is Lord as well as Jesus Christ, so Jesus Christ is God as well as the Father. Well then, James is not only God's servant, by the right of creation and providence; but Christ's servant, by the right of redemption; yea, especially deputed by Christ as Lord (that is, as mediator and head of the church), to do him service in the way of an apostle. And I suppose there is some special reason for this disjunction, "a servant of God and of Christ,' to show his countrymen, that, in serving Christ, he served the God of his fathers, as Paul pleaded, (Acts xxvi. 6, 7,) that, in standing for Christ, he did but stand "for the hope of the promise made unto the fathers, unto which promise the twelve tribes, serving God day and night, hope to come." [To the twelve tribes] That is, to the Jews and people of Israel, chiefly those converted to the faith of Christ. To these James writeth, as the "minister of the circumcision" (Gal. ii. 9). And he writeth not in Hebrew, their own tongue; but in Greek, as being the language then most in use; as the apostle Paul writeth to the Romans in the same tongue, and not in Latin. Which are scattered abroad,] In the original, raïs ¿v rý diaoπoρā, to those which are in or of the dispersion. But what scattering or dispersion is here intended? I answer, 1st, Either that which was occasioned by their ancient captivities, and the frequent changes of nations; for so there were some Jews that still lived abroad, supposed to be intended in that expression, "Will he go to the dispersed among the Gentiles?" (John vii. 35.) Or, 2dly, More lately, by the persecution spoken of in the eighth of the Acts. Or, 3dly, By the hatred of Claudius, who commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome (Acts xviii. 2). And it is probable that the like was done in other great cities; the Jews, and amongst them the Christians, being everywhere cast out, as John out of Ephesus, and others out of Alexandria. Or, 4thly, Some voluntary dispersion, the Hebrews living here and there among the Gentiles a little before the declension and ruin of their state, some in Cilicia, some in Pontus, &c. Thus the apostle Peter writeth, "To the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia' (1 Pet. i. 1). [Xaipe, greeting.] A usual salutation, but not so frequent in Scripture. Cajetan thinketh it profane and paganish, and therefore questioneth the epistle, but unworthily: we find the same salutation sometimes used in holy writ, as to the virgin Mary, Xaïpe (the same word that is used here), "Hail, thou that art highly favoured!" (Luke i. 28.) So "The apostles, and elders, and brethren send (xaipav) greeting to the brethren which are of the Gentiles" (Acts xv. 23). Usually it is "Grace, mercy, and peace,' ," but sometimes "Greeting."

The Observations out of this verse are these:

I. From that, [James, a servant of God,] He was Christ's near kinsman according to the flesh, and therefore, by a Hebraism, called "the brother of the Lord" (Gal. i. 19); not properly and strictly, as Joseph's son by a former marriage (which yet was the opinion of some of the ancients*), but his cousin. Well then, James, the Lord's kinsman, calleth himself the Lord's servant. The note is, that inward privileges are the best and most honourable, and spiritual kin is to be preferred before carnal. Mary was happier gestando Christum corde quam utero, in having Christ in her heart rather than her womb; and James in being Christ's servant

* Eusebius, Epiphanius, Gregory Nissen, and others.

than his brother. Hear Christ himself speaking to this point (Mat. xii. 47-49). When one told him, "Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee," Christ answered, "Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand to his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren; for whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." The truest relation to Christ is founded in grace, and we are far happier in receiving him by faith than in touching him by blood; and he that endeavours to do his will, may be as sure of Christ's love and esteem, as if he were linked to him by the nearest outward relations.

II. It is no dishonour to the highest to be Christ's servants; James, whom Paul called a "pillar," calleth himself “ a servant of Christ;" and David, a king, saith, “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness" (Psalm xlviii. 10). The office of the Nethinims, or door-keepers in the temple, was the lowest; and therefore when the question was proposed, what they should do with the Levites that had warped from God to idols, God saith, "They shall bear their iniquity;" that is, they shall be degraded, and employed in the lowest offices and ministries of the temple, which was to be porters and doorkeepers; see Ezek. xliv. 10-13. Yet saith David, "I had rather be a doorkeeper;" carnal honour and greatness are nothing to this. Paul was a "Hebrew of the Hebrews" (Phil. iii. 5); that is, of an ancient Hebrew race and extraction; there being, in the memory of man, no proselyte in his family, or among his ancestors; which was accounted a very great honour by that nation: yet saith Paul, I count all σkúßaλa, dung and dogsmeat, in comparison of an interest in Christ (Phil. iii. 8).

