it should not be wholly laid aside in any age, but that where
there are extraordinary measures of faith in the person anointing, and in those who are
anointed, an extraordinary blessing may attend the observance of this direction for the
sick. However that be, there is one thing carefully to be observed here, that the saving of
the sick is not ascribed to the anointing with oil, but to prayer:
JAMISO , "let him call for the elders — not some one of the elders, as Roman
Catholics interpret it, to justify their usage in extreme unction. The prayers of the elders
over the sick would be much the same as though the whole Church which they represent
should pray [Bengel].
anointing him with oil — The usage which Christ committed to His apostles was
afterwards continued with laying on of hands, as a token of the highest faculty of
medicine in the Church, just as we find in 1Co_6:2 the Church’s highest judicial
function. Now that the miraculous gift of healing has been withdrawn for the most part,
to use the sign where the reality is wanting would be unmeaning superstition. Compare
other apostolic usages now discontinued rightly, 1Co_11:4-15; 1Co_16:20. “Let them use

192. oil who can by their prayers obtain recovery for the sick: let those who cannot do this,
abstain from using the empty sign” [Whitaker]. Romish extreme unction is administered
to those whose life is despaired of, to heal the soul, whereas James’ unction was to heal
the body. Cardinal Cajetan [Commentary] admits that James cannot refer to extreme
unction. Oil in the East, and especially among the Jews (see the Talmud, Jerusalem and
Babylon), was much used as a curative agent. It was also a sign of the divine grace.
Hence it was an appropriate sign in performing miraculous cures.
in the name of the Lord — by whom alone the miracle was performed: men were
but the instruments.
CALVI , "14Is any sick among you. As the gift of healing as yet CO TI UED, he
directs the sick to have recourse to that remedy. It is, indeed, certain that they were
not all healed; but the Lord granted this favor as often and as far as he knew it
would be expedient; nor is it probable that the oil was indiscriminately applied, but
only when there was some hope of restoration. For, together with the power there
was given also discretion to the ministers, lest they should by abuse profane the
symbol. The design of James was no other than to commend the grace of God which
the faithful might then enjoy, lest the benefit of it should be lost through contempt
or neglect.
For this purpose he ORDERED the presbyters to be sent for, but the use of the
anointing must have been confined to the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Papists boast mightily of this passage, when they seek to pass off their extreme
unction. But how different their corruption is from the ancient ordinance mentioned
by James I will not at present undertake to shew. Let readers learn this from my
Institutes. I will only say this, that this passage is wickedly and ignorantly
perverted; when extreme unction is established by it, and is called a sacrament, to
be perpetually observed in the Church. I indeed allow that it was used as a
sacrament by the disciples of Christ, (for I cannot agree with those who think that it
was medicine;) but as the reality of this sign CO TI UED only for a time in the
Church, the symbol also must have been only for a time. And it is quite evident, that
nothing is more absurd than to call that a sacrament which is void and does not
really present to us that which it signifies. That the gift of healing was temporary, all
are constrained to allow, and events clearly prove: then the sign of it ought not to be
deemed perpetual. It hence follows, that they who at this day set anointing among
the sacraments, are not the true followers, but the apes of the Apostles, except they
restore the effect produced by it, which God has taken away from the world for
more than fourteen hundred years. So we have no dispute, whether anointing was
once a sacrament; but whether it has been given to be so perpetually. This latter we
deny, because it is evident that the thing signified has long ago ceased.
The presbyters, or elders, of the church. I include here generally all those who
presided over the Church; for pastors were not alone called presbyters or elders,
but also those who were chosen from the people to be as it were censors to
PROTECT discipline. For every Church had, as it were, its own senate, chosen from

193. men of weight and of proved integrity. But as it was customary to choose especially
those who were endued with gifts more than ordinary, he ordered them to send for
the elders, as being those in whom the power and grace of the Holy Spirit more
particularly appeared.
Let them pray over him. This custom of praying over one was intended to shew, that
they stood as it were before God; for when we come as it were to the very scene
itself, we utter prayers with more feeling; and not only Elisha and Paul, but Christ
himself, roused the ardor of prayer and commended the grace of God by thus
praying over persons. (2 Kings 4:32; Acts 20:10; John 11:41.)
BE SO , "James 5:14-15. Is any sick? let him call for the elders of the church —
Those ministers of Christ whose office it is to oversee and feed the flock; and let
them pray over him — For his recovery, persuaded that what two or three of the
Lord’s true disciples shall AGREE to ask, it shall be done for them; anointing him
with oil — “This single conspicuous gift, (healing the sick by anointing them with
oil,) which Christ committed to his apostles, (Mark 6:13,) remained in the church
long after the other miraculous gifts were withdrawn. Indeed it seems to have been
designed to remain always, and St. James directs the elders, who were the most, if
not the only gifted men, to administer it. This was the whole PROCESS of physic in
the Christian Church till it was lost through unbelief. That novel invention among
the Romans, extreme unction, practised not for cure, but where life is despaired of,
bears no manner of resemblance to this.” See Bengelius and Wesley. And the prayer
offered in faith shall save, or heal, the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up — From
his sickness; and if he have committed sins — That is, any special sins, for which
this sickness has been laid upon him; they shall be forgiven him — Upon his
repentance the punishment shall be taken off.
COFFMA , "Is any among you sick? let him call for the elders of the church; and
let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the
prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he
have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him.
James in this remarkable paragraph plainly has under consideration the
charismatic gift of healing, one of the SPECIAL gifts that attended the early
propagation of Christianity for the purpose of CO FIRMI G the word of God. As
Tasker succinctly put it:
It is probable that the mention of oil in this passage is to be regarded as one of the
accompaniments of that miraculous healing which was no infrequent occurrence in
the apostolic age, and is regarded in the ew Testament as a supernatural sign
vindicating the truth of the Christian gospel in the early days of its proclamation.
[45]SIZE>
Supporting this view is the fact of the apostles, upon the Lord's instructions, using
such a method when they were first sent out by Jesus (Mark 6:13).
An objection to this view has been founded on the fact that the ew Testament does
not say that "the elders" were the ones who usually possessed such gifts;

194. nevertheless, the passage here may be interpreted as implying that very thing, an
implication that is certainly not contradicted by anything else in the ew Testament.
It is inherently reasonable that the very ones usually endowed by the Holy Spirit
with those special gifts would have been, of course, the elders of the church. The
miraculous gift of healing was the fourth in Paul's list of nine such gifts (1
Corinthians 12:9).
The understanding of this place is further illuminated by the words of Roberts:
Since it is clearly demonstrated from the ew Testament that such miraculous aid
EXISTED in the church of that age,
and since this healing would be more certain to OFFER aid to the sick, it would
seem that it might be expected that the instructions of James concern the miraculous
healings.[46]SIZE>
Punchard's quotation from Bishop Browne follows this same line of interpretation,
thus:
The aim of the apostolic anointing was bodily recovery, and this exactly corresponds
with the miraculous cures of early ages ... so long as such powers remained in the
church, it was reasonable that the anointing of the sick should be retained.[47]
SIZE>
Another objection to this view has been based upon the "absence from this passage
of `laying on of hands' usually mentioned in CO ECTIO with the miraculous
GIFT";[48] but since the anointing with oil would necessarily involve "laying on of
hands," the objection refutes itself. Carson recognized the interpretation adopted
here in saying that "Some believe that we have here the exercise of the miraculous
gift of healing."[49] From the citations here, it is clear enough that our
interpretation does not lack scholarly support.
EXTREME U CTIO
Any interpretation of this passage must take ACCOU T of the Roman Catholic
doctrine of extreme unction which is erroneously based upon it. The footnote in the
Douay Bible has this: "St. James promulgated here the Sacrament of Extreme
Unction. Presbyters is certainly used here in the sense of priests."[50]
James did not promulgate the doctrine mentioned. Indeed, it was never even heard
of in the Catholic Church itself until centuries after the ew Testament was written.
In the twelfth century, Petrus Lombardus named this as the fifth of the Roman
sacraments; and three centuries later the Council of Trent established the Catholic
sacrament as we know it today.[51]SIZE>
Regarding the notion that "presbyters," as James used the word here, actually
means "priests," this is a preposterous ERROR. There is not a single instance of
any such meaning pertaining to "presbyters" in the whole ew Testament.

195. Of the many contradictions in the Roman "sacrament" against the ew Testament
itself, the following may be OTED: (1) The end in view in this passage is the
recovery of the patient; in "extreme unction," it is his death which is imminent. (2)
In the ew Testament, it is the elders of the church who were to be called; in
"extreme unction," it is a priest. (3) In the ew Testament, it is the bodily recovery
of the patient; in "extreme unction," it is the alleged salvation of the soul that is
accomplished. "Anointing in the name of the Lord" does not mean that a so-called
"sacrament" is in view; because, as Lenski pointed out, "All that we do in word or
in deed is done `in the name of the Lord' (Colossians 3:17).[52]
Before leaving these two verses, the sharp distinction between James 5:13 and James
5:14,15 should be marked. The rule for all ages includes prayer for the suffering
(James 5:13); the special rule for the miraculous healing still available when James
wrote is given in the next two verses. For those who believe that miraculous cures
are still being effected, the consideration should be pondered that such "cures"
carry no universal conviction, being neither like the truly miraculous cures of the
ew Testament, nor in any manner serving to CO FIRM the word of the Lord.
Those "performing" the cures are also different. Instead of being humble servants
of God who never took money for their miracles, the self-glorified "faith-healers" of
today have made themselves fantastically rich; and far from being infallible, as were
the apostles, in the performance of their wonders, the modern miracle workers fail
more often than they succeed, and countless thousands have sought them in vain.
Such considerations as these should give pause to any who might suppose that the
power James mentioned in these verses is anywhere on earth available to men today.
[45] R. V. G. Tasker, op. cit., p. 130.
[46] J. W. Roberts, op. cit., p. 169.
[47] E. G. Punchard, op. cit., p. 380.
[48] T. Carson, op. cit., p. 591.
[49] Ibid.
[50] The Douay Bible ( ew York: Catholic Book Publishing Company, 1949), in
loco.
[51] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 665.
[52] Ibid., p. 663.
COKE, "James 5:14.— In the first age of Christianity, the miraculous gifts of the
Spirit were very common: it appears too, that when the Christians behaved very
unbecoming their character and profession, God sent down some diseases upon
them, as a punishment for those particular sins. Such of them as laboured under
sickness or other bodily disorders on that ACCOU T, are here advised to send for

196. the elders of the Christian church, who had generally the power of miraculously
healing diseases; that upon the repentance of the sick person, and the inspired
prayer of the elders, such diseases might be cured, as one proof that the sins which
had occasioned them were remitted.
Is any sick? &c.— The word ' Ασθενεν does not always signify "to labour under a
mortal disease," though it appears to do so in this place; for it seems to be supposed
of the sick person, concerning whom the apostle is here speaking, that he would
have died of that particular disorder, unless his death had been prevented by a
miraculous cure. Who the elders were, see on 1 Timothy 5:17. Let them pray over
him, says the apostle, having anointed him with oil. In the former part of this
direction there seems to be an allusion to the laying on of hands, which was used
sometimes in the working of miraculous cures, according to our Lord's ORDER,
Mark 16:18. The elders were first to anoint the sick person with oil, and afterwards
to lay their hands upon him, and pray for his miraculous cure and recovery. When
our Lord first sent out his apostles, we find that they anointed with oil many sick
persons, and healed them, Mark 6:13. At other times, those who worked miracles,
laid their hands on the persons whom they cured. Acts 9:17. And together with
laying on of hands they JOI ED prayer. Acts 28:8. And finally, at other times, they
used no external rites, but only spake some words in prayer and otherwise. The
anointing with oil,—the laying on of hands,—the making their shadow pass over,
and the like, were none of them the causes or means of the cure, but only the
external signs, to denote that the miracle was performed in testimony of their
mission and doctrine. For the same reason our Lord put his finger into the ears of a
deaf man, whom he miraculously cured; and touched the tongue of one that was
dumb, when he gave him the power of speech; and put clay on the eyes of one that
was blind, when he restored him to his sight. These were none of them causes of the
cures, but signs and intimations of Jesus's doing them; and that they were not casual
things, or done in the common course of Providence; but by an extraordinary and
miraculous power, and as clear attestations to the divine mission and doctrine of
him who did them.
It may with propriety be observed upon the passage before us, that one of the
greatest abuses of the Christian doctrine has arisen from APPLYI G what was
peculiar to some persons and cases, to all Christians in general. What though many
or most of the things in this epistle be APPLICABLE to us, or other Christians in
later ages,—will it thence follow, that every thing ought to be so applied? In the
same gospel, or epistle, nay, sometimes in the same chapter, we find some rules and
directions peculiar to the persons who could work miracles, and others common to
all Christians: we ought therefore always to use our reason in interpreting
Scripture, and from the nature of the thing determine which are peculiar directions,
and which are general rules, and standing precepts. We may, indeed, from the
abundance of passages in the ew Testament which speak of the miraculous gifts,
gather the many and clear evidences which must have attended the first planting of
the Christian religion; and thence, as from a thousand other sources, we may very
justly conclude, that our religion is true and divine: but we ought not to regard any
thing as a rule and direction for us to observe, unless it agree to our circumstances,

197. as well as to the circumstances of the persons to whom it was first and more
immediately addressed. This general observation is applicable to many points in
divinity; but is made at present with a view to the case before us, and because the
church of Rome has represented this anointing of persons with oil in the name of the
Lord, as a standing ordinance in the Christian church, which they have termed
"The sacrament of extreme unction," and which they would support from the words
of the apostle in this text. But they have misapplied the apostle's direction more
ways than one: for, first, according to St.
James, the sick person was to be anointed in prospect of a cure; whereas they anoint
persons in the agonies of death, and when there is no prospect of their recovery.
Secondly, The anointing which the apostle here speaks of, was in order to a
miraculous cure of some great bodily disorder; whereas they pretend that they do it
to cleanse the soul of the dying person from the remainders of sin, and to remove
what would obstruct its passage into heaven. Thirdly, The anointing with oil was not
constantly used in working miraculous cures upon sick persons; whereas they are
for APPLYI G their extreme unction to all Christians in their last moments.
ELLICOTT, "(14) The elders of the church—i.e., literally, the presbyters. The
identity of “bishop” (episcopus) and “presbyter” in the language of the apostolic age
seems conclusive. Such is the opinion of Lightfoot (Epistle to the Philippians, 93-97;
see also his Dissertation on the Christian Ministry, ibid., 180-267), and few may
hope to gainsay it. In fact, the organisation of the early Church was much more
elastic than theologians always suppose; and names and terms were applied less
rigidly than the schoolmen of the Middle Ages have so stoutly declared. But, on the
other hand, no man who has read the Patres Apostolici can DE Ythe reality of
Church government as enforced by them, nor base on their authority any defence of
Congregationalism or the rule of a mere presbytery. The theory of development
must be maintained, though not on the lines of Dr. ewman.
BURKITT, "Some observe, 1. That St. James doth not say, "Is any man sick? let
him pray;" but let him send for others to pray with him, and for him: plainly
supposing, that the sick man is very unfit to pray himself, or to pray for himself; in
other afflictions let him pray, but in sickness let others pray for him, he having
enough to do to grapple with his grief, and to conflict with his affliction: a diseased
body unfits the mind for holy duties.
Yet observe, 2. It is one thing to want a heart in sickness to pray for ourselves, and
another thing to want ability to pray for ourselves. Many desire the prayers of
others in sickness, who wanted hearts to pray for themselves in health. This is a sad
symptom that the soul is as sick, yea, more dangerously sick than the body. Add to
this, that the prayers of others are very rarely beneficial to us, unless we pray, or
have a desire to pray, for ourselves.
Observe, 3. The sick man's duty, not only to desire prayer, but to send to the elders
of the church to pray for him, and with him.

198. Quest. But if the sick neglect to send, may the minister neglect to go, if he knows of
the sickness?
Ans. Doubtless we ought to go, if we know of it, whether they send or not, for they
want our prayers and help most when they desire it least; and by refusing to go, we
may lose the last, and perhaps the best opportunity of doing good unto them. If our
people, through stupidity and insensibleness, omit their duty in sending for us, God
forbid, that either through pride or sluggishness, we should neglect our duty in
going to them; too, too often we never hear our people are sick, till the bell tells us
they are dead: if therefore by any means we gain the knowlege of their condition, let
us APPLY ourselves with all our might to their condition, lest God be more angry
with us for not going to them, than with them for not sending to us, imitating our
Lord, who was found of them that sought him not.
Some make this anointing with oil to be a medicinal practice among the Jews, and
that they administered it physically: but why then must the elders administer it?
The physician might have done it as well as they. True, but the elders are sent for,
that they, applying this corporeal remedy, might join with it spiritual physic of
prayer, good admonition and comfort. As if a sick person should send for the
minister at his taking of physic, that he might then pray with him, counsel and
comfort him. Others make this anointing with oil a religious act. Christ empowered
his apostles to work miracles, and, amongst others, they had the gift of healing the
sick, whom they anointed in the name of the Lord, or by the authority of the Lord;
but the gospel being sufficiently CO FIRMED, this gift of healing is ceased, and
therewith the rite of anointing; therefore the church of Rome keep up an idle
ceremony in anointing the sick, unless they had a miraculous power to heal the sick:
to keep up the rite, unless they could produce the effect; to pretend to the anointing,
without the power of healing, is a mere piece of pageantry; besides, they anoint
those that are given over for dead, and the apostle's anointing for the benefit of the
living, as appears by the following verse.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders.
The elders of the Church, the anointing Of the sick, and extreme unction
I. The first thing to be noted in connection with this sending for the elders of the
congregation by the sick man is, that in this Epistle, which is one of the very earliest
among the Christian writings which have come down to us, we already find a
DISTINCTION MADE BETWEEN CLERGY AND LAITY. St. James assumes as a matter
of course, that every congregation has elders, that is a constituted ecclesiastical
government. What the precise functions of the clergy were is not told us with much
detail or precision; but it is quite clear that whatever the functions were they were
spiritual rather than secular, and were duties which a select minority had to exercise in
reference to the rest; they were not such as any one might exercise towards any one. In
the present ease the sick person is not to send for any members of the congregation, but
for certain who hold a definite, and apparently an official position. If any Christians
could discharge the function in question, St. James would not have given the sick person
the trouble of summoning the elders rather than those people who chanced to be near at
hand. And it is quite clear that not all Christians are over all other Christians in the Lord;

199. that not all are to rule, and all to obey and submit; therefore not all have the same
authority to “admonish” others, or to “watch in behalf of their souls, as they that shall
give account.” The reason why the elders are to be summoned is stated in different ways
by different writers, but with a large amount of substantial agreement. “As being those in
whom the power and grace of the Holy Spirit more particularly appeared,” says Calvin.
“Because when they pray it is not much less than if the whole Church prayed,” says
Bengel. St. James, says Neander, “regards the presbyters in the light of organs of the
Church, acting in its name”; and, “As the presbyters acted in the name of the whole
Church, and each one as a member of the body felt that he needed its sympathy and
intercession, and might count upon it; individuals should therefore, in cases of sickness,
send for the presbyters of the Church. These were to offer prayer on their behalf.” The
intercession which St. James recommends, says Stier, is “intercession for the sick on the
part of the representatives of the Church,… not merely the intercession of friends or
brethren as such, but in the name of the whole community, one of whose members is
suffering.”
II. The second point of interest is THE ANOINTING OF THE SICK PERSON BY THE
ELDERS. What purpose was the oil intended to serve? Was it purely symbolical? and if
so, of what? Was it merely for the refreshment of the sick person, giving relief to parched
skin and stiffened limbs? Was it medicinal, with a view to a permanent cure by natural
means? Was it the channel or instrument of a supernatural cure? Was it an aid to the
sick person’s faith? One or both of the last two suggestions may be accepted as the most
probable solution. And the reason why oil was selected as a channel of Divine power and
an aid to faith was, that it was believed to have healing properties. It is easier to believe
when visible means are used than when nothing is visible, and it is still easier to believe
when the visible means appear to be likely to contribute to the desired effect. Christ
twice used spittle in curing blindness, probably because spittle was believed to be
beneficial to the eyesight. And that oil was supposed to be efficacious as medicine is
plain from numerous passages both in and outside of Holy Scripture (Isa_1:6; Luk_
10:34). A mixture of oil and wine was used for the malady which attacked the army of
AElius Gallus, and was applied both externally and internally. His physicians caused
Herod the Great to be bathed in a vessel full of oil when he was supposed to be at death’s
door. Celsus recommends rubbing with oil in the case of fevers and some other ailments.
But it is obvious that St. James does not recommend the oil merely as medicine, for he
does not say that the oil shall cure the sick person, nor yet that the oil with prayer shall
do so; but that “the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick,” without mentioning the oil
at all. On the other hand, he says that the anointing is to be done by the elders “in the
name of the Lord.” If the anointing were merely medicinal, it might have been
performed by any one, without waiting for the elders. And it can hardly be supposed that
oil was believed to be a remedy for all diseases. On the other hand, it seems to be too
much to say that the anointing had nothing to do with bodily healing at all, and was
simply a means of grace for the sick. Thus Dollinger says, “This is no gift of healing, for
that was not confined to the presbyters; and for that Christ prescribed not unction, but
laying on of hands. Had he meant that, St. James would have bidden or advised the sick
to send for one who possessed this gift, whether presbyter or layman … What was to be
conveyed by this medium was, therefore, only sometimes recovery or relief, always
consolation, revival of confidence and forgiveness of sins, on condition, of course, of
faith and repentance.” But although the gift of healing was not confined to the elders, yet
in certain cases they may have exercised it; and although Christ prescribed the laying on
of hands (Mar_16:18), yet the apostles sometimes healed by anointing with oil (Mar_
6:13). And that “shall save him that is sick,” means “shall cure him, is clear both from the

200. context, and also from the use of the same word elsewhere (Mt Mar_5:23; Joh_11:12).
And “the Lord shall raise him up” makes this interpretation still more certain. The same
expression is used of Simon’s wife’s mother (Mar_1:31). That St. James makes the
promise of recovery without any restriction may at first sight appear to be surprising;
but in this he is only following the example of our Lord, who makes similar promises,
and leaves it to the thought and experience of Christians to find out the limitations to
them. St. James is only applying to a particular case what Christ promised in general
terms (Mar_11:24; Mat_17:20; Joh_14:14; Joh_16:23). The words “in My Name” point
to the limitation; they do not, of course, refer to the use of the formula “through Jesus
Christ our Lord,” but to the exercise of the spirit of Christ: “Not My will, but Thine be
done.” The union of our will with the will of God is the very first condition of successful
prayer. The apostles themselves had no indiscriminate power of healing (Php_2:27;
2Ti_4:20; 2Co_12:7-9). How, then, can we suppose that St. James credited the elders of
every congregation with an unrestricted power of healing? He leaves it to the common
sense and Christian submission of his readers to understand that the elders have no
power to cancel the sentence of death pronounced on the whole human race. To pray
that any one should be exempt from this sentence would be not faith, but presumption.
Of the employment of the rite here prescribed by St. James we have very little evidence
in the early ages of the Church. Tertullian mentions a cure by anointing, but it is not
quite a case in point. The Emperor Septimius Severus believed that he had been cured
from an illness through oil administered by a Christian named Proculus Torpacion,
steward of Evodias, and in gratitude for it he maintained him in the palace for the rest of
his life. Origen quotes the passage from St. James, and seems to understand the sickness
to be that of sin. He interpolates thus: “Let him call for the elders of the Church, and let
them lay their hands on him, anointing him with oil,” &c. This perhaps tells us how the
rite was administered in Alexandria in his time; or it may mean that Origen understood
the “pray over him” of St. James to signify imposition of hands. With him, then, the
forgiveness of sins is the healing. A century and a half later Chrysostom takes a further
step, and employs the passage to show that priests have the power of absolution. “For
not only at the time when they regenerate us, but afterwards also, they have authority to
forgive sins.” And then he quotes Jas_5:14-15. It is evident that this is quite alien to the
passage. The sickness and the sins are plainly distinguished by St. James, and nothing is
said about absolution by the elders, who pray for his recovery, and (no doubt) for his
forgiveness. When we reach the sixth century the evidence for the custom of anointing
the sick with holy oil becomes abundant. At first any one with a reputation for sanctity
might bless the oil—not only laymen, but women. But in the West the rule gradually
spread from Rome that the sacred oil for the sick must be “made” by the bishop. In the
East this has never been observed. Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, says
that according to the Greeks it is lawful for presbyters to make the chrism for the sick.
And this rule continues to this day. One priest suffices; but it is desirable to get seven, if
possible. But the chief step in the development is taken when not only the blessing of the
oil, but the administering of it to the Kick, is reserved to the clergy. In Bede’s time this
restriction was not yet made, as is clear from his comments on the passage, although
even then it was customary for priests to administer the unction. But by the tenth
century this restriction had probably become general. It became connected with the
communion of the sick, which of course required a priest, and then with the Viaticum, or
communion of the dying; but even then the unction seems to have preceded the last
communion. The name “Extreme Unction” (unctio extrema)
, as a technical ecclesiastical term, is not older than the twelfth century. Other terms are
“Last Oil” (ultimum oleum)
and “Sacrament of the Departing” (sacramentum exeuntium)

201. . But when we have reached these phrases we are very far indeed from the ordinance
prescribed by St. James, and from that which was practised by the apostles. “And if he
have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him.” We ought perhaps rather to translate,
“Even if he have committed sinsit shall be forgiven him.” The meaning would seem to be,
“even if his sickness has been produced by his sins, his sin shall be forgiven, and his
sickness cured.” It is possible, but unnatural, to join the first clause of this sentence with
the preceding one: “the Lord shall raise him up, even if he have committed sins.” In that
case “It shall be forgiven him” forms a very awkward independent sentence, without
conjunction. The ordinary arrangement of the clauses is much better: even if the malady
is the effect of the man’s own wrong-doing, the prayer offered by faith—his faith, and
that of the elders—shall still prevail. (A. Plummer, D. D.)
The sick sending for the elder’s of the Church
1. From the supposition, “Is any among you sick?” The note is obvious. Christ’s
worshippers are not exempted from sickness, no more than any other affliction.
Those that are dear to God have their share of miseries. Austin asketh, If he were
beloved, how came he to be sick? In the outward accidents of life God would make no
difference.
2. From that “let him call for the elders.” Note that the chief care of a sick man
should be for his soul. Physicians are to be called in their place, but not first, not
chiefly. Sickness is God’s messenger to call us to meet with God.
3. From that “let him call.” The elders must be sent for. A man that hath continued
in opposition is loath to submit at the last hour and to call the elders to his spiritual
assistance. Aquinas saith that this last office must not be performed but to those that
require it. Possidonius, in the life of Austin, saith that Austin was wont of his own
accord to visit the poor, the fatherless, and the widow, but the sick never till he was
called. It is indeed suitable to true religion to “visit the fatherless,” (Jas_1:27); but
thesick must call for the elders.
4. From that “the elders.” For our comfort in sickness it is good to call in the help of
the guides and officers of the Church. They, excelling in gifts, are best able to instruct
and pray. They can with authority, and in a way of office, comfort and instruct; the
prayers of prophets have a special efficacy.
5. Again from that “the elders.” Visiting of the sick should be performed with the
joint care of Church officers; it is a weighty work, and needeth many shoulders; the
diversity of gifts for prayer and discourse seemeth to call for it; it is the last office we
can perform to those of whom the Lord hath made us overseers.
6. From that “let them pray.” One necessary work in visiting is commending sick
persons to God, and this prayer must be made by them, or over them, that their sight
may the more work upon us, and our prayers may work upon them.
7. From that “and anoint him with oil.” From this clause observe the condescension
of God. The first preachers of the gospel of Christ had power to do miracles: the
doctrine itself, being so rational and satisfactory, deserved belief; but God would give
a visible confirmation, the better to encourage our faith.
8. From that “anoint with oil” in order to cure, note that the miracles done in
Christ’s name were wrought by power, but ended in mercy. In the very confirmation

202. of the gospel God would show the benefit of it.
9. From that “in the name of the Lord.” All the miracles that were wrought were to
be wrought in Christ’s name. The apostles and primitive Christians, though they had
such an excellent trust, did not abuse it to serve their own name and interests, but
Christ’s; teaching us that we should exercise all our gifts and abilities by Christ’s
power to Christ’s glory Psa_51:16). (T. Manton.)
Let them pray over him
Praying for the sick
When we remember what prayer is, we cannot possibly deny its prevailing power.
I. WE SHOULD ALWAYS BE HUMBLE IN OUR PRAYERS. The Times, in mentioning
petitions which had been presented to the House of Lords, remarked of one, that it was
rejected on the ground of an omission—after all, but a simple one—the word “humble”
was left out. Doubtless, many a petition is rejected by a higher tribunal for lack of
humility in the hearts of those who presented it. “Of all trees,” says Owen Feltham, “I
observe God hath chosen the vine, a low plant that creeps upon the helpful wall; of all
beasts, the soft and patient lamb; of all fowls, the mild and guileless dove. When God
appeared to Moses, it was not in the lofty cedar, nor the sturdy oak, but in a bush, a
slender, lowly shrub: as if He would, by these elections, check the conceited arrogance of
man.”
II. IMPORTUNATE EARNESTNESS is another characteristic of successful prayer. A
clergyman who had been preaching to the young, closed with an appeal to parents, in
these words: About two-and-twenty years ago, a small circle had gathered around the
couch of an apparently dying infant; the man of God, who led their devotions, seemed to
forget the sickness of the child in his prayer for his future usefulness. He prayed for the
child, who had been consecrated to God at his birth, as a man, and a minister of the
Word. The parents laid hold of the horns , f the altar, and prayed with him. The child
recovered, grew toward manhood, and ran far in the ways of folly and sin. One after
another of that little circle were called sway; but two, and one of them the mother, lived
to hear him proclaim the everlasting gospel. “It is no fiction,” added the minister; “that
child, that prodigal youth, that preacher, is he who now addresses you!”
III. The prayers of the Church, when making special supplications for the sick, ALWAYS
LEAVE IT TO THE WISDOM OF OUR HEAVENLY FATHER TO DETERMINE
WHETHER RESTORATION TO HEALTH OR PREPARATION FOR A PEACEFUL
DEATH SHALL BE BEST, and we beseech Him to grant the petition accordingly.
Nothing could be more proper than this spirit of childlike submission. A father, once
praying by the sick-bed of an only son, gave utterance to the rebellious petition, “Let him
become what he will; so he may live, I shall be satisfied.” Years and years passed by; the
child had been spared, grew up to manhood, passed through a course of crime too awful
to be dwelt upon, and was tried, and condemned to die. As he went forth from the prison
to the gallows, he said to his old, heartbroken father, with a careless air, “Will you see me
to the tree?” What a lesson to those who, while beseeching the Lord for the removal of
some bitter cup, have not learned to add in the Saviour’s submissive words,
“Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt!” (J. N. Norton, D. D.)

203. Prayer extending life
More than half a century since, Rev. T. Charles, of Bala, was evidently near death, when
a prayermeeting of his friends was held, in which earnest prayer was offered by an aged
Christian for his recovery; especially asking that fifteen years might be added to the
useful life of his servant. The prayer was exactly answered. Mr. Charles filled up the
fifteen added years in great usefulness and in full expectation of release at its end. On his
last visit to some friends, he said that he could not expect to see them again, as he was
now in the last year of his life. Strange as it may seem, his death occurred just at the
termination of the fifteen years. (New Cyclopedia of Illustrations.)
Prayer saving the sick
There are cases on record in medical history, in which the perfect peace of a soul entirely
prepared for either alternative has actually arrested the march of disease, and made the
patient literally out of weakness strong. There are eases on record in which it has been
said by the physician to the sufferer, desirous to depart and to be with Christ: “Sir, in
this state of joyous anticipation you cannot die.” There are oases on record in which,
according to promise, “the prayer of faith has saved the sick”; no other force even
suggested as adequate to account for the victory of life over death, when physicians had
withdrawn themselves from further effort, and could but watch inactive beside the bed
of suffering. (C. J.Vaughan, D. D.)
Prayer for the sick
When one of his relatives was recovering from a dangerous illness, Bengel said: “I did
not regard outward appearances, unfavourable as they were. I prayed, and hoped for a
favourable answer and it has been given. I said nothing about it to any one at the time,
but it came to me as a positive assurance that God will hear prayer.” (Bengel’s Life.)
Anointing him with oil
Anointing the sick
I. EXAMINE THE PASSAGE. Epistle of James. The first epistle written. Point, the
activity of faith. It must do something. Such active faith covers the whole life. This
passage is found among practical directions. Affliction. Merry. Sick. Every natural and
simple explanation has been given to this difficult and misused passage. Anointing the
body with oil was the sign of health. Those who were sick might not be anointed; nor
those passing through a time of mourning. The ancient customs in relation to anointing
may be illustrated by our customs in relation to shaving the beard. The sick man will
neither trouble himself, nor be troubled, about shaving; but as soon as he begins to
recover he will return to his cleanly habits. So the ancients would neglect daily anointing
while under sickness, and their return to their old ways was the sign of recovering.
When, therefore, James enjoins the elders to anoint the sick man after prayer for his
restoration, he really says, “Pray for him in perfect faith, and show that you have such
strong faith by acting towards him as if he were restored to health again.” The elders
were to “help him rise, wash, and anoint.”

204. II. THINGS REQUIRING SPECIAL NOTICE. Age of miracles was not then passed.
1. The unconditional character of the promise. Not really without conditions. See the
demand for faith, and for acts expressing faith. Rules should be stated without their
exceptions. But all rules have such. Compare our Lord’s strong sentences about
prayer.
2. The meaning of the anointing with oil. After the prayer. Idea.
(1) Symbolical of medicinal healing. Oil was a curative agent.
(2) Sacramental; a help toward realising the action of Divine grace.
Sight may be a help to the apprehension of spiritual things. Compare our Lord’s
touching those whom He healed: or making clay to put on the eyes of the man whose
sight He restored. This the true sacramental idea.
3. The sense in which forgiveness is blended with recovery.
(1) Sin regarded as scandal to the Church. Penitent, if sent for elders.
(2) Sin as before God. With this the man himself must deal. All recovery is sign
of Divine forgiveness. “Go and sin no more.”
III. REMOVING THE LOCAL AND TEMPORARY, WHAT MAY WE LEARN FROM
THE PASSAGE FOR OUR TIMES?
1. The duty of showing sympathy with the sick. Example of Christ. Consider sickness
from the Christian point of view. Issue of sin. Divine chastisement. Corrective
discipline.
2. The duty of using means for the recovery of sick. Oil a curative agent in those
days. So the elders were to use means. Anointing means “rubbing the body,” or the
affected parts. Symbol of all healing agents. Show how science now takes the place of
miracle.
3. The importance of recognising the power of the “prayer of faith.” This was needed
for miracle: much more is it needed for science. What, then, is our duty? To the sick
belonging to our Church. Note that the duty rests on the sick to send for the elders,
and on the elders to go when sent for. To the sick in general. Provision made for their
relief. Support during sickness required. Prayer-power—faith-power—still more
needed, if the spiritual ends, for which all sickness is sent, are to be reached. (The
Weekly Pulpit.)
EBC, "THE ELDERS OF THE CHURCH - THE ANOINTING OF THE SICK
AND EXTREME UNCTION.
Two subjects stand out prominently in this interesting passage-the elders of the Church,
and the anointing of the sick. The connection of the passage with what immediately
precedes is close and obvious. After charging his readers in general terms to resort to
prayer when they are in trouble, St. James takes a particular and very common instance
of trouble, viz., bodily sickness, and gives more detailed directions as to the way in which
the man in trouble is to make use of the relief and remedy of prayer. He is not to be
content with giving expression to his need in private prayer to God; he is to "call for the
elders of the Church."
1. The first thing to be noted in connection with this sending for the elders of the

205. congregation by the sick man is, that in this Epistle, which is one of the very earliest
among the Christian writings which have come down to us, we already find a distinction
made between clergy and laity. This distinction runs through the whole of the New
Testament. We find it in the earliest writing of all, the First Epistle to the Thessalonians,
in which the Christians of Thessalonica are exhorted "to know them that labor among
you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them exceeding
highly in love for their work’s sake". (1Th_5:12-13) And here St. James assumes as a
matter of course, that every congregation has elders, that is a constituted ecclesiastical
government. Compare with these the precept in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "Obey them
that have the rule over you, and submit to them: for they watch in behalf of your souls,
as they that shall give account"; (Heb_13:17) and the frequent directions in the Pastoral
Epistles. (1Ti_3:1-13; 1Ti_4:6; 1Ti_4:13-14; 1Ti_5:17; 1Ti_5:19; 1Ti_5:22; Tit_1:5-9;
Tit_2:15; 2Ti_1:6; 2Ti_1:14; 2Ti_2:2; 2Ti_4:5) What the precise functions of the clergy
were is not told us with much detail or precision; but it is quite clear, from the passage
before us, and those which have been quoted above, that whatever the functions were,
they were spiritual rather than secular, and were duties which a select minority had to
exercise in reference to the rest; they were not such as any one might exercise towards
any one. In the present case the sick person is not to send for any members of the
congregation, but for certain who hold a definite, and apparently an official position. If
any Christians could discharge the function in question, St. James would not have given
the sick person the trouble of summoning the elders rather than those people who
chanced to be near at hand. And it is quite clear that not all Christians are over all other
Christians in the Lord; that not all are to rule, and all to obey and submit; therefore not
all have the same authority to "admonish" others, or to "watch in behalf of their souls, as
they that shall give account."
The reason why the elders are to be summoned is stated in different ways by different
writers, but with a large amount of substantial agreement. "As being those in whom the
power and grace of the Holy Spirit more particularly appeared," says Calvin. "Because
when they pray it is not much less than if the whole Church prayed," says Bengel. St.
James, says Neander, "regards the presbyters in the light of organs of the Church, acting
in its name"; and, "As the presbyters acted in the name of the whole Church, and each
one as a member of the body felt that he needed its sympathy and intercession, and
might count upon it; individuals should therefore, in cases of sickness, send for the
presbyters of the Church. These were to offer prayer on their behalf." The intercession
which St. James recommends, says Stier, is "intercession for the sick on the part of the
representatives of the Church, not merely the intercession of friends or brethren as such,
but in the name of the whole community, one of whose members is suffering." It is
altogether beside the mark to suggest that the elders were summoned as people of the
greatest experience, who perhaps also were specially skilled in medicine. Of that there is
not only no hint, but the context excludes the idea. If that were in the writer’s mind, why
does be not say at once, "Let him call for the physicians"? If the healing art is to be
thought of at all in connection with the passage, the case is one in which medicine has
already done all that it can, or in which it can do nothing at all. St. James would
doubtless approve the advice given by the son of Sirach: "My son, in thy sickness be not
negligent; but pray unto the Lord, and He will make thee whole" (Sir_38:9). This exactly
agrees with the precept, "Is any among you suffering? let him pray." "Then give place to
the physician, for the Lord hath created him: let him not go from thee, for thou hast
need of him. There is a time when in their hands there is good success" (12, 13). To this
there is no equivalent in St. James; but he says nothing that is inconsistent with it. Then,
after the physician has done his part, and perhaps in vain, would come the summoning

