The gospel of common sense as contained in the canonical Epistle of James

Front matter

THE

GOSPEL OF COM MON SENSE

AS CONTAINED IN THE

Preface

Life is practical. Men need plain rules for their daily guidance. Plain rules depend on principles. Principles are abstract, and belong to the domain of philosophy. We owe incalculable debts to the men who work in this department ; but they are cut off from the sympathy of the mass of mankind, who cannot appreciate their labors.

There is, however, something which can be appreciated by us all, namely, the plain teaching of those rules by which daily life is guided. It is a good sign that there is an increase of books on ethics, books which can be understood by even those who are so unlearned as not to know what the word " ethics *' means.

This volume is in that line. The Hebrew and Christian Sacred Scriptures are not only authoritative in religion ; they are rich in ethics. A visible life constructed on the Decalogue, the Book of Proverbs, the Sermon on the Mount and the Epistle of James would fill the loftiest, broadest and most beautiful outline of manhood. The Epistle of James has always been a great favorite with the writer of these pages. He never sympathized with the estimate once placed upon it by Luther, who called it an epistle of straw," because it was not robust with theological discussions like the Pauline writings. This estimate Luther lived vi.

Preface, long enough and grew wise enough to change. That great scholar and teacher, the late Roswell D. Hitchcock, LL.D., with whose friendship I was honored, once said that the application of the Epistle of James in the region of economy is that which alone can save our civilization, and it is reported of the third Earl of Balcarras that he was accustomed to express himself as delighted with the Epistle of James as "the production of a gentleman/*

It seems fitting that the teaching of this admirable Letter should be so expounded as to be adapted to men's surroundings in this day. To that task the author has addressed himself.

While everything has been excluded from his pages which could be suspected of indicating a desire to appear learned, the author feels sure that all real scholars will perceive that he has not written without research. For business-men, workingmen, busy women, young people and simple souls more than for the learned, this volume has been written in the earnest hope that its perusal will quicken the conscience and shape the life of the reader. No Greek in the New Testament seems so beautiful as that of the writer of the Epistle of James ; it has been a pleasure to make a new and careful translation thereof for the author's own use : this he has interwoven with the discussion of the text for the benefit of those who know nothing of Greek.

This is not a volume of sermons. Ordinarily that which is fit to be preached is unfit to be printed. The rhetoric of appeal to the jury is not the style of address to the court. But all the discussions in this

Preface,

Vll.

volume were loosened out and inflamed for the pulpit and delivered in a series of discourses in the Church of the Strangers, in New York, in the spring of 1888. They were listened to by thousands of hearers from different parts of the country, among whom were some Israelites and some Hebrew-Christians, and to the frequent request, by letter or otherwise, from those who heard is chiefly due the determination to publish this volume.

It will be perceived that this book is dedicated to a Jewish Rabbi and a Christian Bishop. Both men have been long known and highly regarded, and each has shown me valued personal kindnesses. Each gave me permission to make the dedication ; but I think it due to both to state that neither knew anything of any views set forth in any portion of the book, and neither is at all responsible for anything it contains : and I think I ought to add, each was too considerate to hedge himself by even requesting the making of this statement. Each knows that I am a Protestant Christian, and believes that, while I fearlessly announce my convictions, I am incapable of wantonly assailing anything loved and revered by any sect of devout Christians or Israelites.

Church of the Strangers, New York.

I

Introductory to the Epistle of James, pp. 13-27. Authorship. — Catholic Epistles, — Epistle of James.- — The Women at the Cross, — Perpetual Virginity. — The Mary and Her Sons.

— The Lord's Brother. —Some Account of James, — Characteristics of James, — Date and Motive of Epistle, — Present Use of Epistle.

II

Introductory Matter of the Epistle, pp. 28-66. Salutation. — A Great Man^s Modesty. — The Greeting.- — Trials of Life: A Wrong Theory, — Special Sources of Trouble. — Joy in Trials. — What is Temptation? — Grounds of Rejoicing. — God^s Providence. — Effect of Trial. — ''Perfect'' and Entire. — The Giving God. — What is Wisdom? — Every True Prayer Answered, — Doubts. — Specific Forms of Trouble. — From Low to High. — From High to Low. — A Higher Thought.

