Thomas Manton · 48 of 60

A Practical Commentary, or an Exposition with Notes on the Epistle of James. · Chapter IV. · Part 7

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

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

Ver. 10. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

The apostle goeth on inculcating and pressing the same duty upon them; and lest they should rest in external exercises, he useth a word which more properly implieth the inward acts of the soul. Observe, from the context:—

Obs. It is not the outward expressions that God looketh after in mourning, but the humble heart. God, that is a spirit, doth not reckon so much of bodily exercise. Tears, and cries, and beating of the body may all be counterfeit, or else done without a principle of grace; and many times there may be inward humiliation where a dry brain doth not yield tears. Godly sorrow doth not always keep the road, and vent itself by the eyes. Papists place much in tears and afflicting the body. The spirit-work is the more difficult; old wine and old bottles may well agree together, but not new wine and old bottles. Duties that require much spirit and soul-acts are too strong for weak men. I allude to Christ's expression concerning spiritual fasting, Mat. ix. 15, 16. Old carnal hearts cannot endure the rigour of such spiritual duties. Well, then, in your first duties see that ye do not only mourn and weep, but humble your souls. When ye confess sins, it is not words and tears that God looketh after, but a deep shame and feeling of the evil of your natures, iniquities of life, and defects in obedience. When you pray, look not so much at the outward heat and vehemency: the bodily spirits being agitated, there will be much contention and earnestness of speech; but see that the soul do reach forth after God by the tendency of holy ardours and desires. In the confessing of public sins, it is not the exact enumeration, apt language, but zeal for God's glory, compassion for others, good, holy desires of promoting righteousness, which the Lord looketh after. Ashes and sackcloth are nothing to the work of the soul: Isa. lviii. 5, `Will you call this a fast, or an acceptable day to God?, &c.

In the sight of the Lord.—The like passage is in 1 Peter v. 6; but there it is `Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, &c. That expression implieth a motive or consideration to enforce the duty, but this in our apostle the sincerity of it. Observe hence:—

Obs. 1. That duties are then truly done when they are done as in God's sight. The dread and reverence of God maketh the heart more sincere; so James i. 27, `Pure religion and undefiled before God, &c.; so 1 Peter iii. 21, `The answer of a good conscience towards God, &c. In the presence of God would you make such an answer? So Ps. cxix. 168, `I have kept thy testimonies, for all my ways are before thee;, there was David's motive. Well, then, in all duties of worship remember that you are before God; there is a broad and pure eye of glory fixed upon you. You have to do with God, that `telleth man his thought, that discerneth your spirits better than you do yourselves. That is a right address which is described, Acts x. 33, `We are all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God., Here we come to pray, to hear, to humble ourselves before God. The soul will have a double advantage by such thoughts; the work will be more spiritual, and more pure and up right. More spiritual: I am not to be humbled before man, but before God. `Man looketh on the outward appearance, but God on the frame of the heart, 1 Sam. xvi. 7. Will this satisfy God? `Is it such a fast as he hath chosen?, Isa. lviii. 5. So also more pure and upright. Whatever a man doth to God, he will do it for God's sake: religious duties will be performed upon reasons of religion, not for custom and company, but for God, to God.

Obs. 2. The sight of God is an especial help to humiliation. The soul becometh humble by the true knowledge of God and ourselves: Job xlii. 6, `Mine eye seeth thee, therefore I abhor myself in dust and ashes., When he had a glorious apparition of God he vanished into nothing in his own thoughts. The stars vanish when the sun ariseth; and our poor candle is slighted into a disappearance when the glory of God ariseth in our thoughts. We see our wants in God's fulness; the ocean maketh us ashamed of our own drop; and we see our vileness in God's majesty. What is the balance dust to a mountain, and our wickedness in comparison of God's holiness? Elijah wrapt his face in a mantle ^when God's glory passed before him, 1 Kings xix. 13. So Isaiah crieth out, `I am undone, I am undone, a man of polluted lips, when God showed him his glory, Isa. vi. 5. Upon any apparition of God to the faithful they were filled with a fear because of their own weakness and corruption. Well, then, it directeth us how to be humble in our addresses to God; get as large and comprehensive thoughts of him as you can; see his glory, if you would know your own baseness. Men are slight in duties, because they have low thoughts of God. They offered the Lord `a corrupt thing, because they did not consider he was `a great king, Mal. i. 14. The elders that saw God in his glory, `fell down upon their faces, Rev. vi.

And he shall lift you up.—What doth this promise imply? I answer—It is meant of any kind of happiness and felicity; either deliverance out of trouble: `The Lord heareth the desires of the humble, Ps. x. 17; advancement in the world to honour, or any outward dignity: Prov. xxix. 23, `A man's pride shall bring him low, but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit., Though places of advancement be slippery, yet the humble shall be continued and upheld. So for advancement in grace or glory: Mat. xviii. 4, `Whosoever shall humble himself as a little child, the same shall be greatest in the kingdom of heaven;, that is, have most grace and glory. Learn hence:—