206. of the elders to offer prayer. But it is simpler to suppose that the physician’s part is left
out of the account altogether.
2. The second point of interest is the anointing of the sick person by the elders. That
what is said here affords no Scriptural authority for the Roman rite of Extreme Unction,
is one of the commonplaces of criticism. One single fact is quite conclusive. The object of
the unction prescribed by St. James is the recovery of the sick person; whereas Extreme
Unction, as its name implies, is never administered until the sick person’s recovery is
considered to be almost or quite hopeless, and death imminent; the possibility of bodily
healing is not entirely excluded, but it is not the main purpose of the rite. The only other
passage in the New Testament in which the unction of the sick is mentioned is equally at
variance with the Roman rite. We are told by St. Mark that the Twelve, when sent out by
Christ two and two, "anointed with oil many that were silk, and healed them." (Mar_
6:13) Here also recovery, and not preparation for death, was the purpose of the
anointing, which the Apostles seem to have practiced on their own responsibility, for it is
not mentioned in the charge which Christ gave them when He sent them out (Mar_6:7-
11).
But there is this amount of connection between these two passages of Scripture and the
Roman sacrament of Extreme Unction, viz., that the latter grew out of ecclesiastical
practices which were based upon these passages. As in not a few’ other instances,
development has brought about a state of things which is inconsistent with the original
starting-point., But in order to understand the development we must understand the
starting-point, and that requires us to find an answer to the question, What purpose was
the oil intended to serve? Was it purely symbolical? and if so, of what? Was it merely for
the refreshment of the sick person, giving relief to parched skin and stiffened limbs?
Was it medicinal, with a view to a permanent cure by natural means? Was it the channel
or instrument of a supernatural cure? Was it an aid to the sick person’s faith? One or
both of the last two suggestions may be accepted as the most probable solution. And the
reason why oil was selected as a channel of Divine power and an aid to faith was, that it
was believed to have healing properties. It is easier to believe when visible means are
used than when nothing is visible, and it is still easier to believe when the visible means
appear to be likely to contribute to the desired effect. Christ twice used spittle in curing
blindness, probably because spittle was believed to be beneficial to the eyesight. And
that oil was supposed to be efficacious as medicine is plain from numerous passages
both in and outside of Holy Scripture. "From the sole of the foot even unto the head
there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and festering sores: they have not
been closed, nor bound up, neither mollified with oil". (Isa_1:6) The Good Samaritan
poured wine and oil into the wounds of the man who fell among robbers. (Luk_10:34) A
mixture of oil and wine was used for the malady which attacked the army of Aelius
Gallus, and was applied both externally and internally (Dion Cass., LIII 29; Strabo, XVI
9. 780). His physicians caused Herod the Great to be bathed in a vessel full of oil when
he was supposed to be at death’s door (Josephus, "Ant.," XVII 6. 5). Celsus recommends
rubbing with oil in the case of fevers and some other ailments ("De Med.," II 14, 17; III 6,
9, 19, 22; IV 2). But it is obvious that St. James does not recommend the oil merely as
medicine, for he does not say that the oil shall cure the sick person, nor yet that the oil
with prayer shall do so; but that "the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick," without
mentioning the oil at all. On the other hand, he says that the anointing is to be done by
the elders "in the name of the Lord." If the anointing were merely medicinal, it might
have been performed by any one, without waiting for the elders. And it can hardly be
supposed that oil was believed to be a remedy for all diseases.
On the other hand, it seems to be too much to say that the anointing had nothing to do

207. with bodily healing at all, and was simply a means of grace for the sick. Thus Dollinger
says, "This is no gift of healing, for that was not confined to the presbyters; and for that
Christ prescribed not unction, but laying on of hands. Had he meant that, St. James
would have bidden or advised the sick to send for one who possessed this gift, whether
presbyter or layman"…
"What was to be conveyed by this medium was, therefore, only sometimes recovery or
relief, always consolation, revival of confidence and forgiveness of sins, on condition, of
course, of faith and repentance" ("First Age of the Church," p. 235, Oxenham’s
translation, 2d ed.: Allen, 1867).
But although the gift of healing was not confined to the elders, yet in certain eases they
may have exercised it; and although Christ prescribed the laying on of hands, (Mar_
16:18) yet the Apostles sometimes healed by anointing with oil. (Mar_6:13) And that
"shall save him that is sick" (σωσει τοµνοντα) means "shall cure him," is clear from the
context, and also from the use of the same word elsewhere. "Daughter, be of good cheer;
thy faith hath saved thee," to the woman with the issue of blood. (Mat_9:22) Jairus
prays, "Come and lay Thy hands on her, that she may be saved". (Mar_5:23) The
disciples say of Lazarus, "Lord, if he is fallen asleep, he will be saved". (Joh_11:12) And
"the Lord shall raise him up" makes this interpretation still more certain. The same
expression is used of Simon’s wife’s mother. (Mar_1:31) "The Lord" is Christ, not the
Father, both here and "in the Name of the Lord." Thus St. Peter says to Aeneas, "Jesus
Christ healeth thee." (Act_9:34. Comp. Act_3:6; Act_3:16; Act_5:10)
That St. James makes the promise of recovery without any restriction may at first sight
appear to be surprising; but in this he is only following the example of our Lord, who
makes similar promises, and leaves it to the thought and experience of Christians to find
out the limitations to them. St. James is only applying to a particular case what Christ
promised in general terms. "All things, whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye
have received them, and ye shall have them." (Mar_11:24. Comp. Mat_17:20) "If ye shall
ask [Me] anything in My Name, I will do." (Joh_14:14) "If ye shall ask anything of the
Father, He will give it you in My Name". (Joh_16:23) The words "in My Name" point to
the limitation; they do not, of course, refer to the use of the formula "through Jesus
Christ our Lord," but to the exercise of the spirit of Christ: "Not My will, but Thine be
done." The union of our will with the will of God is the very first condition of successful
prayer. The Apostles themselves had no indiscriminate power of healing. St. Paul did not
heal Epaphroditus, much as he yearned for his recovery. (Php_2:27) He left Trophimus
at Miletus sick. (2Ti_4:20) He did not cure his own thorn in the 2Co_12:7-9. How, then,
can we suppose that St. James credited the elders of every congregation with an
unrestricted power of healing? He leaves it to the common sense and Christian
submission of his readers to understand that the elders have no power to cancel the
sentence of death pronounced on the whole human race. To pray that any one should be
exempt from this sentence would be not faith, but presumption.
Of the employment of the rite here prescribed by St. James we have very little evidence
in the early ages of the Church. Tertullian mentions a cure by anointing, but it is not
quite a case in point. The Emperor Septimius Severus believed that he had been cured
from an illness through oil administered by a Christian named Proculus Torpacion,
steward of Evodias, and in gratitude for it he maintained him in the palace for the rest of
his life ("Ad. Scap.," 4.). Origen, in the second Homily on Leviticus (4), quotes the
passage from St. James, and seems to understand the sickness to be that of sin. He
interpolates thus: "Let him call for the elders of the Church, and let them lay their hands
on him, anointing him with oil," etc. This perhaps tells us how the rite was administered

208. in Alexandria in his time; or it may mean that Origen understood the "pray over him" επ
αυτον of St. James to signify imposition of hands. With him, then, the forgiveness of sins
is the healing. A century and a half later Chrysostom takes a further step, and employs
the passage to show that priests have the power of absolution. "For not only at the time
when they regenerate us, but afterwards also, they have authority to forgive sins." And
then he Jas_5:14-15 ("De Sacerd.," III 6). It is evident that this is quite alien to the
passage. The sickness and the sins are plainly distinguished by St. James, and nothing is
said about absolution by the elders, who pray for his recovery, and (no doubt) for his
forgiveness.
When we reach the sixth century the evidence for the custom of anointing the sick with
holy oil becomes abundant. At first any one with a reputation for sanctity might bless the
oil-not only laymen, but women. But in the West the rule gradually spread from Rome
that the sacred oil for the sick must be "made" by the bishop. In the East this has never
been observed. Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, says that according to
the Greeks it is lawful for presbyters to make the chrism for the sick. And this rule
continues to this day. One priest suffices; but it is desirable to get seven, if possible.
But the chief step in the development is taken when not only the blessing of the oil, but
the administering of it to the sick, is reserved to the clergy. In Bede’s time this restriction
was not yet made, as is clear from his comments on the passage, although even then it
was customary for priests to administer the unction. But by the tenth century this
restriction had probably become general. It became connected with the communion of
the sick, which of course required a priest, and then with the Viaticum, or communion of
the dying; but even then the unction seems to have preceded the last communion. The
name "Extreme Unction" (unctio extrema), as a technical ecclesiastical term, is not older
than the twelfth century. Other terms are "Last Oil" (ultimum oleum) and "Sacrament of
the Departing" (sacramentum exeuntium). But when we have reached these phrases we
are very far indeed from the ordinance prescribed by St. James, and from that which was
practiced by the Apostles. Jeremy Taylor, in the dedication of the "Holy Dying," says
fairly enough, "The fathers of the Council of Trent first disputed, and after their manner
at last agreed, that Extreme Unction was instituted by Christ; but afterwards being
admonished by one of their theologues that the Apostles ministered unction to infirm
people before they were priests, for fear that it should be thought that this unction might
be administered by him that was no priest, they blotted out the word ‘instituted,’ and put
in its stead ‘insinuated’ this sacrament, and that it was published by St. James. So it is in
their doctrine; and yet in their anathematisms they curse all them that shall deny it to
have been instituted by Christ. I shall lay no prejudice against it, but add this only, that
there being but two places of Scripture pretended for this ceremony, some chief men of
their own side have proclaimed these two invalid as to the institution of it"; and he
mentions in particular Suarez and Cajetan. But he states more than he can know when
he declares of Extreme Unction that "since it is used when the man is above half dead,
when he can exercise no act of understanding, it must needs be nothing." Those who
receive the rite are not always unconscious; and is it certain that an unconscious person
"can exercise no act of the understanding," or that prayer for one who can exercise no act
of the understanding "must needs be nothing"? With similar want of caution Stier
speaks of the superstition which sends for the minister to ‘pray over the sick,’ when these
have scarce any consciousness left. Whether or no Extreme Unction is an edifying
ceremony is a question worthy of argument, and nothing is here urged on either side;
but we are going beyond our knowledge if we assert that it can have no effect on the
dying man; and we are unduly limiting the power of prayer if we affirm that to pray for

209. one who has lost consciousness is a useless superstition. All that is contended for here is
that the Roman rite is something very different from that which is ordered by St. James.
"And if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him." We ought perhaps rather to
translate, "Even if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him." (The Greek is not
και εαν or εα, but καν for which) (Joh_8:14; Joh_10:38; Joh_11:25) the meaning would
seem to be, "even if his sickness has been produced by his sins, his sin shall be forgiven,
and his sickness cured." It is possible, but unnatural, to join the first clause of this
sentence with the preceding one: "the Lord shall raise him up, even if he have committed
sins." In that case "It shall be forgiven him" forms a very awkward independent
sentence, without conjunction. The ordinary arrangement of the clauses is much better:
even if the malady is the effect of the man’s own wrong-doing, the prayer offered by
faith-his faith, and that of the elders-shall still prevail. St. Paul tells the Corinthians that
their misconduct respecting the Lord’s Supper had caused much sickness among them,
and not a few deaths; (1Co_11:30) and such direct punishments of sin were not confined
to the Corinthian Church nor to the Apostolic age. They still occur in abundance, and
those who experience them have the assurance of Scripture that if they repent and pray
in faith their sins will certainly be forgiven, and their punishment possibly removed.
15 And the prayer OFFERED in faith will make
the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up.
If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.
BAR ES, "And the prayer of faith - The prayer offered in faith, or in the exercise
of confidence in God. It is not said that the particular form of the faith exercised shall be
that the sick man will certainly recover; but there is to be unwavering confidence in God,
a belief that he will do what is best, and a cheerful committing of the cause into his
hands. We express our earnest wish, and leave the case with him. The prayer of faith is
to accompany the use of means, for all means would be ineffectual without the blessing
of God.
Shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up - This must be understood,
as such promises are everywhere, with this restriction, that they will be restored to
health if it shall be the will of God; if he shall deem it for the best. It cannot be taken in
the absolute and unconditional sense, for then, if these means were used, the sick person
would always recover, no matter how often he might be sick, and he need never die. The
design is to encourage them to the use of these means with a strong hope that it would
be effectual. It may fairly be inferred from this statement:
(1) That there would be cases in large numbers where these means would be attended
with this happy result; and,

210. (2) That there was so much encouragement to do it that it would be proper in any case
of sickness so make use of these means.
It may be added, that no one can demonstrate that this promise has not been in
numerous instances fulfilled. There are instances, not a few, where recovery from
sickness seems to be in direct answer to prayer, and no one can prove that it is not so.
Compare the case of Hezekiah, in Isa_38:1-5.
And if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him - Perhaps there
may be a particular allusion here to sins which may have brought on the sickness as a
punishment. In that case the removal of the disease in answer to prayer would be an
evidence that the sin was pardoned. Compare Mat_9:2. But the promise may be
understood in a more general sense as denoting that such sickness would be the means
of bringing the sins of the past life to remembrance, especially if the one who was sick
had been unfaithful to his Christian vows; and that the sickness in connection with the
prayers offered would bring him to true repentance, and would recover him from his
wanderings. On backsliding and erring Christians sickness often has this effect; and the
subsequent life is so devoted and consistent as to show that the past unfaithfulness of
him who has been afflicted is forgiven.
This passage Jam_5:14-15 is important, not only for the counsel which it gives to the
sick, but because it has been employed by the Roman Catholic communion as almost the
only portion of the Bible referred to to sustain one of the peculiar rites of their religion -
that of “extreme unction” - a “sacrament,” as they suppose, to be administered to those
who are dying. It is of importance, therefore, to inquire more particularly into its
meaning. There can be but three views taken of the passage:
I. That it refers to a miraculous healing by the apostles, or by other early ministers of
religion who were endowed with the power of healing diseases in this manner.
This is the interpretation of Doddridge, Macknight, Benson, and others. But to this
view the objections seem to me to be insuperable.
(a) Nothing of this kind is said by the apostle, and this is not necessary to be
supposed in order to a fair interpretation of the passage.
(b) The reference, as already observed, is clearly not to the apostles, but to the
ordinary officers of the church - for such a reference would be naturally
understood by the word presbyters; and to suppose that this refers to miracles,
would be to suppose that this was a common endowment of the ordinary
ministers of religion. But there was no promise of this, and there is no evidence
that they possessed it. In regard to the extent of the promise, “they shall lay
hands on the sick, and they shall recover,” see the notes at Mar_16:17-18.
(c) If this referred to the power of working miracles, and if the promise was
absolute, then death would not have occurred at all among the early disciples. It
would have been easy to secure a restoration to health in any instance where a
minister of religion was at hand,
II. It is supposed by the Roman Catholics to give sanction to the practice of “extreme
unction,” and to prove that this was practiced in the primitive church. But the
objections to this are still more obvious.
(a) It was not to be performed at death, or in the immediate prospect of death, but
in sickness at any time. There is no hint that it was to be only when the patient
was past all hope of recovery, or in view of the fact that he was to die. But
“extreme unction,” from its very nature, is to be practiced only where the patient
is past all hope of recovery.
(b) It was not with a view to his death, but to his living, that it was to be practiced

211. at all. It was not that he might be prepared to die, but that he might be restored
to health - “and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise
him up.” But “extreme unction” can be with no such reference, and no such
hope. It is only with the expectation that the patient is about to die; and if there
were any expectation that he would be raised up even by this ordinance, it could
not be administered as “extreme unction.”
(c) The ordinance practiced as “extreme unction” is a rite wholly unauthorized in
the Scriptures, unless it be by this passage. There are instances indeed of
persons being embalmed after death. It was a fact also that the Saviour said of
Mary, when she poured ointment on his body, that she “did it for his burial,” or
with reference to his burial, (Notes, Mat_26:12) but the Saviour did not say that
it was with reference to his death or was designed in any way to prepare him to
die, nor is there any instance in the Bible in which such a rite is mentioned. The
ceremony of extreme unction has its foundation in two things: first, in
superstition, in the desire of something that shall operate as a charm, or that
shall possess physical efficiency in calming the apprehensions of a troubled
conscience, and in preparing the guilty to die; and, second, in the fact that it
gives immense power to the priesthood. Nothing is better adapted to impart
such power than a prevalent belief that a minister of religion holds in his hands
the ability to alleviate the pangs of the dying, and to furnish a sure passport to a
world of bliss. There is deep philosophy in that which has led to the belief of this
doctrine - for the dying look around for consolation and support, and they grasp
at anything which will promise ease to a troubled conscience, and the hope of
heaven. The gospel has made arrangements to meet this state of mind in a better
way - in the evidence which the guilty may have that by repentance and faith
their sins are blotted out through the blood of the cross.
III. The remaining supposition, therefore, and, as it seems to me, the true one, is, that
the anointing with oil was, in accordance with a common custom, regarded as
medicinal, and that a blessing was to be invoked on this as a means of restoration
to health. Besides what has been already said, the following suggestions may be
made in addition:
(a) This was, as we have seen, a common usage in the East, and is to this day.
(b) This interpretation meets all that is demanded to a fair understanding of
what is said by the apostle.
(c) Everything thus directed is rational and proper.
It is proper to call in the ministers of religion in time of sickness, and to ask their
counsels and their prayers. It is proper to make use of the ordinary means of restoration
to health. It was proper then, as it is now, to do this “in the name of the Lord;” that is,
believing that it is in accordance with his benevolent arrangements, and making use of
means which he has appointed. And it was proper then, as it is now, having made use of
those means, to implore the divine blessing on them, and to feel that their efficacy
depends wholly on him. Thus used, there was ground of hope and of faith in regard to
the recovery of the sufferer; and no one can show that in thousands of instances in the
apostles” day, and since, the prayer of faith, accompanying the proper use of means, may
not have raised up those who were on the borders of the grave, and who but for these
means would have died.
CLARKE, "And the prayer of faith; shall save the sick - That is, God will often

212. make these the means of a sick man’s recovery; but there often are cases where faith and
prayer are both ineffectual, because God sees it will be prejudicial to the patient’s
salvation to be restored; and therefore all faith and prayer on such occasions should be
exerted on this ground: “If it be most for thy glory, and the eternal good of this man’s
soul, let him be restored; if otherwise, Lord, pardon, purify him, and take him to thy
glory.”
The Lord shall raise him up - Not the elders, how faithfully and fervently soever
they have prayed.
And if he have committed sins - So as to have occasioned his present malady, they
shall be forgiven him; for being the cause of the affliction it is natural to conclude that, if
the effect be to cease, the cause must be removed. We find that in the miraculous
restoration to health, under the powerful hand of Christ, the sin of the party is generally
said to be forgiven, and this also before the miracle was wrought on the body: hence
there was a maxim among the Jews, and it seems to be founded in common sense and
reason, that God never restores a man miraculously to health till he has pardoned his
sins; because it would be incongruous for God to exert his miraculous power in saving a
body, the soul of which was in a state of condemnation to eternal death, because of the
crimes it had committed against its Maker and Judge. Here then it is God that remits the
sin, not in reference to the unction, but in reference to the cure of the body, which he is
miraculously to effect.
GILL, "And the prayer of faith shall save the sick,.... That is, the prayer of the
elders, being put up in faith by them, and in which the sick person joins by faith; such a
prayer is a means of bringing down from God a blessing on the sick man, and of
restoring him to his former health:
and the Lord shall raise him up; from his bed of sickness, on which he is laid, and
bring him forth to praise his name, and to fear and glorify him.
And if he have committed sins; not that it is a question whether he has or not, for
no man lives without sin, nor the commission of it; but the sense is, if he has been guilty
of any sins, which God in particular has taken notice of, and on account of which he has
laid his chastising hand upon him, in order to bring him to a sense of them, and to
acknowledge them; which is sometimes the case, though not always, at the same time
that his bodily health is restored:
they shall be forgiven him; he shall have a discovery, and an application of
pardoning grace to him: and indeed the removing the sickness or disease may be called
the forgiveness of his sins, which is sometimes the sense of this phrase in Scripture, as in
1Ki_8:34.
HE RY, " The prayer of faith shall save the sick, etc., Jam_5:15. So that, 4. Prayer
over the sick must proceed fRom. and be accompanied with, a lively faith. There must be
faith both in the person praying and in the person prayed for. In a time of sickness, it is
not the cold and formal prayer that is effectual, but the prayer of faith. 5. We should
observe the success of prayer. The Lord shall raise up; that is, if he be a person capable
and fit for deliverance, and if God have any thing further for such a person to do in the
world. And, if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him; that is, where
sickness is sent as a punishment for some particular sin, that sin shall be pardoned, and

213. in token thereof the sickness shall be removed. As when Christ said to the impotent man,
Go and sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee, it is intimated that some
particular sin was the cause of his sickness. The great thing therefore we should beg of
God for ourselves and others in the time of sickness is the pardon of sin. Sin is both the
root of sickness and the sting of it. If sin be pardoned, either affliction shall be removed
in mercy or we shall see there is mercy in the continuance of it. When healing is founded
upon pardon, we may say as Hezekiah did: Thou hast, in love to my soul, delivered it
from the pit of corruption, Isa_38:17. When you are sick and in pain, it is most common
to pray and cry, O give me ease! O restore me to health! But your prayer should rather
and chiefly be, O that God would pardon my sins!
JAMISO , "prayer — He does not say the oil shall save: it is but the symbol.
save — plainly not as Rome says, “save” the soul. but heal “the sick”: as the words,
“the Lord shall raise him up,” prove. So the same Greek is translated, “made (thee)
whole,” Mat_9:21, Mat_9:22.
and if ... sins — for not all who are sick are so because of some special sins. Here a
case is supposed of one visited with sickness for special sins.
have committed — literally, “be in a state of having committed sins,” that is, be
under the consequences of sins committed.
they — rather, “it”: his having committed sins shall be forgiven him. The connection
of sin and sickness is implied in Isa_33:24; Mat_9:2-5; Joh_5:14. The absolution of the
sick, retained in the Church of England, refers to the sins which the sick man confesses
(Jam_5:16) and repents of, whereby outward scandal has been given to the Church and
the cause of religion; not to sins in their relation to God, the only Judge.
SBC, "Among all the trials of life there is no occasion when we more deeply feel the
need of God’s helping hand than when brought low by sickness ourselves, or when we
tremble for the life of some member of our household or a near and valued friend.
Unwavering confidence in God inspires the belief that whatever is really for the best our
gracious Father will be sure to grant.
I. We should always be humble in our prayers. Doubtless many a petition is rejected by a
higher tribunal for lack of humility in the hearts of those who presented it.
II. Importunate earnestness is another characteristic of successful prayer, if, at the same
time, we have the spirit of submission to the wisdom of our heavenly Father.
J. N. Norton, Every Sunday, p. 351.
CALVI , "15. But it must be observed, that he CO ECTS a promise with the
prayer, lest it should be made without faith. For he who doubts, as one who does not
rightly call on God, is unworthy to obtain anything, as we have seen in James 1:5.
Whosoever then really seeks to be heard, must be fully persuaded that he does not
pray in vain.
As James brings before us this SPECIAL gift, to which the external rite was but an
addition, we hence learn, that the oil could not have been rightly used without faith.
But since it appears that the Papists have no certainty as to their anointing, as it is
manifest that they have not the gift, it is evident that their anointing is spurious.

214. And if he have committed sins. This is not added only for the sake of amplifying, as
though he had said, that God would give something more to the sick than health of
body; but because diseases were very often inflicted on ACCOU T of sins; and by
speaking of their remission he intimates that the cause of the evil would be removed.
And we indeed see that David, when afflicted with disease and seeking relief, was
wholly engaged in seeking the pardon of his sins. Why did he do this, except that
while he acknowledged the effect of his faults in his punishment, he deemed that
there was no other remedy, but that the Lord should cease to impute to him his sins?
The prophets are full of this doctrine, that men are relieved from their evils when
they are loosed from the guilt of their iniquities. Let us then know that it is the only
fit remedy for our diseases and other calamities, when we carefully examine
ourselves, being solicitous to be reconciled to God, and to obtain the pardon of our
sins.
COKE, "James 5:15. The prayer of faith shall save, &c.— By the prayer of faith
must here be understood, a prayer PROCEEDI G from a firm persuasion of mind,
that God would assist them miraculously to cure the diseased person. either the
apostles, elders, nor any other of the Christians, could work miracles, but when the
Spirit saw proper, and by an impulse intimated as much to them. For that reason we
find strangers were sometimes healed, while some of the Christians CO TI UEDto
labour under sickness, and other great bodily disorders. Philippians 2:26-27. 1
Timothy 5:23. 2 Timothy 4:20. But when they had the prayer of faith, they might
with assurance proceed to work a miracle; and such miraculous cures, though
worked uponChristians, were very likely means to convert Jews or Heathens, as well
as to CO FIRM and establish in their most holyfaith such as had already believed.
The phrase shall or will save the sick, means "will prevail with God to cure the
diseased person." See Genesis 21:7. The salvation here spoken of, was not eternal
salvation, but a miraculous saving from, or curing of some particular bodily
disorder:—and so it is explained in the next verse, Pray for one another, that ye may
be healed. It is not here said that the anointing with oil, or the laying on of hands,
would cure them; nor is it intimated that the elders of themselves could effect the
cure: but, upon the prayer of faith, the Lord will raise him up, the miracle being
carefully ascribed to the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. The word Καν, rendered
and if, in the next clause, might be rendered more properly although; for the apostle
does not speak of it as a dubious thing, whether such a person had committed sin or
not, but seems evidently to go all along upon the supposition of his having
committed some one or more great crimes, which had occasioned that particular
disorder. See Deuteronomy 28:15; Deuteronomy 28:68. John 9:2. 1 Corinthians
11:29-32. 1 John 5:16-17. The Popish doctrine of the necessity of absolution by a
priest, in order to the remission of the sins of private persons, and their obtaining
eternal salvation, has no more foundation here, than their fictitious sacrament of
Extreme Unction. See on 1 Corinthians 12:9.
ELLICOTT, "(14, 15) Anointing him with oil.—Or, unction. The use of some
precious and mysterious ointment, on solemn occasions, obtained in most of the

215. ancient nations, specially the Eastern. The Jews themselves were by no means
originators of the habit, although they carried it to its highest ceremonial and
significance. APART, too, from the regular performances of the rite, as upon the
accession of a king, or the consecration of a high priest, it often occurred in private
cases, and some striking instances are recorded in the Gospels:—the spikenard,
costly and fragrant (Luke 7:36-50), wherewith the Saviour’s feet were anointed by
“a woman which was a sinner;” and that, again, which Mary, of her grateful love,
poured upon Him six days before His death (John 12:3-9). These were not unusual
acts, but chiefly worthy of note because of the persons concerned. It was not
remarkable for women to make such offerings to a famous rabbi, but that our Lord
should be so treated, carried a deeper meaning. or, again, was it a new ordinance
with which the Apostles were first commissioned, in pursuance whereof they
“anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them” (Mark 6:13). “Here,”
observes Bishop Harold Browne, “unction was evidently an outward sign, similar to
that used by our Saviour, when He made clay, and put it to the blind man’s eyes. It
was connected with the miraculous power of healing.” This connection only, this use
of a known form with a diviner import, was the cause of astonishment; and clearly it
was to such a practice, with simply its common intention, that St. James refers. or
can we refrain from saying, however undesirous of controversy, that all which
unction now implies to the Romanist is quite opposed to whatever force and value
are given it in Holy Writ. There unction is enjoined “with the special object of
recovery;” its purport was a present bodily one, and in no way APPLICABLE to the
future of the soul. “The prayer of faith shall save the sick”—i.e., shall heal him: the
faithful prayer shall be that which God will answer, and so “raise up” the sufferer.
But, it is urged, the next clause has a different force: “If he have committed sins,
they shall be forgiven him.” Such is only apparent in our own version, and not in the
original. The grammatical sense infers that the sick man is abiding under the
consequence of some committed sin, which is “presumed to have been the working
cause of his present sickness.” So Alford, and Bede similarly: “Many by reason of
sins done in the soul are compassed by weakness: nay, even death of the body.” And
the former theologian again: “Among all the daring perversions of Scripture, by
which the Church of Rome has defended her superstitions, there is none more
patent than that of the present passage. ot without reason has the Council of Trent
defended its misinterpretation with anathema; for indeed it needed that, and every
other recommendation, to support it, and give it any kind of acceptance. The
Apostle is treating of a matter totally distinct from the occasion and the object of
extreme unction. He is enforcing the efficacy of the prayer of faith in afflictions
(James 5:13). Of such efficacy he adduces one special instance. In sickness let the
sick man inform the elders of the church. Let them, representing the congregation of
the faithful, pray over the sick man, accompanying that prayer with the symbolic
and sacramental act of anointing with oil in the name of our Lord. Then the prayer
of faith shall save (heal) the sick man, and the Lord shall bring him up out of his
sickness; and even if it were occasioned by some sin, that sin shall be forgiven him.
Such is the simple and undeniable sense of the Apostle, arguing for the efficacy of
prayer; and such the perversion of that sense by the Church of Rome.” ot that we
should think this and other like cases are wholly intentional twistings of God’s
word. The Latin Bible is in many places a faulty—though not deliberately

216. unfaithful—rendering of the Hebrew and Greek; and half our differences with
Rome arise from such misinterpretations. Allowing the beginning of mischief to
have been oftentimes a wrong translation, religious opinions engendered from it, we
can understand, would be hardly cast aside, more especially when advantageous to
their possessors. Little by little the change of doctrine drew on, and most probably
thus:—The aim of the apostolic anointing was bodily recovery, and (again we quote
Bishop Browne) “this exactly corresponds with the miraculous cures of early ages; .
. . so long as such . . . powers remained in the Church, it was reasonable that
anointing of the sick should be retained.” But these powers ceased, in the wisdom of
God, after awhile; not so, however, the ceremony to which men’s minds in distress
had been accustomed. It was retained in affection when its true force had departed.
But since no outward result remained visible, fervent and mystical teachers could
not well avoid searching for the invisible; and thus the area of operations was
removed from the flesh to the spirit. The words of Holy Scripture would, with a
little straining, bear such a colourable translation: and so was laid the foundation of
that belief now current in a great part of Christendom. The Greek Church still
practices unction, but rather in memory of a venerated custom, wherein God’s
mercy was aforetime present; the Latin, unfortunately, is bound by its Council of
Trent (Sessio xiv.) to believe “extreme unction to be a sacrament, instituted by
Christ, conferring good, remitting sins, and comforting the infirm.” Its authorised
manual of devotion—The Crown of Jesus (p. 710)—says, “Our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, in His tender solicitude for those whom He has REDEEMED by His
precious blood, has been pleased to institute another sacrament, to help us at that
most important hour on which eternity depends—the hour of death. This sacrament
is called Extreme Unction, or the last anointing.” And further explains, “The priest,
in administering this sacrament, anoints the five principal senses of the body—the
eyes, the ears, the nostrils, the lips, the hands and the feet—because these have been
employed during life in offending God. At each anointing he pronounces these
words: ‘May the Lord by this holy anointing, and by His own most tender mercy,
pardon thee whatever sin thou hast committed, by thy sight, hearing,’ &c. . . .”
otwithstanding this lamentable departure from right exegesis, some divines think
it wise and well to reflect how far with profit the ancient ceremony could be revived;
while others would rather let it slumber with the past. “When miraculous powers
ceased, it was reasonable that the unction should cease also.” Still more reasonable
is it that even the form or memorial, however touching and beautiful, should be
abandoned, rather than we should seem by it to be at one with the changed—alas!
the false—teaching of that Church of man’s tradition, Rome.
BURKITT, "Here our apostle shews the good effects of this anointing and praying;
yet OTE, that he ascribes the sick man's recovery, not to the oil, but to the prayer;
the prayer of faith shall save the sick. The moral means is taken notice of before the
ritual and ceremonial: the prayer of faith shall save the sick.
There was required to the miracle faith, both in the elder, and in the sick person, to
save, that is, to recover the sick; yet mark, it is said, The Lord shall raise him up, to
note, that the efficacy of faith lies in the object of faith; it is not faith properly, but
God called upon in faith, that saveth the sick; the efficacy of faith is not from its

217. own merit, but from God's power and grace.
If he have committed sins: why, is there any question to be made of that? o; but if
he has committed such sins as brought this sickness upon him, they shall be forgiven
him, upon this prayer of faith; if any SPECIAL or particular sin has drawn down
this disease upon him, it shall be remitted, and the disease removed; where the
sickness is by way of chastisement, the healing is a testimony of God's forgiveness.
Learn hence, how absurd is the Popish sacrament of Extreme Unction: how can they
gather a perpetual ordinance from an action that was extraordinary and
miraculous, and long since ceased? Or APPLY a sacrament to dying persons, from a
rite used upon persons who were not to die, but to be raised from sickness? Or how
can they promise to him forgiveness of sins, to whom they cannot promise that
recovery which was the token of it?
16 Therefore confess YOUR sins to each other
and pray for each other so that you may be
healed. The prayer of a righteous person is
powerful and effective.
BAR ES, "Confess your faults one to another - This seems primarily to refer to
those who were sick, since it is added, “that ye may be healed.” The fair interpretation is,
that it might be supposed that such confession would contribute to a restoration to
health. The case supposed all along here (see Jam_5:15) is, that the sickness referred to
had been brought upon the patient for his sins, apparently as a punishment for some
particular transgressions. Compare the notes at 1Co_11:30. In such a case, it is said that
if those who were sick would make confession of their sins, it would, in connection with
prayer, be an important means of restoration to health. The duty inculcated, and which
is equally binding on all now, is, that if we are sick, and are conscious that we have
injured any persons, to make confession to them. This indeed is a duty at all times, but
in health it is often neglected, and there is a special propriety that such confession
should be made when we are sick. The particular reason for doing it which is here
specified is, that it would contribute to a restoration to health - “that ye may be healed.”
In the case specified, this might be supposed to contribute to a restoration to health
from one of two causes:
(1) If the sickness had been brought upon them as a special act of divine visitation for
sin, it might be hoped that when the confession was made the hand of God would

218. be withdrawn; or
(2) In any case, if the mind was troubled by the recollection of guilt, it might be hoped
that the calmness and peace resulting from confession would be favorable to a
restoration to health.
The former case would of course be more applicable to the times of the apostles; the
latter would pertain to all times. Disease is often greatly aggravated by the trouble of
mind which arises from conscious guilt; and, in such a case, nothing will contribute
more directly to recovery than the restoration of peace to the soul agitated by guilt and
by the dread of a judgment to come. This may be secured by confession - confession
made first to God, and then to those who are wronged. It may be added, that this is a
duty to which we are prompted by the very nature of our feelings when we are sick, and
by the fact that no one is willing to die with guilt on his conscience; without having done
everything that he can to be at peace with all the world. This passage is one on which
Roman Catholics rely to demonstrate the propriety of “auricular confession,” or
confession made to a priest with a view to an absolution of sin. The doctrine which is
held on that point is, that it is a duty to confess to a priest, at certain seasons, all our
sins, secret and open, of which we have been guilty; all our improper thoughts, desires,
words, and actions; and that the priest has power to declare on such confession that the
sins are forgiven. But never was any text less pertinent to prove a doctrine than this
passage to demonstrate that. Because:
(1) The confession here enjoined is not to be made by a person in health, that he may
obtain salvation, but by a sick person, that he may be healed.
(2) As mutual confession is here enjoined, a priest would be as much bound to confess
to the people as the people to a priest.
(3) No mention is made of a priest at all, or even of a minister of religion, as the one to
whom the confession is to be made.
(4) The confession referred to is for “faults” with reference to “one another,” that is,
where one has injured another; and nothing is said of confessing faults to those whom
we have not injured at all.
(5) There is no mention here of absolution, either by a priest or any other person.
(6) If anything is meant by absolution that is Scriptural, it may as well be pronounced
by one person as another; by a layman as a clergyman. All that it can mean is, that God
promises pardon to those who are truly penitent, and this fact may as well be stated by
one person as another. No priest, no man whatever, is empowered to say to another
either that he is truly penitent, or to forgive sin. “Who can forgive sins but God only?”
None but he whose law has been violated, or who has been wronged, can pardon an
offence. No third person can forgive a sin which a man has committed against a
neighbor; no one but a parent can pardon the offences of which his own children have
been guilty towards him; and who can put himself in the place of God, and presume to
pardon the sins which his creatures have committed against him?
(7) The practice of “auricular confession” is “evil, and only evil, and that continually.”
Nothing gives so much power to a priesthood as the supposition that they have the
power of absolution. Nothing serves so much to pollute the soul as to keep impure
thoughts before the mind long enough to make the confession, and to state them in
words. Nothing gives a man so much power over a female as to have it supposed that it is
required by religion, and appertains to the sacred office, that all that passes in the mind
should be disclosed to him. The thought which but for the necessity of confession would
have vanished at once; the image which would have departed as soon as it came before
the mind, but for the necessity of retaining it to make confession - these are the things

219. over which a man would seek to have control, and to which he would desire to have
access, if he wished to accomplish purposes of villany. The very thing which a seducer
would desire would be the power of knowing all the thoughts of his intended victim; and
if the thoughts which pass through the soul could be known, virtue would be safe
nowhere. Nothing probably under the name of religion has ever done more to corrupt
the morals of a community than the practice of auricular confession.
And pray one for another - One for the other; mutually. Those who have done
injury, and those who are injured, should pray for each other. The apostle does not seem
here, as in Jam_5:14-15, to refer particularly to the prayers of the ministers of religion,
or the elders of the church, but refers to it as a duty pertaining to all Christians.
That ye may be healed - Not with reference to death, and therefore not relating to
“extreme unction,” but in order that the sick maybe restored again to health. This is said
in connection with the duty of confession, as well as prayer; and it seems to be implied
that both might contribute to a restoration to health. Of the way in which prayer would
do this, there can be no doubt; for all healing comes from God, and it is reasonable to
suppose that this might be bestowed in answer to prayer. Of the way in which confession
might do this, see the remarks already made. We should be deciding without evidence if
we should say that sickness never comes now as a particular judgment for some forms of
sin, and that it might not be removed if the suffering offender would make full
confession to God, or to him whom he has wronged, and should resolve to offend no
more. Perhaps this is, oftener than we suppose, one of the methods which God takes to
bring his offending and backsliding children back to himself, or to warn and reclaim the
guilty. When, after being laid on a bed of pain, his children are led to reflect on their
violated vows and their unfaithfulness, and resolve to sin no more, they are raised up
again to health, and made eminently useful to the church. So calamity, by disease or in
other forms, often comes upon the vicious and the abandoned. They are led to reflection
and to repentance. They resolve to reform, and the natural effects of their sinful course
are arrested, and they become examples of virtue and usefulness in the world.
The effectual fervent prayer - The word effectual is not the most happy
translation here, since it seems to do little more than to state a truism - that a prayer
which is effectual is availing - that is, that it is effectual. The Greek word (ᅚνεργουµένη
energoumenē) would be better rendered by the word energetic, which indeed is derived
from it. The word properly refers to that which has power; which in its own nature is
fitted to produce an effect. It is not so much that it actually does produce an effect, as
that it is fitted to do it. This is the kind of prayer referred to here. It is not listless,
indifferent, cold, lifeless, as if there were no vitality in it, or power, but that which is
adapted to be efficient - earnest, sincere, hearty, persevering. There is but a single word
in the original to answer to the translation effectual fervent. Macknight and Doddridge
suppose that the reference is to a kind of prayer “inwrought by the Spirit,” or the
“inwrought prayer;” but the whole force of the original is expressed by the word
energetic, or earnest.
Of a righteous man - The quality on which the success of the prayer depends is not
the talent, learning, rank, wealth, or office of the man who prays, but the fact that he is a
“righteous man,” that is, a good man; and this may be found in the ranks of the poor, as
certainly as the rich; among laymen, as well as among the ministers of religion; among
slaves, as well as among their masters.
Availeth much - ᅶσχύει ischuei. Is strong; has efficacy; prevails. The idea of strength
or power is that which enters into the word; strength that overcomes resistance and

220. secures the object. Compare Mat_7:28; Act_19:16; Rev_12:8. It has been said that
“prayer moves the arm that moves the world;” and if there is anything that can prevail
with God, it is prayer - humble, fervent, earnest petitioning. We have no power to
control him; we cannot dictate or prescribe to him; we cannot resist him in the execution
of his purposes; but we may asK him for what we desire, and he has graciously said that
such asking may effect much for our own good and the good of our fellow-men. Nothing
has been more clearly demonstrated in the history of the world than that prayer is
effectual in obtaining blessings from God, and in accomplishing great and valuable
purposes. It has indeed no intrinsic power; but God has graciously purposed that his
favor shall be granted to those who call upon him, and that what no mere human power
can effect should be produced by his power in answer to prayer.
CLARKE, "Confess your faults one to another - This is a good general direction
to Christians who endeavor to maintain among themselves the communion of saints.
This social confession tends much to humble the soul, and to make it watchful. We
naturally wish that our friends in general, and our religious friends in particular, should
think well of us; and when we confess to them offenses which, without this confession,
they could never have known, we feel humbled, are kept from self-applause, and induced
to watch unto prayer, that we may not increase our offenses before God, or be obliged
any more to undergo the painful humiliation of acknowledging our weakness, fickleness,
or infidelity to our religious brethren.
It is not said, Confess your faults to the Elders that they may forgive them, or
prescribe penance in order to forgive them. No; the members of the Church were to
confess their faults to each other; therefore auricular confession to a priest, such as is
prescribed by the Romish Church, has no foundation in this passage. Indeed, had it any
foundation here it would prove more than they wish, for it would require the priest to
confess his sins to the people, as well as the people to confess theirs to the priest.
And pray one for another - There is no instance in auricular confession where the
penitent and the priest pray together for pardon; but here the people are commanded to
pray for each other that they may be healed.
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much - The words
δεησις ενεργουµενη signify energetic supplication, or such a prayer as is suggested to the
soul and wrought in it by a Divine energy. When God designs to do some particular work
in his Church he pours out on his followers the spirit of grace and supplication; and this
he does sometimes when he is about to do some especial work for an individual. When
such a power of prayer is granted, faith should be immediately called into exercise, that
the blessing may be given: the spirit of prayer is the proof that the power of God is
present to heal. Long prayers give no particular evidence of Divine inspiration: the
following was a maxim among the ancient Jews, ‫קצדה‬ ‫צדיקים‬ ‫שתפלת‬ the prayers of the
righteous are short. This is exemplified in almost every instance in the Old Testament.
GILL, "Confess your faults one to another,.... Which must be understood of sins
committed against one another; which should be acknowledged, and repentance for
them declared, in order to mutual forgiveness and reconciliation; and this is necessary at
all times, and especially on beds of affliction, and when death and eternity seem near
approaching: wherefore this makes nothing for auricular confession, used by the

221. Papists; which is of all sins, whereas this is only of such by which men offend one
another; that is made to priests, but this is made by the saints to one another, by the
offending party to him that is offended, for reconciliation, whereby a good end is
answered; whereas there is none by the other, and very often bad consequences follow.
And pray for one another, that ye may be healed; both corporeally and
spiritually:
the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Not any man's
prayer; not the prayer of a profane sinner, for God heareth not sinners; nor of hypocrites
and formal professors: but of the righteous man, who is justified by the righteousness of
Christ, and has the truth of grace in him, and lives soberly and righteously; for a
righteous man often designs a good man, a gracious man, one that is sincere and
upright, as Job, Joseph of Arimathea, and others; though not without sin, as the person
instanced in the following verse shows; "Elias, who was a man of like passions", but a
just man, and his prayer was prevalent: and not any prayer of a righteous man is of avail,
but that which is "effectual, fervent"; that has power, and energy, and life in it; which is
with the Spirit, and with the understanding, with the heart, even with a true heart, and
in faith; and which is put up with fervency, and not in a cold, lukewarm, lifeless, formal,
and customary way: it is but one word in the original text; and the Vulgate Latin version
renders it, "daily"; that prayer which is constant and continual, and without ceasing, and
is importunate; this prevails and succeeds, as the parable of the widow and the unjust
judge shows. Some translate the word "inspired": the Spirit of God breathes into men
the breath of spiritual life, and they live, and being quickened by him, they breathe; and
prayer is the breath of the spiritual man, and is no other than the reverberation of the
Spirit of God in him; and such prayer cannot fail of success: it may be rendered
"inwrought"; true prayer is not what is written in a book, but what is wrought in the
heart, by the Spirit of God; who is the enditer of prayer, who impresses the minds of his
people with a sense of their wants, and fills their mouths with arguments, and puts
strength into them to plead with God, and makes intercession for them according to the
will of God; and such prayer is always heard, and regarded by him: this has great power
with God; whatever is asked, believing, is received; God can deny nothing prayed for in
this manner; it has great power with Christ, as Jacob had over the angel, when he
wrestled with him; and as the woman of Canaan, when she importuned him, on account
of her daughter, and would have no denial: such prayer has often been of much avail
against Satan, who has been dispossessed by it; even the most stubborn kind of devils
have been dislodged by fasting and prayer: it has often been the means of preserving
kingdoms and nations, when invaded by enemies, as the instances of Jehoshaphat and
Hezekiah show; and of removing judgments from a people, as was often done, through
the prayers of Moses, as when fire and fiery serpents were sent among them; and of
bringing down blessings as rain from heaven by Elijah; and of delivering particular
persons from trouble, as Peter was delivered from prison, through the incessant prayer
of the church for him: and this power, and efficacy, and prevalence of prayer, does not
arise from any intrinsic worth and merit in it, but from the grace of the Spirit, who
influences and endites it, directs to it, and assists in it; and from the powerful mediation,
precious blood, and efficacious sacrifice of Christ; and from the promise of God and
Christ, who have engaged, that whatever is asked according to the will of God, and in the
name of Christ, shall be done. The Jews have had formerly a great notion of prayer: the
power of prayer, they say (b), is strong; and extol it above all other services: they say (c),
it is better than good works, or than offerings and sacrifices; and particularly, the prayer
of righteous men: says R. Eliezar (d).