66

III. The highest in repute and office in the church yet, are still but servants: James a servant," "Let a man account of us, as of ministers of Christ" (1 Cor. iv. 1). The sin of Corinth was man-worship, in giving an excess of honour and respect to those teachers whom they admired, setting them up as heads of factions, and giving up their faith to their dictates. The apostle seeketh to reclaim them from that error, by showing that they are not masters but ministers. Give them the honour of a minister and steward; but not that dependence which is due to the Master only. "We have not dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy" (2 Cor. i. 24). We are not to prescribe articles of faith, but explain them. So the apostle Peter bids the elders not to behave themselves as "lords over God's heritage' (1 Pet. v. 3), not to master it over their consciences. Our work is mere service, and we can but persuade : Christ must impose upon the conscience. It is Christ's own advice to his disciples in Matt. xxiii. 13, "Be not ye called masters; for one is your master, even Christ." All the authority and success of our teaching is from our Lord. We can prescribe nothing as necessary to be believed or done, which is not according to his will or word. In short, we come not in our own name, and must not act with respect to our own ends: we are servants.

IV. A servant of God, and of Jesus Christ,] In all services, we must honour the Father, and the Son also: "God will have all to honour the Son, as they honour the Father" (John v. 23); that is, God will be honoured and worshipped only in Christ.. "Ye believe in God, believe also in me" (John xiv. 1). Believing is the highest worship and respect of the creature :

you must give it to the Son, to the second person as Mediator, as well as to the Father. Do duties so as you may honour Christ in them, and so,

First, Look for their acceptance in Christ. Oh, it would be sad if we were only to look to God the Father in duties ! Adam hid himself, and durst not come into the presence of God, till the promise of Christ. The hypocrites cried, "Who shall dwell with consuming fire?" (Isa. xxxiii. 14.) Guilt can form no other thought of God by looking upon him out of Christ: we can see nothing but majesty armed with wrath and power. But now it is said, that "in Christ we have access with boldness and confidence " (Eph. iii. 12). For in him those attributes which are in themselves terrible, become sweet and comfortable; as water, which is salt in the occan, being strained through the earth, becometh sweet in the rivers. That in God, which out of Christ striketh terror into the soul, in Christ begets a confidence. Secondly, Look for your assistance from him. You serve God in Christ, when you serve God through Christ. “I can do all things, through Christ that strengtheneth me" (Phil. iv. 13). When your own hands are in God's work, your eyes must be to Christ's hands for support in it. "As the eyes

of servants look to the hands of their masters," &c. (Psa. cxxiii. 2). You must go about God's work with his own tools.

Thirdly, When ye have an eye to the concernments of Jesus Christ in all your service of God. "We must live to him that died for us " (2 Cor. v. 14); not only to God in the general, but to him, to God that died for us. You must see how you advance his kingdom, propagate his truth, further the glory of Christ as Mediator.

Fourthly, When all is done for Christ's sake. In Christ God hath a new claim in you, and ye are bought with his blood, that ye may be his servants. Under the Law the great argument to obedience was God's sovereignty. Thus and thus ye shall do, "I am the Lord," as Levit xix. 37, and in other places. Now the argument is gratitude, God's love, God's love in Christ: "the love of Christ constraineth us" (2 Cor. v. 14). The apostle often persuades by that motive, Be God's servants for Christ's sake.

V. To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad,] God looks after his afflicted servants: he moveth James to write to the scattered tribes. The care of Heaven flourisheth towards you when you wither.

A man would have thought these had been driven away from God's care when they had been driven away from the sanctuary. "Thus saith the Lord, though I have cast them far off among the heathen, and have scattered them among the countries; yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the places where they come" (Ezek. xi. 16). Though they wanted the temple, yet God would be a little sanctuary. He looks after them to watch their spirits, that he may apply seasonable comforts; and to watch their adversaries, to prevent them with seasonable providences. He looketh after them to watch the seasons of deliverance, that he may "gather her that was driven out" (Micah vii. 6), and make up his jewels (Mal. iii. 17), that seemed to be carelessly scattered, and lost.

VI. God's own people may be dispersed, and driven from their countries and habitations. God hath his outcasts: he saith to Moab, "Pity my outcasts:" and the church complains, "Our inheritance is turned to strangers" (Lam. v. 2). Christ himself had not where to lay his head, and the apostle tells us of some, "of whom the world was not worthy," that "they

wandered in deserts, and mountains, and woods, and caves." Mark, they wandered in the woods, (it is Chrysostom's note,*) åλλà kai ékeì bvtes êpevyov: the retirement and privacy of the wilderness did not yield them a quiet and safe abode. So in Acts viii. 4, we read of the primitive believers that they were scattered abroad everywhere.' Many of the children of God in these times have been driven from their dwellings; but you see we have no reason to think the case strange.