Obs. That submission and humility is the true way to exaltation. It is often repeated in the gospel: `He that humbleth himself shall be exalted, and he that exalteth himself shall be abased;, see Luke xiv. 11; Mat. xxiii. 12. We are all by nature proud, and would be exalted; the way to rise is to fall. God gave us a pattern of it in Jesus Christ. First, `He emptied himself, and humbled himself to the death of the cross; wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name above all names, Phil. ii. 5-9. Well, then, would you have deliverance? humble yourselves. The lion spareth the prostrate prey. Omnipotence will not be your terror, but protection. Would you have grace? see more of God. He that is in the low pits seeth stars in the daytime. Would you have your outward station firm? the Lord will uphold the humble. Would you have the comforts of the Spirit and the preferment of grace? the Lord will `revive the spirit of the humble, Isa. lvii. 15. You are God's second heaven: `I will dwell with the contrite spirit., The world looketh upon humility as the way to make us contemptible; when we stoop, we think every one will tread upon us. You see in the vote and sentence of the promises it is the way to be exalted either in the favour of God or men. Lastly, out of all we may be encouraged to wait upon God with a holy humility and confidence in our low estate: Job xxii. 29, `When men are cast down thou shalt say, There is a lifting up; and he shall save the humble person., When all thy affairs `go to decay, thou mayest bear up on these hopes. In Peter it is, 1 Peter v. 6, `He shall lift thee up in due time., Wait God's leisure, and the promise shall surely be fulfilled; only be humble, not only morally, but graciously. Gracious humiliation is a deep sense of our misery and vileness, with a desire to be reconciled to God upon any terms.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge; that is, when thou exercisest such a rash superiority over the law, thou dost clearly exempt thyself from obedience and subjection to it. Observe hence:—

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

Ver. 12. There is one lawgiver, that is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?

He persisteth in the same argument. God the lawgiver is the only judge; and who art thou that thou invadest or usurpest his office?

There is one lawgiver.—But you will say, We can name many others, Lycurgus, Zaleucus, Solon, &c., many who had also potestatem vitae et necis, power of life and death, and many now that make and dispense laws. How is this sentence true? I answer Grotius supposeth the apostle intendeth Christ by this expression, in opposition to Moses, as arguing against those that would continue the use of the ceremonies, and observe difference between days and meats, &c. Now saith he, we in the Christian church have but one lawgiver, Christ, and not Moses. These must not be yoked and coupled together. But this is too argute, and offereth too much force to the context. More probably, then, he meaneth—(1.) That there is but one absolute and supreme lawgiver, whose will is the rule of justice. Others are directed by an external rule, and prudent considerations of equity and safety, and therein they are but as God's deputies and substitutes, either in church or commonwealth: 2 Chron. xix. 6, `Ye judge not for man, but for the Lord; the Lord is with you in the matter of judgment., (2.) In spiritual things none else can give laws to the conscience. In external policy the laws and edicts of men are to be observed. But he speaketh of the internal government of the conscience, where God alone judgeth by the word; for he speaketh against those that in indifferent things would set up their own will as a rule of sin or duty. Observe:—

Obs. That God alone can give laws to the conscience. So Isa. xxxiii. 22, `The Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us., Take them in a spiritual sense, and the words are exclusive: God, and no other, our only judge, our only law giver, &c. God only knoweth the conscience, and therefore God only must judge it, and give laws to it. God only can punish the conscience for sin, and therefore he only can make a sin. It is the privilege of his word to `convert the soul, Ps. xix.

Object. There may be an objection framed against this doctrine out of Rom. xiii. 5, where it is said, `Wherefore ye must be subject, not only for wrath, but for conscience, sake., So that men's commands seem to oblige the conscience.

Sol. I answer—They do in a sort, but not in that order and manner that God's do. (1.) Not directly and immediately, but by the intervention of God's command. As a Christian is bound to perform all civil duties upon reasons of religion, we are bound in conscience, though human laws under that quatenus do not bind conscience. So 1 Peter ii. 13, `Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake., It is God's command that bindeth my conscience to observe man's. So Eccles. viii. 2. `I counsel thee to keep the king's commandment, and that in regard of the oath of God;, that is, not only for fear of men, but chiefly for wronging thy conscience towards God. (2.) Not so universally and unlimitedly. I must obey God intuitu voluntatis, upon the bare sight of his will; but I must examine the laws of men, whether they be just, equal, suiting with charity and public safety; and in many cases active obedience must be withheld. Peter and the apostles said, Acts v. 29, `We ought to obey God rather than men., Many such cases there are; but now towards God conscience is bound, though it can see no reason for it, no good from it. (3.) Not so absolutely. Whatever God commandeth, I am bound to do it even in secret, though it be to my absolute prejudice; but now submission to man may be performed by suffering the penalty, though the obedience required be forborne; and in some cases a man may do contrary in private, where the thing is indifferent, and there is no danger of scandal and contempt of authority. Well, then, hear no voice but God's in your consciences, no doctrines in the church but Christ's. When they brought in foreign doctrines, it is said, they `did not hold the head, Col. ii. 19. No offices, institutions, and worship must be allowed but such as he hath appointed. Antiquity without scripture is no sure rule to walk by. We must not look what others did before us, but what Christ did before them all. So not the authority of the church; she is `the pillar and ground of truth, 1 Tim. iii. 15, sensu forensi non architectonico; that is, to hold forth Christ's mind, as a post doth a king's proclamation. Some power the church hath in rites of decency, and expediency, and order, by virtue of that general canon, 1 Cor. xiv. 40 (though that text carrieth the face of a restraint rather than an allowance, and doth not so much enlarge as moderate church power, as I have elsewhere cleared), but in the main matters the church can only declare laws, not make them; and though in matters indifferent she can direct to what is suitable to order and decency, yet those directions should be so managed that they do not take away the nature of the thing; and though Christian liberty be restrained, it must not be infringed. It is the injury of antichrist to usurp an authority over the church of God; and this is the very spirit of antichristianism, to give laws to the conscience. Calvin saith, Men would have us more modest than to call the Pope Antichrist; but as long as he doth exercise a tyranny over the conscience, we shall never give over that term; nay, we shall go further, saith he, and call those members of antichrist that take such snares upon their consciences. The setting up another lawgiver is properly antichristianism; for then there is one head set against another, and human authority against divine. It is Paul's character of antichrist: 2 Thes. ii. 4, that `he as God sitteth in the temple of God;, that is, making himself absolute lord of consciences, bringing them to his obedience, working them to his advantage.