222. "to what is ‫צדיקים‬ ‫של‬ ‫,תפלתן‬ "prayer of righteous men" like? it is like a shovel: the sense is,
that as the shovel turns the corn on the floor, from one place to another, so prayer turns
the holy blessed God from wrath to mercy.''
HE RY, "Christians are directed to confess their faults one to another, and so to join
in their prayers with an for one another, Jam_5:16. Some expositors connect this with
Jam_5:14. As if when sick people send for ministers to pray over them they should then
confess their faults to them. Indeed, where any are conscious that their sickness is a
vindictive punishment of some particular sin, and they cannot look for the removal of
their sickness without particular applications to God for the pardon of such a sin, there it
may be proper to acknowledge and tell his case, that those who pray over him may know
how to plead rightly for him. But the confession here required is that of Christians to one
another, and not, as the papists would have it, to a priest. Where persons have injured
one another, acts of injustice must be confessed to those against whom they have been
committed. Where persons have tempted one another to sin or have consented in the
same evil actions, there they ought mutually to blame themselves and excite each other
to repentance. Where crimes are of a public nature, and have done any public mischief,
there they ought to be more publicly confessed, so as may best reach to all who are
concerned. And sometimes it may be well to confess our faults to some prudent minister
or praying friend, that he may help us to plead with God for mercy and pardon. But then
we are not to think that James puts us upon telling every thing that we are conscious is
amiss in ourselves or in one another; but so far as confession is necessary to our
reconciliation with such as are at variance with us, or for gaining information in any
point of conscience and making our own spirits quiet and easy, so far we should be ready
to confess our faults. And sometimes also it may be of good use to Christians to disclose
their peculiar weaknesses and infirmities to one another, where there are great
intimacies and friendships, and where they may help each other by their prayers to
obtain pardon of their sins and power against them. Those who make confession of their
faults one to another should thereupon pray with and for one another. The Jam_5:13
directs persons to pray for themselves: Is any afflicted let him pray; the Jam_5:14
directs to seek for the prayers of ministers; and the Jam_5:16 directs private Christians
to pray one for another; so that here we have all sorts of prayer (ministerial, social, and
secret) recommended.
JAMISO , "The oldest authorities read, “Confess, THEREFORE,” etc. Not only in
the particular case of sickness, but universally confess.
faults — your falls and offenses, in relation to one another. The word is not the same
as sins. Mat_5:23, Mat_5:24; Luk_17:4, illustrate the precept here.
one to another — not to the priest, as Rome insists. The Church of England
recommends in certain cases. Rome compels confession in all cases. Confession is
desirable in the case of (1) wrong done to a neighbor; (2) when under a troubled
conscience we ask counsel of a godly minister or friend as to how we may obtain God’s
forgiveness and strength to sin no more, or when we desire their intercessory prayers for
us (“Pray for one another”): “Confession may be made to anyone who can pray”
[Bengel]; (3) open confession of sin before the Church and the world, in token of
penitence. Not auricular confession.
that ye may be healed — of your bodily sicknesses. Also that, if your sickness be the
punishment of sin, the latter being forgiven on intercessory prayer, “ye may be healed”

223. of the former. Also, that ye may be healed spiritually.
effectual — intense and fervent, not “wavering” (Jam_1:6), [Beza]. “When energized”
by the Spirit, as those were who performed miracles [Hammond]. This suits the
collocation of the Greek words and the sense well. A righteous man’s prayer is always
heard generally, but his particular request for the healing of another was then likely to
be granted when he was one possessing a special charism of the Spirit. Alford translates,
“Availeth much in its working.” The “righteous” is one himself careful to avoid “faults,”
and showing his faith by works (Jam_2:24).
CALVI , "16Confess YOUR faults one to another. In some copies the illative
particle is given, nor is it unsuitable; for though when not expressed, it must be
understood. He had said, that sins were remitted to the sick over whom the elders
prayed: he now reminds them how useful it is to discover our sins to our brethren,
even that we may obtain the pardon of them by their intercession. (142)
This passage, I know, is explained by many as referring to the reconciling of
offenses; for they who wish to return to favor must necessarily know first their own
faults and confess them. For hence it comes, that hatreds take root, yea, and increase
and become irreconcilable, because every one perniciously defends his own cause.
Many therefore think that James points out here the way of brotherly
reconciliation, that is, by mutual acknowledgment of sins. But as it has been said, his
object was different; for he CO ECTSmutual prayer with mutual confession; by
which he intimates that confession AVAILS for this end, that we may be helped as
to God by the prayers of our brethren; for they who know our necessities, are
stimulated to pray that they may assist us; but they to whom our diseases are
unknown are more tardy to bring us help.
Wonderful, indeed, is the folly or the insincerity of the Papists, who strive to build
their whispering confession on this passage. For it would be easy to infer from the
words of James, that the priests alone ought to confess. For since a mutual, or to
speak more plainly, a reciprocal confession is demanded here, no others are bidden
to confess their own sins, but those who in their turn are fit to hear the confession of
others; but this the priests claim for themselves alone. Then confession is required of
them alone. But since their puerilities do not deserve a refutation, let the true and
genuine explanation already given be deemed sufficient by us.
For the words clearly mean, that confession is required for no other end, but that
those who know our evils may be more solicitous to bring us help.
Availeth much. That no one may think that this is done without fruit, that is, when
others pray for us, he expressly mentions the benefit and the effect of prayer. But he
names expressly the prayer of a righteous or just man; because God does not hear
the ungodly; nor is access to God open, except through a good conscience: not that
OUR PRAYERS are founded on our own worthiness, but because the heart must be
cleansed by faith before we can present ourselves before God. Then James testifies
that the righteous or the faithful pray for us beneficially and not without fruit.

224. But what does he mean by adding effectual or efficacious? For this seems
superfluous; for if the prayer avails much, it is doubtless effectual. The ancient
interpreter has rendered it “assiduous;” but this is too forced. For James uses the
Greek participle, ἐνεργούµεναι, which means “working.” And the sentence may be
thus explained, “It avails much, because it is effectual.” (143) As it is an argument
drawn from this principle, that God will not allow the prayers of the faithful to be
void or useless, he does not therefore unjustly conclude that it avails much. But I
would rather confine it to the present case: for our prayers may properly be said to
be ἐνεργούµεναι, working, when some necessity meets us which excites in us earnest
prayer. We pray daily for the whole Church, that God may pardon its sins; but then
only is our prayer really in earnest, when we go forth to succor those who are in
trouble. But such efficacy cannot be in the prayers of our brethren, except they
know that we are in difficulties. Hence the reason given is not general, but must be
specially referred to the former sentence.
BARCLAY, "A PRAYI G CHURCH (James 5:16-18)
5:16-18 Confess YOUR sins to each other, and pray for each other, that you may be
healed. The prayer of a good man, when it is set to work, is very powerful. Elijah
was a man with the same emotions as ourselves, and he prayed earnestly that it
should not rain, and for three years and six months no rain fell upon the earth. And
he prayed again and the heaven gave rain; and the earth put forth her fruit.
There are in this passage three basic ideas of Jewish religion.
(i) There is the idea that all sickness is due to sin. It was a deeply-rooted Jewish
belief that where there were sickness and suffering, there must have been sin.
"There is no death without guilt," said the Rabbis, "and no suffering without sin."
The Rabbis, therefore, believed that before a man could be healed of his sickness his
sins must be forgiven by God. Rabbi Alexandrai said, " o man gets up from his
sickness until God has forgiven him all his sins." That is why Jesus began his
healing of the man with the palsy by saying, "My son, your sins are forgiven"
(Mark 2:5). The Jew always identified suffering and sin. owadays we cannot make
this mechanical identification; but this remains true--that no man can know any
health of soul or mind or body until he is right with God.
(ii) There is the idea that, to be effective, confession of sin has to be made to men,
and especially to the person wronged, as well as to God. In a very real sense it is
easier to confess sins to God than to confess them to men; and yet in sin there are
two barriers to be removed--the barrier it sets up between us and God, and the
barrier it sets up between us and our fellow-men. If both these barriers are to be
removed, both kinds of confession must be made. This was, in fact, the custom of the
Moravian Church and Wesley took it over for his earliest Methodist classes. They
used to meet two or three times a week "to confess their faults to one another and to
pray for one another that they might be healed." This is clearly a principle which
must be used with wisdom. It is quite true that there may be cases where confession
of sin to each other may do infinitely more harm than good; but where a barrier has

225. been erected because of some wrong which has been done, a man must put himself
right both with God and his fellow-man.
(iii) Above all, there is the idea that no limits can be set to the power of prayer. The
Jews had a saying that he who prays surrounds his house with a wall stronger than
iron. They said, "Penitence can do something; but prayer can do everything." To
them prayer was nothing less than contacting the power of God; it was the channel
through which the strength and grace life. How much more must this be so for a
Christian?
Tennyson wrote:
"More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by GOLD CHAI S about the feet of God."
As the Jew saw it, and as indeed it is, to cure the his of life we need to be right with
God and right with men, and we need to bring to bear upon men through prayer the
mercy and the might of God.
Before we leave this passage there is one interesting technical fact that we must note.
It QUOTESElijah as an example of the power of prayer. This is an excellent
illustration of how Jewish rabbinic exegesis developed the meaning of Scripture.
The full story is in 1 Kings 17:1-24; 1 Kings 18:1-46. The three years and six
months--a period also QUOTED in Luke 4:25 --is a deduction from 1 Kings 18:1.
Further, the Old Testament narrative does not say that either the coming or the
cessation of the drought was due to the prayers of Elijah; he was merely the prophet
who announced its coming and its going. But the Rabbis always STUDIED
Scripture under the microscope. In 1 Kings 17:1 we read: "As the Lord the God of
Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years,
except by my word." ow the Jewish attitude of prayer was standing before God;
and so in this phrase the Rabbis found what was to them an indication that the
drought was the result of the prayers of Elijah. In 1 Kings 18:42 we read that Elijah

226. went up to Carmel, bowed himself down upon the earth and put his face between his
knees. Once again the Rabbis saw the attitude of agonizing prayer; and so found
what was to them an indication that it was the prayer of Elijah which brought the
drought to an end.
BE SO , "James 5:16. Confess your faults — Whether you are sick or in health;
one to another — He does not say to the elders; this may or may not be done, for it is
nowhere commanded. We may confess them to any pious person who can pray in
faith: he will then know how to pray for us, and will be more excited so to do. And
pray one for another, that ye may be healed — Both in soul and body. Let it be
observed, 1st, This passage of Scripture, only enjoining true believers to confess
their sins to one another, affords no foundation for the Popish practice of auricular
confession to a priest. Besides, mutual confession being here enjoined, the priest is
as much bound to confess to the people as the people to the priest. 2d, This direction
being addressed to women as well as to men, they are required to pray for one
another, and even for the men, whether laity or clergy. 3d, There is no mention
made here of absolution by a priest, or by any other person. 4th, Absolution, in the
sound sense of the word, being nothing but a declaration of the promises of pardon
which are made in the gospel to penitent sinners, every one who understands the
gospel doctrine may declare these promises to penitent sinners as well as any bishop
or priest whatever, and the one has no more authority to do it than the other: nay,
every sincere penitent may expect salvation without the absolution of any person
whatever: whereas the impenitent have no reason to expect that blessing, although
absolved by all the priests in the world. See Dr. Benson. The effectual fervent prayer
— Greek, δεησις ενεργουµενη, a singular expression, which Macknight renders, the
inwrought prayer; and Doddridge, the prayer wrought by the energy of the Spirit;
and Whitby, the inspired prayer, observing, “as they who were inwardly acted by
an evil spirit were styled ενεργουµενοι, (persons inwardly wrought upon,) so they
who were acted by the Holy Spirit, and inwardly moved by his impulses, were also
ενεργουµενοι, inwardly wrought upon, in the good sense: and therefore it seems
most proper to APPLY these words, not to the prayer of every righteous person, but
to the prayer offered by such an extraordinary impulse.” Doubtless every prayer of
every righteous person is not here intended, but every truly righteous person has the
Spirit of Christ, without which no man can belong to him, and is led, more or less,
by the Spirit of God, otherwise he could not be a son of God, Romans 8:9; Romans
8:14; and every such a one walks not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, Romans 8:1
: and therefore, if not always, yet sometimes, yea, generally, such a one, as Jude
expresses it, (James 5:20,) prays in the Holy Ghost; that is, in and by his influence,
and therefore in a spirit of true, genuine prayer, feeling sincere and earnest desires
after the blessings which he asks, and being enabled to offer those desires up unto
God in faith or confidence, that he shall receive what he asks. And this fervent,
energetic prayer is evidently the prayer here intended, and said to AVAILmuch, or
to be of great efficacy, being frequently and remarkably answered by God’s
granting the petitions thus addressed to him.
COFFMA , "Confess therefore YOUR sins one to another, and pray one for
another, that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much

227. in its working.
One to another ... Mutuality is certainly implied by this. There is no class of men set
up in God's church to hear confessions. o so-called "priest" ever had the right to
hear the confessions of the penitent, unless he himself, in turn, would likewise
confess his own sins to the confessor. As Roberts aptly wrote:
The Roman Catholic doctrine of auricular confession has no support from this
passage. "Elders" does not refer to a priestly set of workers. And not even the elders
ever had the power to absolve a sinner or set terms and conditions of his forgiveness.
[53]SIZE>
The cathartic effect of confession, as mutually engaged among Christians, is helpful
and beneficial, the purpose of such confessions being that of enlisting the mutual
prayers of Christians for each other. There is not in view here any requirement for
Christians to confess their sins "to the whole church," a practice which is not only
not in view here, but which, under certain circumstances, can have a POSITIVELY
detrimental effect. The holy church itself is not a "priest" standing between the
penitent Christian and his forgiveness.
It is felt that the comment of Wessel on this verse is appropriate:
This does not mean that Christians are to indulge in indiscriminate public, or even
PRIVATE confessions; and certainly the passage has nothing to do with confession
to a priest.[54]SIZE>
The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working ... Again, as
Wessel said, "There is no unanimity as to how to render this; but the meaning is
clear: a good man has great power in prayer."[55] This is as good a place as any to
stress the meaning apparent here. o matter what circumstance of suffering or
illness may overtake the child of God, the avenue of prayer is OPE for his seeking
relief from the Father himself through Christ. It has been the happy good fortune of
this writer to behold many answers to prayers in conditions and circumstances
approaching, but not reaching, the miraculous itself. God answers his children's
prayers; and the power of those prayers is sealed by James' word in this place.
Regarding the fad of some present-day religious groups unbosoming themselves
completely to those initiated into the cult, "It is apt to have more harmful than
beneficial results, giving an outlet for an unhealthy exhibitionism."[56]
It is also wrong to take James' words here as laying down any additional condition
of a Christian's forgiveness. The apostle Peter made repentance and prayer to be the
sole conditions of a sinning, penitent Christian's forgiveness; and it is not true that
James here laid down another condition. Helpful and beneficial as confession
assuredly is in many circumstances, no new condition is in evidence.
[53] J. W. Roberts, op. cit., p. 173.
[54] Walter W. Wessel, op. cit., p. 962.

228. [55] Ibid.
[56] R. V. G. Tasker, op. cit., p. 135.
COKE, "James 5:16. Confess YOUR faults, &c.— Confess therefore your faults,
&c. See Mills, and Wetstein. They were to make a confession of those particular sins
which had drawn some remarkable diseases upon them, as a token of the divine
displeasure for their unchristian conduct. Their sending for the elders of the church
plainly supposes that they had faith to be healed; and the confession of their sins,
which they are here ordered to make, as plainly supposes that they were penitent:
for, unless they repented of those particular sins which had occasioned the disorders
under which they laboured, it does notappear that they obtained a miraculous cure.
The confession was to be made by a sick person, in order to his being cured; not by
a person in health, in order to his obtaining eternal salvation: and it was to be made
to the elders, or to any other Christians, who had the power of miraculously curing
diseases, that they might pray for the pardon of those particular crimes, and that
the penitent might be released from the punishment under which he had fallen.
From these considerations it appears, that the popish doctrine of auricular
confession has as little foundation here, as their sacrament of extreme unction, and
the necessity of sacerdotal absolution, in order to the remission of sins. They would
build several of their novel doctrines on the concluding part of this epistle; but they
are like castles in the air, without any foundation or support. From this direction of
the apostle, Confess your faults, &c. they have introduced the necessity of private
Christians confessing all their sins to a priest; that they may obtain his authoritative
absolution, and may be assured of being fully pardoned. By this means, they have
brought the people into a blind subjection to, and slavish dependance upon the
clergy; by this means they have enticed women to lewdness, and taught vice to the
innocent; have dived into the secrets of families and cities, of courts and kingdoms;
have betrayed princes and states, as well as private persons, and done infinite
mischief in the world: whereas, ACCORDI G to this direction of the apostle, the
same persons are here ordered to confess their faults one to another, who in the next
sentence are ordered to pray one for another. The priest ought therefore to confess
to the people, and desire their prayers and absolution, as well as the people to the
priest, in order to have his prayers and absolution; for it is said, Confess YOUR
faults one to another, and pray one for another.
The effectual fervent prayer, &c.— The prayer of a righteous man under the divine
impulse AVAILSmuch. The word ενεργουµενη signifies, "wrought by the energyof
the Spirit." The apostle, says Benson, means a prayer wrought in a man by the
Spirit of God, or which PROCEEDED from a prophetic impulse, and by which he
knew what success he should have; as plainly appears from what is said in the
preceding notes, concerning the miraculous cures which were effected upon such a
prayer, and likewise from what isafterwards said concerning the prayer of Elijah.
See Ephesians 3:20. Colossians 1:29. 1 Corinthians 12:11.
ELLICOTT, "(16) Confess YOUR faults one to another.—The meaning attributed
to the words of this verse by many devout Catholics cannot be established either

229. from the opinion of antiquity, or a critical examination of the Greek text according
to modern schools. “We have,” observes Alford, “a general injunction arising out of
a circumstance necessarily to be inferred in the preceding example (James 5:14-15).
There, the sin would of necessity have been confessed to the elders, before the
prayer of faith could deal with it. And seeing the blessed consequences in that case
‘generally,’ says the Apostle, in all similar cases, and ‘one to another
U IVERSALLY, pursue the same salutary practice of confessing your sins . . .’
Confess therefore one to another—not only to the elders (presbyters) in the case
supposed, but to one another generally—your transgressions, and pray for one
another that ye may be healed, in case of sickness, as above. The context here
forbids any wider meaning . . . and it might appear astonishing, were it not
notorious, that on this passage, among others, is built the Romish doctrine of the
necessity of confessing sins to a priest.”
ot that all Roman Catholic divines, indeed, have thus read the injunction. Some of
the ablest and greatest have admitted “that we cannot certainly affirm sacramental
confession to have been meant or spoken of in this place” (Hooker). How then did
the gradual perversion take hold of men’s minds? The most laborious investigation
of history and theology will alone answer the question properly; and here only a
brief résumé is possible. There can be little doubt that, strictly consonant with the
apostolic charge, open confession was the custom of old. Offenders hastened to some
minister of God, and in words, by which all present in the congregation might take
notice of the fault, declared their guilt; convenient remedies were as publicly
prescribed, and then all present joined in prayer to God. But after awhile, for many
patent reasons, this plain talk about sins was rightly judged to be a cause of mischief
to the young and innocent; and such confessions were relegated to a private hearing.
The change was in most ways beneficial, and hardly suspected of being a step in a
completely new doctrine. It needed years—centuries, in fact—to develop into the
hard system of compulsory individual bondage which cost Europe untold blood and
treasure to break asunder. A salutary practice in the case of some unhappy
creatures, weakened by their vices into a habit of CO TI UAL sin, was scarcely to
be conceived as a rule thrust upon all the Christian world. Yet such it was, and “at
length auricular confession, followed by absolution and satisfaction, was elevated to
the full dignity of a necessary sacrament. The Council of Trent anathematises all
who deny it to be truly and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ Himself, and
necessary to salvation (jure divino); or who say that the method of confessing
secretly to the priest alone . . . is alien to Christ’s institution, and of human
invention” (Harold Browne). Marvellous perversity of acute brains and worthy
sentiment, showing only how steep is the way of error; and how for Christian as for
Jew the danger of tradition is perilous indeed. “To conclude,” in the words of
Hooker, “we everywhere find the use of confession, especially public, allowed of,
and commended by the fathers; but that extreme and rigorous necessity of auricular
and private confession, which is at this day so mightily upheld by the Church of
Rome, we find not. It was not then the faith and doctrine of God’s Church, as of the
Papacy at this present—(1) that the only remedy for sin after baptism is
sacramental penitency; (2) that confession in secret is an essential part thereof; (3)
that God Himself cannot now forgive sins without the priest; (4) that because

230. forgiveness at the hands of the priests must arise from confession in the offender,
therefore to confess unto him is a matter of such necessity as, being not either in
deed, or, at the least, in desire, performed, excludeth utterly from all pardon, and
must consequently in Scripture be commanded wheresoever any promise of
forgiveness is made. o, no; these opinions have youth in their countenance.
Antiquity knew them not; it never thought nor dreamed of them” (E. P., vi. iv. 14).
“As for private confession,” says Jewel in his Apology, “abuses and ERRORS set
apart, we condemn it not, but leave it at liberty.” Such must be the teaching of any
Church which, in the epigram of Bishop Ken, “stands distinguished from all papal
and puritan innovations,” resting upon God’s Word, and the earliest, holiest,
simplest, best traditions of the Apostles of His dear Son. And if an ancient custom
has become a universal practice in the Latin communion, presumed to be of
sacramental virtue, scholars will tell us that the notion has never been absent
altogether from any branch of the Catholic Church; and that in some shape or form,
it lives in most of those societies which sprang into existence at the Reformation
largely from abhorrence of the tyranny and misuse of confession.
The effectual fervent prayer . . .—Better, The prayer of a righteous man availeth
much in its working. It moves the hand of Him Who moves the world.
“What are men better than sheep, or goats,
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer—
Both for themselves, and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is, every way,
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.”
In Matthew 14:2, and Mark 6:14, we read of John the Baptist, that “mighty works
do show forth themselves in him.” A nearer approach to the sense would be “they
work”—energise, if we might COI a word; and such is also the meaning of the
present passage—the prayer of the just, pleading, striving fervently, hath power
with God, even like Israel of old, and shall prevail (Genesis 32:28). Some divines
trace a literal force in the passage, finding in it an allusion to the Energumens of the
first century (the “mediums” of that age), who were possessed by demons; that, just
as these unhappy beings strove in their bondage, so equally—nay, infinitely more—
should Christians “wrestle with the Lord.”
BURKITT, " ote here, 1. That there is a time and season when it is our duty to
confess our sins, not only to God, but to one another, to a pious and prudent
minister, to an injured and wronged neighbour, to those that have been tempted by
us, and have consented with us in sinning.

231. ote, 2. How absurdly the Papists ground their practice of auricular confession
upon this text, here is not one word spoken of a priest, nor of our confessing to him:
and if so, the text proves it the priest's duty to confess to the people, as much as the
people's to confess to the priest, for the duty required is mutual, confess one to
another; ACCORDI GLY the words are generally understood of confessing
PRIVATE injuries one to another: that the sick person must reconcile himself to his
neighbour as well as to God, that he may recover; for so it follows, pray for one
another, that ye may be healed; intimating, that it is the duty of Christians to
confess their miscarriages and private injuries one to another, and by their prayers
to succour, help, and relieve each other; it is the duty of the strong to pray for the
weak, and the strong may be strengthened by the prayers of the weak.
Observe here, 1. The qualification of that prayer, which at that time was effectual
for the recovery of the sick person in a miraculous manner, it may be rendered an
inspired prayer; as they that were actuated by the evil spirits, so such as were
moved by the impulses of the Holy Spirit, were called Energoumenoi, in a good
sense, the phrase properly signifies a prayer inwardly wrought and excited, and
implies the efficacious influence of the Holy Spirit, and the force and vehemency of a
Christian's spirit and affection exerted and put forth in the duty; in wrought
prayer, or prayer that works in and upon our own hearts, has a mighty prevalency
with God.
Observe, 2. The qualification of the person praying, a righteous man, not legally
righteous, one in a state of sinless perfection, but a person justified by faith, and
whose faith is fruitful in good works.
Observe, 3. The prevalency and efficacy of such a person's prayer; it availeth much
; he doth not say how much that is better experienced than expressed; it availeth
much for ourselves, sometimes more for others than for ourselves.
ote, that the fervent prayers and intercessions of the righteous have a mighty
prevalency with God, both for themselves and others.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, "Confess your faults one to another
Confessing of faults
These words imply, in the first place, that our religious life is not an isolated thing
between each man and God, with which no other man has anything to do.
All Christians are members of a body. If they come much in contact they are nearly
related members. And no one has a right to fancy that his faults concern himself alone,
and that no one else has an interest in his being a good man. The text implies further
that we may get much help by being open about our faults. The apostle goes on to say,
“Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed.”
Prayer is a means by which every one can help his neighbour, and prayer is not the only
means, but only one amongst many. Our friends can give us sympathy; can sometimes
give us advice; can always give us encouragement; very often a friend’s experience will
help out ours, and make us see more clearly than we could do alone that we ought to do.

232. But the chief benefit of being ready to confess faults which our conscience urges us to
confess is, that we clear our own minds and strengthen our own wills. In the first place, a
concealed fault has a most extraordinary power of infecting the whole character. The sin,
while it is concealed, seems to enter into all you think or do. It seems to be a part of
yourself. You cannot say, “It is not I that did it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” No, the fact
of your concealing it seems to make it peculiarly your own. It is not your fault merely; it
is you. And all that comes from you partakes of it. All this is changed the moment you
have told it. The act of telling it seems as it were to circumscribe it within its own proper
limits. It is wrong; but there is the whole of it clearly in view. It no longer affects the rest
of you or of your life. You have not got rid of it by telling of it. But you have got rid of this
infection which it formerly carried with it. You have shut it up within itself. You have
separated yourself from it, and it from yourself. Again, closely connected with this is the
fact that a concealed fault lays a peculiar and very heavy burden on the soul. Over and
above the remorse for the fault itself, the shame of having it hid in the heart, and
unknown even to dear friends, always makes the hider feel as if he were acting a lie; and
he despises himself in the midst of every word of praise that he may win. And, once
more, confessing the fault pledges the will to try to prevent a return of it, and no other
pledge is equally strong.
The resolution of the man who is hiding within him the memory of wrong is sure to be
weak, wavering, fitful. The resolution of the man, whose repentance has been stamped
and marked by confession, is clear and strong. However weak he feels, he feels, too, that
he knows what he has to do and means to do it. And all this applies particularly to secret
faults, which are hidden from all eyes but those of the doers. But much of it applies also
to faults which are not hidden; but being known to all who know us intimately, yet are
not confessed to be faults. There is a great difference between the repentance which
simply endeavours to change, and that which not only endeavours to do so, but openly
yet humbly confesses that it means to do so. Two questions remain: To whom you
should confess your faults? and how? And both of these questions must be left very
much to your own judgment. As a general rule, it may be said that one great duty of
intimate friends is to supply each other with that help which Christian sympathy can
give. A man has almost always among this friends some one, to whom he would not be
utterly unwilling to tell all that lies on his own conscience. There may be some matters
that require more experienced advice. There are some confessions which we are bound
to make, not for the sake of ourselves and for our own spiritual improvement, but for the
sake of justice: thus, for instance, if you have either purposely or unintentionally accused
your neighbour falsely, it is to himself that you are bound to make the confession. All
these points must be left to your own decision. So, again, it must be left to your own
judgment how you will confess a fault. Nothing is more mischievous than to confess it in
any such way as to give yourself a pleasure in doing so. (Bp. Temple.)
Confession
Besides that to God, we may hold many sorts of confessions necessary before men; as—
1. Some public. And so by the Church in ordinary or extraordinary humiliation (Lev_
16:21; Neh_9:3). So also to the Church, and that either—
(1) Before entrance and admission, in which they did solemnly disclaim the
impurities of their former life, professing to walk suitably to their new
engagement for time to come (Mat_3:6; Act_19:18). Or—

233. (2) Upon public scandals after admission, for of secret things the Church judgeth
not; but those scandalous acts, being faults against the Church, cannot be
remitted by the minister alone; the offence being public, so was the confession
and acknowledgment to be made public (2Co 1Ti_5:20). Now this was to be
done, partly for the sinner’s sake, that he might be brought to the more shame
and conviction; and partly because of them without, that the community of the
faithful might not be represented as an ulcerous, filthy body, and the Church not
be thought a receptacle of sin, but a school of holiness.
2. Private confession to men. And so—
(1) To a wronged neighbour, which is called a turning to him again after offence
given (Luk_17:4), and prescribed by our Saviour (Mat_5:24). God will accept no
service or worship at our hands till we have confessed the wrong done to others.
So here, confess your faults one to another, it may be referred to injuries. In
contentions there are offences on both sides, and every one will stiffly defend his
own cause, &c.
(2) To those to whom we have consented in sinning, as in adultery, theft, &c. We
must confess and pray for each other (Luk_16:28). It is but a necessary charity to
invite them that have shared with us in sin to a fellowship in repentance.
(3) To a godly minister or wise Christian under deep wounds of conscience. It is
but folly to hide our sores till they be incurable. When we have disburdened
ourselves into the bosom of a godly friend, our conscience findeth a great deal of
ease. Certainly they are then more capable to give us advice, and can the better
apply the help of their counsel and prayers to our particular case, and are thereby
moved to the more pity and commiseration; as beggars, to move the more, will
not only represent their general want, but uncover their sores.
(4) When in some special cases God’s glory is concerned; as when some eminent
judgment seizeth upon us because of a foregoing provocation, which provocation
is sufficiently evidenced to us in gripes of conscience, it is good to make it known
for God’s glory (2Sa_12:13; Jos_7:19). So when Divine revenge pursueth us if we
are brought to some fearful end and punishment, it is good to be open in
acknowledging our sin, that God’s justice may be the more visibly cleared; and
hereby God receiveth a great deal of glory, and men a wonderful confirmation
and experience of the care and justice of providence. (T. Manton.)
Faults
Nothing can be further from that discreet good sense which pervades the New
Testament, than to inculcate a habit of tattling about one’s self. There is a reserve in this
matter which belongs to true delicacy, and so to wisdom. Yet we are commanded to
confess oar faults. We are to admit them when they occur, and when they are charged
upon us.
I. THE TERM “FAULT” IN SCRIPTURE IS FREQUENTLY EMPLOYED AS
SYNONYMOUS WITH “SIN.” It also has a special sense, and relates to small sins. Faults
represent the unconscious imperfections of moral conduct—the ten thousand little sins
of daily life which do not argue intentional wrong, and which yet are annoying and
mischievous. Faults in this point of view belong to every part of a man’s nature, and to
every portion of his conduct—to the tongue, to the hand, to the temper, to the reason, to

234. the conscience, to every affection, and to every sentiment. There is no one part of a
man’s nature that is without fault; and no man can carry himself through a single day
without faults multitudinous. They are the signs and tokens of men’s universal
imperfection. There are two extremes of opinion respecting faults. The one regards them
with an excessive, uncharitable emphasis of blame. The other sometimes utterly ignores
them, and sometimes ostentatiously undervalues them, as factors of moral results.
Either extreme is wrong. Faults are not sins, necessarily, though they breed sins; and yet,
they are not harmless. There is great danger in them, and great mischief in them, and
great misery in them. They should therefore be studied, outgrown, corrected.
II. LET US CONSIDER THE EFFECTS, UPON HUMAN LIFE AND CHARACTER, OF
FAULTS—not of grave mistakes; not of great sins of the strong arm and nimble foot; but
those ten thousand little things that men do which are not just right, which they
themselves could wish they had not done, and which everybody else could wish they had
not done, but which are passed by, and of which it is said, “These are their weaknesses.”
We say, by way of excusing them, “We all have our faults.” And so we brush them away.
There is a right charity on this subject; but it is wiser for each of us to take heed of our
faults. For—
1. Faults are often stepping-stones to heinous sins. They go before and prepare the
way. They tend to dull moral sensibility. This is especially true of faults in the
direction of the moral sentiments. A very slight carelessness in truth-telling will lead
by and by to the gravest temptations towards falsehood. Small faults are baits and
roles to draw men up to greater ones, so that their mischief is not measured by their
own diameter, but by that which they lead to. There is a little gipsy girl in the old
castle, and some one says to the lord, “You have an enemy there.” “What! that little
gipsy girl?” says the lord, “what can she do? Here am I with my armed men; and
every gate and door and window is bolted and barred. I guess she cannot take the
castle.” No, she cannot take it; but at dead of the night she can go and draw back
some bolt, and let men in that can take it.
2. Faults unwatched tend to run together, and so to become far more potent than
they are in detail. A little sharpness in a person’s voice occasionally is not unpleasant.
A little spirit is necessary. It is of the nature of spice. Life without anything in it, you
know, is dough; and therefore a little temper—just a little spice—raises the dough,
and makes bread of it. But a little more temper, and a little more, and a little more,
and you are a shrew and a scold. The result is of great moment, but it is made up of
the sum of little things, each one of which is apparently of not much importance.
3. Faults also prevent true growth in life. There is a great difference, of course,
between faults that prevent growth, and those that do not. There are many that do
not seem to do it; but there are some that do it. You may give a tree a good soil, and a
good summer; and if that tree is a little sluggish, and it falls behind a little, it will be
attacked by moss, which is a parasitic plant which draws its nourishment partly from
the tree, and partly from the air; and it will very likely be attacked by a fly which is
another kind of parasite that feeds upon the leaf. Each particular speck of moss, each
particular fungus, that hangs itself upon the tree, amounts to very little. One apple-
tree is ten million times bigger than one of those little plants that feed on it; but each
one of these epiphytes shoots its little roots into the tree; and being multiplied by
millions, they suck out the sap, and diminish the vigour of the tree, and prevent its
growth. There are thousands of little faults that multiply on men, and act in the same
way. The men become bark-bound, and leaf-blighted, and cease to have moral
growth.