66

VII. To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad,] There was something more in their scattering than ordinary: they were a people whom God for a long time had kept together, under the wings of providence. That which is notable in their scattering, is,

1. The severity of God's justice. The twelve tribes are scattered, his own people. It is ill resting on any privileges, when God's Israel may be made strangers. Israel was all for liberty; therefore God saith, "I will feed them as a lamb in a large place" (Hos. iv. 16). God would give them liberty and room enough; as a lamb out of the fold goeth up and down bleating in the forest or wilderness, without comfort and companion, in the midst of wolves and the beasts of the desert; liberty enough, but danger enough! So God would cast them out of the fold, and they should live à Jew here and a Jew there, thinly scattered and dispersed throughout the countries, among a people whose language they understood not, and as a lamb in the midst of the beasts of prey. Oh consider the severity of God's justice! Certainly it is a great sin that maketh a loving father cast a child out of doors. Sin is always driving away and casting out: it drove the angels out of heaven, Adam out of paradise, and Cain out of the church (Gen. iv. 12—16), and the children of God out of their dwellings, "Our dwellings have cast us out" (Jerem. ix. 19). Your houses will be weary of you when you dishonour God in them, and you will be driven from those comforts which you abuse to excess: riot doth but make way for rapine. You shall see in the sixth of Amos, when they were at ease in Sion, they would prostitute David's music to their sportiveness and common banquets. They invent to themselves instruments of music like David" (Āmos vi. 5). But for this, God threateneth to scatter them, and to remove them from their houses of luxury and pleasure; and when they were driven to the land of a stranger, they were served in their own kind: the Babylonians would have temple music, "Now let us have one of your Hebrew songs" (Psalm cxxxvii. 3). Nothing but a holy song would serve their profane sport. And so in all suchlike cases, when we are weary of God in our houses and families, our houses are weary of us. David's house was out of order, and then he was forced to fly from it (2 Sam. xv). Oh! then, when you walk in the midst of your comforts, your stately dwellings and houses of pomp and pleasure, be not of Nebuchadnezzar's spirit, when he walked in the palace of Babylon, and said, “Is not this great Babel which I have built ?" (Dan. iv. 30.) Pride grew upon him by the sight of his comforts. Nor of the spirit of those Jews who, when they dwelt within ceiled houses, cried, “The time to build the Lord's house is not come (Hag. i. 1, 2). They were well and at ease, and therefore neglected God. But be of David's spirit, who, when he went into his stately palace, serious thoughts and purposes of honouring

* Chrysost. in Heb, xi,

66

God arose with his spirit. "Shall I dwell in a house of cedar, and the ark of God dwell within curtains" (2 Sam. i. 2)? Observe the different workings of their spirits. Nebuchadnezzar, walking in his palace, groweth proud, Is not this great Babel which I have built?" The Jews, in their ceiled houses, grow careless, "The time to build the Lord's house is not come." David, in his curious house of cedar, groweth religious. What have I done for the ark of God, who hath done so much for me? Well then, honour God in your houses, lest you become the burdens of them, and they spue you out. The twelve tribes were scattered.

2. The infallibility of his truth. They were punished, "as their congregation had heard," as the prophet speaketh (Hosea xi. 12). In judicial dispensations, it is good to observe, not only God's justice, but God's truth. No calamity befel Israel, but what was in the letter, foretold in the books of Moses. A man might have written their history out of the threatenings of the law: "If ye walk contrary unto me, I will scatter you among the heathens, and will draw a sword after you" (Levit. xxvi. 33). The like is threatened in Deut. xxviii. 64: “And the Lord shall scatter you from one end of the earth unto another among all the people." And you see how suitable the event was to the prophecy; and therefore I conccive James useth this expression of the "twelve tribes," when that distinction was antiquated, and the tribes much confounded, to show that they who were once twelve flourishing tribes, were now, by the accomplishment of that prophecy, sadly scattered and mingled among the nations.

3. The tenderness of his love to the believers among them. He hath a James for the Christians of the scattered tribes. In the severest ways of his justice he doth not forget his own, and he hath special consolations for them when they lie under the common judgment. When other Jews were banished, John, amongst the rest, was banished out of Ephesus into Patmos, a barren, miserable rock or island, but there he had those high "revelations" (Rev. i. 9). Well then, wherever you are, you are near to God: he is a God at hand, and a God afar off. When you lose your dwelling, you do not lose your interest in Christ; and you are everywhere at home, but there where you are strangers to God.

VERSE 2.-My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers

temptations.

My brethren,] A usual compellation in the Scriptures, and very frequent in this epistle; partly because of the manner of the Jews, who were wont to call all of their nation brethren, and partly because of the manner of the ancient Christians,* who in courtesy used to call the men and women of their society and communion brothers and sisters; partly out of apostolical kindness, and that the exhortation might be seasoned with the more love and good-will. [Count it] That is, though sense will not find it so, yet in spiritual judgment you must so esteem it. [All joy] That is, matter of chief joy. Пãoav, all, is thus used in the writings of the apostles, as in 1 Tim. i. 15, πáons áπodoxñs äžios, worthy of all acceptation; that is, of chief acceptation. [When ye fall, öтav пeρiжÉσηTε] The word signifies such troubles as come upon us unawares, as sudden things do most discompose the

* See Tertul. in Apol., cap. 39; et Justin. Mart. in fine Apol. 2; et Clement. Alexand., lib. 5, stromat.