JaS. I. 3.] UPON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 27
ness of teeth, pestilence, and war; all these judgments one after another. So Christ threatens Jerusalem with ' wars and rumours of wars ; ' and addeth : ' There shall be famine, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places,' Mat. xxiv. 7. Oh ! then, ' Stand in awe, and sin not,' Ps. iv. When the first brunt is over, you cannot say, ' the bitterness of death is past ; ' other judgments will have their course and turn. And learn, too, from hence, that God hath several methods of trial — confiscation, banishment, poverty, infamy, reproach ; some trials search us more than others. We must leave it to his wisdom to make choice. Will-sufiering is as bad as will- worship.
Obs. 6. From that word temptations, observe, that the afflictions of God's people are but trials. He calleth them not afflictions or perse- cutions, but ' temptations,' from the end for which God sendeth them. The same word is elsewhere used : 2 Peter ii. 9, ' God knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation.' Now affliction is called temptation, not in the vulgar sense, as temptation is put for an occa- sion or inducement to sin, but in its proper and native signification, as it is taken for trial and experience ; and so we have it positively asserted that this is the end of God : Deut. viii. 16, ' He fed thee with manna in the wilderness, to humble thee and prove thee, and do thee good at the latter end.' The afflictions of the saints are not judg- ments, but corrections or trials — God's discipline to mortify sin, or his means to discover grace ; to prove our faith, love, patience, sincerity, constancy, &c. Well, then, behave thyself as one under trial. Let nothing be discovered in thee but what is good and gracious. Men will do their best at their trial ; oh ! watch over yourselves with the more care that no impatience, vanity, murmuring, or worldliness of spirit may appear in you.
Ver. 3. Knowing this, tliat the trial of your faith loorheth pa- tience.
Here is the first argument to press them to joy in afflictions, taken partly from the nature, partly from the effect of them. The nature of them — they are a ' trial of faith ; ' the eftect or fruit of them — they beget or 'work patience.' Let us a little examine the words.
Knowing. — It either implieth that they ought to know, as Paul saith elsewhere : 1 Thes. iv. 13, ' I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep in the Lord,' &c. So some suppose James speaketh as exhorting : Knowing, that is, I would have you know ; or else it is a report ; Jmoiving, that is, ye do know, being taught by the Spirit and experience ; or rather, lastly, it is a direction, in wdiich the apostle acquainteth them with the way how the Spirit settleth a joy in the hearts of persecuted Christians, by a lively knoAv- ledge, or spiritual discourse, by acting their thoughts upon the nature and quality of their troubles ; and so knowing is distinctly con- sidering.
That the trial of your faith. — Here is a new word used for afflic- tions ; before it was ireipaaiioh, temptations, which is more general. Here it is hoKiixiov, trial, which noteth such a trial as tendeth to approbation. But here ariseth a doubt, because of the seeming con- tradiction between Paul and James. Paul saith, Eom. v. 4, that
28 AK EXrOSlTlON, WITH NOTES, [JaS. I. 3.
})atience ■woiketh BoKt/ntji', trial or cxiierieuce ; and James secmelh to invert the ortler, saying, that hoKifiiou, ' trial or cx})eriencc worketh patience.' But I answer — (1.) There is a dilierence between the Words: there it is hoKi^ij; here, SoKifxiov ; and so fitly rendered there experience — here, triul. (J.) There Paul speaketh of the ellect of suf- fering, exfjcrience of God's helj), and the comforts of his Spirit, which work ]Kitience ; here, of the suflering itself, which, from its use and ordination to believers, he calleth trial, because by it our faith and other graces are approved and tried.
0/ your faith ; that is, either of your constancy in the ])rofession of the faith, or else of faith the grace, which is the chief thing exercised and approved in affliction.
Workelh patience. — The original word is Karepyd^eTat, perfectetli })atience. But this is a new paradox — how affliction or trial, which is the cause of all nnn-mui-ing or imjiatience, should work patience !
I answer — (1.) ISome expound the pro])osition of a natural patience, which, indeed, is caused by the mere affliction ; when we are used to them, they are the less grievous. Passions being blunted by conti- nual exercise, grief becometh a delight. But I suppose this is not in the aim of the apostle ; this is a stupidity, not a patience. (2.) Then, I su])pose the meaning is, that our trials minister matter and occa- sion for jiatience. (3.) God's blessing must not be excluded. The work of the efficient is often given to the material cause, and trial is said to do that which God doth. By trial he sanctifieth afflictions to us, and then they aie a means to beget patience. (4.) We must not forget the distinction between punishment and trial. The fruit of punishment is despair and murmuiing, but of trial, patience and sweet submis- sion. To the wicked every condition is a snare. They are corrupted by prosperity, and dejected by adversity ; ^ but to the godly every estate is a blessing. Their prosjierity woiketh thanksgiving, their adveisity ])atience. Pharaoh and Jorani grew the more mad for their afHictions, but the people of God the more patient. The same fii'C that purgeth the corn bruiseth the stalk or reed, and in that fire in which the chaff is burnt gold sparkleth.2 So true is that of the psalmist : Ps. xi. 5, 'The Lord tricth the righteous; but the wicked, and him that loveth violence, his soul hateth.' Well, then, the sum of all is, that afflictions serve to examine and prove our faith, and, by the blessing of God, to bring forth the fruit of patience, as the quiet fruit of right- eousness is ascribed to the rod, lleb. xii. 11, wliich is indeed the proper work of the Spirit. He saith, ' The chastening yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby ; ' as our apo;-tle saith, ' The trial worketh patience.'