LECTURE I.

JAMES i. 1-4.

JAMES, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting: My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

THE first question that offers itself to us, is, Who is this James? To which we reply, One of the twelve whom the Lord chose to be his apostles. But among the apostles there were two who bore this name. One, the son of Zebedee, and the elder brother of the evangelist John, was put to death in the first persecution of the christians at Jerusalem. "Herod the king" (we are told in Acts xii. 1) "stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword." But the other James, the son of Alpheus, who is sometimes called the brother, that is, the half-brother or near relation of the Lord, of all the apostles remained the longest at Jerusalem, where he was held in great repute, and was invested with the office of bishop of

B

the christian church in that city. He was esteemed, as we learn from an expression of St. Paul's, Gal. ii. 9, a principal support and pillar of the church. From the eminence of his piety and integrity, he gained the surname of "The Just ;" and at last, sixty-two years after the birth of the Saviour, was stoned to death at Jerusalem by the command of the Jewish high-priest Ananias. This James, who (to distinguish him from the brother of John) is also called James the younger, or the less, was the author of the epistle before us, which was written towards the end of his life, a period when the christian faith had already spread beyond the bounds of Judea, and penetrated almost every part of the Roman empire. As the preaching and personal labours of this apostle were confined to Jerusalem, his zeal impelled him to address in writing some words of exhortation and instruction to the wider circle of his brethren, and to send them to those whom his voice could not reach.

This admirable epistle thus begins, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad." "James, a servant of God." So far he uses the same appellation as the prophets under the old dispensation, but, in order to distinguish himself from them, he adds, "and of the Lord Jesus Christ," thus placing at the head of his epistle that name to which every knee must bow -the name of that Saviour to whom he had consecrated his labours and his life. In this feeling of dependence upon Christ, he began to write, and the

same sentiment pervades the whole of his epistle. He then addresses himself " to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad;" namely, to those christians who, like himself, were originally Jews. As the apostle Paul was called to publish the glad tidings of salvation principally to the Gentiles, so to James was entrusted the office of preaching the gospel to the circumcision, that he might collect the lost sheep of the house of Israel under the cross of Christ. They were living at that time in different parts, scattered among the Gentiles in larger or smaller numbers, and many of them had been already brought back, by the preaching of the apostles, to the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls. To these Jewish christians, therefore, he presented his salutations, “greeting," or wishing them joy.

And as christians can only expect to obtain joy in communion with Jesus, his salutation in its deepest and fullest meaning implied nothing less than what the apostle Paul usually expressed at the beginning of his epistles, in the words, "Grace be unto you, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ." He calls them his " brethren," because they were become, with himself, the children of God through Christ; they acknowledged the same God and Father, were the servants of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, were called to one hope of their calling, and had one Lord, one faith, one baptism. He assumed no precedence; he did not covet to be lord of their faith, but desired to be a helper of their joy; an

elder brother; he beheld all those who had received like precious faith collected around him (in spirit,) and out of the rich treasures of his wisdom and experience was ready to communicate to them all spiritual gifts.

The apostle, reflecting upon the sufferings and afflictions to which his brethren were at that time exposed, and desirous to assist them in forming just and becoming views of their situation, begins his epistle with saying, "Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations ;" and surely such an exhortation cannot be useless or unacceptable to ourselves. For when we assemble on the Lord's day in the house of God, there is hardly one among us who cannot speak of "divers temptations." If we look back only on the past week, or some larger portion of our past lives, or cast a glance over the whole, no one can say that he has been exempt from suffering and tribulation; and we must confess, that though life be precious, it is nevertheless labour and toil, (and what can never be separated in our thoughts from labour and toil) pain and anxiety. But in this place, where we join to celebrate our christian day of rest, we wish, by hearing and meditating on the Divine word, to obtain relief from the toil and burden of life, and that not merely for the brief hour during which we are assembled, but we desire to take something home with us that will impart lasting support and strength, invigorate our wearied hands and tired knees, make a straight path for our feet, and enable us to begin