235. 4. Faults, again, propagate themselves silently and secretly, and very dangerously;
and they do mischief far from the point at which they start, and do mischiefs, too,
that apparently are quite beyond their own nature. A picture may be spoiled by being
torn, or slashed; a bomb or ball may burst through the canvas and destroy it; but
then, a picture in a neglected convent may be steamed by the range, and smoked by
the chimney, and dimmed by the gathering dust of ages, and be put out by these
silent incrustations of time as effectually as if it were taken out of the frame and
burned. And as it is in art, so it is in character. You can overlay beauty, you can mar
perfectness of quality and faculty, by little faults. And the displeasure is greater,
frequently, when the thing is marred, than when it is destroyed. A man has a large
emerald, but it is “feathered,” and he knows an expert would say, “What a pity that it
has such a feather!” it will not bring a quarter as much as it otherwise would; and he
cannot take any satisfaction in it. A man has a diamond; but there is a flaw in it, and
it is not the diamond that he wants. A man has an opal, but it is imperfect, and he is
dissatisfied with it. An opal is covered with little seams, but they must be the right
kind of seams. If it has a crack running clear across, it is marred, no matter how large
it is, and no matter how wonderful its reflections are. And this man is worried all the
time because he knows his opal is imperfect; and it would worry him even if he knew
that nobody else noticed it. So it is in respect to dispositions, and in respect to
character at large. Little cracks, little flaws, little featherings in them, take away their
exquisiteness and beauty, and take away that fine finish which makes moral art. How
many noble men there are who are diminished, who are almost wasted, in their
moral influence 1 How many men are like the red maple I It is one of the most
gorgeous trees, both in spring, blossoming, and in autumn, with its crimson foliage.
But it stands knee-deep in swamp-water, usually. To get it, you must wade, or leap
from bog to bog, tearing your raiment, and soiling yourself. I see a great many noble
men, but they stand in a swamp of faults. They bear fruit that you fain would pluck,
but there are briars and thistles and thorns all about it; and to get it you must wade
your way through all these hindrances.
5. Faults are great wasters of happiness. They are the source of frets. They mar our
peace. They keep up petty discords. They are so small as to elude the grasp. They are
like a piano that has been standing all summer in an empty house without being
tuned. Some of the notes are too low, and some too high; and they are all of them
just a little out of tune. The instrument is good and sound, and pretty nearly
chorded; but it is not quite in tune. And the not quite takes away all comfort from the
musician who sits down to it. He plays, it may be, through the middle range without
much discomfort; but when he strikes a note in the upper range, it makes him cringe.
And so it is with happiness. Happiness is harmony. It requires the faculties to be
harmonious all the way through. Violent excitement is seldom a source of great
happiness. It gives joy for the moment, but it is not often the source of what we call
true happiness. That comes from a lower range of action.
6. Faults are also dangerous, in their own way, because they have insect fecundity.
They art apt to swarm. And though a few of them may not do much harm, when men
come to have a great many of them they will avail as much as if they were actual
transgressions. It is not necessary that there should be wolves, and lions, and bears
in the woods to drive hunters out of them. Black flies, or mosquitos, or gnats, will
drive them out, if there are enough of them. These little winged points of creation
make up what they lack in individual strength by their enormous multitude.
III. WE ARE COMMANDED, THEN, TO CONFESS OUR FAULTS. TO whom? The
priest? Yes. If any man knows a priest who is a good man, and is willing to listen to him

236. and give him good advice, there is no earthly reason why he may not go to him, as a
sensible man who has a heart of sympathy, and a desire to help his fellow creatures. But
that is not what is meant, evidently, in the text. “Confess your faults one to another.”
Frequently a man will admit his great sins, but not his faults. The apostle says, “You are
to own your faults.” If a man says,” You were proud,” say, “Yes, I was proud.” “You ought
not to have done that.” “Well, I ought not to have done it.” “You said that through
vanity.” “It is true, I did. I was under the influence of vanity, and I sacrificed you through
vanity. I confess it. Help me out of it next time.” How wise, then, is James’s command,
“Confess your faults one to another.” Nor is that all—“and pray one for another.” If we
prayed more we should blame less; we should be far more tolerant; we should not
suspect so much; we should not carry stories so much; we should not do wrong so much.
For, there is nothing that makes a man so charitable as that which he has himself
suffered. An old veteran, who has gone through a hundred battles, and is as firm as a
rock in the midst of dangers, has a young officer under his command, who in his first
action quivers with fear, and trembles like an aspen leaf. If this superior officer had
never seen any service, he would scoff at the young man, and laugh him to scorn; but
instead of that, the true man and veteran comes up to the frightened soldier, and says,
“My young man, keep cool. You are doing well. I was as scared as you are when I first
went into action; but I got over it, and you will get over it.” What balm! what
magnanimity! There is nothing like the sympathy which is created by our own
experience. By confessing our faults one to another, and praying for one another, we
learn humility on the one side, and on the other side that large charity which covers
transgression and hides a multitude of sins. Finally, while we are striving to bear our
own burdens, and to sustain the faults and shortcomings of our fellow-men, let us
remember every day what Christ is obliged to bear in and for us. (H. W. Beecher.)
Confession of faults
The case before us supposes a Christian who is sick, and who has committed no great
crime, no crying sin, but a fault towards his brother. He is the man whose case was
mentioned in the preceding verses. His faults had brought him to his bed, his sickness
had brought him to penitence; he desires to be forgiven and healed. He sends for the
Church officials, who use first the physical agents of remedy, and then engage in prayer.
Now, says the apostle, “Send for your brother, against whom you have committed a fault.
Confess your fault to him; perhaps that will bring him to perceive that he has had faults
towards you. “When you have prayed together, you for him and he for you, and have
come to be loving friends again, then all may go right, and the peace of your mind will
advance the recovery of your body, and so you may be healed.” In this whole matter of
confession it is important to guard against morbid feeling and mistaken action. Where
another is concerned, and such a sin is committed that the acknowledgment to him or to
the world would put him in no better position than he is now, why should there be any
confession made? Confession to other than the offended party, or even to the injured
party, may itself become injurious to a wide circle. The confession should not be made to
a third party, but only to the party involved in the difficulty. That confession should
always be made in a truly devout spirit; in a spirit consistent with acts of prayer. It must
not be done perfunctorily, merely to get through a duty, but must come from the heart,
just as prayer must come from the heart; and must leave the confessor in that state of
mind which prepares him to go to the Heavenly Father and invoke all blessings upon the
brother whom he has offended. And this points us to the ethical lesson on the other side,
which is often overlooked. When my brother is convinced that he has committed a fault

237. against me, and being sick and unable to visit me, sends for me and begins to make
confession, I must not draw myself up haughtily and tell him I am glad he has come to
his senses at length. I must listen very patiently and humbly t,, his confession, examining
my own heart to see whether there might not have been something in my conduct to
betray my brother into his fault, and whether, also, I may not have resented his fault as
to be betrayed by indignation into a fault on my own part. I must listen with the greatest
gladness, seeing that he has been brought by the Spirit of God to such a state; and I must
earnestly desire to be in as proper a moral position toward him. If all this be done, then
immediately after confession will follow forgiveness and prayer. He that had done the
wrong and he that had received it will pray each for the other, and there will be real,
unaffected love; and a state of love amongst all Christians is that which every man who
loves our Lord Christ does most intensely long for. (C. F. Deems, D. D.)
Confession difficult
A very learned man once said,” The three hardest words in the English language are, ‘I
was mistaken!’” Frederick the Great once wrote to the Senate: “I have lost a great battle,
and it was entirely my own fault.” Goldsmith says, “This confession displayed more
greatness than all his victories.” Do not be afraid to acknowledge your mistakes, else you
will never correct them; and you are really showing how much wiser you are than when
you went astray.
Pray one for another
Intercessory prayer
It is very hard to understand how prayer does good to the person that offers it. It is quite
impossible to give any satisfactory explanation of the truth, though we hold it as we hold
our lives, that prayer is heard and answered, and all this without a constant miracle.
That is hard to understand, though we are quite sure it is all perfectly true. But it is a
much more mysterious thing—and in some points of view it is a very awful thing—to
think that prayer for others may truly affect their state, both here and hereafter. Now
perhaps the best way of bringing our minds in some measure to understand all this, is to
set it before us, that all this is no more wonderful than certain other arrangements in
God’s Providence. It is just as hard to explain why your eternal destiny may be affected
by another person’s conduct, as by his prayers. Yet we know it is. But still, it is all very
strange. And so, if you would ask a good man to do you a good turn, you can never do so
better than by asking him to pray for you. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous
man availeth much.” We all need to feel this more than we do. No doubt there are few
requests and few promises ever made with so little sense of what is meant by them as
that to pray for another. A person will say that his prayer is that such a friend may be
happy; while in fact he never really went to God’s footstool with such a prayer at all. And
it may be said, in a single sentence, that intercessory prayer for others is sometimes
characterised by what is even worse than unreality. Sometimes the most ill-set and
malignant thing that one man can do towards another is to pray for him, or to threaten
to pray for him. Oh, let there never be admitted to our minds the faintest idea of hitting
at somebody in prayer! Let intercessory prayer always be offered in love. And though the
humblest and poorest, there is no saying the good you may do—do to your children, do
to your friends, do to those who preach the gospel to you, do to the whole Church of
God, by your earnest and persevering prayers. Not much need be said as to the way in
which we ought to pray fur those we love. We pray for them as we pray for ourselves. We
ask God to give them the same things we ask for ourselves. We ask for guidance through

238. this present life, and for glory afterward, through the precious sacrifice of Christ, and the
precious influences of the Holy Spirit: and we ask, as the occasion arises, for all the
multitude of separate blessings which are included under these. And as the occasion
arises, too, we should do all we can to bring about the things for which we pray. You
know the great familiar rule for every Christian’s work and prayer: it is to pray as
earnestly as if we could do nothing by ourselves; and at the same time to work as hard as
if we could do everything by ourselves. It has been well said, that if you want God to hear
your prayers for others you must hear them yourselves. It is as mere a mockery to pray
that those you love may be brought to Christ, and at last to heaven, while yet you never
move a finger to bring them, as it would be for a man to sit down idly amid his heaps of
quarried stones and pray that his house may be built, while yet he never moves a hand to
build it. And yet, “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it”;
they are but the two aspects of one great truth. And indeed, it is only in regard to
spiritual things that you will find people so forgetful that pains must go with prayers.
You do not pray that your little boy may be a good Greek scholar, and yet never teach
him Greek. You do not pray that your friend may not fall into a pit hard by on his way on
a dark night, and yet never warn him that the pit is there. Now, just act on these plain
rules of sound sense, as regards the most important things of all. You may indeed pray
for those for whom you can do nothing else; but there are those for whom you ought to
pray, for whom you may do much more. Pray for your children, and try to train them in
the right way. Pray for your friends, and never miss the chance of doing them a good
turn, for this life or the next. Pray for the heathen, and help the agencies for their
conversion. Pray for the sorrowful, and never lose the opportunity of comforting a sad
heart, and a kind word may go far here, or even the hearty sympathy, felt though
unexpressed. (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)
Mutual prayer
I. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE TEXT.
1. Prayer should be united and mutual; with each other and for each other. The
secret root of piety is to be watered in private; but then this will prompt us to social
efforts. To prevent selfishness we should pray with others, and learn to say “our
Father.” It has a happy effect on men to hear themselves prayed for, and may set
them to pray for themselves. It promotes mutual love and sympathy to pray to ether.
It also heightens the flame of our devotedness and zeal. It often corrects and
regulates our prayers, which in privacy might grow erratic or careless. It is due to the
interests of Christ’s Church that we should unite in prayer.
2. Mutual prayer demands mutual confidence and love. Quarrelling and fault-finding
separate us from one another. First, we should confess our faults one to another,
with real sorrow for them and determination not to repeat them. Then we should
forgive each other freely, and from our hearts. Not to forgive hinders prayer (Mar_
11:25). To this must be added zealous interest in each other’s spiritual good, not cold
and haughty distance and mutual estrangement ever after.
3. True prayer must be righteous. We must seek righteous ends. We must be
influenced by righteous motives. We must seek right things.
4. Our prayer must be earnest. The words “effectual fervent” are one in the original,
where the term denotes labouring, energetic, agonising prayer; prayer in the spirit;
prayer with our whole heart and strength, and under the impulse and guidance of

239. God’s Holy Spirit.
II. THE ILLUSTRATION (1Ki_18:41, &c.).
1. Elijah was a righteous man.
2. Yet he was nothing more than a man.
3. He gave himself to prayer to fulfil the purposes of his mission.
4. His prayer was effectual in regard to material things.
5. His prayer at first was for temporal evil.
6. It was for a public benefit.
III. LESSONS.
1. In some cases unite to prayer for temporal good, when it is for God’s glory.
2. Unite to prayer for spiritual blessings; for the deepening of God’s work in your
own hearts—for the conversion of friends—for the welfare of the Church you belong
to—for a blessing on God’s Word; for a revival of religion at large. (Congregational
Pulpit.)
Intercessory prayer
Christianity brought with it a new phenomenon in the spiritual world, if such an
expression be permitted, and that phenomenon was the sudden and extraordinary
development of intercessory prayer. There was little of this in the old world among Jews
or pagans. Prayer was individual; each man asked of God what he felt himself to be in
great need of. If in sickness, he asked for health; if in poverty, he entreated for wealth. At
the outside, he only prayed for near friends and relatives when in danger of death. The
Jew, no doubt, had a nobler and fuller type of prayer, and he supplicated for Israel. His
individuality was but an atom in the great bulk of his people, and he did pray God to
deliver His people out of adversity, and to strengthen it against its oppressors. It is
doubtful whether the heathen had any such practice of prayer for his race and nation. He
offered to the genius the empire, but that was but a homage rendered to the jealous
divinity who was supposed to watch over the welfare of Rome. The death of Christ, the
proclamation of the kingdom, seems to have opened the eyes of all those who received
the gospel to the common brotherhood of mankind. With a shock of surprise they saw
that all mankind are members of one family, that all are linked together by common
interests. This is an age of philanthropy, when there is a real desire to relieve all of their
burdens which weigh unjustly, and to redress all wrongs, and where there is not such a
real desire, one is simulated, and it becomes a sort of political and social clap-trap—
simply because philanthropy is fashionable. But in this bustling, eager age, when we are
all trying to rectify abuses and remedy ills, how much is done on the knees? How much
of intercessory prayer goes on? We are, in too many eases, endeavouring to better the
world without seeking God’s help and God’s guidance. We are not all able to do much to
redress the wrongs done in this world; to relieve the darkness, to ease the burdens, to
staunch the tears that are shed, because we have not all the means, or the ability, or the
opportunities, but we can all pray, and by our prayers may effect far more than can they
who, with means, ability, and opportunity go to work in a philanthropic spirit, but
without Christian faith and devout prayer. (S. BaringGould, M. A.)

240. Intercession
Serjeant William White tells us in his biography of his friend Serjeant William
Marjouram that the latter could say, eight years after they first met, when Marjouram
led White to the Saviour, that he had not failed one single day to remember him in his
prayers.
Litany day
Mr. Romaine used to spend two hours every Friday in intercession for his friends,
having their names written down, and pacing his room in thought and prayer about their
particular wants. He used to refer to Friday as his “Litany day.”
Intercessory prayer needed
A true Christian will value the intercession of the humblest believer. So did good Dr.
Davenant, Master of Queen’s College, Cambridge. Being appointed to the bishopric of
Salisbury, and taking leave of the inmates of the college, he asked an old college servant,
John Rolfe, to give him his prayers. The old man naturally replied that he had rather
need of those of the bishop. “Yea, John,” replied the latter, “and I need thine too, being
now to enter into a calling wherein I shall meet with many and great temptations.”
Value of the intercessions of the good
Hamilton says of the departed McCheyne: “Perhaps the heaviest loss to his brethren, his
people and the land, is the loss of his intercessions.” (Sword and Trowel.)
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man
Effectual prayer
We are often told that no prayer can be effectual in securing the blessing sought unless it
is consistent with God’s will to grant it. But the all-important question at once arises.
“How can I know what is and what is not consistent with God’s will?” Suppose I have a
sick child for whose recovery I am intensely anxious. I am told that if his restoration to
health is in harmony with God’s will, I may pray for it in the confident expectation of
receiving an answer to my prayer. But how can I know whether or not it is so? Clearly, I
cannot know it unless God Himself informs me. What, then, shall I do? Shall I leave the
sick one in the hands of God to have the issue of his sickness determined simply and
alone by the will of God? This would be to deny the utility of prayer. But though I know
not what God’s will concerning my child may be, I am most diligent to use the power of
prayer for his recovery, just as I use the power of medicine or of nursing. Is it said that I
am to pray with a submissive spirit? Very true; as soon as any occasion for submission
appears. But there is neither occasion nor room for it, till I learn that God cannot grant
my request. I saw the other day a man attempting to split a rock with a sledgehammer.
Down came the sledge upon the stone as if it would crush it, but it merely rebounded,
leaving the rock as sound as before. Again the ponderous hammer was swung, and again
it came down, but with the same result. Nothing was accomplished. The rock was still
without a crack. I might have asked (as so many are disposed to ask concerning prayer)
what good could result from such a waste of time and strength. But that man had faith.
He believed in the power of that sledge. He believed that repeated blows had a tendency
to split that rock. And so he kept at it. Blow after blow came down all apparently in vain.
But still he kept on without a thought of discouragement. He believed that a vigorously

241. swung sledge “has great power.” And at last came one more blow and the work was done.
That is the way in which we ought to use prayer. God has told us that “the earnest prayer
of the righteous man has great power.” We ought to believe it, just as that man believed
that his sledge had power. And believing it, we ought to use prayer for the attainment of
spiritual results with just such confidence of success as that man used his sledge. But
says one, “I don’t know whether the thing for which I am praying is consistent with the
will of God.” No matter whether it is or not. That is not a question that there is any need
of determining or asking. We don’t know God’s will about any of our plans for the future.
But that doesn’t paralyse our efforts or lead us to distrust the efficiency of the means we
use for accomplishing those plans. A young man wishes to secure an education. He
knows nothing of God’s will in the matter, nor does he hesitate a moment because of his
ignorance. He simply knows that God has established certain means to be used for
attaining the end desired, and that if he faithfully and perseveringly uses these, he may
reasonably hope to succeed. It is true he may fail. It may be God’s will that he should die
within a year. Or some one of the many obstacles in his path may prove entirely
insurmountable. But he is to take no notice of any such possibilities. He is to commence
and prosecute his studies as if he knew that, if industrious and persevering, he would
certainly succeed. This is the way to succeed. And this is the only way. Earnestness,
perseverance, unflinching resolution, have ten thousand times made not only possible,
but actual, what would otherwise have been impossible. It is just so with prayer. We are
no more to concern ourselves about God’s will concerning the things for which we pray,
than about His will concerning the things for which we toil. We are to recognise and hold
fast the fact with both hands, with memory, mind, and heart, that prayer is a means
appointed of God for securing spiritual results, as industry and resolution are for
achieving results in temporal things. And that is a universal law of God’s government,
that the more earnestly and perseveringly we use any means that God has appointed, the
more certain are we to attain the end we seek. And believing these things, we are to act
accordingly. We are to use prayer with just as much expectation of accomplishing
something by it, as we use industry. We are to believe with all the heart that “the earnest
prayer of the righteous man has great power.” (Christian Age.)
Inwrought energetic prayer
A person often says to his friend, or to his minister, “Pray for me. You are a good man,
and ‘ the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.’” If that be the meaning of the
verse—if “a righteous man” means a good man, who could appropriate it? God says,
“There is none righteous; no, not one.” But there was a depth in those words which the
centurion said of Christ—which probably he little thought of when he said them, “Truly
this was a righteous man!” Observe, “a righteous man”—not by virtue of His Deity, but
as man. He became man, and then as a man He fulfilled the whole righteousness of
God’s law. That righteousness God accepts as if it were ours. He imputes it to us; He sees
us in it; that which that holy, pure eye could never have seen us without—righteousness.
Therefore a “righteous man” means a justified man: And here is the comfort: the
humblest believer may go and plead the promise, and may go in the simple confidence
that Christ has justified him; and though both he and his prayer be utterly vile, still its
unworthiness does not destroy its worthiness or destroy its claim—for God hath written
it, and He cannot deny it—“The effectual fervent prayer of a justified man availeth
much.” But there is another condition: it must be “effectual fervent.” There is some
difficulty in arriving at an accurate definition of the meaning of these words—for, in the
original, the words are but one; and the first and closest signification is “wrought in”; the

242. wrought-in prayer, “the prayer wrought in the soul of a justified man availeth much.”
Therefore the primary idea is that the prayer that “avails much” is a prayer that is
wrought into a man’s soul by the Holy Spirit. When you go to pray it may seem to you as
if you originated your thoughts. But it is not so. As the flame which bore up the sacrifice
from the altar first came down upon the altar from heaven, so the first spring and power
of all prayer is from above. Prayer is an inward creation of the Holy Ghost. Let me place
this matter in its true arrangement. God, in His sovereign love and His.free mercy,
wishes to give you something. Say it is the pardon of your sins. It is a part of His way of
doing it that He sends the Holy Ghost to work in your heart a desire after the very thing
which He is meaning to give you. So that you do not so much obtain the good because
you ask it, as that you asked it because it is God’s mind to give it. The desire, and the
prayer that expresses the desire, are the machinery by which God is giving effect to His
own preordained plan. Let me offer you one or two suggestions to make more energetic
prayer. Much prayer is enfeebled from a want of faith in your own prayers. Fill yourself
with appreciations of the power of prayer by carrying in your mind some promise that
God has made. Then remember that all prayer—if prayer—must be communion. Prayer
alone is not communion. Communion is a double process. It is God speaking to us, and
then we speaking to God. That is communion. Therefore listen for voices, and let your
prayer be the echo. Throw as much of the Bible as you can into your prayer, because it
will be pleasant to God to have His own word brought back to Him. He will give much to
His own arguments. Always let there be a little preparation before you kneel down. Tune
the mind. Get into a certain atmosphere. Settle your subjects. Give them a little order,
not too much, not to make them mechanical, but still with some method. It is a great
help in prayer to have determined beforehand a little method. “Take with you words,” is
God’s command. When you begin to pray, set before you, and take as the ground of your
prayer, some particular attribute of God suited to the subject which you are going to
make the special subject of your petition. Deal much with that particular name or title of
God. It makes an adequate basis. Have arguments to back your salt; especially that
strongest one, “It is for Thy glory.” That is the most important of all things, when we are
in prayer, to tell God it is for His own faithfulness and for His own glory; to remind
yourself, and remind God, of former answers He has given you in prayer. “Thou hast
been my succour.” Whoever would pray to profit must pray praisingly. And then press
forward. Pray with a holy, bold resolvedness. And then put the name of Jesus—that
grand name of Jesus—clenchingly, commandingly. And when you have done—when you
have shot the arrow—wait; follow it with your eye, and look up and see when and where
the answer is going to come down. And let me remind you there is one kind of prayer to
which the text particularly refers—intercessory. May we never forget it. Do not let us
forget it as ministers and people. It is the life, it is the joy, it is the strength of the prayer,
when it is held together by intertwining threads of intercessory prayer. (James
Vaughan, M. A.)
The prayer of faith
I. THE PRAYER OF FAITH IS CONSISTENT WITH THE UNCHANGEABLENESS OF
GOD, WHEN BOTH ARE SCRIPTURALLY DEFINED.
II. IT IS CONSISTENT WITH NATURE AND MIRACLES. God can and will perform
what He has promised.
III. THE SCRIPTURAL CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH A MIRACLE MIGHT BE
WROUGHT AND THE ANSWER TO PRAYER BELIEVED.

243. 1. There is a plane of prayer which is acceptable, which has true faith, but which is
offered in the ordinary conditions of a secular yet pious life, without special stress of
emotion or elevation of view.
2. The element of time in prayer is important. In respect to the kingdom we shall not
have the harvest with the seed-sowing, but after.
3. There are unlimited possibilities in Christian prayer. The Spirit is given to help
our infirmities, when we know not what to ask for. The Church will ask more, receive
more, and do more. (R. B. Thurston, D. D.)
Is prayer efficacious?
Has it never happened, when travelling, that you have stopped among the ruins of an old
building, and there evoked, by thought, a vanished past? And if the stones which
surrounded you were those of a church, have you not experienced a strange emotion in
imagining all the generations which had passed through that enclosure, all the prayers
which had been heard there. Well! an analogous spectacle in the moral world impresses
me. There also we shall meet with ruins which sin heaps up every year, ruins of souls
made for a superior life, and degraded by vanity, by selfishness, by lusts But search
thoroughly, and, under the thick coating of vice or of indifference, you will find the
traces of a sanctuary, you will recognise vestiges which will tell you that those souls
ought to belong to God. Of those vestiges I wish to point out only one: it is the instinct of
prayer living in the depth of every man’s soul, which is found always and everywhere,
which makes the rough face of those poor savages, whose mouth hardly stammers out a
human language, to turn towards heaven in their afflictions. How great is that instinct,
and how shall we not admire its beauty! Here is a weak, ignorant being, who will pass
away, and who unites himself to the all-powerful God, to the Author of all life, of all
intelligence; here is a being hitherto selfish and defiled, who returns trembingly to the
Author of all love and all holiness; he considers in his soul His sovereign power and
goodness, he restores to Him, in acts of thanksgiving, the life he has received from Him.
But, while showing what is admirable in that instinct of prayer, how can we help
thinking with sorrow of the way in which it has been perverted? What has prayer, almost
everywhere, become? An outward act, a religious routine, and nothing more. The spirit
has disappeared and the form alone has remained. Is prayer efficacious? What a strange
question, you will say, for why should we pray if we believed we were fulfilling a useless
act? That is evident; but you must understand us. In a general sense, all will grant that
prayer operates; but on whom does it operate? Is it on us simply? Such is the question,
First of all, here is a reflection which should occur to you. If prayer can and ought to act
only on him who prays, I ask what is the meaning of all the prayers we address to God
for others? That remark made, I interrogate the human soul as to that instinctive and
universal impulse which induces it to pray. What does it, then, want? To raise itself
simply to God, to unite itself to the Source of all good, to calm itself in the contemplation
of universal order, to learn to resign itself before inflexible necessity? Ah! who would
dare to say so except by denying the reality of things? What! that shipwrecked man who
lifts a look of anxious expectation towards God, that mother whose heart is rent at the
sight of her child in agony, or that other one who trembles at the thought of the
temptations which will destroy her son; do you believe that they do not ask, do you
believe that they have not an ardent and profound confidence that they will act on the
Divine will, that they will modify the course of things? But you cannot, you dare not, say
so, and, behold, you are reduced to maintain that they are all victims of a presumptuous

244. illusion. An illusion! but whence comes that illusion which I find everywhere and always,
that illusion which neither education, nor influence, nor example could plant in those
depths of the human soul, from whence it comes out at critical hours? Therefore it will
be God who must have put it in us; God who must have created in our soul that hunger
without nourishment, that thirst without mitigation; God who must have said to His
creature, “Thou shall always ask Me, but I will never answer thee.” No, no; I believe in
that spontaneous testimony of the soul. God will, God must reply to that desire.
Moreover, we are Christians; the best and most sublime things we know respecting God
we owe to Jesus Christ. “What idea does Jesus wish to give us of prayer? Is it simply, in
His eyes, an exaltation of the soul, a spiritual exercise, and, if there is an idea which is
familiar to Him, which comes back each instant to His lips, is it not that prayer is a real
request which obtains its reply, that it acts on God, that it can modify events, that its
action depends on the intensity of faith? And besides, what Jesus here teaches is that
which comes from the whole of Scripture with an evidence that no other explanation will
be able to weaken. Recall the sublime scene where Abraham intercedes with God to
delay the punishment of Sodom; recall the wrestling of Jacob with the angel, and that
name of Israel, which means “a conqueror of God”; then, leaping over centuries, see the
Canaanite woman at the feet of Jesus Christ, wresting from Him, by her supplications,
her tears, her admirable faith, the cure He seemed at first to refuse her, and tell us if
prayer, such as Scripture presents it to us, is not a sovereign act which operates on us
first of all, but also, apart from us, on others, on events, on the world, and, to employ the
bold paradox of Scripture, even on God Himself. To have both the cry of nature and the
Divine word for one’s self, is not that essential, and what more is necessary for
Christians? On that ground I place myself, in order to approach the objections by which
men seek to shake our faith. You know the first, the oldest objection. They tell us that
prayer cannot be efficacious because it would change the laws of nature. Is that true?
Well, O reasoner! why then should you act? Why do you take a step, even one? Why do
you seek for your nourishment? Why do you sow? Why do yea build? Each of your acts is
in the most flagrant contradiction to your system. You cannot modify nature, and every
instant you modify it! I know how we shall be answered. It will be said that, when man
acts on nature, he does it in an outward, visible manner which every one can appreciate,
and that there is no relation between that action and the action claimed for prayer. But
that was not the question. It was, you know, to prove that man can modify nature; and
we have seen that he can do so. I am told now that it is inconceivable how that action
will take place under the influence of prayer. But how many of those hews are there that
we could understand and resolve? Do you conceive how the will which is spiritual can act
on matter? Do you know how my hand obeys my intellect? Does not mystery surround
you here on all hands, and do the most learned penetrate it better than the most simple?
There is another objection opposed to us when we affirm that we can, by prayer, modify
the course of events and operate on God Himself. Objectors say to us that it is doubting
the wisdom and the goodness of God, that it is substituting our action for His, that an
inconceivable pride is there, and that the sole attitude which becomes us in respect to
Him is the waiting on and submission to His will. Let us remove what is specious from
that objection. When we say that a man acts, by his prayer, on God Himself, we babble in
the speech of man of things which are beyond us, the Divine will being incapable of
yielding to ours, and remaining as the last word and the explanation of all. Having said
this, we shall remark that the objection put before us is destroyed, like the preceding, by
itself. The wisdom and goodness of God should prevent us from addressing our demands
to Him, they tell us; but what would you answer him who, in the name of the same
principle, should pretend to condemn the labour of man? We should answer, “Yes,
assuredly God wills that I should live, but He wills that I live by labouring, and for that

245. He has placed the instinct for labour in me. Now, if I did not obey that instinct, His will,
however good it may be, would not be realised in respect to me. It therefore depends on
me, on my labour, that the will of God should be accomplished.” Well! what is true of
labour is true of prayer also. Yes, God wills that such an end be attained, that such a
result be produced; but there is a condition to it, it is the labour of the soul, in a word, it
is prayer. If I do not pray, that Divine will, will never be accomplished. There remains
the most popular and oftenest repeated objection; it is that which people pretend to
draw from experience. “If prayer were really efficacious,” they say, “if it operated on
others, on events, on the world, we should see its effects.” But who are they, then, who
pretend thus to judge the results of prayers of faith, and so discern their reality? Do they
know if those prayers were true and sincere? Do they know what sentiment dictated
them? They are astonished at their small amount of efficacy, but it would be necessary
first to know if they could rise to God. What do you think of those selfish or vicious
prayers which only interest or passion has inspired? In order to appreciate the visible
effect of prayers we must therefore judge what the prayers themselves are worth, and
what inspection of man could discern their value? That is what must be first
remembered; and now let us view more nearly the objection opposed to us. People show
us prayers which remain unanswered, prayers of the most believing, of the most pious,
of the most humble redeemed by Jesus Christ, and they tell us it is impossible, in face of
such a fact, still to affirm with my text that prayer is efficacious. Well 1 to that argument
of experience, experience may reply. I appeal to those who know bow to pray, and who
are apparently the best judges in that matter. I appeal to them confidently, and I know
that they will testify firmly that prayer is efficacious. Besides, there are visible results of
prayer which impress themselves so evidently that none can deny them. When, forty
centuries ago, we could have seen, in the plains of Chaldea, the obscure chief of an
unknown tribe bending the knee before Jehovah and invoking Him for his son, in the
persuasion that all the nations of the earth should be blessed in his name; when, two
thousand years later, we could have heard a handful of Galileans Fraying in an upper
room in Jerusalem, and imagining that the world would be conquered by the faith of
which they were witnesses, we might have been tempted to smile before the prayer of
Abraham and before that of the first disciples of Christ. Who to-day would dare to say
they were deceived? To-day the third of humanity beholds in Abraham the father of
believers, and the prayer of the apostles is repeated by the Church growing in all points
of the universe. (E. Bersier, D. D.)
Effectual prayer
I. THAT PRAYER MAY PREVAIL WITH GOD. This fact is more doubted than denied.
Let us, then, notice, that all our objections to a full belief in the efficacy of prayer arise
from a greater confidence in our own unaided reasonings, and certain intuitive
convictions, than in the testimony of God. In this connection, therefore, I would remind
you of one or two facts, which tend to modify an extravagant confidence in our reason.
One is this: The Author of nature has not consulted human wisdom in the arrangement
of even material causes. We know that fire consumes wood. But how do we come to
know it? By reasoning beforehand how it ought to be? No; there is not a single law of
matter or mind that man has found out by anticipation. But again: The Author of nature
has contradicted the wisdom of man in the constitution of the universe. I mean by the
wisdom of man, his mere logic, independent of his observation, and those impressions
or perceptions to which men yield such firm credence, even in opposition to the
Scriptures. For more than five thousand years from the creation of the world, the wisest

246. men were continually making the most egregious blunders in describing the processes of
nature. But when Lord Bacon at length arose to disenthral the human mind, he showed
that, except in the department of abstract truth, as mathematics and metaphysics, they
must look outward; that evidence, not intuition, must guide them. Conjectures
concerning the Creator’s plans and modes of action were useless; and, if confided in,
injurious. If, then, men have reasoned so short of the truth, in regard to material causes,
why should we trust our reason against the testimony of God in the higher departments
of truth? These general considerations we adduce before making a more particular
examination of the objections which human reason presents to the efficacy of prayer. It
is perfectly manifest that there is no solid, rational ground for denying or doubting the
efficacy of prayer, because the whole subject lies beyond the sphere of intuitive or
abstract reasoning. Yet there are objections which these general views are not sufficient
to remove. One may be thus stated: “We are conscious of an immeasurable disparity
between the Infinite mind and our limited understandings. We cannot teach Him
anything. Is it not, then, a loss of time, and a vain ceremony, to make such addresses to
the Deity?” This is the strongest form I can give the objection. Now, there are at least
three distinct grounds upon which its entire futility can be shown: the very nature of
communion; the relations and feelings of a teacher; and those of a parent. If there be a
possibility of such a thing as communion between God and His creatures, then that
communion must be the interchange of thoughts and feelings. So that, unless it can be
shown that the Creator is for ever to be cut off from all intellectual and social
communion with all His creatures (for the objection as really lies against His
communion with angels and archangels), then our intellectual disparity is not a good
and sufficient reason why we should not pray. Moreover, we can learn from the feelings
of a teacher who takes a deep interest in the communication of his pupil, how God can
be pleased to hear our prayers. It is not so much that the pupil imparts any information,
or that his notions are all correct; but it is because he is making progress, and because
this is the way in which he is to be developed. Our Heavenly Father may see that by no
exercise we perform do we make such progress in all spiritual attainments as by fervent,
energised prayer. And then, again, the parental feelings explain much. In the nursery,
words are not weighed with the balance of the schools. A kindred difficulty to this is, that
“there is such majesty and grandeur in the King of heaven that we are too mean to
approach Him.” It may suffice now to say, in reference to this embarrassment, that it can
be turned into an encouragement by applying to it one passage of the Word: “If I be a
Father, where is My honour; and if I be a Master, where is My fear?” The legitimate
consequence of His majesty and authority and glory is to exact homage, adoration, and
praise. There is one blessed line of Scripture worth infinitely more than all the
deductions of an earthborn wisdom: the High and Mighty One declares, “Whoso offereth
praise, glorifieth Me.” Another doubt arises from the Divine goodness, about which we
sometimes reason thus: “If God is infinitely kind, and disposed to promote our welfare,
then He will not withhold any blessing, simply because we do not ask for it, or ask
without sufficient fervour; nor would He more bestow it for our asking.” Now, upon all
this logic we ask two questions: Is it so in fact? and ought it to be so of right? As to the
matter of fact, we may make our experiment in any department of life. Man needs, for
example, an abundant supply of the fruits of the earth. Let him, then, apply this short-
hand inference from God’s goodness to this case. God is kind, and disposed to bestow
every good thing on all His creatures; therefore He will not withhold any needful
quantity of Indian corn and wheat and vegetables, simply because we do not perform
this or that agricultural operation, nor is it reasonable to think He will the more bestow
it for our labours. Does Omnipotent Goodness require the aid of ploughs and harrows to
feed His children? Here we see the reasons to be entirely contradictory to facts; for we

247. know that it holds true in regard to every department of life, “the hand of the diligent
maketh rich, but the sluggard cometh to want.” And there can be no reason, derived
from the kindness of God, to show that it is not as true of praying as of ploughing. And
as we can see how the welfare of man and of society is promoted by the arrangement
which creates a necessity for labour, and how this arrangement is a fruit of the Divine
goodness in all the arts and employments of life, so we can see how the goodness of God
may have made prayer a necessary means of procuring many indispensable blessings, on
account of its direct benefit to us. Nothing in its place more cultivates the character than
fervent, effectual, or energised prayer; and there is, in itself considered, no higher
privilege to man than this communing and pleading with the Most High. A fourth
difficulty is with the omniscience, foreknowledge, and unchangeableness, of God. The
force of the objection is this: “If He has determined from all eternity what He will do, or
if He knows everything that we can tell Him, our telling Him cannot change His view, so
as to induce Him to change His purpose.” This chilling argument is with many persons
very powerful. They might just as well refuse to plant as to pray on this ground. God
knows the results in the one case as much as in the other; and your sowing the seed in
expectation of a crop is just as inconsistent with His foreknowledge as your praying for
rain, or success in business, or the conversion of a soul, in expectation of such result. Let
it be borne in mind, that no such view of God’s attributes should ever be held as reduces
him to a machine, an automaton, instead of a rational being, thinking, deciding, and
acting, in view of facts. A kindred objection to prayer, and almost identical with this, is
that “God is acting from fixed laws; prayer for rain can do no good, because rain is the
result of specific material causes, which act by regular and purely mechanical forces; not
depending upon any present volition of the Creator, but merely upon that original
volition which called them into existence.” Now, here it is assumed that no other than
material causes or forces can affect matter. This is contradicted by creation, by miracles,
and by the moral purposes for which the universe was created. It assumes that God has
left no place for His own direct action. It assumes that you know all the causes of events;
and that prayer is not one. The holiness and justice of God, too, have discouraged some
from praying. This I esteem as really the greatest difficulty on the whole subject; and yet
that sceptics never suggest, and the worldly-minded do not feel. The other difficulties
exist only in our imaginations; this lies deep in the character of Jehovah, and the
principles of His eternal kingdom. This is a difficulty which no reasoning would ever
have removed, which no efforts of man could ever have diminished. To meet and remove
this, the whole arrangement of the incarnation, death, resurrection, and mediation of
Christ was made.
II. PRAYER WILL PREVAIL WITH GOD. Let us turn to—
1. The commands. They are such as these: “Pray without ceasing.” “I will, therefore,
that men pray everywhere.” “The end of all things is at hand; be therefore sober, and
watch unto prayer.” “Seek the Lord while He may be found.” Commands of this
nature abound, and are addressed, with the other general precepts of God’s law, to
all mankind.
2. Promises to prayer, lavished in prodigal bounty, like the rich fruits of the earth,
springing up through all these glorious fields of revealed truth and grace. “Ask, and it
shall be given you. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
He will regard the prayer of the destitute. He is a rewarder of them that diligently
seek Him.”
3. The doctrine of prayer. It is connected in Scripture with the Trinity. The Father is
represented as on a throne of grace. The Holy Spirit is represented as interceding for