— The Faithless Poor cannot Rejoice, — The Faithless Rich cannot Rejoice. — The Faithful Rich. — Happiness in Trials.

III

Temptation to Visionariness, pp. 67-86. Unworthy Thoughts of God. — Origin of Evil, — Not in God. — In the Individual. — Heredity, — Environment, — The Genesis of Evil, — Drawn Away*' and Enticed.*' — Companions and Amuseinents. — Plan of the Seducer. — A Hortible Picture. — A Great Error.— A Great Truth.-^The Father of Lights,— The Changeless Father.

X.

Contents,

IV

The New Life Versus Fanaticism, pp. 87-109. Regeneration. — Fanaticism. — Swift to Hear arid Sloiv to Speak. — Slow to Wrath. — Preparation of Heart. — Listening to Preaching. The Ingrafted Word. — The Law of Liberty. — A Mistake as to Religion. — Religion in Character, — A Life of Beneficence. — A Life of Purity.

V

The Temptation to Partiality, pp. 110-132. Partiality for the Rich. — Going to Court. — Evil of Partiality. — On the Side of the Poor, — On the Side of the Rich. — A Reply to the Partialis t, — A Great Principle. — A Necessary Principle. — A Guarded Expression. — Choose Mercy.

VI. Faith and Works, pp. 133-150

Justification. — Paul and James.— Theology and Ethics. — The Practical Test. — Facts f Experience. — The Case o f A braham . — The Philotheans. — The Case of Rahab. — Frederick W. Robertson* s Illustration.— -Archbishop Whatel/s Illustration.

VII

Temptations of the Tongue, pp. 151-187. Fanaticism and the Tongue. — The Tongue in Public, — The Tongue in Private. — The Great Responsibility,— Danger of the Tongue. — The Mental Tubercle. — A Perfect Man. — Tongue and Pen, — A Publisher* s Responsibility. — Satan* s Tongue — One Untamable Thing, — Religious Uses of the Tongue. — Source of the Evil. — * ' Wisdom " and * 'Knowledge** •^Two Wisdoms. — Wisdom from Above, — Characteristics, — A Cheering Promise.

Contents,

XI.

VIII

Demoniacal Wisdom, pp. 188-198. Fruits Thereof, — False Christs, — Evils of War. — Whence come Wars, — The Fruitlessness f Sin . — Prayer,

IX

WORLDLY-MINDEDNESS, pp. I99-233.

Reproaches, — The Religious Covenant a Marriage, — 7' he Love of God and Worldly-mindedness. — Lover of the World — Holy Scripture against Worldly-mindedness, — The Holy Spit it against Worldly-mindedness. — God is against Pride. — True Conversion. — Submission to God. — No Morality Possible to A theism. — Who is a Moral Man ? — What is a Devil? — Why Men do not Submit to God. — Drawing Nigh to God. — Case of Abraham. — Case of Moses. — Case of Isaiah. — Cleansed Hands. — Evil Speaking. — Contradiction. — Evil Hearing. — The Mosaic Law. — One Lawgiver. — The Restless Spirit. — Self-confidence, — ''Deo Volente.''

X

The Sinfulness of Uselessness, pp. 234-254. A Principle of Varied Applicatiotz. — Sins of O^nission'* and Commission,'" —Process of Descent. — Process of Ascent, — The Acted Parable. — The Destructive Napkin. — Sin in Purple. — The Last Judgment, — The Nearest First. — The Implication of Altruism. — Knowledge Aggravates Sin. — The Money Illustration. — Four Ways Open,

XI. Impending Judgment, pp. 255-270

xii.

