1 ' Plus viatioi qurcritur, quo minus restat viae.' — -Seneca.
- ' Tunc magis ira.scitur Deus cum non irascitur ; non euim cum nescio sed cum sentio te iratum, tunc maxime confido propitium.' — Bernard. Serm. 42 in Cant.
408 AN EXPOSITION, WITH NOTES, [JaS. V. 4.
(lays to the Jcwisli commonwealth were even ready to overtake them. All that treasnre which, with such wronjj^ to others, hazard of their own contentment, and violation of their consciences, they had lieaped x\\) toi^ethcr, was but heaped up for the spoiler and the violence of the last days. From whence we may observe : —
O/av. That usually men are most secure and carnal before their own judgment and ruin. What wretched men were here fallen upon the lot of the last days ! Visually thus it is, men are most full of carnal projects when God is about to break down and ])luck up : Jer. xlv. 5, ' Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek tliem not; for I will bring evil upon all Hesh, saith the Lord.' Foolish men are like a company oi ants, storing their nests when their hill or burrow is like to be turned up ; and there is never more general security than when judgments are at hand. A little before the flood, ' they ate, they drank, they married wives, and were given in marriage, and then the flood came, and destroyed thcTu all,' Luke xvii. 27. And the same is observed of Sodom : ' Tiiey bought, they sold, they builded, they planted/ &c., ver. 28. When men generally apply themselves to worldly business, it is a sad prognostic ; they do but bring forth for the murderer, and heap up for the plunderer : 1 Thes. V. 3, ' When they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruc- tion cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape.' When security runneth riot, and is like to dege- nerate into utter contempt of God, men are not likely to profit by the word, therefoie God taketh the rod in hand, that, by the severity of discipline, he may teach men that which they would not learn by kinder and milder persuasions. Plethoric bodies must have their veins opened. And when a people are grown to such a wanton fulness, God will send ' the emptiers to empty them,' Nahum ii. 2.
Ver. 4. Behold, ilie hire of your labourers which have reaped doiun l/onr Jields, which is of you kept hack by fraud, crieth : and the cries of them which have reajjed are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.
Here is another argument of conviction produced, viz., tlie oppression of their servants and labourers, in defrauding tliem of their reward ; a sin 80 injurious, and of such a heinous quality, that it crieth to God for veDgeance. The phrases will be opened in the points. Ob- serve—
Obs. 1. From the context, that there is no sin so heinous and base but covetousness may be a mother or a nurse to it. What more sordid than for a rich man to detain the labourer's wages ? It was base to hoard up their own treasures till corrupted with moth or rust; but a I)ractice most accursed, after they had sucked out the strength and sweat of the labourer, to deprive him of his reward. Yet usually thus it is, men that do not part with their own light will not make con- science of invading another's.! First men are sparing, and then injurious. Detest this sin with the more aversion, you know not how far it will carry you; the apostle saith, it is ' the root of all evil,' 1 Tim. vi. 10.
Obs. 2. Fiom that cr/e/A.— Some sins are crying, and do more
' 'Qui j)roi)iia non tribuunt, aliena detinent.'
Jas. V. 4.] UPON THE EPISTLE OK JAM i:s, 40f)
especially require vengeance at the hands of God. This crying is applied to blood, Gen. iv. 10, ' Thy brother's blood crieth ; ' not his soul, but his blood. So to the wickedness of Sodom, Gen. xviii. 20, ' The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, because their siu is grievous.' So to oppression of God's servants ; they are dear to him : Exod. ii. 24, and iii. 9, ' God heard their groaning,' and ' the cry of the children of Israel is come up unto me.' So to oppression of the widows and fatherless : Exod. xxii. 23, ' If thou afflict the widow and the fatherless, and tliey cry unto me, I will surely hear their cry.' So ver. 27, to taking the neighbour's necessary garment to pledge, ' I will hear his cry, for I am gracious.' In short, all sins that disturb human society, that are committed with impudence and public liberty, that are of so heinous nature that God in honour is bound as it were to mark them out with some severe stroke of vengeance, that are neglected by men because of the power and greatness of those that commit them, or else done in secret, and so past human cognisance, as Cain's murdering of Abel ; so all sins which are past the help of the oppressed, all such sins are said to cry ; not that God wanteth evidence, or that his justice needeth excitation, but because some of these sins do even dare vengeance, and provoke divine justice to take notice of them ; and in other of these sins God is appealed to by the oppressed as witness and avenger, human justice wanting will, or power, or fit means of conviction to proceed against them. Besides, this crying in some cases showeth the unwillingness of God to punish, till he be solicited and urged thereunto by the importunity and provocation of our own sins.^