248. us, by creating within our hearts the desire to pray, and teaching us how to address
the Most High. The Son is represented as interceding in heaven for us. This is the
Scriptural doctrine of prayer. And it evidently involves the fact that God regards
prayer as an important exercise on our part.
4. The history of prayer is among the most interesting portions of the Bible.
III. THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER IS PROPORTIONED TO ITS FERVID ENERGY. We
instinctively feel that the highest degree and the strongest expression of approbation
belongs to the highest forms of character. But there is no more distinctive exhibition of
the highest form of religious character than the habit of fervent and earnest prayer. It is
connected with the most thorough conquest of that enslavement to sense which is the
curse and degradation of man. It shows a mind living in the precincts of the world of
light. It is a conquest over that indolence and brutal sluggishness which mark our
debased enslavement to an infirm and earth-born body. The energetic prayer shows that
the soul has caught at least a glimpse of the heavenly glory; breathed the pure breath of a
heavenly atmosphere; enjoyed communion with its Divine Saviour; burst for a moment
its accursed bonds; and now it cries, “My soul thirsteth after God, in a dry and thirsty
land, where no waters be.” Such is prayer, “the effectual, fervent prayer, the inwrought
prayer of the righteous man.” It burns on the heart as God’s holy altar; it consumes the
idols of the heart; it makes a sacrifice ofevery interest and every faculty; there is a life
given up there, “a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” And is it more probable
that God will accept such sacrifice? that He will signally express His approbation of a
prayer which is wrought in the soul by the gracious power of His own Spirit, Who thus
“maketh intercession for us”; and wrought in the soul, too, by your own earnest
endeavours to learn to pray, and to be ready to pray? (E. N. Kirk, D. D.)
Strong crying
If we were looking at a steam-engine, and meditating over the motive power of it, we
should scarcely direct our thoughts to the safety-valve, or say of it, “What a mighty
power is stored up in this little lever!” On the contrary, our attention would be fixed on
the piston and the steam at the back of it, and on the laws which govern its production,
expansion, and condensation. And we need scarcely say that there is not much in
common between those who regard prayer simply as an emotional safety-valve, and
those who look upon it as one of the great moving forces of the spiritual world. It
happens often enough that there are forces in the world of which people generally are
ignorant, or of which they have a totally inadequate idea. As, for instance, we have
known cynical politicians deride the expression of public opinion, as being only valuable
as a political safety-valve, and useful to keep the “many-headed monster,” the populace,
from more dangerous courses; but not once or twice have they been awakened to find
that there is nothing to stand before the rush of a well formed public sentiment. So that
we say rightly public opinion is of great force. And certainly the idea which the majority
of folk attach to the word prayer is but very incommensurate to the part which it
occupies, not only in the development of the life of the individual soul, but in the life and
lot of the world at large. On the other hand, the force of prayer has been understood by
the really spiritual writers of every school and of all time. They knew that prayer is one of
the secrets of life; that he who lives prays, and he who prays lives; that he who prays
works, and he who works prays; and so large a part of the spiritual life is comprised in
the one word prayer, that we find them describing the soul’s advance by the character of
the prayer which springs from it. May we not say that our Lord Himself was careful

249. enough both in example and teaching to lead His scholars along this way, making them
aware that a great part of the soul’s education was education in prayer? He began by
making them feel that they really didn’t know what prayer meant, though they had been
taught to say prayers almost since they could speak. So He brings them to a point where
they say, “Lord, teach us to pray,” &c.; encourages them further by admonitions to ask,
seek, and knock; tells them that if they ask for bread and fish, they won’t get stones and
snakes; leads them on until they acquire the sense of the need of a larger faith; instructs
them that prayer is the function of an organ of the spiritual life, and must be as constant
and persistent as breathing or other natural functions, so that men ought always to pray
and not to faint, and that they should keep awake at all times praying, if they are to be
found worthy to stand before the Son of man. Finally, one of His last counsels, just
before the last great objective teaching of His own life on the subject, connects the force
of their prayer with the state of their life Joh_15:7). (J. Rendel Harria.)
The necessity and efficacy of prayer
I. SOME CAUTIONARY REMARKS.
1. Let us beware of the influence of merely human passions in our solemn approach
to the Searcher of hearts. It is by no means impossible that a man of ardent feeling
should deceive both himself and his friends, when his natural impetuosity is directed
to religious objects. Passion may be mistaken for spirituality; and the danger is
greatly increased by the fact that every object that is made the subject of prayer is of
deep importance, and therefore worthy of the liveliest emotions of the heart: we
ought to be fervent in spirit. Prayer without importunity is like a material body
without the breath of life; but our fervency must also be well regulated by consistent
knowledge and holy principle. Our feelings may be excited on religious subjects as
well as others, even to excess; and the language adopted under their influence will be
forcible and strong, while yet the real principle of holiness, the essential spirituality
of devotion, may be utterly unknown. Sudden and powerful impulses are always to
be suspected; they are not acquired by knowledge; they are not corrected by rational
and sober reflection; they are generally the offspring of a rude, untaught, but active
mind; and the only answer we can reasonably expect to the unhallowed effusions of
human passion, mistaken for prayer, is a rebuke. “Ye know not what ye ask; ye know
not what manner of spirit ye are of.” We justly attach every idea of solemnity and
importance to all things connected with a religious profession, and to the observance
of all religious duties; but prayer is, without exception, the most solemn act in which
a creature polluted with sin, and laden with guilt, can be engaged. If at any time our
understanding ought to be in full exercise, if in any case the words of our mouth and
the meditation of our heart ought to be distinguished by correct knowledge, by
serious and deliberate reflections, and by unimpassioned sobriety of mind, it is when
we seek the privilege of intercourse with the Father of light, and when we address
Him professedly on the subjects of eternal moment.
2. It is very important that we be guarded against unwarranted expectations in
answer to prayer. We are not allowed to expect, by any promises of Scripture, that we
shall, by our prayers, accomplish anything out of the general order of nature; or that
God will, for our sake, effect some great object without the application of appropriate
and efficient means. If we ask what we have no right to ask; if we apply to the only
wise God for that which we cannot assure ourselves is according to His will; there is
no scriptural encouragement to expect a favourable answer: in that case, we shall

250. “ask and receive not, because we ask amiss.” It is perfectly consistent with our
acknowledged circumstances to pray for our daily bread; to solicit the protection of
Him in whose hands our life is; to “acknowledge God in all our ways”: but it is not to
be supposed that the desires and feelings of man, especially in relation to things
temporal, should ever be made the standard or rule of the Divine government. Most
persons are sometimes placed in a position which would induce them, unless their
feelings were chastened by the mighty power of religious principle, to present very
improper requests before the throne of God; and many would be glad to get to
themselves a distinguished name as having power to prevail with God, being great in
prayer and faith; but as the Word of God, which is the only rule of prayer and faith,
does not encourage, in any instance, an expectation that the sovereign King should
suspend for a single moment the course and order of His ways for our sake; much
less can we expect any Divine interposition of an extraordinary and miraculous
character without betraying an arrogance of heat, most opposite to the lowly,
humble, unassuming spirit of the gospel of Christ.
3. Yet, on the other hand, it is highly important in this age of scepticism to be
protected against any doubt of the real efficacy of prayer. It does not follow that
because a duty so reasonable, a privilege so excellent, is sometimes misunderstood,
and often perverted to evil purposes, therefore it is to be rejected altogether: nor can
we allow ourselves to be despoiled, by any specious reasonings called philosophy, of
the never-failing source of encouragement we experience in an unshaken conviction,
that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Prayer is effectual
for every purpose of essential importance; desires may be uttered in the language of
prayer, the object of which would be to gratify a lofty or a worldly disposition; but
the great object of all religion, especially of this most solemn act of devotion, is to
subdue the influence of earthly gratifications, to promote the purity of our hearts,
and to accomplish the salvation, the eternal well-being of our immortal souls. It were
folly to ask who among men are most distinguished by such high and happy
attainments. No one who is conversant with the Scriptures, or with the state and
history of the Christian Church in every age, will entertain the hope that even the
purest devotion will fortify his physical nature against the attacks of disease, or
protect him from the accidents of human life, or save him from the anxieties that are
involved in the very pleasures of relative and domestic society. Neither will he
suppose that his prayers will create wealth, or command the success he may desire in
the common pursuits of business, or raise him to an elevation in the ranks of society
that would gratify an ambitious mind. Religion is not designed to make us men of the
world.
II. THE APOSTLE’S INSTRUCTIONS.
1. Let it never be forgotten that prayer must always be offered in the name of Christ.
To reject the Divinely appointed method of justifying the ungodly, is to reject the
righteousness of God: this itself is immorality.
2. The prayer of the righteous is sincere; it is prayer that goeth not out of feigned
lips, it is the sentiment of the heart.
3. Prayer must be fervent and importunate. Our own individual necessities, our own
immortal souls, the situation of all our fellow creatures, the state of the whole world
at the present moment, the character of the times, and the prospect of the Church, all
call, and loudly, for energetic prayer.
4. The success of prayer is intimately connected with our habitual character. The

251. prayer of a righteous man will prevail. (S. Morell.)
Effectual prayer
“Do not break,” said the Bow to the String one day, putting a stretch upon its power. “I
will do my utmost,” answered the String; and with a twanging sound the arrow shot
forth, pierced the air, went straight to the mark, and gained the prize. The arrow which
is shot from a loose cord drops powerless to the ground, but from the tightly-drawn
bow-string it springs forward and reaches the object to which it is directed.
Prayer the secret of strength
There is an old story of mythology about a giant named Antaeus, who was borne by the
earth. In order to keep alive this giant was obliged to touch the earth as often as once in
five minutes, and every time he thus came in contact with the earth he became twice as
strong as before. The Christian resembles Antaeus. In order to become and continue a
truly living Christian, the disciple must often approach his Father by prayer.
Elias was a man subject to like passions
Good men of like passions with the frail
1. God’s eminent children are men of like passions with us (1Pe_5:9); they are all
troubled with a naughty heart, a busy devil, and a corrupt world. When we partake of
the Divine nature we do not put off the human; we ought to walk with care, but yet
with comfort.
2. It is no injury to the most holy persons to look upon them as men like ourselves.
There is a double fault; some canonise the servants of God, not considering them in
their infirmities, make them half gods, who were by privilege exempted from the
ordinary state of men, and so lose the benefit of their example. Others reflect only
upon their infirmities, and instead of making them precedents of mercy, make them
patrons of sin.
3. In the lives of God’s choicest servants there was some considerable weakness.
Elias, in the midst of his miracles, was encumbered with many afflictions. Paul had
“abundance of revelations,” but “a thorn in the flesh.” In the life of Jesus Christ
Himself there was an intermixture of power and weakness; of the Divine glory and
human frailty. And all this to show that in the highest dispensations God will keep us
humble, and in the lowest providences there is enough to support us.
4. Grace is not impassible, or without passions and affections. The stoics held no
man a good man but he that had lost all natural feeling and affection. Elijah was a
man of like passions. Grace doth not abrogate our affections, but prefer them; it
transplanteth them out of Egypt that they may grow in Canaan; it doth not destroy
nature, but direct it.
5. All that God wrought by and for His eminent servants was with respect to His own
grace, not to their worth and dignity. God did much for Elijah, but he was a man of
like passions with us; though his prayers were effectual, yet he was, as every believer
is, indebted to grace. When we have received a high assistance, yet still we are
unprofitable servants (Luk_17:10).
6. Where the heart is upright our infirmities shall not hinder our prayers. Elijah was
a man of like passions, yet he prayed, and it rained not; imitate his faith and

252. earnestness, and your infirmities will be no impediment (2Ch_30:19). Those that do
not allow their infirmities may pray with hope of success. God knoweth the voice of
the Spirit; our fleshly desires meet with pardon, and our spiritual with acceptance.
7. From that “he prayed earnestly,” or prayed in prayer. This is our duty, to pray in
prayer. Not only to say a prayer, but to pray a prayer (Rom_8:26). Let not the heart
be wandering while the lips are praying; lip-labour doth no more than a breathing
instrument, make a loud noise; the essence of prayer lieth in the ascension of the
mind.
8. It is sometimes lawful to imprecate the vengeance of God upon the wicked.
(1) There is a great deal of difference between public and private cases. In all
private cases it is the glory of our religion to bless them that curse us, to pray for
them that despitefully use us.
(2) In public cases we must not desire revenge directly and formally; so our
prayers must respect the vindication of God’s glory, and the avenging of our own
case only as it doth collaterally and by consequence follow thereupon.
(3) God’s people do not desire vengeance against particular persons absolutely,
but in general against the enemies of the Church, and expressly against such as
are known to God to be perverse and implacable.
(4) Their ordinary prayers are against the plots rather than the persons of their
enemies. They can love the nature, though they hate the sin.
9. God may continue judgments, especially that of unseasonable weather, for a long
time. Second causes do not work by chance, cannot work at pleasure. This is the
bridle which God hath upon the world; the ordering of the weather is one of the most
visible testimonies of His power and goodness.
10. Lastly, observe how sad it is for any to provoke the prophets of the Lord to pray
against them. There is much in their messages, and there is as much in their solemn
prayers. (T. Manton.)
God’s good men
I. THE CAPACITY OF HUMANITY. We have probably been impressed with some form
of the idea that man, as yet, has only begun to use the powers that are in him, that he
walks on earth fettered by many limitations. The question is whether we shall take the
average of humanity, and think of the few men who stand above it as exceptional beings,
or whether we shall think of them as the standard-bearers of the great advancing army;
as the types and prophecies of what shall sometime be the common attainment. Here
lies the chief danger, that a man will think that the superior piety of some one, to whom
he looks with reverence, is entirely out of his reach, something beyond the range of his
capacity. He thinks of the saints as beings of a different order; he asks them to pray for
him, and he puts great faith in their prayers; but this is not treating them right; they are
but men and women of like passions as we are. They have had to conquer their
temptations, overcome their difficulties, and tremble in weakness before they could
stand in strength. If they could pray, you can pray; if they had to step up by the Master’s
side to live the brave and noble life He led, then, by the same course, and not by clinging
to their sainthood, can you go up and become as they are. The line of sainthood
superstitiously used has kept men away from God, instead of bringing them to God. But

253. the same thing is going on wherever men forget that the great and good among them are
not to be taken as exceptions, but as types and models of all that we may and ought to
be. We forget that Christ incarnate was such as we are, and some of us are putting Him
where He can be no example to us at all. Let no fear of losing the dear, great truth of the
divinity of Jesus make you lose the dear great truth of the humanity of Jesus. No man
can know how far he is from God until he has had some vision of himself close to God
held in His arms, pressed to His bosom. To be capable of God, to know that God can fill
us with Himself, and make us strong in Himself, this is the promise of infinity. Looking
on into futurity, you cannot begin to see the end of these paths upon which you are now
entering: but you can be all you need to be; you can know all you need to know; where
other men have gone you can go, and what they have done you can do. From the men
who have won in this life and passed on we should gather hope and courage.
II. THE LIKENESS OF MEN TO ONE ANOTHER. The inequalities of birth and
education, the diversities in moral nature surrounding us ca every side, compel us to ask
what there is left that is common to all men? What is it that really likens all men to one
another? The answer is to be found in that ancient figure of the Bible which represents
God as our Father. In a household, or family of children, there are inequalities enough;
but there are certain things which they all have in common because they are all members
of the same household. One is brave, another is timid; one is prudent, another
thoughtless; one is headstrong, another is docile; yet in all their differences of character
they are alike in that they have their father’s nature and their household rights. Each,
while possessing something distinct from the rest, will have those qualities which mark
him as a member of that family. Paul and I are brothers. But, because he wrote an
Epistle to the Hebrews, shall I suppose that I can reason and write upon those sublime
mysteries? There are certain qualities peculiar to Paul which constitute his manhood;
but not one of us can read the story of his life without feeling ourselves grander and
holier for it. So always try and believe about the noblest of your race, the men or women
in your own circle whom you know to be beyond yourselves in attainment, who possess
something personal which you can never represent, that, so far as they show out
humanity, the lustre and completeness of human nature, you may get new courage and
faith in yourselves from what you see them do.
III. SPIRITUAL POWERS ARE THE MOST COMPLETE STEP OF OUR HUMAN
NATURE. Religions nature is very different in all of us; but it is in all of us. The different
forms of its utterance are apt to bewilder. We are apt to settle on certain forms, and,
because we do not find them everywhere, we think it cannot be that the relation of the
child’s soul to the father’s soul constitutes religion. We may appeal to man’s
consciousness for this. Here, James says, is a man in the attitude of prayer;-no matter if
separated from us by centuries, and no matter if immensely stronger in faith—
nevertheless, he is “a man subject to like pass ons,” and to his prayer there comes the
answer. He prayed for certain things—rain, food; no matter what it was—he wanted
something he could not get out of himself, or out of his ownnature; but he had a right to
pray as the Father had told him, and because of his needy human nature, and because of
his sacred rights as a child of God. Here is a man who says, “I cannot pray; I am too far
from God, I am too worldly,” etc. Are you not needy, and His child? Is not your nature
full of the wants He has taught it to feel, and are not your rights as the rights of a child to
its father? Your need and your nature as a child of God are all the credentials you want;
take these, cast yourselves down beside Elias, and David, and the praying Jesus, for they
were all men of like passions with you, and the grace they needed shall be given you as it
was given unto them. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.)

254. Prayed earnestly that it might not rain
Prayer a good remedy in desperate cases
1. When God meaneth to bestow blessings, He stirreth up the hearts of the people to
pray for them. God that decreeth the end, decreeth the means Eze_36:37; Jer_
29:12).
2. Though we are sure of the accomplishment of a blessing, yet we must not give
over prayer. God’s children are never more diligent and free in their endeavours than
when confident of a blessing; hope is industrious, and draweth to action.
3. Prayer is a good remedy in the most desperate cases, and when you are lost to all
other hopes, you are not lost to the hopes of prayer.
4. The efficacy of prayer is very great. Certainly they that neglect prayer do not only
neglect the sweetest way of converse with God, but the most forcible way of
prevailing with Him.
5. There is a mutual dependence and subordination between all second causes. The
creatures are serviceable to one another by mutual ministries and supplies; the earth
is cherished by the heat of the stars, moistened by the water, and by the
temperament of both made fruitful, and so sendeth forth innumerable plants for the
comfort and use of living creatures, and living creatures are for the supply of man.
(T. Manton.)
Prayer and natural law
Why did Elijah pray that “it might not rain”? Because the whole house of Israel had
forsaken God, and he saw that nothing but severe judgments would bring them to
penitence and obedience. Why did Elijah pray that the punishment might take this
particular form? Ahab had introduced two kinds of idolatry into Israel—the worship of
Ashtaroth, and the worship of Baal. Ashtaroth was a female god, the impersonation of
sensuality and debauchery, and her worship was similar to that of Venus. Baal, on the
other hand, was a male deity, representing the productive powers of the sun. Thus the
people worshipped “the grossest sensualism and materialism.” Do you not see what a
deadly blow the prophet aimed at this twofold idolatry when he prayed that “it might not
rain”? Let famine stalk throughout the land, let it enter the proudest palaces and the
humblest cottages, what a ghastly shadow would it cast over the devotees of Ashtaroth
while celebrating her unholy mysteries! What a blow to the worshippers of Baal, when,
at the word of Elijah, there was neither dew nor rain for more than three years, when the
four hundred and fifty priests of Baal had so little influence over the powers of nature
that they could not bring down one drop of rain, nor one particle of dew, to moisten the
parched earth, or to revive the perishing plants and trees. Baal worship is very powerful
just now. We are told, not only by sceptics and scientists, but by Christian ministers and
writers, that since the world is governed by law, to pray for rain is to imitate the ancient
pagans and the modern heathen in their blind superstition. Is this true? Are we to give
up praying on account of the fixedness of physical law?
I. PRAYER IS NATURAL TO MAN. Here is a mother whose child is dangerously ill,
apparently suspended between life and death. What is the use of telling that mother that
the life of her child depends on fixed laws, and that, therefore, it is sheer ignorance to

255. pray? In her inmost heart she knows that the life of her child is in the hands of God, and
that her hope is only in Him. Here, again, is a farmer, the greater part of whose land is
raider water, and unless the floods dry up ruin will stare him in the face. If this man
believe at all in God, how can he help praying? But the same God who made the earth
and the whole universe also made the man, and wrought into the very texture of his
being that belief in the efficacy of prayer. Is it not likely, then, that the Creator knew
something about the structure of His own universe when He put that spiritual instinct
into the man’s soul? Is there not, therefore, at least a strong presumption that He will
answer prayer in relation to the weather?
II. IT IS INCREDIBLE THAT THE MAKER OF THE UNIVERSE SHOULD NOT BE
ABLE TO REGULATE THE ACTION OF HIS OWN LAWS. The assertion of Professor
Tyndall that God, without working a stupendous miracle, “cannot deflect towards us a
single beam of the sun,” is simply a gratuitous assumption. This is, indeed, “science,
falsely so-called,” for it rests upon no adequate basis of facts. As an infinite Spirit, God is
present in every part of the universe, He is near to every atom of matter throughout
infinite space, and He is therefore able to interfere effectively at any given point, or
throughout any given region. And this, too, not by changing the laws which He Himself
has ordained, but by working through those laws. Have not all the marvels of modern
science been wrought upon this principle? Cannot any ordinary mortal deflect a beam of
the sun without a miracle? and surely the same feat is possible to Omnipotence! Man
cannot “make the clouds his chariot, or walk upon the winds of the wind”; but he can
make the winds and the lightning his submissive servants. Nay, more. By cutting down
forests and by draining low lands and marshes man has actually changed the climate of
large tracts of country. Man controls Nature while acting in harmony with her laws; why,
then, may not the omnipotent Creator do the same?
III. GOOD MEN, IN ALL AGES, HAVE BELIEVED THAT GOD ACTS UPON NATURE
IN ANSWER TO PRAYER. Read the prayer of Solomon at the dedication of the temple,
and you can have no doubt as to his opinion upon the subject (1Ki_8:35-36). Take,
again, the case of Elijah. When he prayed, first of all, that “it might not rain,” and then
afterwards, when the people repented, that rain might be sent, could he give a stronger
proof of his belief in the power of prayer with regard to the phenomena of nature? Both
these men, too, evidently believed that God has reserved to Himself the right of turning
nature to moral uses. Further, does not the Bible give many instances in which God used
famine as a rod to chastise His people when they rebelled against Him, and sent plenty
when they repented?
IV. BOTH IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES GOD HAS REPEATEDLY ANSWERED
PRAYER FOR RAIN. If we believe the history of Elijah, there is an end to the whole
controversy; for if God on only one occasion sent rain in answer to prayer, there can be
no reason why He should not do so any number of times. Our Lord, at any rate, believed
this history, for He took its truthfulness for granted when preaching in the synagogue at
Nazareth. Coming down to modern times, it is hard to read the story of the Spanish
Armada without believing its destruction to have been the result of direct Divine
interference. One of the medals struck to commemorate the event bore the inscription,
“Afflavit Dens, et disipantur”—“God blew, and they were scattered.” Many since that
time have prayed for favourable weather, and have believed that God heard them.
(James Davis.)
Prayer for change of weather

256. This passage supplies us with Biblical authority for prayers for changes of weather and
the like, for the conduct of Elijah is evidently put before us for our imitation. St. James
carefully guards against the objection that Elijah was a man gifted with miraculous
powers, and therefore no guide for ordinary people, by asserting that he was a man of
like nature with ourselves. This kind of prayer seems to require special consideration. “Is
it, then, according to the Divine will that when we are individually suffering from the
regularity of the course of nature—suffering, for instance, from the want of rain, or the
superabundance of it—we should ask God to interfere with that regularity? Let us try to
realise what would follow if we offered such prayer and prevailed. In a world-wide
Church each believer would constitute himself a judge of what was best for himself and
his neighbour, and thus the order of the world would be at the mercy everywhere of
individual caprice and ignorance. Irregularity would accordingly take the place of
invariableness. No man could possibly foretell what would be on the morrow. The
scientist would find all his researches for rule and law baffled; the agriculturist would
find all his calculations upset; nature, again, as in the days of ignorance, would become
the master of man; like an eagle transfixed by an arrow winged by one of its own
feathers, man would have shackled himself with the chains of his ancient servitude by
the licentious employment of his own freedom, and would have reduced the cosmos of
which God made him the master to a chaos which overwhelmed him by its unexpected
blows” (the Bishop of Manchester, September 4, 1887, in Manchester Cathedral, during
a meeting of the British Association). The objection to prayers for rain, or for the
cessation of rain, and the like, is based on the supposition that we thereby “ask God to
interfere with the regularity of the course of nature.” Yet it is admitted that to “pray for
submission to the Divine will, and for such wisdom as shall lead to compliance with it in
the future, is a matter of course, and results inevitably from the relation between the
spiritual Father and the spiritual child.” But is there no regularity about the things thus
admitted to be fit objects of prayer? Are human character and human intellect not
subject to law? When we pray for a submissive spirit and for wisdom, are we not asking
God to “interfere with that regularity” which governs the development of character and
of intelligence? Either the prayer is to obtain more submission and more wisdom than
we should otherwise get, or it is not. If it is to obtain it, then the regularity which would
otherwise have prevailed is interrupted. If our prayer is not to obtain for us more
submission and more wisdom than we should have obtained if we had not prayed, then
the prayer is futile. The objection is sometimes stated in a slightly different form. God
has arranged the material universe according to His infinite wisdom; it is presumptuous
to pray that He will make any change in it. The answer to which is, that if that argument
is valid against praying for rain, it is valid against all prayer whatever. God knows
without our asking what weather is best for us; and Lie knows equally without our
asking what spiritual graces are best for us. Does not the parallel difficulty point to a
parallel solution? What right have we to assume that in either case effectual prayer
interferes with the regularity which seems to characterise Divine action? May it not be
God’s will that the prayer of faith should be a force that can influence other forces,
whether material or spiritual, and that its influence should be according to law (whether
natural or supernatural) quite as much as the influence of other forces? A man who puts
up a lightning-conductor brings down the electric current when it might otherwise have
remained above, and brings it down in one place rather than another; yet no one would
say that he interferes with the regularity of the course of nature. Is there anything in
religion or science to forbid us from thinking of prayer as working in an analogous
manner—according to a law too subtle for us to comprehend and analyse, but according
to a law none the less? (A. Plummer, D. D.)

257. Premier for rain
An interesting coincidence in connection with this reference to Elijah’s history presents
itself in the narrative given in Josephus of the troubles caused by Caligula’s insane
attempt to set up his statue in the temple at Jerusalem. Petronius, the then Governor of
Judaea, was moved by the passionate entreaties of the people, and supported the efforts
made by Agrippa I., who remained at Rome, to turn the Emperor from his purpose. It
was one of the years of drought that brought about the great famine foretold by Agabus.
No rain had fallen for many weeks, and the people—Christians as well as Jews, though
Josephus, of course, makes no mention of the former—were “instant in prayer,” calling
upon the Lord God of Israel to send rain upon the earth. Suddenly rain fell in a
plenteous shower from an almost cloudless sky. The earth was refreshed, and the
pressing danger averted. Petronius, Josephus relates, was much moved by this
manifestation, this Epiphany of the Divine power, and looked upon it partly as an
answer to the prayers of the people, partly as the reward of the equity which he had
shown in dealing with them. (Dean Plumptre.)
EBC, "THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE CONFESSION OF SINS - LAWFULNESS
OF PRAYERS FOR RAIN.
THE connection Of this passage with the preceding one is very close. This is evident even
in the Authorized Version; but it is made still more. manifest by the Revisers, who have
restored the connecting "therefore" to the text upon overwhelming authority. St. James
is passing from the particular case of the sick person to something more general, viz.,
mutual confession of sins. If we draw out his thought in full it will be something of this
kind: "Even if the sick person be suffering the consequences of his sins, nevertheless the
faith and prayers of the elders, combined with his own, shall prevail for his forgiveness
and healing. Of course he must confess and bewail his sins; if he does not admit them
and repent of them, he can hope for nothing. Therefore you ought all of you habitually to
confess your sins to one another, and to intercede for one another, in order that when
sickness comes upon you, you may the more readily be healed." It is not quite certain
that the word rendered "ye may be healed" (ιαθητε) ought to be limited to bodily healing;
but the context seems to imply that the cure of bodily disorders is still in the mind of St,
James. If, however, with various commentators, we take it to mean "that your souls may
be healed," then there is no need to supply any such thought as "when sickness comes
upon you."
It might surprise us to find that the practice of auricular confession to a priest is
deduced from the precept, "Confess your sins one to another," if we had not the previous
experience or finding the rite of Extreme Unction deduced from the precept respecting
the anointing of the sick. But here also Cajetan has the credit of admitting that no
Scriptural authority for the Roman practice can be found in the words of St. James. The
all-important "to one another" (αλληλοις) is quite fatal to the interpretation of confession
to a priest. If the confession of a layman to a priest is meant, then the confession of a
priest to a layman is equally meant: the words, whether in the Greek or in the English,
cannot be otherwise understood. But the injunction is evidently quite general, and the
distinction between clergy and laity does not enter into it at all: each Christian, whether
elder or layman, is to confess to other Christians, whether elders or laymen, either to one
or to many, as the case may be. When the sick person just spoken of confessed his sins,

258. he confessed them to the elders of the Church, because they were present; they did not
come to receive his confession, but to pray for him and to anoint him. He sent for them,
not because he wished to confess to them, but because he was sick. Even if he had had
nothing to confess to them-a case evidently contemplated by St. James as not only
possible, but common-he would still have sent for them. So far from its being among
their functions as elders to hear the sick man’s confession, St. James seems rather to
imply that he ought to have made it previously to others. If Christians habitually confess
their sins to one another, there will be no special confession required when any of them
falls ill. But granting that this interpretation of his brief directions is not quite certain, it
is quite certain that what he commends is the confession of any Christian to any
Christian, and not the confession of laity to presbyters. About that he says nothing,
either one way or the other, for it is not in his mind. He neither sanctions nor forbids it,
but he gives a direction which shows that as regards the duty Of confession to man, the
normal condition of things is for any Christian to confess to any Christian. The
important point is that the sinner should not keep his guilty secret locked up in his own
bosom; to whom he should tell it is left to his own discretion. As Tertullian says, in his
treatise "On Penance," "Confession of sins lightens as much as concealment
(dissimulatio) aggravates them. For confession is prompted by the desire to make
amends; concealment is prompted by contumacy" (8). Similarly Origen, on Psa_37:1-40
: "See, therefore, what the Divine Scripture teaches us, that we must not conceal sin
within us. For just as, it may be, people who have undigested food detained inside them,
or are otherwise grievously oppressed internally, if they vomit, obtain relief, so they also
who have sinned, if they conceal and retain the sin, are oppressed inwardly. But if the
sinner becomes his own accuser, accuses himself and confesses, he at the same time
vomits out both the sin and the whole cause of his malady" ("Homil." II 6). In much the
same strain Chrysostom writes, "Sin, if it is confessed, becomes less; but if it is not
confessed, worse; for if the sinner adds shamelessness and obstinacy to his sin, he will
never stop. How, indeed, will such a one be at all able to guard himself from falling again
into the same sins, if in the earlier case he was not conscious that he sinned…Let us not
merely call ourselves sinners, but let us make a reckoning of our sins, counting them
according to their kind, one by one…If thou art of the persuasion that thou art a sinner,
this is not able so much to humble thy soul as the very catalogue of thy sins examined
into according to their kind" ("Homil." 30. in "Ep. ad Hebr.").
All these writers have this main point in common, that a sinner who does not confess
what he has done amiss is likely to become careless and hardened. And the principle is at
least as old as the Book of Proverbs: "He that covereth his transgressions shall not
prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy". (Pro_28:13) But,
as the context clearly shows in each case, they are each of them writing of a different
kind of confession. The confession (exomologesis) which Tertullian so urgently
recommends is public confession before the congregation; that which Origen advises is
private confession to an individual, particularly with a view to deciding whether public
confession is expedient.
What Chrysostom prefers, both here and elsewhere in his writings, is secret confession
to God: "I say not to thee, Make a parade of thyself; nor yet, Accuse thyself in the
presence of the others…Before God confess these things; before the Judge ever confess
thy sins, praying, if not with the tongue, at any rate with the heart, and in this way ask
for mercy." All which is in accordance with the principle laid down by St. John, "If we
confess our sins"-our sins in detail, not the mere fact that we have sinned-"He is faithful
and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness". (1Jn_
1:9) Bellarmine has the courage to claim not only St. James, but St. John, as teaching

259. confession to a priest ("De Paenit.," III 4); but it is manifest that St. John is speaking of
confession to God, without either approving or condemning confession to man, and that
St. James is speaking of the latter, without saying anything about the former. But just as
St. James leaves to the penitent’s discretion the question to whom he shall confess,
whether to clergy or laity, so also he leaves it to his discretion whether he shall confess to
one or to many, and whether in private or in public. In the second, third, and fourth
centuries public confession was commonly part of public penance. And the object of it is
well stated by Hooker: "Offenders in secret "were" persuaded that if the Church did
direct them in the offices of their penitency, and assist them with public prayer, they
should more easily obtain that they sought than by trusting wholly to their own
endeavors." The primitive view, he holds, was this: "Public confession they thought
necessary by way of discipline, not private confession as in the nature of a sacrament"
("Eccl. Pol.," VI 4:2, 6). But experience soon showed that indiscriminate public
confession of grievous sin was very mischievous. Therefore, in the East, and (if Sozomen
is correct) at Rome also, penitentiary presbyters were appointed to decide for penitents
whether their sins must be confessed to the congregation or not. Thus, what Origen
advises each penitent to do for himself, viz., seek a wise adviser respecting the
expediency of public, confession and penance, was formally done for every one. But in
A.D. 391, Nectarius, the predecessor of Chrysostom in the see of Constantinople, was
persuaded to abolish the office, apparently because a penitentiary presbyter had
sanctioned public confession m a case which caused great scandal; but neither Socrates
(5. 19) nor Sozomen (VII 16.) makes this point very clear. The consequence of the
abolition was that each person was left to his own discretion, and public penance fell
into disuse.
But public confess on had other disadvantages. Private enmity made use of these
confessions to annoy, and even to prosecute the penitent. Moreover, the clergy
sometimes proclaimed to the congregation what had been told them in confidence; that
is, they made public confession on behalf of the sinner without his consent. Whereupon
Leo the Great, in a letter to the Bishops of Apulia and Campania, March 6, A.D. 459,
sanctioned the practice of private confession ("Ep." 168. [136]). Thus, in the West, as
previously in the East, a severe blow was given to the practice of public confession and
penance.
But it is probable that the origin, or at least the chief encouragement, of the practice of
auricular confession is rather to be looked for in monasticism. Offenses against the rule
of the Order had to be confessed before the whole community; anal it was assumed that
the only other grave offences likely to happen in the monastic life would be those of
thought. These had to be confessed in private to the abbot. The influences of
monasticism were by no means bounded by the monastery walls; and it is probable that
the rule of private confession by the brethren to the abbot had much to do with the
custom of private confession by the laity to the priest. But it is carefully to be noted that
for a considerable period the chief considerations are the penitent’s admission of his sins
and the fixing of the penance. Only gradually does the further idea of the absolution of
the penitent by the body or the individual that hears the confession come in; and at last
it becomes the main idea. Confession once a year to a priest was made compulsory by the
Lateran Council in 1215; but various local synods had made similar regulations at earlier
periods; e.g., the Council of Toulouse in 1129, and of Liege in 710. But when we have
reached these regulations we have once more advanced very far indeed beyond what is
prescribed by St. James in this Epistle. There cannot be much doubt what is the main
idea with St. James: "Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for
another, that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its

260. working. Elijah prayed fervently And he prayed again," etc. It is in order that we may
induce others to pray for us that we are to confess our sins to them; and this is the great
motive which underlies the public confession of the primitive Church. As Hooker well
expresses it, "The greatest thing which made men forward and willing upon their knees
to confess whatever they had committed against God was their fervent desire to be
helped and assisted with the prayers of God’s saints." And the meaning of these prayers
is strikingly expressed by Tertullian, who thus addresses the penitent in need of such
intercession: "Where one and two meet, there is a Church; and a Church is Christ.
Therefore, when thou dost stretch forth thy hands to the knees of thy brethren, it is
Christ that thou I touchest, Christ on whom thou prevailest. Just so, when they shed
tears over thee, it is Christ who feels compassion, Christ who is entreating the Father.
Readily doth He ever grant that which the Son requests" ("De Poenit:," 10). To unburden
his own heart was one benefit of the penitent’s confession; to obtain the intercession of
others for his forgiveness and recovery was another; and the latter was the chief reason
for confessing to man; confession to God might effect the other. The primitive forms of
absolution, when confession was made to a priest, were precatory rather than
declaratory. "May the Lord absolve thee" (Dominus absolvat) was changed in the West
to "I absolve thee," in the twelfth century. From the Sarum Office the latter formula
passed into the First Prayer Book of Edward VI, in the Visitation of the Sick, and has
remained there unchanged; but in 1552 the concluding words of the preceding rubric,
"and the same forme of absolucion shall be used in all pryvate confessions," were
omitted. In the Greek Church the form of absolution after private confession is
precatory:-
"O my spiritual child, who dost confess to my humility, I, a humble sinner, have no
power on I earth to remit sins. This God alone can do. Yet by reason of that Divine
charge which was committed to the Apostles after the resurrection of our Lord Jesus
Christ, in the words, Whosesoever sins ye forgive, etc., and by that encouraged, we say,
Whatsoever thou hast confessed to my most lowly humility, and whatsoever thou hast
omitted to confess, either through ignorance or any forgetfulness, may God forgive thee,
both in this world and in that which is to come." And this is followed by a prayer very
similar to the absolution: "God forgive thee, by the ministry of me a sinner, all thy sins,
both in this world and in that which is to come, and present thee blameless at His dread
tribunal. Go in peace, and think no more of the faults which thou hast confessed." The
"we say" holds fast to the doctrine that it is to the Church as a whole, and not to Peter or
any individual minister that the words, "Whosesoever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven
unto them," (Joh_20:23) were spoken.
"The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working." "The effectual
earnest prayer" of the Authorized Version cannot be justified: either "effectual" or
"earnest" must be struck out, as there is only one word (ενεργουµενη) in the original;
moreover, the word for "prayer" is not the same as before (δεησις, not ευχη). But it may
be doubted whether "earnest" is not better than "in its working." Perhaps "in its
earnestness" would be better than either: "Great is the strength of a righteous man’s
supplication, in its earnestness."
The example by which St. James proves the efficacy of a righteous man’s prayer is
interesting and important in two respects:-
1. It is the only evidence that we have that the great drought in the time of Ahab was
prayed for by Elijah, and it is the only direct evidence that he prayed for the rain which
put an end to it. We are told that Elijah prophesied the drought (1Ki_17:1) and the rain;

261. (1Ki_18:41) and that before the rain he put himself in an attitude of prayer, with his face
between his knees (1Ki_18:42); but that he prayed, and for the rain which he had
foretold, is not stated. Whether the statement made by St. James is an inference from
these statements, or based on independent tradition, must remain uncertain. We read in
Ecclesiasticus of Elijah that by "the word of the Lord he shut up (held back), the heaven"
(48:3); but that seems to refer to prophecy rather than to prayer. The difference, if there
be any, between the duration of the drought as stated here and by St. Luke, (Luk_4:25)
and as stated in the Book of the Kings, will not be a stumbling-block to any who
recognize that inspiration does not necessarily make a man infallible in chronology.
Three and a half years (=42 months= 1,260 days) was the traditional duration of times of
great calamity. (Dan_7:25; Dan_12:7; Rev_11:2-3; Rev_12:6; Rev_12:14; Rev_13:5)
2. This passage supplies us with Biblical authority for prayers for changes of weather,
and the like; for the conduct of Elijah is evidently put before us for our imitation. St.
James carefully guards against the objection that Elijah was a man gifted with
miraculous powers, and therefore no guide for ordinary people, by asserting that he was
a man of like nature (οµοιοπαθης) with ourselves. And let us concede, for the sake of
argument, that St. James may have been mistaken in believing that Elijah prayed for the
drought and for the rain; yet still the fact remains that an inspired New Testament writer
puts before us, for our encouragement in prayer, a case in which prayers for changes of
weather were made and answered. And he certainly exhorts us to pray for the recovery of
the sick, which is an analogous case. This kind of prayer seems to require special
consideration.
"Is it, then, according to the Divine will that when we are individually suffering from the
regularity of the course of nature-suffering, for instance, from the want of rain, or the
superabundance of it-we should ask God to interfere with that regularity? That in such
circumstances we should pray for submission to the Divine will, and for such wisdom as
shall lead to compliance with it in the future, is a matter of course, and results inevitably
from the relation between the spiritual Father and the spiritual child. But ought we to go
farther than this? Ought we to pray, expecting that our prayer will be effectual, that God
may interfere with the fixed sequences of nature? Let us try to realize what Would follow
if we offered such prayer and prevailed. In a world-wide Church each believer would
constitute himself a judge of what was best for himself and his neighbor, and thus the
order of the world would be at the mercy everywhere of individual caprice and
ignorance. Irregularity would accordingly take the place of invariableness. No man could
possibly foretell what would be on the morrow. The scientist would find all his
researches for rule and law baffled; the agriculturist would find all his calculations upset;
nature, again, as in the days of ignorance, would become the master of man; like an eagle
transfixed by an arrow winged by one of its own feathers, man would have shackled
himself with the chains of his ancient servitude by the licentious employment of his own
freedom, and would have reduced the cosmos of which God made him the master to a
chaos which overwhelmed him by its unexpected blows."
The picture which is here drawn sketches for us the consequences of allowing each
individual to have control over the forces of nature. It is incredible that God could be
induced to allow such control to individuals; but does it follow from this that he never
listens to prayers respecting His direction of the forces of nature, and that consequently
all such prayers are presumptuous? The conclusion does not seem to follow from the
premises, The valid conclusion would rather be this: No one ought to pray to God to give
him absolute control of the forces of nature. The prayer, "Lord, in Thy control of the
forces of nature have mercy upon me and my fellow-men," is a prayer of a very different