Contents,

XII. The Final Theme, pp. 271-322

Patience, — Time a Factor. — The Sin of Grumbling, — Example of the Prophets, — Illustrious Gentile Sufferer, — Against Oaths, — Vows in Trouble, — Temperance Pledges, — Conjuration, — Profanity. — Its Utter Uselessness, — -Judicial Oaths. — Prayer Cure. — The Early Congregational Order. — Charismata. — Sickness and Sin, — Visiting the Sick, — Confession, — The Last Sentence, — Truth. — Error. — Creed. — A Grand Possibility, — Covering Sin, — True Liberty, — Immortal Fame,

THE GOSPEL OF COMMON SENSE.

I.

Introductory to the Epistle of James.

THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES.

IN the arrangement of the earliest collection of Christian literature, the Evangely has the precedence. Then follows The Acts of the Apostles/* containing the beginnings of the history of Christianity. That wonderful series of letters, written by the Apostle Paul to several of the earliest churches, contained such a body of philosophical, ethical, and rehgious teaching as naturally to form a most important section in itself. Then there existed the writings of other Apostles, having equal authority with the writings of Paul, namely, the Epistle of James, the two Epistles of Peter, the three Epistles of John, and the Epistle of Jude. To these seven was given the title/^ The Cathohc Epistles."

They were so called probably because they were not addressed to particular churches, but to the Church at large. Even the second and third of

John, although they have a personal address, are so constructed as to be edifying to the whole body of Christians everywhere.

THE EPISTLE OF JAMES.

The authorship of the first of the CathoHc Epistles probably all students have found, with Neander, to be the most difificult question in Apostolic history. The difficulty possibly arises from the commonness of the name James, or Jacobus, among the Jews at the time of Jesus, and the slightness of the specific notice of some who bear the name. Let us see if we can make it out.

When our Lord was crucified there were four women who were witnesses of the awful scene, Mary, the mother of Jesus, and her sister Salome, who was wife of Zebedee ; Mary, the wife of Clopas, sometimes called Alphaeus, and Mary Magdalene. The last was unmarried; the third was probably the sister of Joseph, and so sister-in-law of the mother of Jesus, or Joseph's brother may have been Clopas. The second was the Mother- Mary's own sister. Each of the married women seems to have had a son named James. Salome Zebedee was the mother of James, the brother of John ; Mary Clopas was the mother of James the Less ; and our Lord's mother had among the sons and daughters born to her after Jesus a son named James.

Let us read over the record to make this clear to us. John 19: 25, reads There were standing

TJie Gospel of Common Sense. 15 by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary [the wife] of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene." In Matthew 27 : 56, three women are mentioned, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James [the Less] and of Joses, andxki^ mother of Zebedee*s children/' In Mark 15 : 40, the record is in this order: Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, and Salome." Luke gives no catalogue.

RELATIONS OF THE WOMEN AT THE CROSS.

Several interesting things are to be seen in these passages. They settle the fact that there were four distinguished women at the cross. They show that our Lord's mother's sister, His aunt, named Salome, had married Zebedee and become the mother of James and John, so that John was first cousin to Jesus, not on the side of His putative father, Joseph, but on the side of His real mother, Mary. It is to be remarked that in Matthew and Mark the name of Mary of Magdala heads the list. She seems to have been the dearest person on earth to Jesus. Perhaps John was next. A very lovable men was he. Like all very lovable men he had his little human weaknesses. With all his excellent qualities, the record represents him as irascible, vain and ambitious. Was he also a little jealous } He puts Mary Magdalene last, while the others put her first. He places his mother next to the mother of the Lord as he would have placed himself and his brother, the one on the right and the other on the left of the Lord, when He should come in His glory (Matt. 20 : 21). Moreover, the indirectness of his manner in speaking of himself as the disciple, whom Jesus loved " (John 13 : 23), comes out in his designation of his own mother as Jesus's mother's sister.

Now, two of these women had each a son called James, namely Salome Zebedee and Mary Clopas. Was either of these the author of the epistle ? It certainly was not James Zebedee, who was beheaded A.D. 44 or, as some suppose, A.D. 41. He was the first of the Apostles who gained martyrdom (Acts 12 : 2). James the Less is mentioned as an Apostle by each of the Evangelists and in the Acts of the Apostles. But there is still a third James mentioned. In the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul records a visit which he made to Peter at Jerusalem. This occurred when, Paul had been converted at least three years. He says (i : 19) : But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother." The Lord's brother," who is he } Between him and the little James does not the authorship of the epistle rest }

PERPETUAL VIRGINITY.

