Obs. 5. Eash and undue judging of others, when we are guilty our- selves, maketh us liable to the greater judgment. The apostle pro- ceedetli upon that supposition. Sharp reprovers had need be exact, otherwise they draw a hard law upon themselves, and in judging others pronounce their own doom ; their sins are sins of knowledge, and the more knowledge the more stripes. Ignorants have this ad- vantage, ut mitius ardeant, they have a cooler hell. Well, then, rest not in talking and prescribing burdens to others ; it is a cheap zeal ; but ' thinkest thou that thou shalt escajie ? ' Rom. ii. 3, and ver. 21, ' Thou which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself ? ' &c. There is little sincerity in that, as well as little self-denial ; and hypocrisy will render us liable to condemnation. Hell is the hypocrite's fee- simple, Mat. xxiv. 51. The phrase of ' receiving the greater judg- ment' is also applied to the Pharisees, Mat. xxiii. 14, because of their hypocrisy. So that those that reprove, whether out of office or charity, had need look to themselves ; their sins are sins against knowledge, and so have more of malice and hypocrisy in them, and therefore draw on the greater judgment. Lewd ministers could not but tremble in their hearts, if they were sensible of their work. God purified Isaiali before he sent liim to reprove Israel, Isa. vi. 7. Your first work should begin at your own hearts, and then you will carry on the duty with more comfort and boldness.
Ver. 2. Fo7' in many things ive offend aU. If any man offend not in word, the same is a 2')erfect man, and able to bridle the whole body.
He goeth on to dissuade from supercilious censures. In this verse he urgeth two arguments. The first is the common frailty incident
1 ' Aut suuiUH, aut f uiniUH, aut possumus esse quod hie est.' " ' Bernard, de Iveaunuci. Dom.
JaS. III. 2. J UPON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 275
to all meu, which may be two ways urged : — (1.) Wilt thou condemn them for that from which no men be exempted ? The excuse of weakness and failings is the unhappy privilege of all mortal men. Or (2.) Will you not show them that tenderness which you need yom-- selves ? You may also fail ; ' we all of us offend in many things.' The next argument, the difficulty of not sinning by the tongue ; he that can do that, can do anything in Christianity.
In mawj things lue offend all. — He saith ive, including himself, though an apostle of great holiness. Eusebius ^ saith, he was for his virtue surnamed Tlte Just. And indeed none is exempted, not the blessed. Virgin, who is taxed in scripture for some slips, Luke ii. 49 ; John ii. 3, 4. For that question, whethei- Grod can, hy the singular assistance of grace, keep any one in the animal and bodily life totally pure from sin, it is altogether curious, and of no use and profit ; Grod's pleasure being declared the other way. And to that other question, whether some very short or transient action of a renewed man, whether civil, moral, or natural, may not be without actual sin, I answer in these propositions : — (1.) That in our deliberate actions, especially those which are moral, there is some mixture of sin. In this sense you may take that, Eccles. vii. 20, ' There is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not.' You may understand, that sinneth not in doing good ; for he doth not say simply. There is not a just man that sinneth not, but a just man that doeth good and, &c. And to this purpose is that saying of Luther, so much upbraided by the Papists, 2 that the best works of the regenerate are sins, if exam- ined by God. And Gregory the Great ^ hath a saying of the same sound and sense, that man's merit is but sin, and his righteousness unrighteousness, if it should be called to a strict account. Yea, the prophet Isaiah before them both, that 'all our righteousness is as filthy rags,' Isa. Ixiv. 6. No work of ours is so pure but there is some taint and filth of sin cleaving to it, which, without a mediator, in the rigour of the law would be damnable. So that though the essence of the work be good and holy, yet because of the fleshly adherences, it cannot any way undergo the strictnessof divine judgment ; man being in part holy, and in part carnal, the effect cannot exceed the force of the cause ; and as there is a mixture in the faculties and principles of operation, so there will be in the actions themselves, especially in actions religious, corrupt nature returning and recoiling with the more force against resolutions of duty. (2.) There may be, I conceive, an action so short that there is no room or scope for corruption to put forth itself; as in a sudden holy glance or thought, we may conceive a motion or lust of the spirit, or renewed nature in itself, and as pre- ceding a lust of the flesh, or the opposition of the old nature, which, though it be not perfectly, yet is purely, holy. Besides, in some actions the force and vigour of corrupt nature may be wholly suspended by the power of God ; as it is in conversion, in which divines say we are