262. character.
The objection to prayers for rain or for the cessation of rain, and the like, is based on the
supposition that we thereby "ask God to interfere with the regularity of the course of
nature." Yet it is admitted that to "pray for submission to the Divine will, and for such
wisdom as will lead to compliance with it in the future, is a matter of course and results
inevitably from the relation between the spiritual Father and the spiritual child." But is
there no regularity about the things thus admitted to befit objects of prayer? Are human
character and human intellect not subject to law? When we pray for a submissive spirit
and for wisdom, are we not asking God to "interfere with that regularity" which governs
the development of character and of intelligence? Either the prayer is to obtain more
submission or more wisdom than we should otherwise get, or it is not. If it is to obtain it,
then the regularity which would otherwise have prevailed is interrupted. If our prayer is
not to obtain for us more submission and more wisdom than we should have obtained if
we had not prayed, then the prayer is futile.
It will perhaps be urged that the two cases are not strictly parallel. They are not; but for
the purposes of this argument they are sufficiently parallel. It is maintained that we have
no right to pray for rain, because we thereby propose to interfere with the regularity of
natural processes; yet it is allowed that we may pray for wisdom. To get wisdom by
prayer is quite as much an interference with the regularity of natural processes as to get
rain by prayer. Therefore, either we ought to pray for neither, or we have the right to
pray for both. And so far as the two cases are not parallel, it seems to be more reasonable
to pray for rain than to pray for submissiveness and wisdom. God has given our wills the
awful power of being able to resist His will. Are we to suppose that He exercises less
control over matter, which cannot resist Him, than over human wills, which He allows to
do so; or that He will help us or not help us to become better and wiser, according as we
ask Him or do not ask Him for such help, and yet will never make any change as to
giving or withholding material blessings, however much, or however little, we may ask
Him to do this?
The objection is sometimes stated in a slightly different form. God has arranged the
material universe according to His infinite wisdom; it is presumptuous to pray that He
will make any change in it. The answer to which is that, if that argument is valid against
praying for rain, it is valid against all prayer whatever. If I impugn infinite wisdom when
I pray for a change in the weather, do I not equally impugn it, when I pray for a change
in the life or character of myself or of my friends? God knows without our asking what
weather is best for us; and He knows equally without our asking what spiritual graces
are best for us.
Does not the parallel difficulty point to a parallel solution? What right have we to
assume that in either case effectual prayer interferes with the regularity which seems to
characterize Divine action? May it not be God’s will that the prayer of faith should be a
force that can influence other forces, whether material or spiritual, and that its influence
should be according to law (whether natural or supernatural) quite as much as the
influence of other forces? A man who puts up a lightning-conductor brings down the
electric current when it might otherwise have remained above, and brings it down in one
place rather than another; yet no one would say that he interferes With the regularity of
the course of nature. Is there anything in religion or science to forbid us from thinking of
prayer as working in an analogous manner-according to a law too subtle for us to
comprehend and analyze, but according to a law none the less? In the vast network of
forces in which an all-wise God has constructed the universe a Christian will believe that
one force which "availeth much," both in the material and in the spiritual world, "is the

263. earnest prayer of the righteous. It is better for us that we should be able to influence by
our prayers God’s direction of events than that we should be unable to do so; therefore a
merciful Father has placed this power within our reach.
SBC, "The Strength of Working Prayer.
I. The praying. It is not said "the prayer." And the difference is worth observing. If it
were said "the prayer," it might seem as if the words of the prayer were like a charm,
such as we read of in ancient fables, when some particular words repeated by any person
are spoken of as able to produce some wonderful effect, so that, whoever uses them, they
are regarded as equally powerful, the power, some mysterious imaginary power, being in
the words themselves. It is the praying—the constant, earnest praying of the heart, not
without words, no doubt, at least in general, but the constant, earnest praying of the
heart—to which the effect is attributed by St. James.
II. It is the praying of a righteous man, not anybody’s praying. St. James is speaking of
the continuous heart-praying of the man who, clinging to the righteousness which has
been won for him in Christ, is earnestly bent on rendering to God in his own body, soul,
and spirit, by the help of the Holy Ghost, the offering of a righteous and saintly life. That
is the sort of man of whose praying the Apostle speaks.
III. That sort of praying by that sort of man is a very strong thing. It is stronger than the
wind, stronger than the earthquake, stronger than the sea, stronger than anything in the
world; for God is moved by it, and He moves all creation at His pleasure.
IV. Its strength lies in the energy of its working; it sets on foot a mighty system of
energies. The angels of God exult, the souls of men are wrought upon, the course of
human events is guided, the grace of God is won, the Holy Spirit of God is abundantly
poured out, by the secret incessant working of the mighty spiritual power that belongs to
the "praying of the righteous man."
G. Moberly, Parochial Sermons, p. 225.
Fervent Prayer.
Intercessory prayer is but one part of the great system of intercession on which human
life is organised. Intercession—it is simply a "coming in between." We know the word
well in Roman political history as the tribune’s veto. In its widest sense it may be applied
to every act in which one human being is able to come in between another and some evil
that might befall him. Nay, we may extend it even more widely still to the whole
principle of mediation, by which one man is used to convey blessings to another. As it
was with our Lord, so it is with the Church which He founded to represent Him when He
should be gone. Its whole existence is one living act of intercession. Always and
everywhere the Church is an intercessor; it is the expression of the mind of the Paraclete,
standing by its very existence between God and the world, standing between the world
and the forces of evil which threaten it. Intercessory prayer is but the expression of its
intercessory life. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, that interdependence of man on
man which is seen in the actions of daily life finds a new sphere of operations in our
prayers. Not merely the actions, not merely the character and influence, but also the
praying, of a righteous man becomes a great force.

264. I. It is a great force, first, because it forces us to keep up a true ideal of what those for
whom we pray may be. It makes us, in George Macdonald’s striking phrase, "think of
them and God together." If I pray for any one, that implies that I have faith in him, that I
believe he may be better than he is. Which of us does not know what a power for good
this is? To know that some one does believe in us, that some one, knowing all our
weakness, yet does believe that we can conquer our temptations; to be with some one
who expects us to be better, this, even if it comes from those who have never knelt in
prayer for us—this is an effectual intercession.
II. Intercession is, again, a great force because it pledges us to do the best we can for
those for whom we pray. We cannot, in very shame, ask God to help those whom we are
refusing to help ourselves when that help lies in our power; the very fact of intercession
reminds us of the truth of the dependence of man upon man. We ask God to bless those
for whom we care, and again and again He reminds us that His blessings are given
through men, and the answer to our prayer is that we are sent on an errand of mercy.
III. Intercession is also such a great force because it brings into action the power of God,
just as the tribune’s veto would have had no force if it had been spoken by him on his
own responsibility. It was strong because armed with the strength of law; it was strong
not with the strength of even a Tiberius Gracchus, but with the power of a sacrosanct
authority: so our prayers are strong because they have the promise and the power of
Christ behind them.
W. Lock, Sermon Year Book, vol. i., p. 1.
17 Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He
prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did
not rain on the land for three and a half years.
BAR ES, "Elias - The common way of writing the word “Elijah” in the New
Testament, Mat_11:14; Mat_16:14; Mat_17:3, etc.
Was a man subject to like passions as we are - This does not mean that Elijah
was passionate in the sense in which that word is now commonly used; that is, that he
was excitable or irritable, or that he was the victim of the same corrupt passions and
propensities to which other men are subject; but that he was like affected; that he was
capable of suffering the same things, or being affected in the same manner. In other
words, he was a mere man, subject to the same weaknesses and infirmities as other men.
Compare the notes at Act_14:15. The apostle is illustrating the efficacy of prayer. In
doing this, he refers to an undoubted case where prayer had such efficacy. But to this it
might be objected that Elijah was a distinguished prophet, and that it was reasonable to
suppose that his prayer would be heard. It might be said that his example could not be

265. adduced to prove that the prayers of those who were not favored with such advantages
would be heard; and especially that it could not be argued from his case that the prayers
of the ignorant, and of the weak, and of children and of servants, would be answered. To
meet this, the apostle says that he was a mere man, with the same natural propensities
and infirmities as other men, and that therefore his case is one which should encourage
all to pray. It was an instance of the efficacy of prayer, and not an illustration of the
power of a prophet.
And he prayed earnestly - Greek, “He prayed with prayer” - a Hebraism, to denote
that he prayed earnestly. Compare Luk_22:15. This manner of speaking is common in
Hebrew. Compare 1Sa_26:25; Psa_118:18; Lam_1:2. The reference here is undoubtedly
to 1Ki_17:1. In that place, however, it is not said that Elijah prayed, but that he said, “As
the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these
three years, but according to my word.” Either James interprets this as a prayer, because
it could be accomplished only by prayer, or he states what had been banded down by
tradition as the way in which the miracle was effected. There can be no reasonable doubt
that prayer was employed in the case, for even the miracles of the Saviour were
accomplished in connection with prayer, Joh_11:41-42.
That it might not rain - Not to gratify any private resentment of his, but as a
punishment on the land for the idolatry which prevailed in the time of Ahab. Famine was
one of the principal methods by which God punished his people for their sins.
And it rained not on the earth - On the land of Palestine, for so the word earth is
frequently understood in the Bible. See the notes at Luk_2:1. There is no reason to
suppose that the famine extended beyond the country that was subject to Ahab.
By the space - For the time.
Of three years and six months - See this explained in the notes at Luk_4:25.
Compare Lightfoot, Horae Hebraicae, on Luk_4:25.
CLARKE, "Elias was a man subject to like passions - This was Elijah, and a
consistency between the names of the same persons as expressed in the Old and the New
Testaments should be kept up.
The word ᆇµοιοπαθης signifies of the same constitution, a human being just as
ourselves are. See the same phrase and its explanation in Act_14:15, and the note there.
There was some reason to apprehend that because Elijah was translated, that therefore
he was more than human, and if so, his example could be no pattern for us; and as the
design of St. James was to excite men to pray, expecting the Divine interference
whenever that should be necessary, therefore he tells them that Elijah was a man like
themselves, of the same constitution, liable to the same accidents, and needing the same
supports.
And he prayed earnestly - Προσευχᇽ προσηυξατο· He prayed with prayer; a
Hebraism for, he prayed fervently.
That it might not rain - See this history, 1Ki_17:1, etc.
And it rained not on the earth - Επι της γης· On that land, viz. the land of Judea;
for this drought did not extend elsewhere.
Three years and six months - This is the term mentioned by our Lord, Luk_4:25;
but this is not specified in the original history. In 1Ki_18:1, it is said, In the third year the

266. word of the Lord came to Elijah, that is, concerning the rain; but this third year is to be
computed from the time of his going to live at Zarephath, which happened many days
after the drought began, as is plain from this, that he remained at the brook Cherith till it
was dried up, and then went to Zarephath, in the country of Zidon; 1Ki_17:7-9.
Therefore the three years and six months must be computed from his denouncing the
drought, at which time that judgment commenced. Macknight.
GILL, "Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are,.... The apostle gives
an instance of earnest and fervent prayer, and of the efficacy of it in Elias; who is the
same with the prophet Elijah, or Elijah the Tishbite; who, by the Septuagint in Mal_4:5
is called Elias, as here, and elsewhere, in the New Testament: of him James says, that he
was a "man", contrary to the notion of some of the Jewish writers, who affirm, that
Elijah was not born of a father and mother, but was an angel, who was clothed with the
four elements of the world (e); but he was not only born, but born in sin, as others are,
and was by nature no better than others; and he himself confesses that he was no better
than his fathers, 1Ki_19:4. And the apostle further observes; concerning him, that be
was "subject to like passions as we are"; both in body and soul; he was subject to hunger
and weariness, and was fed by ravens, and by the widow of Zarephath, and by an angel;
and he was subject to reproach, affliction, and persecution, being charged by Ahab as a
troubler of Israel, and persecuted by Jezebel, who sought his life; he was a mortal man,
and liable to death, and requested to die, and must have died, had it not been for the
wonderful power of God, which translated him, that he should not see death; and he was
not free from sinful passions, as impatience, fear, and unbelief, 1Ki_17:20. And he
prayed earnestly; or prayed in prayer; an Hebraism: it is said (f) of one, that ‫צלותיה‬ ‫,צלי‬
"he prayed his prayer"; and of others, that ‫צלותין‬ ‫,צלאן‬ "they prayed prayers"; though the
phrase here seems to design something more than bare praying; a praying, not merely
externally, or formally, and with the lip only, but with the Spirit, and with the
understanding, and with the heart engaged in it, with inwrought prayer. The prophet
prayed with much earnestness, with great vehemence and intenseness of Spirit, as this
Hebraism denotes; his prayer was fervent, and it was constant, and importunate, and
was continued till he had an answer: he may be thought to have prayed each of the seven
times he sent his servant to look out for a sign of rain, 1Ki_18:43, he first prayed,
that it might not rain; this is not recorded in express words, but may be gathered
from 1Ki_17:1 where he says, "as the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand,
there shall not be dew, nor rain, these years, but according to my word"; so the passage
is understood by the Jewish interpreters: the phrase, "before whom I stand", is
paraphrased by one of them (g) thus; before whom I am used to stand, ‫,בתפילה‬ "in
prayer"; and it is a common saying with the Jews, there is no standing ever mentioned,
but prayer is intended; See Gill on Mat_6:5 And the other phrase, "according to my
word", is, by another (h), interpreted to this sense, that the rain should not descend
naturally, according to the custom of the world, but it should descend when Elijah ‫יתפלל‬
‫,עליו‬ "prayed for it", and so it was:
and it rained not on the earth: on the land of Israel, which is only meant; it rained
in other parts of the world, for the drought in those times was not universal: and this
was,

267. by the space of three years and six months; which exactly agrees with the words of
Christ, Luk_4:25 and this was in judgment upon the land of Israel, for the idolatry it was
filled with in the times of Ahab: and this instance of prayer is mentioned, not with a view
that it should be imitated; we are not to pray for judgments, unless we have a divine
order for it, as Elijah had; but to show the efficacy of prayer made according to the will
of God.
HE RY, "The great advantage and efficacy of prayer are declared and proved: The
effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much, whether he pray for himself
or for others: witness the example of Elias, Jam_5:17, Jam_5:18. He who prays must be
a righteous man; not righteous in an absolute sense (for this Elias was not, who is here
made a pattern to us), but righteous in a gospel sense; not loving nor approving of any
iniquity. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear my prayer, Psa_66:18.
Further, the prayer itself must be a fervent, in-wrought, well-wrought prayer. It must be
a pouring out of the heart to God; and it must proceed from a faith unfeigned. Such
prayer avails much. It is of great advantage to ourselves, it may be very beneficial to our
friends, and we are assured of its being acceptable to God. It is good having those for
friends whose prayers are available in the sight of God. The power of prayer is here
proved from the success of Elijah. This may be encouraging to us even in common cases,
if we consider that Elijah was a man of like passions with us. He was a zealous good man
and a very great man, but he had his infirmities, and was subject to disorder in his
passions as well as others. In prayer we must not look to the merit of man, but to the
grace of God. Only in this we should copy after Elijah, that he prayed earnestly, or, as it
is in the original, in prayer he prayed. It is not enough to say a prayer, but we must pray
in prayer. Our thoughts must be fixed, our desires firm and ardent, and our graces in
exercise; and, when we thus pray in prayer, we shall speed in prayer. Elijah prayed that
it might not rain; and God heard him in his pleading against an idolatrous persecuting
country, so that it rained not on the earth for the space of three years and six months.
Again he prayed, and the heaven gave rain, etc. Thus you see prayer is the key which
opens and shuts heaven. To this there is an allusion, Rev_11:6, where the two witnesses
are said to have power to shut heaven, that it rain not. This instance of the extraordinary
efficacy of prayer is recorded for encouragement even to ordinary Christians to be
instant and earnest in prayer. God never says to any of the seed of Jacob, Seek my face in
vain. If Elijah by prayer could do such great and wonderful things, surely the prayers of
no righteous man shall return void. Where there may not be so much of a miracle in
God's answering our prayers, yet there may be as much of grace.
JAMISO , "Elias ... like passions as we — therefore it cannot be said that he was
so raised above us as to afford no example applicable to common mortals like ourselves.
prayed earnestly — literally, “prayed with prayer”: Hebraism for prayed intensely.
Compare Luk_22:15, “With desire I have desired,” that is, earnestly desired. Alford is
wrong in saying, Elias’ prayer that it might not rain “is not even hinted at in the Old
Testament history.” In 1Ki_17:1 it is plainly implied, “As the Lord God of Israel liveth,
before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my
word.” His prophecy of the fact was according to a divine intimation given to him in
answer to prayer. In jealousy for God’s honor (1Ki_19:10), and being of one mind with
God in his abhorrence of apostasy, he prayed that the national idolatry should be
punished with a national judgment, drought; and on Israel’s profession of repentance he
prayed for the removal of the visitation, as is implied in 1Ki_18:39-42; compare Luk_

268. 4:25.
three years, etc. — Compare 1Ki_18:1, “The third year,” namely, from Elijah’s going
to Zarephath; the prophecy (Jam_5:1) was probably about five or six months previously.
CALVI , "17Elias was a man. There are innumerable instances in Scripture of
what he meant to prove; but he chose one that is remarkable above all others; for it
was a great thing that God should make heaven in a manner subject to the prayers
of Elias, so as to obey his wishes. Elias kept heaven shut by his prayers for three
years and a half; he again OPE ED it, so that it poured down abundance of rain.
Hence appeared the wonderful power of prayer. Well known is this remarkable
history, and is found in 1 Kings 17:0 and 1 Kings 18:0. And though it is not there
expressly said, that Elias prayed for drought, it may yet be easily gathered, and that
the rain also was given to his prayers.
But we must notice the APPLICATIO of the example. James does not say that
drought ought to be sought from the Lord, because Elias obtained it; for we may by
inconsiderate zeal presumptuously and foolishly imitate the Prophet. We must then
observe the rule of prayer, so that it may be by faith. He, therefore, thus
accommodates this example, — that if Elias was heard, so also we shall be heard
when we rightly pray. For as the command to pray is common, and as the promise is
common, it follows that the effect also will be common.
Lest any one should object and say, that we are far distant from the dignity of Elias,
he places him in our own rank, by saying, that he was a mortal man and subject to
the same passions with ourselves. For we profit less by the examples of saints,
because we imagine them to have been half gods or heroes, who had peculiar
intercourse with God; so that because they were heard, we receive no confidence. In
ORDER to shake off this heathen and profane superstition, James reminds us that
the saints ought to be considered as having the infirmity of the flesh; so that we may
learn to ascribe what they obtained from the Lord, not to their merits, but to the
efficacy of prayer.
It hence appears how childish the Papists are, who teach men to flee to the
protection of saints, because they had been heard by the Lord. For thus they reason,
“Because he obtained what he asked as long as he lived in the world, he will be now
after death our best patron.” This sort of subtle REFI EME T was altogether
unknown to the Holy Spirit. For James on the contrary argues, that as their prayers
availed so much, so we ought in like manner to pray at this day according to their
example, and that we shall not do so in vain.
BE SO , "James 5:17-18. Elias was a man subject to like passions — To the like
infirmities; as we are — In which sense the same word, οµοιοπαθης, is used, Acts
14:15. It literally signifies, suffering like things with another. Elijah, through
natural infirmity, suffered as we do from diseases, from temptation, from
persecution, &c. And he prayed earnestly — Greek, προσευχη προσηυξατο, in
praying he prayed, that it might not rain — That, by being punished for their
idolatry and murder of the prophets, they might be brought to true repentance for

269. these crimes. And it rained not on the earth — That is, on the land of the ten tribes;
for three years and six months — This is the period which our Lord likewise says
the drought CO TI UED, Luke 4:25. It is said, indeed, (1 Kings 18:1,) that in the
third year the word of the Lord came to Elijah, namely, concerning the rain. But
this third year was COMPUTED from the time of his going to live at Zarephath,
which happened many days after the drought began; as is plain from this, that he
remained at the brook Cherith till it was dried up, and then went to Zarephath in
the country of Sidon, 1 Kings 17:7; 1 Kings 17:9. Wherefore the three years and six
months must be COMPUTED from his denouncing the drought, at which time that
judgment commenced. See note on 1 Kings 18:1. And he prayed again — When
idolatry was abolished; and the heaven gave rain — As is recorded 1 Kings 18.,
where we are told, that he cast himself down on the earth, and put his face between
his knees, which was the posture of an humble and earnest supplicant. Thus Moses’s
praying is expressed by his falling on his face, umbers 16:4.
COFFMA , "Elijah was a man of like passions with us, and he prayed fervently
that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months.
Elijah ... a man of like passions ... The argument is that Elijah, despite the fact of his
being a OTEDprophet, was nevertheless a fallible and sinful man like the
Christians of all generations; but that, in spite of his mortality, sin and
imperfections, God mightily answers his prayers, and he will do the same for us.
Three years and six months ... The EVE T in view in these words is recorded in 1
Kings 17:1-18:lff, where the exact duration of the drought is nowhere mentioned.
Despite this, the Old Testament expression "in the third year" in that passage is
sometimes construed as a "contradiction" of the "three years and six months" of
this passage and the one in Luke 4:25. Of course, this is another well-known
"pseudocon." As Haley said, "We may reckon `the third year' of the Old Testament,
not as indicating the length of the drought, but a reference to the sojourn of Elijah
with the widow of Zarephath."[57] In other words, the drought began six months
before the famine did, the Old Testament "third year" having reference to the
duration of the famine, and the ew Testament "three years and six months"
referring to the duration of the drought itself. Jesus himself endorsed this
CALCULATIO (Luke 4:25).
E D OTE:
[57] John W. Haley, Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible ( ashville: B. C.
Goodpasture, 1951), p. 415.
COKE, "James 5:17. Elias was a man subject to like passions, &c.— ' Οµοιοπαθης,
A man of a like frail and mortal composition; liable to the evils and afflictions of life,
and subject to death, as well as other men: and his saying in this place, that Elijah
wasfrail and mortal like other men, seems to have been in order to anticipate an
inquiry like that recorded, Sirach 48:3-4. "Elijah (they might have said) was an
extraordinary prophet; and at last translated without dying; whereas we are only
frail men; Why therefore should we expect such favours as were granted to him?"

270. To obviate such a plea, the apostle takes notice, that Elijah was a man only, and not
an angel; liable to many calamities, and naturally mortal, like other men; though by
the extraordinary favour of God, he was actually translated: and as he was only a
weak mortal man, it was not to be thought that he worked his miracles of himself.
They proceeded from a divine power, and were effected in answer to his prayer to
God. Upon the earth, would more properly be rendered, Upon the land; that is, of
Judea. See on Luke 4:25.
ELLICOTT, "(17) Elias.—James supplies a lacuna in the story of Elijah. In 1 Kings
17:1, the prophet simply and sternly tells Ahab “there shall not be dew nor rain
these years, but ACCORDI G to my word.” Further on (1 Kings 18:41-46) “there is
a sound of abundance of rain.” In our Epistle we read that Elias “prayed
earnestly”—literally, prayed in his prayer, a Hebraistic form of emphasis (see
margin). He asked for drought, and it lasted three years and a half, so that “there
was a sore famine in Samaria.” He prayed once more, and “the heaven was black
with CLOUDS and wind, and there was a great rain,” and thus again “the Lord
hearkened unto the voice of a man.” Yet Elijah was no demi-god; we even learn how
he shrank from his prophet’s yoke, and longed to die. o one therefore may despair
in his petitions but rather let his “requests be made known unto God;” for “men
ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1).
It rained not on the earth.—This Orientalism need not be a snare to the most literal
of readers. The punishment, because of Ahab and Jezebel, fell on their own
kingdom, and not the whole world. In a similar hyperbole Obadiah told Elijah,
concerning this very famine, “there is no nation, or kingdom, whither my lord hath
not sent to seek thee” (1 Kings 18:10).
BURKITT, "Our apostle in these words proves the general proposition he had laid
down, that the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much, by a particular
instance, the example of Elias: who seemed to carry the keys of heaven at his girdle,
to shut and OPE the heavens at his pleasure.
As the Lord liveth, there shall not be dew nor rain, but ACCORDI G to my word 1
Kings 17:1 : the Apostle here tells us what word this was, namely, a word of prayer,
and not a word of command; Elias prayed, and the heavens gave rain; he prayed in
prayer, so the original; that is, he prayed with faith and fervency, according to the
will of God revealed to him; and though he was a man subject to the common
infirmities of human nature with ourselves, yet his passions did not hinder the
prevalency of his prayers; nothing has wrought such wonderful effects in the world
as prayer; it made the sun stand still in heaven, it brought fire out of heaven, 1
Kings 1:10, and here it shut up the WI DOWS of heaven, that it rained not for the
space of three years and six months: it has a divine kind of omnipotency in it.

271. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain,
and the earth produced its crops.
BAR ES, "And he prayed again - The allusion here seems to be to 1Ki_18:42,
1Ki_18:45, though it is not expressly said there that he prayed. Perhaps it might be fairly
gathered from the narrative that he did pray, or at least that would be the presumption,
for he put himself into a natural attitude of prayer. “He cast himself down upon the
earth, and put his face between his knees,” 1Ki_18:42. In such circumstances, it is to be
fairly presumed that such a man would pray; but it is remarkable that it is not expressly
mentioned, and quite as remarkable that James should have made his argument turn on
a thing which is not expressly mentioned, but which seems to have been a matter of
inference. It seems probable to me, therefore, that there was some tradition on which he
relied, or that it was a common interpretation of the passage in 1 Kings, that Elijah
prayed earnestly, and that this was generally believed by those to whom the apostle
wrote. Of the fact that Elijah was a man of prayer, no one could doubt; and in these
circumstances the tradition and common belief were sufficient to justify the argument
which is employed here.
And the heaven gave rain - The clouds gave rain. “The heaven was black with
clouds and wind, and there was a great rain,” 1Ki_18:45.
And the earth brought forth her fruit - The famine ceased, and the land again
became productive. The case referred to here was indeed a miracle, but it was a case of
the power of prayer, and therefore to the point. If God would work a miracle in answer to
prayer, it is reasonable to presume that he will bestow upon us the blessings which we
need in the same way.
CLARKE, "And he prayed again - This second prayer is not mentioned in the
history in express words, but as in 1Ki_18:42, it is said, He cast himself down upon the
earth, and put his face between his knees; that was probably the time of the second
praying, namely, that rain might come, as this was the proper posture of prayer.
GILL, "And he prayed again,.... 1Ki_18:42. Here also is no express mention of his
prayer, but it may be concluded from his gestures; and so the Jewish interpreters
understand these words, "Elijah went up to the top of Carmel", ‫,להתפלל‬ "to pray, and he
cast himself down upon the earth", ‫הגשמים‬ ‫על‬ ‫,להתפלל‬ "to pray for rain; and he put his face
between his knees", ‫,והתפלל‬ "and prayed, and said to his servant, go up now, look toward
the sea"; and this he said while he was ‫,בתפילתו‬ "in his prayers" (i): and the effect of this
his prayer was,

272. and the heaven gave rain; see 1Ki_18:45.
And the earth brought forth her fruit: which for the years past it had not; hence
there was a sore famine in the land, 1Ki_18:2. Now the apostle chose to give this
example, because it was a common thing for the Jews to ask for rain: we often read of
such a doctor, that he prayed for rain, and it came; and of another, that he asked for the
rains, and they descended (k): and his view is to observe, that the weakness and
infirmities of the saints ought not to discourage them from prayer; and that they should
be earnest and fervent in it, as was Elias, a man of like passions with themselves.
JAMISO , "prayed ... and — that is, “and so.” Mark the connection between the
prayer and its accomplishment.
her fruit — her usual and due fruit, heretofore withheld on account of sin. Three and
a half years is the time also that the two witnesses prophesy who “have power to shut
and open heaven that it rain not.”
COFFMA , "And he prayed again; and the heaven gave rain, and the earth
brought forth her fruit.
Significantly, the Old Testament does not specifically mention the prayer of Elijah
as being the cause of the drought; but, in this particular, James illuminates the Old
Testament. All miracles were wrought in answer to prayer, even those of Jesus, as
indicated by John 9:31; John 11:41. See further comment on this in my
Commentary on John, p. 284. Thus, if all the miracles of Jesus were wrought in
answer to prayer, it would be very illogical to suppose that those wrought by Elijah
were achieved in any manner differently.
19 My brothers and sisters, if one of you should
wander from the truth and someone should bring
that person back,
BAR ES, "Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth - Either doctrinally
and speculatively, by embracing error; or practically, by falling into sinful practices.
Either of these may be called “erring from the truth,” because they are contrary to what
the truth teaches and requires. What is here said does not appear to have any connection
with what precedes, but the apostle seems to have supposed that such a case might
occur; and, in the conclusion of the Epistle, he called their attention to the importance of

273. endeavoring to save an erring brother, if such an instance should happen. The
exhortation would be proper in addressing a letter to any church, or in publicly
addressing any congregation.
And one convert him - This does not mean “convert him as a sinner, or regenerate
him,” but turn him from the error of his way; bring him back from his wanderings; re-
establish him in the truth, and in the practice of virtue and religion. So far as the word
used here is concerned, ᅚπιστρέψᇽ epistrepsē he who had erred from the truth, and who
was to be converted, may have been a true Christian before. The word means simply to
turn, sc., from his way of error. See the notes at Luk_22:32.
CLARKE, "Err from the truth - Stray away from the Gospel of Christ; and one
convert him - reclaim him from his error, and bring him back to the fold of Christ.
GILL, "Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth,.... Either from Christ, who
is the truth, by departing from him, forsaking his ways, worship, and ordinances; or
from the Scriptures of truth, not speaking according to them, and embracing notions
that are contrary unto them; or from the Gospel, the word of truth, from the doctrine of
faith, and from uprightness of life and conversation, after having made a profession of
Christianity; for this is to be understood of one who has embraced the Christian religion,
become a member of a church, and has walked in the path of truth and holiness, but now
fallen into error, either in principle, or in practice, or both:
and one convert him; or turn him from his error, to truth again; for this designs not
first conversion, or the turning of a sinner from darkness to light, from the power of
Satan to God, and from the evil of a man's heart and ways and from a dependence on his
own righteousness, to the Lord Jesus Christ, to look to him for righteousness, life, and
salvation, which is wholly and entirely God's work, and not man's; but conversion after
backslidings; for a restoration from a fallen condition is sometimes so called, Psa_51:1
and which one brother may be an instrument of to another, by showing him, and setting
before him, the evil of his errors, whether in principle or practice; and by instructing him
in the doctrines of the Gospel, and in the duties of religion; and by reproving him in
meekness, and according to the rules of Christ; which means are sometimes blessed for
the gaining of such; and which may be called conversion: and also, this is sometimes
done by praying for him; and which seems chiefly to be intended here; for from praying
for the healing of the diseases of the body, the apostle proceeds to encourage the saints
to pray for one another, for the healing of the diseases of the mind; and suggests, that if
prayer avails to the one, it may to the other; and which is the most desirable, and the
greatest blessing, as follows.
HE RY, " This epistle concludes with an exhortation to do all we can in our places to
promote the conversion and salvation of others, Jam_5:19, Jam_5:20. Some interpret
these verses as an apology which the apostle is making for himself that he should so
plainly and sharply reprove the Jewish Christians for their many faults and errors. And
certainly James gives a very good reason why he was so much concerned to reclaim them
from their errors, because in thus doing he should save souls, and hide a multitude of
sins. But we are not to restrain this place to the apostle's converting such as erred from
the truth; no, nor to other ministerial endeavours of the like nature, since it is said, “If

274. any err, and one convert him, let him be who he will that does so good an office for
another, he is therein an instrument of saving a soul from death.” Those whom the
apostle here calls brethren, he yet supposes liable to err. It is no mark of a wise or a holy
man to boast of his being free from error, or to refuse to acknowledge when he is in an
error. But if any do err, be they ever so great, you must not be afraid to show them their
error; and, be they ever so weak and little, you must not disdain to make them wiser and
better. If they err from the truth, that is, from the gospel (the great rule and standard of
truth), whether it be in opinion or practice, you must endeavour to bring them again to
the rule. Errors in judgment and in life generally go together. There is some doctrinal
mistake at the bottom of every practical miscarriage. There is no one habitually bad, but
upon some bad principle. Now to convert such is to reduce them from their error, and to
reclaim them from the evils they have been led into. We are not presently to accuse and
exclaim against an erring brother, and seek to bring reproaches and calamities upon
him, but to convert him: and, if by all our endeavours we cannot do this, yet we are
nowhere empowered to persecute and destroy him. If we are instrumental in the
conversion of any, we are said to convert them, though this be principally and efficiently
the work of God. And, if we can do no more towards the conversion of sinners, yet we
may do this - pray for the grace and Spirit of God to convert and change them. And let
those that are in any way serviceable to convert others know what will be the happy
consequence of their doing this: they may take great comfort in it at present, and they
will meet with a crown at last. He that is said to err from the truth in Jam_5:19 is
described as erring in his way in Jam_5:20, and we cannot be said to convert any
merely by altering their opinions, unless we can bring them to correct and amend their
ways. This is conversion - to turn a sinner from the error of his ways, and not to turn him
from one party to another, or merely from one notion and way of thinking to another. He
who thus converteth a sinner from the error of his ways shall save a soul from death.
There is a soul in the case; and what is done towards the salvation of the soul shall
certainly turn to good account. The soul being the principal part of the man, the saving
of that only is mentioned, but it includes the salvation of the whole man: the spirit shall
be saved from hell, the body raised from the grave, and both saved from eternal death.
And then, by such conversion of heart and life, a multitude of sins shall be hid. A most
comfortable passage of scripture is this. We learn hence that though our sins are many,
even a multitude, yet they may be hid or pardoned; and that when sin is turned from or
forsaken it shall be hid, never to appear in judgment against us. Let people contrive to
cover or excuse their sin as they will, there is no way effectually and finally to hide it but
by forsaking it. Some make the sense of this text to be, that conversion shall prevent a
multitude of sins; and it is a truth beyond dispute that many sins are prevented in the
party converted, many also may be prevented in others that he may have an influence
upon, or may converse with. Upon the whole, how should we lay out ourselves with all
possible concern for the conversion of sinners! It will be for the happiness and salvation
of the converted; it will prevent much mischief, and the spreading and multiplying of sin
in the world; it will be for the glory and honour of God; and it will mightily redound to
our comfort and renown in the great day. Those that turn many to righteousness, and
those who help to do so, shall shine as the stars for ever and ever.
JAMISO , "The blessing of reclaiming an erring sinner by the mutual consent and
intercessory prayer just recommended.
do err — more literally, “be led astray.”
the truth — the Gospel doctrine and precepts.
one — literally, “any”; as “any” before. Everyone ought to seek the salvation of

275. everyone [Bengel].
BARCLAY, "THE TRUTH WHICH MUST BE DO E (James 5:19-20)
5:19-20 My brothers, if any among you wanders from the truth and if anyone turns
him again to the right way, let him know that he who has turned a sinner from his
wandering way will save his brothel's soul from death and will hide a multitude of
his own sins.
In this passage there is set down the great differentiating characteristic of Christian
truth. It is something from which a man can wander. It is not only intellectual,
philosophical and abstract; it is always moral truth.
This comes out very clearly when we go to the ew Testament and look at the
expressions which are used in CO ECTIO with truth. Truth is something which
a man must love (2 Thessalonians 2:10); it is something which a man must obey
(Galatians 5:7); it is something which a man must display in life (2 Corinthians 4:2);
it is something which must be spoken in love (Ephesians 4:15); it is something which
must be witnessed to (John 18:37); it is something which must be manifested in a life
of love (1 John 3:19); it is something which liberates (John 8:32); and it is something
which is the gift of the Holy Spirit, sent by Jesus Christ (John 16:13-14).
Clearest of all is the phrase in John 3:21, he who does what is true. That is to say,
Christian truth is something which must be done. It is not only the object of the
search of the mind; it is always moral truth issuing in action. It is not only
something to be studied but something to be done; not only something to which a
man must SUBMIT only his mind but something to which he must submit his whole
life.
THE SUPREME HUMA ACHIEVEME T (James 5:19-20 CO TI UED)
James finishes his letter with one of the greatest and most uplifting thoughts in the
ew Testament; and yet one which occurs more than once in the Bible. Suppose a
man goes wrong and strays away; and suppose a fellow-Christian rescues him from
the ERROR of his ways and brings him back to the right path. That man has not
only saved his brother's soul, he has covered a multitude of his own sins. In other
words, to save another's soul is the surest way to save one's own.
Mayor points out that Origen has a wonderful passage in one of his Homilies in
which he indicates these six ways in which a man may gain forgiveness of his sins--
by baptism, by martyrdom, by almsgiving (Luke 11:41), by the forgiveness of others
(Matthew 6:14), by love (Luke 7:47), and by converting a sinner from the evil of his
ways. God will forgive much to the man who has been the means of leading another
brother back to him.
This is a thought which shines forth every now and then from THE PAGES of
Scripture. Jeremiah says, "If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless,

276. you shall be as my mouth" (Jeremiah 15:19). Daniel writes: "And those who are
wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to
righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever" (Daniel 12:3). The advice to the
young Timothy is: "Take heed to yourself, and to YOUR teaching; for by so doing
you will save both yourself and your hearers" (1 Timothy 4:16).
There is a saying of the Jewish Fathers: "Whosoever makes a man righteous, sin
prevails not over him." Clement of Alexandria says that the true Christian reckons
that which benefits his neighbour his own salvation. It is told that an ultra-
evangelical lady once asked Wilberforce, the liberator of the slaves, if his soul was
saved. "Madame," he answered, "I have been so busy trying to save the souls of
others that I have had no time to think of my own." It has been said that those who
bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves; and certainly
those who bring the lives of others to God cannot keep God out of their own. The
highest honour God can give is bestowed upon him who leads another to God; for
the man who does that does nothing less than share in the work of Jesus Christ, the
Saviour of men.
BE SO , "James 5:19-20. Brethren — As if he had said, I have now warned you of
those things to which you are most liable. And in all these respects watch, not only
over yourselves, but every one over his brother also. Labour, in particular, to
recover those that are fallen. For if any of you do err from the truth — From the
right way in which he ought to walk, if he be seduced by any means from the
doctrine and practice of the gospel; and one — Any one; convert him — Be a means
of bringing him back into that way from which he had wandered; let him know —
Who has been enabled to effect so good a work; that he who converteth a sinner
from the error of his way — From the false doctrine and bad practice to which he
had turned aside, shall produce a much happier effect than any miraculous cure of
the body; for he shall save a precious immortal soul from spiritual and eternal
death, and shall hide a multitude of sins — amely, the sins of the persons thus
converted, which shall no more, how many soever they are, be remembered to his
condemnation. “The covering of sin is a phrase which often occurs in the Old
Testament, and always signifies the pardoning of sin. or has it any other meaning
here. For surely it cannot be the apostle’s intention to tell us, that the turning of a
sinner from the ERROR of his way will conceal from the eye of God’s justice a
multitude of sins committed by the person who does this charitable office, if he
continueth in them. Such a person needs himself to be turned from the error of his
way, in ORDER that his own soul may be saved from death. St. Peter has a similar
expression, (1 Peter 4:8,) love covereth a multitude of sins; not, however, in the
person who is possessed of love, but in the person who is the object of his love.” —
Macknight.
COFFMA , "My brethren, if any among you err from the truth, and one convert
him; let him know, that he who converteth a sinner from the ERROR of his way
shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins.
The great difficulty for some in these verses, as stated by Ward, is "in the thought of
the doom of a Christian."[58] Of course, the source of the difficulty is not in what

277. James said but in the Calvinistic doctrine which has no support in the ew
Testament, and which, in fact, is contradicted on almost every page of it, including
this one. It is no denial of this that the word "convert" used here is the same one
used by Peter after he DE IED the Lord (Luke 22:32). That usage merely
CO FIRMS the thought that if Peter himself had not been converted even though
he was a true believer, he still would have suffered eternal death.
To avoid the thrust of this passage, some follow the course of Wessel in referring
"death" here to "physical death."[59] This, however, is not indicated at all. As
Roberts said, "Death here is eternal death, the second death of the Bible.
Repentance will not save a soul from any other kind of death?[60]
If any err from the truth ... The implications of this are profound. That a Christian
can err from the truth is not merely a possibility, but a frequent occurrence.
Inherent in this is also a fact, as Barclay put it, that "Truth is something that must
be done."[61] Failure to do it is a failure to WI eternal life.
Another question that surfaces in reference to these verses is the question of
whether or not the covering of "a multitude of sins" APPLIES to the sins of the
converted, or to the sins of the one doing the converting. The primary meaning must
certainly be the former; although, of course, there is a sense in which those who win
souls may Scripturally be said to "save themselves." Thus, Paul wrote Timothy, "In
doing this thou shalt save both thyself and them that hear thee" (1 Timothy 4:16).
Barclay caught the spirit of these words, "To save another's soul is the surest way to
save one's own soul."[62]
Many have commented on James' seemingly abrupt ending of the epistle; but this is
altogether appropriate. He closed on the note of every Christian's concern for the
reclamation of the backslider, including also the LARGER sphere of winning the
alien lost to Christ. As Tasker aptly phrased it:
o duty laid upon Christians is more in keeping with the mind of their Lord, or
more expressive of Christian love, than the duty of reclaiming the backslider.[63]
SIZE>
Here there is no signature, no farewell greeting, no formal closure of any kind, just
the bold imperious words of the inspired writer, standing starkly against the mists
of fleeting centuries like a massive inscription chiseled into a granite mountain. o
pseudonymous writer, no forger, no impostor of later times would have dared to
conclude a letter like this. James carries its own inherent testimony of its truth and
inspiration of God.
[58] Ronald A. Ward, op. cit., p. 1235.
[59] Walter W. Wessel, op. cit., p. 963.
[60] J. W. Roberts, op. cit., p. 179.