For centuries the run of comment on the family relations of Jesus was in favor of considering James the Less, the son of Alphaeus (who was supposed to be the same as Clopas), as one of those called the '^brothers" of the Lord. Great ingenuity has been expended on this theory, but nothing could sustain it a moment in the presence of common sense if there had not been some hypothesis to be sustained. That hypothesis was the perpetual virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus, To the assumption of that as a fact was to be reconciled the existence of such facts and passages as the following :

THE MARY AND HER SONS.

Mary and her ''sons" are associated in frequent mention. While He yet talked to the people, behold His mother and His brethren stood without " (Matt. 12: 46). This phraseology shows that the relation of these parties to Jesus must have been generally known. In the next verse it is recorded, Then one said to Him : * Thy mother and Thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak to Thee.'" In Mark 3:31, a similar phrase" is used: "There came then His brethren and His mother," and in Luke 8 : 19, the very same phrase. At the beginning of His public ministry (John 2 : 12) He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother, and His brethren, and His disciples." All this represents a family, a family keeping close together. What have the boys of Clopas and his wife Mary to do with this family }

We find that James, the son of Clopas, believed in Jesus, and was actually one of the Apostles at a time when the brothers of Jesus did not believe

1 8 The Gospel of Conunon Sense, on Him (John 7 : 5), among whom must have been His brother jAMES. The same man could not be at once an apostle and an infidel.

In the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles there is a simple and touching description of the state of affairs after the ascension of Jesus into heaven. From the Mount of Olives the Apostles returned to Jerusalem and established a sort of Christian community. The list of the eleven Apostles is given in detail, and amongst them is the name of ''James, the son of Alphaeus," or Clopas. Then it is added, These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren^ Plainly James, the son of Alphaeus, was not of His brethren."

THE lord's brother.

Returning to the passage in Galatians (i : 19), we must recollect that Paul knew the names of the Apostles and their relations to one another. He went to Jerusalem to pay a visit to Peter, to become acquainted with Peter" are his words. He must have known that James, the son of Alphaeus,'* or Clopas, was an Apostle. But he says that he saw ''not one other Apostle" ; then he did not see James the Less ; but he says that he did see another distinguished Christian whom he calls "James, the Lords brother."

In face of this record resort must be had to the very contradictory theory that somehow or other

Tlie Gospel of Common Sense. ig the James of Alphaeus was so a member of the family of Mary as to be called her ''son " and the ''brother" of Jesus. If in the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul had written " Thomas," or " Bartholomew," or " Philip," or any other name, the same ingenuity would have been expended and with the same result. The fooHsh doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary was to be maintained. It was founded on the beHef that in man celibacy is a virtue, and that in woman virginity is a state of sanctity, and is superior to motherhood. This bad doctrine has done much to pervert the ideals and corrupt the morals of Christendom. The opposite must be taught. Men and women must learn that celibacy when it is of a man's choice, or a woman's, is a crime against God, against nature and society, and that the manor woman who passes through life without achieving parentage has been living in sin, unless it can be shown that there is physical disability or other plainly marked providential hindrance. This pernicious doctrine brought weakness to Christianity in the earlier centuries, did much to fill the middle ages with a large and bad crowd of unmarried women and men, and is in the latter part of the nineteenth century doing a vast harm in circles of married as well as of unmarried people. Every pastor in a great city who has the intimate confidence of the people must have learned that much ruin has come to the bodily, mental and spiritual health of both men and women by habits produced by the belief that motherhood was a thing to be avoided or, at least, that virginity was preferable to motherhood. The very moment Mary began in any sense to be the mother of Jesus, she ceased to be a virgin. It was no one other than the Holy Ghost which supplanted her virginity with motherhood: and once a mother, she would naturally, as a good young woman, if she lived decently with her husband, become a mother again.