278. [61] William Barclay, op. cit., p. 133.
[62] Ibid., p. 134.
[63] R. V. G. Tasker, op. cit., p. 142.
COKE, "James 5:19. If any of you do err from the truth,— The Christian revelation
is often called truth, as containing themost important truths, such as lead men to
holiness and happiness. That manner of life which the gospel prescribes, is here
compared to a plain path; and such as departed from it into the crooked paths of
unholiness or vice, were carefully to be brought under the power of Divine grace
into the right way again, by the friendly admonitions and good example of those
who had not wandered out of the way. See Galatians 6:1. 2 Timothy 2:24-25.
ELLICOTT, "(19) Brethren.—My brethren, it rather ought to be. The last, and, to
some, the dearest of the wise Apostle’s remarks, is this on conversion; and it fitly
closes his loving and plain-speaking Letter.
If any of you do err . . .—Better thus, If one of you be led away from the truth, and
one convert him. It is not the wilful ERROR, so much as the being seduced by
others, who draw the unwary from their proper course, till in time they become of
themselves “wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for
ever” (Jude 1:13). As the leading away was an act prompted by the devil, so the
bringing home is the service of God, and each will have its fit REWARD. The sinner
is riding, as it were, headlong to destruction, when a friend lays hold upon the rein,
and literally “converts” him, i.e., turns him round; but, observe, the wanderer is still
far from home, and many a weary league must he traverse, even with face turned
and kept heavenward, before the end be neared.
BURKITT, "Our apostle concludes his epistle with an exhortation to the duty of
fraternal CORRECTIO and Christian admonition: "If, says he, any one among
you, who hath made an outward profession of Christianity, shall, for fear of
persecution, or otherwise turn aside from the rule of the gospel, whether in matters
of faith or practice, such a person, either Minister or private Christian, as shall be
instrumental, by prayer, reproof, or counsel to recover him out of that wandering
and backsliding condition, shall have the honour to save a soul from death, and
shall hide a multitude of sins; that is, he shall be a means of bringing him to a sight
of his sins, and to seek a pardon of them, which is the only true and happy way of
hiding and of covering of them."
Learn hence, 1. It is not sufficient that every one takes care of his own soul, but he
must also watch over the souls of others; there is no brother so mean in the
Christian church, but the care of his salvation belongeth to all in the Christian
communion.
Learn, 2. What great honour God puts upon the creature, in calling him a Saviour
to a restored and converted brother, he shall save a soul from death: but when God

279. puts the glory of his own work upon the head of the creature, what cause has he to
lay the crown of his excellency at the foot of God? When the honour of the supreme
Cause is put upon the instrument, the instrument ought to ascribe all the efficacy
and efficiency to the first cause, saying, ot unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to thy
name be the praise. Amen.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, "If any of you do err from the truth
Heresy: an exposition and an appeal
Men may think falsely, and live virtuously; or they may live immorally, and think
correctly.
The one class are intellectual sinners: the other moral transgressors. They are to be
judged by different standards, and so classified as not to be swept away in one common
anathema. If error proceeds from sheer intellectual inability to see as the majority see,
charity should be exercised in all its power and tenderness; but if error proceeds from a
putrid heart—if it is cherished because truth is too regardful of the conduct, and too
restraining for the wildness of passion—their indignation may be excited, and
consequences allowed to discharge their retributive fires.
I. THE POSSIBILITY OF A TRUTH-POSSESSOR BECOMING A TRUTH-LOSER.
1. Through a daring, speculative turn of thought. We are not of those who would
close the inquiring eye and bind the exploring wing; yet our duty is to warn the
student that there are dangerous latitudes in every sea, and that many a gallant
vessel has been shivered on the hidden rock.
2. Through want of sympathy in their intellectual difficulties. Woe unto the Church
when honest thought and honest speech are repressed! When intellect is stagnant, its
putrid effluvium may corrupt the heart’s holiest feelings.
3. Through intellectual pride. Some men are ever in minorities through a love of
singularity. They confound impertinence with candour, and mistake rudeness for
originality.
II. THE PRINCIPLE OF MUTUAL OVERSIGHT IN SPIRITUAL LIFE IS
RECOGNISED. GO to the erring one with a brother’s gentleness, and you may win his
soul from destruction. The nearer he is to the edge of the precipice, the more caution is
required on the part of those who have his interest at heart.
III. THE SALVATION OF THE SOUL IS THE SUBLIMEST OF MORAL TRIUMPHS.
1. Christ deemed it worthy of His incarnation and sacrifice.
2. The mission of God’s Spirit is thus fulfilled.
3. The sum of moral goodness is augmented. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Wandering from the truth
Truth is the purest, the most powerful, and the most enduring thing in the universe.
Truth makes God to be God, and when God came in the flesh, the brightest crown He
could place upon His own head, the noblest name He could give to His personality was
“The Truth.” All the wrongs in the universe begin by a wandering from the truth. This is
so in every department of human thought, emotion, and action. It is because the sin

280. begins in some slight departure, in the man, from that which is true, leading to a
departure of the affections, which produces a departure in the outward life, that men
should be strenuously anxious to know the truth, especially the truth as to their highest
things, their highest connections; the truth as to God, their own nature, their relations to
God, and their own character. When men talk of the valuelessness of doctrine, and say it
does not matter what a man believes so that his life is right, they show their absolute
ignorance of the whole subject. It is as if one should say, it is no matter what disease a
man has so long as he has health. The outward life of a man is the product of his
character, and his character is the product of his creed. If there be one rule without an
exception this must be the rule. It certainly is the counterpart in the spiritual world of
the fact in physics that no stream ever rises above its source. Now, the source of the
outer life is the creed. Nay, it is something still stronger than that. A man is just what he
believes, no more, no less. Neither God nor the devil can make him any more or any less.
To make any change in him the good or the bad need not strive to mould his outer life, or
by any other process attempt to change his character except by efforts to make a change
in his creed. If he have believed error, to make him a good man he must be brought to
faith in the truth; if he have such faith, to make him a bad man all that is necessary is to
break the hold of his faith on the truth. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Now the
phrase, “thinks in his heart,” is equivalent to “creed,” creed being compounded of two
words, signifying that form of belief to which I give my heart. If any one shall object to
this that there are so many who profess a good creed and lead a bad life, the reply is
ready. In such a case the creed is only professed, not held. Indeed, a creed is not that
which a man holds at all; it is that which holds him. When a man once comes into vital
connection with the creed, he is never its master; it is always his. (C. F. Deems, D. D.)
The erring to be reclaimed
Another practical precept to conclude with: abrupt, as regards the verses immediately
preceding, but embodying that thought of the duty of brotherhood which runs like a
golden thread through the tissue of the Epistle. It has been treated negatively, Do the
brethren no ill; repay no injuries” (Jas_5:9 ff.); then positively, “Minister to them, and
pray with them for bodily and spiritual healing” (Jas_5:14 ff.); and now, lastly,” Seek
them out; reclaim for Christ His lost sheep.” This is the climax of love; more than
brotherly, Christlike! In connection with the exhortation to prayer, this may be looked
on as praying with the hands, working as God’s ministers towards the fulfilment of that
has been uttered by the lips. (Dean Scott.)
He which converteth the sinner.
Converting sinners a Christian duty
I. Inquire into THE TRUE IDEA OF A SINNER.
1. A sinner is, essentially, a moral agent, tie must be the responsible author of his
own acts, in such a sense that he is not compelled irresistibly to act one way or
another, otherwise than according to his own free choice. He must also have
intellect, so that he can understand his own relations and apprehend his moral
responsibilities. He must also have sensibility, so that he can be moved to action—so
that there can be inducement to voluntary activity, and also a capacity to appropriate
the motives for right of wrong action.

281. 2. He is a selfish moral agent devoted to his own interests, making himself his own
supreme end of action.
3. We have here the true idea of sin. It is, in an important sense, error. It is not a
mere mistake, for mistakes are made through ignorance or incapacity. Nor is it a
mere defect of constitution, attributable to its author. But it is an “error in his ways.”
It is missing the mark in his voluntary course of conduct. It is a voluntary divergence
from the line of duty.
II. WHAT IS CONVERSION? What is it to “convert the sinner from the error of his
ways”? It is changing the great moral end of action. It supplants selfishness and
substitutes benevolence in its stead.
III. IN WHAT SENSE DOES MAN CONVERT A SINNER? Our text reads—“If any of
you do err from the truth and one convert him”—implying that man may convert a
sinner. But in what sense can this be said and done? I answer, the change must of
necessity be a voluntary one—not a change in the essence of the soul, nor in the essence
of the body—not any change in the created constitutional faculties; but a change which
the mind itself, acting under various influences, makes as to its own voluntary end of
action. It is an intelligent change—the mind, acting intelligently and freely, changes its
moral course, and does it for perceived reasons. Even God cannot convert a sinner
without his own consent. He cannot, for the simple reason that the thing involves a
contradiction. The being converted implies his own consent—else it is no conversion at
all. God converts men, therefore, only as He persuades them to turn from the error of
their selfish ways to the rightness of benevolent ways. So, also, man can convert a sinner
only in the sense of presenting the reasons that induce the voluntary change and thus
persuading him to repent. If he can do this, then he converts a sinner from the error of
his ways. But the Bible informs us that man alone never does or can convert a sinner. It
holds, however, that when man acts humbly, depending on God, God works with him
and by him. Men are “labourers together with God.” They present reasons and God
enforces those reasons on the mind.
IV. WE MUST NEXT INQUIRE INTO THE KIND OF DEATH OF WHICH THE TEXT
SPEAKS. “Shall save a soul from death.”
1. By the death of the soul is sometimes meant spiritual death—a state in which the
mind is not influenced by truth as it should be. The man is under the dominion of sin
and repels the influence of truth.
2. Or the death of the soul may be eternal death—the utter loss of the soul and its
final ruin. To be always a sinner is awful enough—is a death of fearful horror; but
how terribly augmented is even this when you conceive of it as heightened by
everlasting punishment, far away “from the presence of the Lord and from the glory
of His power!”
V. We can now consider THE IMPORTANCE OF SAVING A SOUL FROM DEATH. Our
text says, he who converts a sinner saves a soul from death. Consequently he saves him
from all the misery he else must have endured. So much misery is saved. And this
amount is greater in the case of each sinner saved than all that has been experienced in
our entire world up to this hour. Yet farther. The amount of suffering thus saved is
greater not only than all that ever has been, but than all that ever will be endured in this
world. Nay, more, the amount thus saved is greater than the created universe ever can
endure in any finite duration. Aye, it is even greater, myriads of times greater, than all
finite minds can ever conceive. But let us look at still another view of the case. He who
converts a sinner not only saves more misery, but confers more happiness than all the

282. world has yet enjoyed, or even all the created universe. You have converted a sinner,
have you? Indeed! Then think what has been gained! Does any one ask, What then? Let
the facts of the case give the answer. The time will come when he will say, In my
experience of God and Divine things, 1 have enjoyed more than all the created universe
had done up to the general judgment—more than the aggregate happiness of all
creatures, during the whole duration of our world; and yet my happiness is only just
begun! Onward, still onward—onward for ever rolls the deep tide of my blessedness, and
evermore increasing! If these things be true, then—
1. Converting sinners is the work of the Christian life. It is the great work to which
we, as Christians, are especially appointed. Who can doubt this?
2. It is the great work of life because its importance demands that it should be. It is
so much beyond any other work in importance that it cannot be rationally regarded
as anything other or less than the great work of life.
3. It can be made the great work of life, because Jesus Christ has made provision for
it. His atonement covers the human race and lays the foundation so broad that
whosoever will may come. The promise of His Spirit to aid each Christian in this
work is equally broad, and was designed to open the way for each one to become a
labourer together with God in this work of saving souls.
4. Benevolence can never stop short of it. Where so much good can be done and so
much misery can be prevented, how is it possible that benevolence can fail to do its
utmost?
5. Living to save others is the condition of saving ourselves. No man is truly
converted who does not live to save others. Every truly converted man turns item
selfishness to benevolence, and benevolence surely leads him to do all he can to save
the souls of his fellow-man. This is the changeless law of benevolent action.
6. The self-deceived are always to be distinguished by this peculiarity—they live to
save themselves. This is the chief end of all their religion. All their religious efforts
and activities tend toward this sole object. If they can secure their own conversion so
as to be pretty sure of it, they are satisfied. Sometimes the ties of natural sympathy
embrace those who are especially near to them; but selfishness goes commonly no
further, except as a good name may prompt them on.
7. Some persons take no pains to convert sinners, but act as if this were a matter of
no consequence whatever. They do not labour to persuade men to be reconciled to
God. (C. G. Finney.)
Converting a soul
I. A SOUL LOST BY ERROR.
1. A safe antecedent state. What is it to be in conformity with the truth?
(1) Our conceptions in harmony with its spirit.
(2) Our life in harmony with its spirit.
2. A fearful possibility. It is implied that a soul can fall from that state, can err from
that truth, can bound away from that orbit.
(1) This man can do because he is moral.

283. (2) This man has done.
II. A SOUL SAVED BY MAN.
1. It is possible for man to convert a soul.
2. The man who converts a soul accomplishes immense good.
3. The immense good he accomplishes should be well considered by him. “Let him
know” it—to cheer him amidst the discouragements of his labours, and to inspire
him with persevering zeal. (D. Thomas.)
Conversion of the erring a Christian duty
I. THE CASE SUPPOSED. How few fulfil their first promise. Where are all the baptized?
Demas still forsakes the truth for the love of the present world. There are many still like
the Galatians (Gal_3:1-4), and the Philippians (Php_3:18-19), and the backsliders of
Sardis and Laodicea. What, then, are we to fold our hands? Are we to excuse ourselves
on the ground that we are not to blame; that it is no business of ours; that though sorry
we cannot help? No, there is a better way. If we saw a man nearing a precipice would we
not warn him? If we found a child lost in the wilds would we not speak kindly to him and
lead him home?
II. THE REMEDY PRESCRIBED. Whom have you converted? Is there one upon earth
that blesses you, as having, under God, turned him from the error of his way? Is there
one in heaven who will welcome you to the everlasting habitations as the Christian
friend who helped him in the hour of need, and saved his soul from death?
III. THE GLORIOUS ISSUE.
1. Great loss averted.
2. Great good secured.
3. Great joy.
Lessons:
1. The preciousness of the soul.
2. The liability of good men to err.
3. The necessity of conversion to safety and forgiveness.
4. The obligation upon every Christian to seek the conversion of such as have gone
astray. (Win. Forsyth.)
On restoring backsliders
1. The text does not apply to—
(1) the unconverted;
(2) the hypocrite;
(3) those who are intellectually wrong.
2. But to one who has been truly converted to Jesus, and yet has gone back into the

284. world again.
I. IT IS POSSIBLE TO BACKSLIDE. Some of the causes—
1. A false estimate of the requirements of discipleship.
2. A false estimate of one’s own strength.
3. Intellectual pride.
4. Neglect of the means of grace.
II. THE CHRISTIAN DUTY OF MUTUAL OVERSIGHT.
III. THE RESTORATION OF THE BACKSLIDER IS ONE OF THE GRANDEST AND
NOBLEST OF ALL CHRISTIAN WORKS. (A. F. Barfield.)
Human agency in the sinner’s conversion to God
I. THE GREAT OBJECT OF CHRISTIAN ZEAL.
1. The conversion of the sinner, i.e., a change in the—
(1) understanding;
(2) affections;
(3) will;
(4) life.
2. The importance of conversion is seen when we remember that—
(1) Unconverted, the man’s influence is evil;
(2) unconverted, he cannot enter heaven.
II. THE MEANS BY WHICH WE MAY ACCOMPLISH HIS.
1. The force of exhortation.
2. The management of your influence.
3. The power of example.
4. The importunity of prayer.
III. THE MOTIVES FOR ENGAGING IN THIS GREAT WORK.
1. Much evil shall be removed.
2. Much good shall be conferred.
3. Much joy shall be imparted. (Hugh McGatrie.)
Conversion of others
1. A man may convert his fellow—
(1) By planting in him some saving truth.
(2) By showing the truth embodied in a rounded and radiant life.

285. 2. Christians ought to strive to convert those who err.
(1) It saves a soul from death.
(2) It hides a multitude of sins (Psa_51:9; Psa_32:1; Pr 1Pe_4:8).
(3) It is the grandest work.
(4) It is an enduring work.
(5) It is the most certain work.
“Know.” Other work may disappoint. In the early Christian Church one sold himself as a
slave to a heathen family to gain access. They were converted, and freed him. Then he
sold himself to the Governor of Sparta, with like result. If all Christians had that spirit!
(C. F. Deems, D. D.)
The conversion of sinners, the supreme object of Christian benevolence
I. THE PROPENSITY OF MANKIND TO ERR FROM THE TRUTH SO obviously
assumed in the text.
1. Some do err from the truth after being taught it by their parents and ministers;
after knowing something of its beauty and excellence; after enrolling their names
among its friends, and giving some hopeful proofs of its vital and transforming
power. Gradually seduced by temptations, evil companions, &c., they become at first
indifferent, then reject one point after another, and at last abandon all its claims, and
join the ranks of its enemies.
2. Others do err from the truth through habitual inattention to its claims, or a secret
aversion to its spirit and authority, felt in youth and confirmed afterwards by
indulgence in sin, and the corrupting associations of the world.
3. More still err from the truth, through a total destitution of the means of
knowledge, and the influence of some system of error and delusion, instilled into the
mind in youth, and identified with all their interests and associations.
II. THE IMPORTANT CHANGE NECESSARY TO SALVATION; the conversion of a
sinner from the error of his way. It is a change from ignorance of Divine things to
spiritual discernment; from serious errors to the reception of saving truth; from unbelief
to a cordial faith in the Son of God; from feelings and habits of impiety to the love and
adoration of his Maker; from a course of vanity and sin to a life of integrity and virtue;
from the mere morality of worldly prudence to all the graces of Christian piety; and from
the inordinate cares and pursuits of time to a sincere and immediate preparation for
eternity.
III. THE MEANS AND AGENCY BY WHICH THIS CHANGE MAY BE EFFECTED: “If
one convert him.” God might doubtless produce this change in a sinner by an immediate
operation on the soul, without any sensible agency, or visible means whatever. But the
apostle supposes, in the text, that one is converted by the instrumentality of another,
and that the use of fit means for that purpose was the common concern of all who
constituted the first Christian Churches. For, as in nature God effects all His purposes by
second causes, and makes the elements of the physical system the means of all its
changes and productions; so it has pleased Him, in the moral and spiritual world, to
effect His purposes of grace by the instrumentality of His servants. The Spirit of God
enlightens and improves the human spirit by reasonable means; by intelligent and self-

286. conscious means; by means suited to its powers and responsibilities; by means which do
not suspend its freedom, but lead the mind, of its own choice, to a new and efficient use
of its faculties.
IV. THE MOTIVES AND CONSIDERATIONS WHICH SHOULD INDUCE AND
SUSTAIN THE ATTEMPT.
1. The magnitude of its immediate results.
2. The accordance of these means with the spirit and commands of the gospel, and
the express purpose of God in the economy of redemption.
3. The promise of Divine influence in connection with human instrumentality, and
the good already accomplished as a pledge of future success.
4. The subservience of the conversion of sinners to the glory of God, promoting as it
does, in every instance, the manifestation of His perfections, and the triumphs of His
grace, in restoring fallen man to His image and favour for ever.
5. The holy satisfaction to be found in this good work, and the gracious reward
which awaits the faithful, in the blessed results of their exertions, and the grateful
recollections of eternity. (T. Finch.)
Motives to Christian zeal
I. CONVERSION TO GOD IS OF INDISPENSABLE NECESSITY.
II. IT IS EFFECTED BY HUMAN INSTRUMENTALITY.
1. The pious education of the young.
2. The circulation of the Scriptures.
3. The preaching of the gospel.
III. IT Is THE DUTY OF CHRISTIANS TO SEEK THE CONVERSION OF SINNERS.
(Essex Remembrancer.)
Jewel gatherers for the Redeemer’s crown
These are the last words of the Epistle. From the abrupt nature of its conclusion, and
from the absence of the ordinary salutation and doxology, some have supposed that the
original intention was to write at greater length, but at this part of the Epistle the apostle
was surprised by the tumultuous Jews, and suddenly hurried off to martyrdom. If this
supposition be true, how solemnly the words stand as the last of a wise and generous
spirit! With what worthier words than these parting counsels would any one wish to die?
In any case, whether this supposition is true or not, there is very much instruction and
encouragement couched in them which will repay our careful study.
I. THERE IS INDIVIDUAL DANGER; THE POSSIBILITY OF ERRING FROM THE
TRUTH. This danger may be either intellectual or moral; either the darkening of the
understanding, or the corruption of the heart. The allusion, evidently, is to one who,
having known the truth, had departed from its safe and pleasant paths, and had come
under the entanglements, either of erroneous notions, or of vicious life. And this twofold
danger is in existence still.

287. 1. There is nowadays, I need not remind you, a danger of intellectual error. If, when
the apostle wrote—in the very childhood, so to speak, of Christianity—the tares sown
by the enemy were so rank in their luxuriant growth that there were some who
denied the divinity of Jesus, and some who allied impurity to devotion, and some
who dreamed that they had had a release from the obligations to personal
obedience—surely the danger of intellectual error is not the less imminent now,
when every man deems himself inspired, and has some form or theory of his own.
And, when we consider the almost inevitable connection between faith and practice,
we cannot loin in the sentiments of those who deem it a matter of indifference as to
that may be the peculiarities of creed. We cannot forget that because of his opinion
the Moslem enters upon fierce wars of extermination, and that because of his
opinion the Hindoo, personally merciful, defends infanticide, and mourns that
widows are no longer burned nor captives immolated, as over some lost privilege.
We cannot forget that in the Japanese, who, amid barbarous rites, hold festival to
uproot the cross; and the Thugs, who strangle from principle, and whose great merit
is in the multiplication of murders, the opinions prompt the deed. There are some
among the teachers of religion who denounce creeds and denominations almost as
vehemently as they denounce infidelity and sin, and whose special mission appears
to be to advocate the extinction, not only of the middle walls of partition, but of those
old and venerable landmarks which guard the poor man’s heritage. It is a dangerous
thing, believe me, to loose off from safe anchorage on matters of Christian belief, or
of Christian communion, or of Divine fellowship. Search the Scriptures for
yourselves, only take care that you come to the investigation stripped of pride,
prejudice, and preconceived hostility—with your spirits softened into a docile trust,
with your hearts humbled to the obedience of the truth, and, above all, with fervency
of prayer for the guidance of the good Spirit from on high, and that Spirit shall be
given to the man that shall inquire, and you shall know of the truth or doctrine
whether it be of God.
2. There is danger, not only of intellectual, but of moral error. This is, I need not
remind you, more imminent and more disastrous than the other. It is quite possible
to hold erroneous opinions in connection with a large charity. Wood, hay, and
stubble are sometimes built of as clumsy materials on the true foundation; but where
the danger is not intellectual, but moral, there is, of necessity, present alienation
from God, and the prospect of perpetual exile from the glory of His power. Heresy is
not a trifling thing; it is to be resisted and deplored; but the deadliest heresy is sin.
II. I turn now from the platform of individual danger to that of INDIVIDUAL EFFORT.
“If any of you err from the truth, and one convert him.” “If one convert him.” There is
here a distinct recognition of the influence of mind over mind, that principle of
dependence and of oversight which is involved in our mutual relationship as members of
one family. The minister ever his flock, the parent over his children, the master over his
scholars, the scholars reflecting again upon the master, the servant upon the employer,
and the employer upon the servant—all are exerting an influence. They cannot help it,
and they cannot cease from it; it is the absolute and irrevocable law of their being.
“Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him”—that is, one among
themselves, not separated to the holy ministry, but one of his companions; one who is
engaged in the same avocations; one who does not preach in the pulpit, but who
preaches in the life. It is the persuasiveness of Christian influence that is meant, rather
than a public appeal; it is the duty of the individual believer, rather than the duty of the
public minister of the truth. There is not a single member of a single Church in the world
that is exempt from this service. All are summoned to the labour, and all -oh, infinite

288. condescension!—may be co-workers together with God. “Brethren, if any of you do err
from the truth, and one convert him.” Oh, look at that! “If one convert him.” Not the
associated force; not the single army; not the phalanx; not even the regiment; but one
solitary soldier—if one convert him. See the mighty results of single-handed labour!
Some one has said they are minorities of ones that do all the great works of mankind;
and it is amazing how large a result will follow from one man’s simple, earnest,
unostentatious, prayerful labour. Your sphere is narrow, you say; your influence is small;
you feel as if you can do nothing for Christ. Don’t now, don’t any one of you begin to
undervalue your own powers. One acorn is a very insignificant thing; but that majestic
oak is its development of strength. One little rippling wavelet makes no account, but it is
carried to the spring-tide, and the spring-tide were not perfect without it. One raindrop
is hardly noticed as it falls, but it is enough for one rose-bud’s life to make it blow. There
is not one of you, however small and scanty and narrow your influence, who may not, by
patient and prayerful toil, become wise winners of souls. Brethren, I charge you examine
yourselves in this matter. Have you done your duty? Let there now be born in the heart
of each of you a purpose for God. (W. M. Punshon, D. D.)
Conversion
I. Here is a great principle involved—a very important one—that of
INSTRUMENTALITY.
1. Instrumentality is not necessary with God. God can if He pleases cast the
instrument aside. The mighty Maker of the world who used no angels to beat out the
great mass of nature and fashion it into a round globe, He who without hammer or
anvil fashioned this glorious world, can if He pleases speak, and it is done, command
and it shall stand fast. He needs not instruments, though He uses them.
2. Instrumentality is very honourable to God, and not dishonourable. Suppose a
workman has power and skill with his hands alone to fashion a certain article; but
you put into his hands the worst of tools you can find; you know he can do it well
with his hands, but these tools are so badly made that they will be the greatest
impediment that you could lay in his way. Well now, I say, if a man with these bad
instruments, or these poor tools—things without edges—that are broken, that are
weak and frail, is able to make some beauteous fabric, he has more credit from the
use of those tools than he would have had if he had done it simply with his hands,
because the tools, so far from being an advantage were a disadvantage to him; so far
from being a help, are on my supposition, even a detriment to him in his work. So
God uses instruments to set forth His own glory, and to exalt Himself.
3. Usually God does employ instruments. I have heard of some—I remember them
now—who were called like Saul, at once from heaven. We can remember the history
of the brother who in the darkness of the night was called to know the Saviour by
what he believed to be a vision from heaven, or some effect on his imagination. On
one side he saw a black tablet of his guilt, and his soul was delighted to see Christ
cast a white tablet over it; and he thought he heard a voice that said, “I am He that
blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.”
There was a man converted almost without instrumentality; but you do not meet
with such a case often. Most persons have been convinced by the pious conversation
of sisters, by the holy example of mothers, by the minister, by the Sabbath-school, or
by the reading of tracts or perusing Scripture.

289. 4. If God sees fit to make use of any of us for the conversion of others, we must not
therefore be too sure that we are converted ourselves. It is a most solemn thought
that God makes use of ungodly men as instruments for the conversion of sinners.
Grace is not spoiled by the rotten wooden spouts it runs through. God did once speak
by an ass to Balaam, but that did not spoil His words. So He speaks, not simply by an
ass, which He often does, but by something worse than that. He can fill the mouth of
ravens with food for an Elijah, and yet the raven is a raven still.
5. If God in His mercy does not make us useful to the conversion of sinners, we are
not therefore to say we are sure we are not the children of God. If I testify to them the
truth of God and they reject His gospel; if I faithfully preach His truth, and they
scorn it, my ministry is not therefore void. It has not returned to God void, for even
in the punishment of those rebels He will be glorified, even in their destruction He
will get Himself honour, and if He cannot get praise from their songs, He will at last
get honour from their condemnation.
6. God, by using us as instruments, confers upon us the highest honour which men
can receive.
II. THE GENERAL FACT. The choicest happiness which mortal breast can know is the
happiness of benevolence—of doing good to our fellow-creatures. To save a body from
death is that which gives us almost heaven on earth. Those monks on Mount St.
Bernard, surely, must feel happiness when they rescue men from death. The dog comes
to the door, and they know what it means: he has discovered some poor weary traveller
who has lain him down to sleep in the snow, and is dying from cold and exhaustion. Up
rise the monks from their cheerful fire, intent to act the good Samaritan to the lost one.
At last they see him; they speak to him; but he answers not. They try to discover if there
is breath in his body, and they think he is dead. They take him up, give him remedies;
and hastening to their hostel, they lay him by the fire, and warm and chafe him, looking
into his face with kindly anxiety, as much as to say, Poor creature! art thou dead? When,
at last, they perceive some hearings of the lungs, what joy in the breasts of those
brethren, as they say, “His life is not extinct!” Methinks if there could be happiness on
earth, it would be the privilege to help to chafe one hand of that poor, almost dying man,
and be the means of bringing him to life again. Or suppose another case. A house is in
flames, and in it is a woman with her children, who cannot by any means escape. In vain
she attempts to come downstairs; the flames prevent her. She has lost all presence of
mind and knows not how to act. The strong man comes, and says, “Make way! make
way! I must save that woman!” And, cooled by the genial streams of benevolence, he
marches through the fire. Though scorched and almost stifled, he gropes his way. He
ascends one staircase, then another; and though the stairs totter, he places the woman
beneath his arm, takes the child on his shoulder, and down he comes, twice a giant,
having more might than he ever possessed before. He has jeopardised his life, and
perhaps an arm may be disabled, or a limb taken away, or a sense lost, or an injury
irretrievably done to his body; yet he claps his hands, and says, “I have saved lives from
death!” The crowd in the street hail him as a man who has been the deliverer of his
fellow-creatures, honouring him more than the monarch who has stormed a city, sacked
a town, and murdered myriads. But, ah! the body which was saved from death to-day
may die tomorrow. Not so the soul that is saved from death: it is saved everlastingly. It is
saved beyond the fear of destruction. And if there be joy in the breast of a benevolent
man when he saves a body from death, how much more blessed must he be when he is
made the means in the hand of God of saving “a soul from death, and hiding a multitude
of sins.” A single word spoken may be more the means of conversion than a whole
sermon. God often blesses a short, pithy expression from a friend, more than a long

290. discourse by a minister. There was once in a village, where there had been a revival in
religion, a man who was a confirmed infidel. Notwithstanding all the efforts of the
minister and many Christian people, he had resisted all attempts, and appeared to be
more and more confirmed in his sin. At length the people held a prayer-meeting,
specially to intercede for his soul. Afterwards God put it into the heart of one of the
elders of the church to spend a night in prayer in behalf of the poor infidel. In the
morning the elder rose from his knees, saddled his horse, and rode down to the man’s
smithy. He meant to say a great deal to him, but he simply went up to him, took him by
the hand, and all he could say was, “Oh, sir! I am deeply concerned for your salvation. I
am deeply concerned for your salvation. I have been wrestling with my God all this night
for your salvation.” He could say no more, his heart was too full. He then mounted on his
horse and rode away again. Down went the blacksmith’s hammer, and he went
immediately to see his wife. She said, “What is the matter with you?”
“Matter enough,” said the man, “I have been attacked with a new argument this time.
There is Elder B. has been here this morning; and he said, ‘I am concerned about your
salvation.’ Why, now if he is concerned about my salvation, it is a strange thing that I am
not concerned about it.” The man’s heart was clean captured by that kind word from the
elder; he took his own horse and rode to the elder’s house. When he arrived there the
elder was in his parlour, still in prayer; and they kneeled down together. God gave him a
contrite spirit and a broken heart, and brought that poor sinner to the feet of the
Saviour. There was “a soul saved from death, and a multitude of sins covered.”
2. Again, you may be the means of conversion by a letter you may write. There is
your brother. He is careless and hardened. Sister, sit down and write a letter to him:
when he receives it, he will perhaps smile, but he will say, “Ah, well! it is Betsy’s
letter after all!” And that will have some power. I knew a gentleman whose dear sister
used often to write to him concerning his soul. “I used,” said he, “to stand with my
back up against a lamp-post, with a cigar in my mouth, perhaps at two o’clock in the
morning, to read her letter. I always read them; and I have,” said he, “wept floods of
tears after reading my sister’s letters. Though I still kept on in the error of my ways,
they always checked me; they always seemed a hand pulling me away from sin; a
voice crying out, ‘Come back! Come back!’” And at last a letter from her, in
coujunction with a solemn providence, was the means of breaking his heart, and he
sought salvation through a Saviour.
3. Again. How many have been converted by the example of true Christians. An
infidel will use arguments to disprove the Bible, if you set it before him; but, if you do
to others as you would that they should do to you, if you give of your bread to the
poor and dispense to the needy, living like Christ, speaking words of kindness and
love, and living honestly and uprightly in the world, he will say, “Well, I thought the
Bible was all hypocrisy; but I cannot think so now, because there is Mr. So-and-so—
see how he lives. I could believe my infidelity if it were not for him. The Bible
certainly has an effect upon his life, and, therefore, I must believe it.”
4. And then, how many souls may be converted by what some men are privileged to
write and print. I value books for the good they may do to men’s souls. Much as I
respect the genius of Pope, or Dryden, or Burns, give me the simple lines of Cowper,
that God has owned in bringings souls to Him. Oh I to think that we may write and
print books which shall reach poor sinners’ hearts.
5. But, after all, preaching is the ordained means for the salvation of sinners, and by
this ten times as many are brought to the Saviour as by any other. Ah! my friends, to
have been the means of saving souls from death by preaching—what an honour!” Oh!