The most natural is the easiest theory in this case. It requires no ingenious twisting of the record and no strained explanation of any passage in the Holy Scripture, Mary had at least seven children, JesuSy the miraculously begotten who is called her ''first-hovn son " (Luke 2 : 7), four other sons, one of whom was named James, and at least two daughters, all the children of Joseph by Mary, and begotten in lawful wedlock. This is the natural reading of Matt. 13 155, 56. It had been a hard providence to make Joseph perpetually childless in return for his devoutly beautiful behavior under the trying circumstances of Mary s condition during their espousal.

The name of James is given as that of the author of this epistle. It is most reasonable to believe that it must have been one of the three Jameses intimately associated with the career of our Lord. It has been shown that it could

TJic Gospel of Common Sense, 21 have been neither John Zebedee's brother James nor James Clopas, called James the Less. As Mary, the mother of Jesus, had four sons, the eldest of whom was named James and called the brother of the Lord," all historical and moral probabilities point to him as the author of the epistle.

SOME ACCOUNT OF JAMES.

James, the brother of the Lord" (Gal. i : 19), became a convert to Christianity after the resurrection of our Lord. He was held in high repute by the Jews and by the Apostles. According to Eusebius (Eccles. Hist. 2 : i), he was the first pastor (overseer or bishop) of the Church at Jerusalem, and was surnamed The Jitst on account of his eminent virtues. The Apostles all looked up to him. When Peter was brought out of the prison to the house of Rhoda (Acts 12) he sent a special announcement thereof to James. In the council held at Jerusalem, probably A.D. 53, to settle the controversy between Paul and Barnabas on the one side, and certain Judaizing teachers who insisted that the Gentile converts should be circumcised, after all had spoken it was James who gave the decision.

The importance of this council and of the influence of James will justify giving space to the following extract from Milman's History of Christianity" (L, 403):

The barrier was now thrown down, but Ju-

TJie Gospel of Common Sense, daism rallied, as it were, for a last effort behind its ruins. It was now manifest that Christianity would no longer endure the rigid nationalism of the Jew, who demanded that every proselyte to his faith should be enrolled as a member of his race. Circumcision could no longer be maintained as the seal of conversion, but still the total abrogation of the Mosaic law, the extinction of all their privileges of descent, the substitution of a purely religious for a national community, to the Christianized Jew, appeared, as it were, a kind of treason against the religious majesty of their ancestors. A conference became necessary between the leaders of the Christian community to avert an inevitable collision which might be fatal to the progress of the religion. Already the peace of the flourishing community at Antioch had been disturbed by some of the more zealous converts from Jerusalem, who still asserted the indispensable necessity of circumcision. Paul and Barnabas proceeded as delegates from the community at Antioch ; and what is called the Council of Jerusalem, a full assembly of all the Apostles then present in the metropolis, solemnly debated this great question. How far the earlier Apostles were themselves emancipated from the inveterate Judaism does not distinctly appear ; but the situation of affairs required the most nicely balanced judgment united with the utmost moderation of temper. On one side, a Pharisaic party had brought into Christianity a rigorous and passionate attachment to the Mosaic institutes in their strictest and most minute provisions. On the other hand, beyond the borders of Palestine, far the greater number of converts had been formed from that intermediate class which stood between Heathenism and Judaism. There might seem, then, no alternative but to estrange one party by the abrogation of the Law, or the other by the strict enforcement of all its provisions. Each party might appeal to the divine sanction. To the eternal, the irrepealable sanctity of the Law, the God of their fathers, according to Jewish opinion, was solemnly pledged ; while the vision of Peter, which authorized the admission of the Gentiles into Christianity, still more the success of Paul and Barnabas in proselyting the heathen, accompanied by undeniable manifestations of divine favor, seemed irresistible evidence of the divine sanction to the abrogation of the Law, as far as concerned the Gentile proselytes. The influence of James effected a discreet and temperate compromise : Judaism, as it were, capitulated on honorable terms."

CHARACTERISTICS OF JAMES.

This remarkable deliverance reveals two of the striking characteristics of James, namely, his strong adherence to the old form of the faith in Judaism, and his rare common sense, by which he saved the new form of the faith from unnecessary collision with Judaism. A decision which pleased the Apostles " (even Paul and Peter as well as the others), '^and elders with the whole Church,'^ must have been founded on a common sense of a very high order. It was a blessed thing for the first church in Jerusalem and for early Christianity among the Gentiles and for our Holy Faith ever since, that the first pastor in Jerusalem was not Paul, nor Peter, nor John, but the wiser, more prudent, more discreet JAMES, the brother of the Lord. These two characteristics of an ardent Jewish sentiment and surpassing common sense appear in his epistle, which is the first in order of the Catholic Epistles, and is addressed to the twelve tribes scattered abroad.'* That it was addressed to those Christians who had been Jews rather than Gentile Christians shows where his heart lay. The pastor of the church in Jerusalem could not lose sight of the sheep of his flock even when they were scattered through Judea and Samaria (Acts 8 : i) and perhaps still further abroad. They were endeared to him by the national relationship, and bound to him by the bond of the Faith, the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory " (2 : i); and he was a servant of God, even of the Lord Jesus Christ*' (i : i), and was sustained by the hope of the coming of the Lord" (5*7), with which he sought to fortify his suffering brethren who had fled before the storm of persecution then raging in the Holy City.

TJie Gospel of Common Sense. 25

The pastoral office in his day was not so much one of authority as of influence. If it had been the former, Paul or Peter would have filled it. It appears to have been reached by personal influence, of which James seems to have had much more than any of the other brethren, and on that account was more influential and more useful, being more free from dogma and more pervaded with the spirit of persuasiveness.

THE DATE AND MOTIVE OF THE EPISTLE.

The date of the writing of the epistle is uncertain and unimportant for our purposes. From the allusion to the fact that his readers bore the name of Christians " (2 : 7), the letter was probably written after that name was given in Antioch to the followers of our Lord (Acts 11 : 26). But it must have been ;ome years after that event, and indeed even after the Council at Jerusalem, A.D. 53 (Acts 15), as the presupposition of a wide knowledge of Christian doctrines and terms indicates.

It was evidently not the intention of JAMES to address to his Hebrew-Christian brethren a letter on Christian doctrine. He was not discussing the nature of saving faith, but he was discussing and denouncing an unsaving faith, a reliance of many of his brethren on the fact that they were the children of Abraham, which made them feel that that was sufficient for salvation without those good works which are always the product of sav-

The Gospel of Cormnon Sense.

ing faith. It seems absurd to suppose that James wrote to counteract the teaching of Paul. A critical examination of James's epistle does not reveal a single fact which suggests that the writer had in his mind any thought of anything that had proceeded from the pen of Paul. Indeed, there is no evidence that he had seen any of Paul's epistles, and very probably wrote his own before Paul's Epistle to the Romans was written (which was not until A. D. 60), certainly before it had gained any circulation among the early Christian churches, in which epistle Paul elaborately sets forth his doctrine of justification by faith. Indeed it would seem to be the object of James to bring his readers to such a living faith as is set forth by his brother Paul, "2. faith that worketh by love " (Gal. 5 : 6). ~ The epistle is plainly meant to inculcate morals. The writer does not seek to reach this end by setting forth a systematic ethical treatise, but rather by warning his readers against such sins and errors as they would naturally fall into because of their early Jewish and late Christian circumstances, and to exhort them to such a course of holy living as would justify them to themselves in showing that they really had such faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as made them fruitful as well as unblamable. It was an effort to lift them off their sandy position and place them on a foundation of rock. Indeed in this epistle one is constantly reminded of the Ser-

The Gospel of Coniuion Sense.

mon on the Mount, and the Apostle seems to have been a very close student of that wonderful discussion on Character delivered by his brother Jesus. These two sons of Mary were much alike in some mental characteristics, and the so-called Sermon on the Mount delivered to Jews and the Epistle of James delivered to Christians will ever remain the most valuable text-books on morals in possession of the world.

THE PRESENT USE OF THE EPISTLE.