291. men and women, how can ye better spend your time and wealth than in the cause of
the Redeemer? What holier enterprise can ye engage in than this sacred one of
saving souls from death, and hiding a multitude of sins. This is a wealth that ye can
take with you—the wealth that has been acquired under God, by having saved souls
from death, and covered a multitude of sins.
III. THE APPLICATION. It is this: that he who is the means of the conversion of a
sinner does, under God, “save a soul from death, and hide a multitude of sins”; but
particular attention ought to be paid to backsliders; for in bringing backsliders into the
Church there is as much honour to God as in bringing in sinners. “Brethren, if any one of
you do err from the truth, and one convert him.” Alas! the poor backslider is often the
most forgotten. A member of the Church has disgraced his profession; the Church
excommunicated him, and he was accounted “a heathen man and a publican.” I know of
men of good standing in the gospel ministry, who ten years ago fell into sin; and that is
thrown in our teeth to this very day. Do you speak of them you are at once informed,
“Why, ten years ago they did so-and-so.” Christian men ought to be ashamed of
themselves for taking notice of such things so long afterwards. True, we may use more
caution in our dealings: but to reproach a fallen brother for what he did so long ago is
contrary to the spirit of John, who went after Peter, three days after he had denied his
Master with oaths and curses. Recollect you would have been a backslider too if it were
not for the grace of God. I advise you, whenever you see professors living in sin to be
very shy of them; but if after a time you see any sign of repentance, or if you do not, go
and seek out the lost sheep of the house of Israel; for remember, that if one of you do err
from the truth, and one convert him, let him remember that “he who converteth the
sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude
of sins.” “Backsliders, who your misery feel,” I will come after you one moment. Poor
backslider, thou wast once a Christian. Dost thou hope thou wast? “No,” sayest thou, “I
believe I deceived myself and others; I was no child of God.” Well, if thou didst, let me
tell thee, that if thou wilt acknowledge that, God will forgive thee. Come thou, then, to
His feet; cast thyself on His mercy; and though thou didst once enter His camp as a spy,
He will not hang thee up for it, but will be glad to get thee anyhow as a trophy of mercy.
But if thou wast a child of God, and canst say, honestly, “I know I did love Him, and He
loved me,” I tell thee He loves thee still. If thou hast gone ever so far astray, thou art as
much His child as ever. Though thou hast run away from thy Father, come back, come
back, He is thy Father still. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The greatness of being instrumental to another’s conversion
St. James was speaking to those who were the true and faithful disciples of Christ; not to
hirelings, who would think only of what was personal to themselves, or who could view
their own interests separately from those of His Church. The true Christian is one who
burns with zeal for the glory of God, and who loves his fellow-men, as children of the
same Father, and redeemed by the same blood. Show him, then, what he can do to
promote God’s glory, or to benefit his fellow-men, and you show him what he will
eagerly seize on, as meeting his desires and deserving of his energies. He has so much of
conformity to Christ, that as the blessed Redeemer “pleased not Himself,” but “poured
out His soul unto death,” that He might save sinners from eternal destruction, so he
thinks not of what may minister to his individual happiness, but seeks his own good in
that of strangers, and even enemies. Is it nothing, then, to him, that he may be
instrumental to the “saving a soul from death”—to the “hiding a multitude of sins”? The
soul is that of which we are taught assuredly that it shall not die; that God hath endowed

292. it with immortality. The death of the soul is life—eternal life—but life under the frown of
the Almighty: the life of anguish; the life of remorse; the life of despair; life with all the
darkness of death, but with none of its repose; the grave, but the grave for a home, with
all its noisomeness felt, all its terrible chillness clasping the heart, all its unseen, its
unimagined fearfulness telling on acute and ever wakeful sensibilities. Thus, when you
speak of a man’s losing his soul, you do not mean that the soul is taken from him; that he
parts with the soul, as is ordinarily meant in speaking of anything that is lost. This were
no loss; this were gain—immeasurable, unspeakable gain—to the wicked. But the soul is
lost when it clings tenaciously to the body, and “yet would give worlds, if it had them to
give, to dissolve the union; when all its powers are lost, but the power of being wretched,
or rather are all sunk in that one tremendous and ever-growing capacity. And is it
nothing, then, to “save a soul from death”? Oh i the true Christian thrills at the mention
of such a deed. No matter whose soul it is—it is the soul of a fellow-creature, the soul of
one formed in the sameimage with himself; a soul too, for which the Lord Jesus died,
and which, therefore, need not die; the multitude of whose sins may be hidden—hidden
from the avenger of blood, because blotted out through the expiation made on Calvary.
There is motive, then, enough, in the mere prospect of “saving a soul from death.” Not,
however, that he who is instrumental to the conversion of a sinner has no more
immediate, personal interest in the event, than would seem indicated by these remarks.
We cannot doubt—Scripture will not suffer us to doubt—that he who converts another
thereby forms for himself a new spring of happiness through eternity. What says St. Paul
to the Thessalonians? “What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in
the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?” Now we attach peculiar worth to
our text, on account of its dealing with single cases of conversion. It is not one of those
passages which take a large sweep, and which, therefore, the private Christian, who is
not placed in any wide sphere of duty, may consider as scarcely applying to himself. It is
but one wanderer who is here spoken of as reclaimed; and it is but a single individual
who is instrumental to his conversion. If the text related to conversion on a great scale,
as when multitudes are acted on through the preaching of the gospel, it might have been
said, that if there were encouragement in the text, it was encouragement for those only
unto whom is committed “the work of an evangelist.” But as it is, there is not one of you
who may not consider himself as the party addressed by St. James; for there is not one of
you, however contracted the sphere in which he may move, unto whom there is not
afforded opportunity of acting on some fellow-creature, who is living in estrangement of
God, and of endeavouring to prevail on him to “return to the Shepherd and Bishop of his
soul.” (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The conversion of a sinner
These words are so plain and pointed that we can turn to them without any explanation
or introduction. One fact, however, is worthy of notice. They were written by James, the
direct teacher of daily duty and of Christian practice. It is a mistake to suppose that a
sense of morality loosens a man’s hold upon the essential doctrines of Christianity. No
one will charge James with being unpractical. This letter is full of stinging, ringing
sentences, in which he brands the faith that is “without works” as an accursed thing. Yet
it is he who here sets before us the absolute necessity of repentance and conversion as
the sum and substance of the whole matter.
I. “THE ERROR OF THE SINNER’S WAY.” There is no doubt about whom James
means by “the sinner.” He had in view men and women who, although nominally Church
members, paid no real regard to the gospel or to the commands of God. Of such people

293. James says that their way of thought, and of feeling, and of life is an error. Now, this is
not the light in which such a man regards his own way. If it were, he would change at
once, and cease to be a sinner. On the contrary, it usually seems to him that he would be
losing something if he changed, and that his present plan is natural, judicious, and
successful. It does not occur to him that be is wandering, erring, going on the wrong
road. His error lies in this, that he is not walking in the road in which God intended him
to walk, and on which God’s blessing rests. To refuse to lead the life which our Maker
intends us to lead is a foolish blunder, because that is the life for which we are best
suited. With God, it has not been a matter of mere intention, but of action, of creation,
and of endowment, if you saw a man using bank-notes to light a fire, you would be sure
that he was committing an error. He might tell you that the banknotes were his own, and
that he chose to use them in that way; but he would not persuade you that he was acting
prudently. There is a definite value in the notes; and his error would be none the less
glaring because he chose to forget their value. There was an Eastern queen, in olden
times, who loved extravagance. She took costly pearls, had them ground to powder, and
mixed the powder in the wine she drank. No one could interfere; but that fact did not
lessen her folly. It is the same with the sinner. He turns to base uses a nature which is
fitted for the highest purposes. Capable of true thoughts and pure feelings, and
charitable, honourable actions, he wastes his capacity. And, just as in these cases, his
choice, his wish, does not make his error less. But there is another and deeper sense in
which the ways of a sinner are one great error. He is going in the wrong direction—
down-wards instead of upwards, towards the dark land of death instead of towards the
bright world of love. In truth, if men were cautious, if they were prudent, if they were
wise—there would be no such thing as sin. It is only because we are foolish, and
imprudent, and rash, that we choose the way of sin—only because we are slow to learn
where our true interest and our safety lie. And yet, thank God, that constantly, every
week and every day, sinners are discovering the error of their ways—discovering that
they have been blundering, and growing eager to return to God. How marvellous is this
steady, unseen work, this descent of the wise Spirit into our hearts—when the young and
heedless become serious and earnest; when worldly men and women start, and turn, and
live; when hardened sinners, whose blunders seemed to be beyond recall, grow weary of
their sins, and see their folly, and stretch out desperate hands for help. It is strange that
we should err so grossly; but it is stranger still that, when we confess our error, God is
always ready to forgive.
II. JAMES SPEAKS TO US HERE OF THE DEATH OF THE SINNER’S SOUL—“He
shall save a soul from death.” Even in this world there is a deadness that comes upon the
soul which has long been a slave of sin. Torpor, dulness, and indifference creep over the
godless heart till it becomes almost impenetrable. But the form of the words which
James uses proves that he is thinking not of the soul’s ruin in this world, but of the
Judgment Day, when sinners receive the wages of sin, which is death. It is not only from
the Bible that we learn that sin will be punished beyond the grave. This is what we call a
truth of natural religion—a truth which men reach by conscience and by reason, apart
from revelation, Many of the most fearful descriptions of future punishment have been
written by poets and philosophers who knew nothing of our Scriptures, and never heard
the name of Jesus. When we turn to the Bible, two glimpses are given us of the future
state of the sinner—or rather, two sets of glimpses, two kinds of view. On the one hand,
we are told that it will be a time of incessant suffering and of miserable torment. It is set
before us under most appalling images—as a fire that is never quenched, and a worm
that never dies. If we had only these passages to guide us, we should be forced to
conclude that the soul will suffer in some such way to all eternity, But in other passages

294. of the Bible we learn that the sinful soul will be destroyed—that it will be lost, that it will
die—as if only good men were immortal. There are some strange expressions which do
not disclose their meaning at the first. For example, we read of “everlasting destruction”;
that is a common Bible phrase. What does it mean? Does it simply mean that the sinner
will be destroyed, never to live again? Or does it imply that the act of destruction will go
on always—that the sinner will always be being-destroyed? It is hard to answer, hard to
say whether the New Testament, as a whole, affirms the one of these doctrines or the
other. Therefore we rather take those two views—the one that the soul suffers
continually, and the other that the soul is destroyed—and, when we fail to reconcile
them, we must conclude that this is a subject upon which God has not thought fit to
disclose the truth to us explicitly. He has left us to the law of conscience, and to that
belief in the eternal laws of righteousness and recompense which the revelation of
redemption has entwined with our belief in the unity and eternity of God. He has left us
to a “certain fearful looking-for of judgment,” and the assurance that we shall receive
according to the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or whether they be evil.
But beyond this He has given us a truth which underlies those divergent views, and is
included in them both. At death the unrepentant sinner is separated from God, banished
from His presence, cast away from His gracious sustaining power, and left alone in the
vast wilderness of eternity.
III. HE WILL HIDE A MULTITUDE OF SINS. Here we see that the word “sinner” is not
a term invented to suit a system of theology, not a fancy figure of some heated pulpiteer,
but a real description of lives that men and women actually live. It gives us a definition of
a sinner; he is a man who has committed “a multitude of sins.” It implies not one
transgression only, nor one offence, but a multitude that cannot be counted, rising, as
Isaiah says, like a thick cloud between man and God. It is this infinite unmeasured
character of human sin that makes it so hard to persuade men of its reality. If a man
steals, or drinks, or ill-treats his wife and children, we can argue with him about his sin,
we can expose him publicly or privately, we can try to convince him of his special guilt
and special danger. But to go deep down into the heart and point to its pollution, to go
away back with you into your past, and lay a finger upon every sin you have committed,
to follow you into the watches of the night and the privacy of your homes, and then to
present you with a full list of your sifts, and say to you, “There, you have done all these
things, all that multitude”—that is not the work of man; the multitude of a single soul’s
offences baffles knowledge. It is wonderful how God teaches this lesson—there is a
mystery about it—how a man begins to feel that it dries not matter much what his
neighbours think about him, and that there is a reckoning which he must make with the
eternal justice. Sometimes slowly, but sometimes in a moment, it dawns upon him that
every page and every line of the buck of his life must be read aloud. And then, dear
friends, when that truth gets hold of us, when we see what a shabby, shameful, damning
story it would be, how we should be stung with shame and filled with remorse as one
secret sin after another was disclosed, how absolutely helpless we should be to justify
ourselves—then we feel how blessed a thing it is to have all “hidden,” all that multitude
hidden through God’s great mercy and the merits of our Saviour. Fellow Christians,
before we close, notice the beginning of this verse. Read it: “If one converteth.” Read it
again. We sinners may convert other sinners from the error of their way; we may save
souls from death; we may hide a multitude of sins. God knows it is not easy; but if we are
earnest and loving and persistent, He will help us. Remember there are sinners around
us, at home, in church, and in the world, and there is no joy so deep, no reward so great
as to lead one sinner on the road to God. (A. R. McEwen, D. D.)

295. Caring for the salvation of others
1. Brethren may err from the truth. There is no saint recorded in the Word of God,
but his failings and errors are recorded. Junius before conversion was an atheist.
2. We are not only to take care of our salvation, but the salvation of others. As God
hath set conscience to watch over the inward man, so for the conversation He hath
set Christians to watch over one another. “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of
you,” &c. (Heb_3:12), not only in yourselves, but in any of you. So Heb_12:15-16.
Members must be careful one of another; this is the communion between saints.
(1) It reproveth our neglect of this duty. Straying would have been much
prevented if we had been watchful, or did we, in a Christian manner, reason
together with each other; what comfort and establishment might we receive from
one another’s faith and gifts I
(2) It showeth what a heinous sin it is in them that watch over each’s hurt; as the
dragon for the man child (Rev_12:4), or as angry Herod sought to destroy the
babes of Bethlehem, or a nipping March wind the early blossoms of the spring, so
they nip and discourage the infancy and first buddings of grace by censure,
reproach, carnal suggestions, and put stumbling-blocks in the way of young
converts, and so destroy Christianity in the birth.
3. From that “if any do err.” If but one, there is none so base and contemptible in the
Church but the care of their safety belongeth to all. One root of bitterness defileth
many; both in point of infection and scandal we are all concerned; one spark may
occasion a great burning.
4. From that “and one convert him.” The expression is indefinite, not as limiting it to
the officers of the Church, though it be chiefly their work. Besides the public
exhortations of ministers, private Christians should mutually confer for comfort and
edification.
5. From that “convert him”; that is, reduce him from his error. We must not only
exhort, but reclaim. Though it be an unthankful office, yet it must not be declined;
usually carnal respects sway us, and we are loath to do that which is displeasant.
Well, then, if it be our duty to admonish, it is your duty to “suffer the words of
exhortation,” to bear a reproof patiently, otherwise you oppose your own salvation.
6. Again from that “convert him?’ He doth not say destroy him; the work of
Christians is not presently to accuse and condemn, but to counsel and convert an
erroneous person. Before any rigorous course be taken, we must use all due means of
information; the worst cause always is the most bloody.
7. From that “let him know.” To quicken ourselves in a good work, it is good we
should actually consider the dignity and benefits of it.
8. From that “he which converteth a sinner from the error of his way.” Before it was
expressed by “erring from the truth,” and now by the “error of his way.” You may
note that errors in doctrine usually end in sins of life and practice (Jud_1:8). We
often see that impurity of religion is joined with uncleanness of body, and spiritual
fornication punished with corporal Hos_4:12-13). In error there is a sinful
confederacy between the rational and sensual part, and so carnal affections are
gratified with carnal doctrined.

296. 9. From that “shall save.” Man under God hath this honour to be a saviour. We are
“workers together with God” (2Co_6:1). He is pleased to take us into a fellowship of
His own work, and to cast the glory of His grace upon our endeavours. It is a high
honour which the Lord doth us; we should learn to turn it back again to God, to
whom alone it is due (1Co_15:10).
10. From that “soul.” Salvation is principally of the soul; the body hath its Php_
3:21). But the soul is first possessed of glory, and is the chief receptacle of it, as it is
of grace for the present (see 1Pe_1:9). Well, then, it teacheth us not to look for a
carnal heaven, a Turkish paradise, or a place of ease and sensitive pleasure. This is
the heaven of heaven, that the soul shall be filled up with God, shall understand God,
love God, and be satisfied with His presence.
11. From that “from death.” Errors are mortal and deadly to the spirit. The wages of
every sin is death, especially of sin countenanced by error, for then there is a
conspiracy of the whole soul against God.
12. From that “and shall hide.” Justification consisteth in the covering of our sins. It
is removed out of God’s sight, and the sight of our own consciences, chiefly out of
God’s sight. God cannot choose but see it as omniscient, hate it as holy, but He will
not punish it as just, having received satisfaction in Christ: sins are so hidden that
they shall not be brought into judgment, nor hurt us when they do not please us.
13. From that “a multitude of sins.” Many sins do not hinder our pardon or
conversion. God’s “free gilt is of many offences unto justification” Rom_5:16); and it
is said, “He will multiply to pardon” (Isa_55:7). For these six thousand years God
hath been multiplying pardons, and yet free grace is not tired and grown weary. The
creatures owe a great debt to justice, but we have an able surety; there is no want of
mercy in the creditor, nor of sufficiency in the surety. It is a folly to think that an
emperor’s revenue will not pay a beggar’s debt. Free grace can show you large
accounts and a long bill, cancelled by the blood of Christ. The Lord interest you in
this abundant mercy, through the blood of Christ and the sanctification of the Spirit!
(T. Manton.)
To Sabbath-school teachers and other soul-winners
James is preeminently practical. If he were, indeed, the James who was called “The
Just,” I can understand how he earned the title, for that distinguishing trait in his
character shows itself in his Epistle; and if he were “the Lord’s brother,” he did well to
show so close a resemblance to his great relative and Master, who commenced His
ministry with the practical Sermon on the Mount. The text before me is perhaps the
most practical utterance of the whole Epistle. The whole Epistle burns, but this ascends
in flames to heaven: it is the culmination as it is the conclusion of the letter. There is not
a word to spare in it. It is like a naked sword, stripped of its jewelled scabbard, and
presented to us with nothing to note but its keen edge.
I. A SPECIAL CASE DEALT WITH. It was that of a backslider from the visible Church of
God. This man had been professedly orthodox, but he turned aside from the truth on an
essential point. Now, in those days the saints did not say, as the sham saints do now,
“We must be largely charitable, and leave this brother to his own opinion; he sees truth
from a different standpoint, and has a rather different way of putting it, but his opinions
are as good as our own, and we must not say that he is in error.” They did not prescribe
large-hearted charity towards falsehood, or hold up the errorist as a man of deep

297. thought, whose views were “refreshingly original”; far less did they utter some wicked
nonsense about the probability of there being more faith in honest doubt than in half the
creeds. They did not believe in justification by doubting as our neologians do; they set
about the conversion of the erring brother; they treated him as a person who needed
conversion; and viewed him as a man who, if he were not converted, would suffer the
death of his soul, and be covered with a multitude of sins. O God, deliver us from this
deceitful infidelity, which while it does damage to the erring man, and often prevents his
being reclaimed, does yet more mischief to our own hearts by teaching us that truth is
unimportant, and falsehood a trifle, and so destroys our allegiance to the God of truth,
and makes us traitors instead of loyal subjects to the King of kings. It appears from our
text that this man, having erred from the truth, followed the natural logical consequence
of doctrinal error, and erred in his life as well. His way went wrong after his thought had
gone wrong. You cannot deviate from truth without ere long, in some measure, at any
rate, deviating from practical righteousness. This man had erred from right acting
because he had erred from right believing. Every error has its own outgrowth, as all
decay has its appropriate fungus. When truth is dominant morality and holiness are
abundant; but when error comes to the front godly living retreats in shame. The point
aimed at with regard to this sinner in thought and deed was his conversion—the turning
of him round, the bringing him to right thinking and to right acting. Alas! I fear many
professed Christians do not look upon backsliders in this light, neither do they regard
them as hopeful subjects for conversion. I have known a person who has erred hunted
down like a wolf. The object of some professors seems to be to amputate the limb rather
than to heal it. Justice has reigned instead of mercy. In the days of James, if any erred
from the truth and from holiness, there were brethren found who sought their recovery,
and whose joy it was thus to save a soul from death, and to hide a multitude of sins.
There is something very significant in that expression, “Brethren, if any of you do err
from the truth.” It is akin to that other word, “Considering thyself also, lest thou also be
tempted,” and that other exhortation, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest
he fall.” The text gives us clear indications as to the persons who are to aim at the
conversion of erring brethren. It says, “If any of you do err from the truth, and one
convert him.” It is the business, not of certain officers appointed by the vote of the
Church thereunto, but of every member of the body of Jesus Christ, to seek the good of
all the other members. Still there are certain members upon whom in any one case this
may be more imperative. For instance, in the case of a young believer, his father and his
mother, if they be believers, are called upon by a sevenfold obligation to seek the
conversion of their backsliding child. In the case of a husband, none should be so earnest
for his restoration as his wife, and the same rule holds good with regard to the wife. So
also if the connection be that of friendship, he with whom you have had the most
acquaintance should lie nearest to your heart, and when you perceive that he has gone
aside, you should, above all others, act the shepherd towards him with kindly zeal. You
are bound to do this to all your fellow Christians, but doubly bound to do it to those over
whom you possess an influence, which has been gained by former intimacy, by
relationship, or by any other means. Ye see your duty; do not neglect it. Brethren, it
ought to cheer us to know that the attempt to convert a man who has erred from the
truth is a hopeful one, it is one in which success may be looked for, and when the success
comes it will be of the most joyful character. To bring in a stranger and an alien, and to
adopt him as a son, suggests a festival; but the most joyous feasting and the loudest
music are for the son who was always a son, but had played the prodigal, and yet after
being lost was found, and after being dead was made alive again. Here I would say to any
backsliders who are present, let this text cheer you if you have a desire to turn to God.

298. Return, ye backsliding children, for the Lord has bidden His people seek you.
II. A GENERAL FACT. This general fact is important, and we are bound to give it special
attention, since it is prefaced with the words, “Let him know.” If any one of you has been
the means of bringing back a backslider, it is said, “Let him know.” That is, let him think
of it, be sure of it, be comforted by it, be inspirited by it. “Let him know” it, and never
doubt it. What is it that you are to know? To know that he who converteth a sinner from
the error of his way shall save a soul from death. This is something worth knowing, is it
not? If you have saved a soul from death you have introduced it into eternal life; by
God’s good grace there will be another chorister amongst the white-robed host to sing
Jehovah’s praise; another hand to smite eternally the harp-strings of adoring gratitude;
another sinner saved to reward the Redeemer for His passion. Oh, the happiness of
having saved a soul from death! And it is added, that in such case you will have “covered
a multitude of sins.” Now, remember your Saviour came to this world with two objects:
He came to destroy death and to put away sin. If you convert a sinner from the error of
his ways you are made like to Him in both these works: after your manner in the power
of the Spirit of God you overcome death, by snatching a soul from the second death, and
you also put away sin from the sight of God by hiding a multitude of sins beneath the
propitiation of the Lord Jesus. Do observe here that the apostle offers no other
inducement for soul-winners: He does not say if you convert a sinner from the error of
his ways you will have honour. True philanthropy scorns such a motive. He does not say
if you convert a sinner from the error of his ways you will have the respect of the Church
and the love of the individual. Such will be the case, but we are moved by far nobler
motives. The joy of doing good is found in the good itself: the reward of a deed of love is
found in its own result. And let us recollect that the saving of souls from death honours
Jesus, for there is no saving souls except through His blood. As for you and for me, what
can we do in saving a soul from death? Of ourselves nothing, any more than that pen
which lies upon the table could write “Pilgrim’s Progress”; yet let a Bunyan grasp the
pen, and the matchless work is written. So you and I can do nothing to convert souls till
God’s eternal Spirit takes us in hand; but then He can do wonders by us, and get to
Himself glory by us, while it shall be joy enough to us to know that Jesus is honoured,
and the Spirit magnified. Now I want you to notice particularly that all that is said by the
apostle here is about the conversion of one person. “If any of you do err from the truth,
and one convert him, let him know that he who converteth the sinner from the error of
his ways shall save a soul from death.” Have you never wished you were a Whitfield?
Have you never felt, young man, in your inmost soul, great aspirations to be another
McCheyne, or Brainerd, or Moffat? Cultivate the aspiration, but at the same time be
happy to bring one sinner to Jesus Christ, for he who converts one is bidden to know
that no mean thing is done; he has saved a soul from death, and covered a multitude of
sins.
III. And, now, A PARTICULAR APPLICATION of this whole subject to the conversion
of children. Children need to be saved; children may be saved; children are to be saved
by instrumentality. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The preciousness of the soul
We cannot but be struck with the contrast between what God honours and that which
man deems most honourable. God honours those that save. Man too oft, indeed
generally, gives his highest honour to the man that destroys. Thus the warrior has ever
been a favourite with society; and yet how terrible is his work! Another man the world

299. honours, less highly, though he is more worthy—the statesman of far-reaching genius,
who devises those measures that shall increase general intelligence and happiness,
advance the public interest, and make his country’s name to be honoured and feared
among the nations of the earth. Society recognises as worthy of some measure of esteem
another character, more worthy than either we have named, yet less honoured. We refer
to the man of benevolence, who goes forth to improve the condition of society, to raise
the fallen, to give new hope to the despairing. Such a man was Howard, who sought to
solve the problem, What is the greatest amount of effort a man may make in the cause of
humanity? Still higher in merit than the characters named is the man whom God
especially honours. He toils not only to improve man’s physical, moral, and intellectual
condition, but deems it his great work to save man from sin, from the pollution and
corruption of his nature, from those consequences partially manifest in this life, that
shall have their consummation in the life to come. He goes forth with burning, self-
sacrificing zeal, to save the souls of men. How little does the world honour this class of
men! But the honour and greatness of this work of saving men is indicated by the
greatness of the change wrought in conversion, through which all who have sinned must
pass in order to be saved. How wondrous the change in a soul converted! He was dead in
trespasses and sins, lost in error, and in bondage to sin and Satan. Now, renewed in
heart and life—changed in opinions, in prospects, in hopes, and associations he is free,
and becomes a child of God, a brother of Christ, How marked is this change, they who
have experienced it well know, and they also understand it who have witnessed the
wondrous transformation in character and conduct of many they have known as sinners
and as converted men. Now, the evidence of the reality of this work of conversion to any
candid seeker of truth is clear and strong. The evidence to the individual renewed is
manifestly and necessarily, from its nature, in his own consciousness. You may go to any
community and bring forth the persons that say they have experienced this change of
heart. They will tell you they have known what it is to be under the bondage of sin, in
fear of the wrath to come, and in their trouble and anguish of soul they submitted to the
directions of God’s Word and yielded themselves to Christ. They will affirm that in so
doing they found peace; their sense of condemnation was removed, and peace and joy
filled their souls. They will tell you that they have the assurance of God’s forgiveness, and
the witness of the Holy Spirit that they are His children. This personal testimony will
have confirmation in the change in their enjoyments, tastes, and the new rules of
conduct to which they have submitted in consequence of conversion. But in this work of
saving men the most important point remains for consideration. On whom rests the
responsibility of this work of converting men? It is not enough to wish for this work, to
feebly pray for it, to think of the obligation of the Church at large, but every single
Christian must labour as he has opportunity, and use all his means of influence to secure
the salvation of others. The great object of the Church, and of union with it, is not the
personal happiness of believers. Happiness is the result of obedience to laws, and misery
is the consequence of disobedience. We shall be happy ourselves when we strive in self-
forgetfulness to make others happy. While the Church is designed to furnish instruction,
assistance, and comfort to its members, it is God’s great instrumentality for the diffusion
of the word of life, for proclaiming the gospel unto unregenerate men. It is sinful and
absurd for any one to say, “I have not the power to do anything; I cannot speak to any
one on the subject of religion.” What other subject is there on which men cannot speak?
Will any man acknowledge himself so feeble and humble that he can never speak on
business, so modest that he can never say a word on trade? Our excuse that we have not
the requisite power to engage in this work is a dishonour to ourselves, and in urging it
we dishonour God. When men thus speak, they talk vainly. It is on this account the
Church languishes and souls perish. In conversion the human will must yield in order

300. that the Holy Spirit may renew the heart and forgive sins. To secure this yielding of the
will of the sinner to Divine grace, family, friendly, and moral influences may avail. God
requires that they be sanctified to this use. Have not some of us sad thoughts as we think
of those with whom we have been associated, and of our unfaithfulness? Do not scenes
rise before us that cause sorrow and anguish? Has no one of our friends or families
passed away relative to whose future there is a terrible doubt, nay, perhaps a fearful
certainty, if we could entertain the thought? A mother wept for the death of a beloved
child. Friends came to comfort her. They offered the usual sources of consolation, such
as affectionate hearts yearn to give. But the mother rejected it all. “Ah!” said she, “it is
not this. It is not this. I could give up my child. I could bow with resignation over her
death. But, alas! I fear she is not saved. It was a foolish diffidence that kept me from
talking with her as I oft felt it my duty to do. And when she was stricken with disease, I
thought the opportunity would come and I would then improve it. But, alas! delirium
came. I bowed by my child. I prayed God, not so much for her life as for one hour of
reason, that I might do my duty to my child. But she never recognised me, and I fear she
is lost.” Oh I mothers, mothers, do you love your children, and you are living with them
in view of certain death, and have you done your duty to seek the conversion of their
souls? But there is joy, also, in the thought of being instrumental in saving souls. A
missionary sat by the dying bed of his first convert. The dying man said to him, “Brother,
I hear you preached a sermon about heaven last evening; I could not go to hear you
preach, but I am going to heaven itself, and when I get there I shall go first to the Lord
Jesus Christ and thank Him that He ever sent you to tell me of His love; and then,
brother, I shall come back to the gate and sit there until you come; and when you come, I
will lead you to the Saviour and say, ‘ Here, Lord, is the man that told me of Thy love.’”
Oh! Christians, are you willing to walk the streets of heaven and have no one greet you
there? Would you be willing to go yourselves inside the gates and never have a soul to
greet you and say, “I thank God for the kind words of sympathy and love you spoke on
earth?” But while this work of saving souls thus concerns the Church, shall the
unconverted be indifferent to their own salvation? Remember, if Christians are
unfaithful you are not excused. You know your duty, and, living amid so many privileges,
your guilt for the rejection of Christ will be the greater. (Joseph Cummings, D. D.)
One soul worth a great effort
He who is privileged to lead a single soul to Christ does a work compared with which the
gathering of crowds and addressing of multitudes is of small account. Let us not despise
the day of small things. “You have preached twenty years, and have only made one
convert,” was the taunt with which a man assailed a servant of the Lord. ‘, Have I
converted one?” asked the minister. “Yes, there is such an one, who is really converted
under your ministry.” “Then here is twenty years more for another,” said the man of
God, and all eternity would endorse the wisdom of the utterance.
Be slow to despair
It is said of the late Lord Lyndhurst that his saving enlightenment came in his ninetieth
year. Not till then did he really bow the knee to Jesus and pass from death to life. Those,
therefore, who would be eminently successful in soul-winning must be slow to despair.
This is the testimony of one who recently died in the faith of the gospel: “Under God, I
owe my conversion to you; not through anything special that you said, but because you
never would give up hope of me.” Even if inquirers should turn wholly away from us, we
may reach them “by the way of the throne.”

301. Successful endeavour
The Rev. Edward Judson, of the Berean Baptist Church, New York, prints the following
note at the end of a list of the services of his church
“A Christian man, deeply devoted, and wise to win souls, made it a rule to speak to some
one unconverted person every day on the subject of his soul’s salvation. One night, as he
was about retiring to rest, he bethought himself that he had not fulfilled his vow that
day. He immediately put on his attire, and prepared to go in quest of a soul. But where
should he go? was the question. He concluded to make a visit to a grocer with whom he
was in the habit of trading. He found him engaged in closing up his store. When the
errand of his customer was made known he was surprised. He said all sorts of Christians
traded with him—Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, etc.
but no one had ever spoken to him about his soul. The night visit of his customer and his
earnest pleadings made such an impression upon his mind that it led to his speedy
conversion. (Sword and Trowel.)
Difficulty of the work
In the Middle Ages a priest and a general were studying, during war-time, the map of a
hostile country which was about to be invaded. The reverend father put his finger on
sundry places dotted on the map, and remarked, “This fortified town must be taken, and
then this, and this.” The soldier broke in, “I may be allowed to remind you, Father
Joseph, that fortified towns are not taken with the tip of the finger.” To capture a soul for
heaven is a feat upon which we must not calculate unless we are prepared to expend care
and pains. (Edward Smith.)
Converting a sinner
At a time of religious awakening at Yale College the students who were decided for Christ
agreed that each should visit one of their unconverted class-mates in his own room. One
of the results of this action was the thorough decision of David Stoddard, afterwards the
honoured missionary of the Nestorians. (Dr. J. P. Thompson.)
The mission of a tract
Some fifteen years ago a young man, a Spaniard by birth, visited Leamington from
New:York, and received a tract in the Pump-room, which was given to him casually by a
lady. It was one of Canon Ryle’s tracts, and was the means of his conversion. On
returning to America, where his parents had taken up their residence, he entered one of
the universities, and having been ordained by Bishop Potter, was appointed missionary
to the Spanish-speaking people in New York. From thence he went to Mexico some ten
years ago, and was presented by the Emperor, Maximilian’s successor, with one of the
principal churches in the capital.
He translated the whole of Canon Ryle’s tracts into Spanish, and the result was that
there are now 160 Protestant congregations in Mexico, whereas nine years ago there was
but one, and 63,000 persons have seceded from the Church of Rome. This was the result
of one tract casually given to visitor in the Pump-rooms at Leamington. The title of the

302. tract is “Are you Forgiven?” (The Fireside.)
Saved alone
A telegram was sent back from England by a lady to her husband. She had left New York
with all her children, and she landed, shipwrecked, in England, and sent back to him this
brief telegram: “Saved—alone.” Ah! that last word seemed as if it took all the sweetness
out of the first one. “Saved—alone.” May that never be what we shall have to say as we
enter heaven.
How to do it
I have been told that Mr. Moody’s great career as a soul-winner dates from a somewhat
exhaustive study of the word “grace.” He had been shut up in his room for days studying
this word, until his soul was so full of it that he could contain no longer; so he started out
of the house and stopped the first man he met in the street and asked him if he knew
anything about “grace.” “What do you mean?” said the man. “I mean,” replied Moody,
“the grace of God that bringeth salvation, and which hath appeared unto all men.” And
right then and there he began and poured into that stranger’s ear this story of God’s
grace, until the man himself was overwhelmed with the greatness of love and yielded
himself to God. (G. F. Pentecost, D. D.)
The wide blessedness of love
The phrase is one of those which St. James has in common with St. Peter (1Pe_4:8). It
occurs also in the
LXX. of Psa_85:2, and in a nearly identical form in Psa_32:1. The Hebrew and English
version of Pro_10:12 present a still closer parallel, but the LXX. seems to have followed a
different text, and gives “Friendship covers all those that are not contentious.” The
context leaves hardlyany room for doubt that the “sins” which are thought of as covered
are primarily those of the man converted, and not those of the converter. There is,
however, a studied generality in the form of the teaching which seems to emphasise the
wide blessedness of love. In the very act of seeking to convert one for whom we care we
must turn to God ourselves, and in covering the past sins of another our own also are
covered. In such an act love reaches its highest point, and that love includes the faith in
God which is the condition of forgiveness. (Dean Plumptre.)
The conversion of sinners
John Bunyan used to say of those places where God had greatly blessed his ministry in
the conversion of sinners that he counted as if he had “goodly buildings and lordships”
there, and that his heart was so wrapped up in the glory of this excellent work that he
counted himself more blessed and honoured of God by them as his spiritual children
than if God had made him emperor of the Christian world, or the lord of all the glory of
the earth, without it; adding, “Oh! the power of those words in Jas_5:19-20!” (J.
Caughey)

303. Tholuck’s personal effort for individual souls
The German Tholuck, a household name in the world’s Christian homes, standing on the
borders of the grave and looking back on the fifty fruitful years of preaching, teaching,
and writing, exclaimed, “I value it all less than the love that seeks and follows,” by which
he had been inspired from the year of his conversion. Personal effort for individual
souls!” This is a work of which the world knows little, but of which the Lord knows
much.” Not only seeking, but following! Here is a single illustration: A. student at Halle
was brought near to his heart by a godly mother. He fell into sin and vice. He was
ofttimes visited by his loving teacher, late at night or in the early morning, after a night’s
debauch—sometimes in prison. Good promises were repeatedly made, and as repeatedly
broken. Another sacred promise; the following day, late at night, came a card from him:
“Tholuck sighs; Tholuck prays; but we will have our drink out.” Relying upon the co-
working Spirit, still the saintly Tholuck followed. And the giddy youth became pastor of
a well-known church in Berlin.
The joy of converting a soul
Archbishop Williams once said to a friend of his, “I have passed through many places of
honour and trust, both in Church and State, more than any of my order in England these
seventy years before; yet were I but assured that by my preaching I had converted but
one soul to God I should take therein more spiritual joy and comfort than in all the
honours and offices which have been bestowed upon me.”
The Lord’s converts and man’s
On one occasion an Irish evangelist was brought up for creating a disturbance. “How
many did you convert?” said the magistrate. “Just two,” was the reply. “Were these all?”
“Yes, sir, all I converted, and they were soon as wicked as ever; but the Lord, He
converted many more.” Possibly such easy conversions, unattended with much or any
conviction of sin, and resting on the acceptance of a mere formula, may have not a little
to do with the shallow, easygoing Christianity which is more or less common in these
days.
Soul-saving
A teacher had among her pupils a young man of wicked habits. At last, when she heard
that he was fast going down to ruin, she sought grace and courage from the Lord to
speak to him about Jesus. The young fellow was much affected by her earliest, loving
appeal, moved, as he knew she was, by love for his soul; and when he had mastered his
emotion, he said to her in a tremulous voice,” Had any one ever spoken to me before as
you have to-night, I might have been a child of God long ago! But no one has thought me
worth saving.” Bishop Wilson says, “We deceive ourselves if we fancy we have done our
duty when we have given our people a sermon one day in seven. We must try always to
gain a precious soul for Christ.” May His matchless grace help us.
Sin hidden
A Welsh minister, speaking of the burial of Moses, said: “In that burial not only was the
body buried, but also the grave and graveyard. This is an illustration of the way in which
God’s mercy buries sins, No one is at the funeral but Mercy, and if any should meet her
on returning from the burial, and ask her, “Mercy, where didst thou bury our sins?” her
answer would be, “I do not remember.”
Abrupt ending
The absence of any formal close to the Epistle is in many ways remarkable. In this

304. respect it stands absolutely alone in the New Testament, the nearest approach to it being
found in 1Jn_5:21. It is a possible explanation of this peculiarity that we have lost the
conclusion of the Epistle. It is, however, more probable that the abruptness is that of
emphasis. The writer had given utterance to a truth which he desired above all things to
impress on the minds of his readers, and he could not do this more effectually than by
making it the last word he wrote to them. (Dean Plumptre.)
EBC, "THE WORK OF CONVERTING SINNERS; ITS CONDITIONS AND
REWARDS.
ST. JAMES has just been speaking of the case of a man who is sick, and needs the
prayers of others for his healing, both in body and soul; for it may be that the sick man
has sins to be repented of as well as ailments to be cured. This leads naturally enough to
the common ease of those who, whether sick in, body or not, feel their consciences
burdened by sin. They are to make known their trouble to one or more of the brethren,
in order that efficacious prayers may be offered to God on their behalf. But these cases
do not by any means cover the whole ground. Besides those who feel and make known
their bodily sickness, and those who feel and make known their spiritual sickness, in
order that their fellow-Christians may pray to God for their healing, there is the common
case of those who either do not feel, or if they feel do not confess, that their souls are sick
unto death. There are many who have left the path of life, and are going steadily, and
perhaps rapidly, to destruction, Who are ignorant of their piteous condition; and there
are others who are aware of their peril, but are either too hardened to desire any serious
change, or too proud to own their condition to others and ask their help towards
recovery. Are such unhappy persons to be left to themselves, and allowed to go on their
way to perdition, for want of the aid which they are too insensate or too haughty to ask?
Certainly not, says the writer of this Epistle. The reclaiming of such sinners is one of the
noblest tasks which a Christian can undertake; and the successful accomplishment of it
is fraught with incalculable blessings, the thought of which ought to move us to
undertake such work. To save one immortal soul from eternal death is worth the labor of
a lifetime. If to lead one soul astray is to share the devil’s work and incur guilt to which a
violent death would be preferable, (Mat_18:6; Mar_9:42; Luk_17:2) to lead one soul
back from death is to share Christ’s work (2Co_6:1) by blotting out from God’s sight the
sins which cry for punishment.
We shall obtain a clearer view of the meaning of St. James in these concluding verses of
his Epistle if we begin with the last words of the passage, and from them work back to
what precedes.
"Shall cover a multitude of sins." Whose sins? Not the sins of him who converts the
erring brother. This view, which is perhaps the one which most readily occurs to those
who merely listen to the passage as it is read in Church, but have never studied it, may
safely be rejected, although it has the sanction of Erasmus and to some extent also of the
Venerable Bede. There are two reasons, each of which would suffice to condemn this
explanation, and which taken together are almost unanswerable.
1. Nowhere else in Scripture do we find any such doctrine, that a man may cover his own
sins by inducing another sinner to repent. On the contrary, it is one of the terrible
possibilities which attend the work of the ministry that a man may preach successfully to
others, and yet himself be a castaway, (1Co_9:27) and may move many hearts, while his
own remains as hard as the nether millstone. It is altogether misleading to Mat_6:14 in
connection with this passage. There Christ, says, "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your

305. heavenly Father will also forgive you." What has that to do with converting sinners from
their sins? Is "Forgive that ye may be forgiven," even parallel to "Convert that ye may be
forgiven"? It is very far indeed from being equivalent to it. The exact parallel would be,
"Convert, that ye may be converted" and where in either the Old or the New Testament
do we find any such teaching as that? Who we do find is the converse of it: "Be converted
that ye may convert. Cast out first the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see
clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye". (Mat_7:5) And this brings us to the
other reason why this interpretation ought to be set aside.
2. We cannot suppose that St. James would contemplate, not merely as a possible case,
but as the normal condition of things, that a Christian would undertake the task of
converting others while his own conscience was burdened with a multitude of sins. He
no doubt assumed, and meant his readers to assume, that before taking this very
glorious, but also very difficult work upon themselves, Christians would at least have
repented of their own sins, and thus have won the assurance that they were covered and
forgiven. As we have seen, St. James shows an intimate personal knowledge of the
teaching of Christ, and especially of that portion of it which is contained in the Sermon
on the Mount. It is difficult to believe that any one who was acquainted with the
fundamental principle involved in the saying just quoted, about the mote and the beam,
would end his exhortations to the Church with a declaration which, according to the
view of Erasmus and others, would mean that it is precisely those who have a beam in
their own eye who should endeavor to convert sinners from the error of their ways, for in
this way they may get the beam removed, or at least overlooked.
It is the sins of the converted sinner that