The Jewish vices against which he warns them are — formalism, which made the service (^9i»](TKtia) of God consist in washings and outward ceremonies, whereas he reminds them (i, 27) that it consists rather in active love and purity (see Coleridge's .1 ids to Bffh'cHon, Aph. 23 ; note also active love = Bp. Butler's " benevolence," and purity = Bp. Butler's " temperance") ; fanaticism, which, under the cloak of religious zeal, was tearing Je- rusalem to pieces (i, 20) ; fatalism, which threw its sins on God (i, 13) ; meanness, which crouched before the rich (ii, 2) ; falsehood, which had made ^vords and oaths playthings (iii, 2-12) ; partisanship (iii, H) ; evil speak- ing (iv, 11); boasting (iv, 16) ; oppression (v, 4). The great lesson which he teaches them, as Christians, is patience — patience in trial (i, 2) ; patience in good works (i, 22-25) ; patience under provocations (iii, 17) ; pa- tience under oppression (v, 7) ; patience under persecu- tion (v, 10) ; and the ground of their patience is, that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh, which is to right all wrongs (v, 8j,
YI. There are two points in the epistle which de- mand a somewhat more lengthened notice. These are, (a) ii, 14-2(), v.'hich has been represented as a formal opposition to Paul's doctrine of justification by faitli; and (b) v, 14, 15, which is quoted as the authority for the sacrament of extreme unction.
{(i) Justification being an act, not of man, but of God, both the phrases "justification by faith" and "justifi- cation by works" are inexact. Justification must either be by grace or of reward. Therefore our question is, Did or did not James hold justification by grace? If he did, there is no contradiction between the apostles. Now there is not one word in James to the effect that a man can ecuii his justification by works ; and this would be necessary in order to prove that he held justification of reward. Still Paul does use the expression "justi- fied by faith" (Kom. v, 1), and James the expression "justified by works, not by faith only." Here is an apparent opposition. But, if we consider the meaning of the two apostles, we see at once that there is no con- tradiction either intended or possible. Paul was oppos- ing the Judaizing party, which claimed to earn accept- ance by good works, whether the works of the Mosaic law, or works of piety done by themselves. In opposi- tion to these, Paul lays down the great truth that ac- ceptance cannot be earned by man at all, but is the free gift of God to the Christian man, for the sake of the merits of Jesus Christ, appropriated by each individual, and made his own by the instrumentality of faith. James, on the other hand, was opposing the old .Jewish tenet that to be a child of Abraham was all in all ; that godliness was not necessarj', if but the belief was cor- rect. This presumptuous confidence had transferred it- self, with perhaps double force, to the Christianized Jews. They had said, "Lord, Lord," and that was enough, without doing his Father's will. They had rec- ognised the iMessiah : what more was wanted ? They had faith : what more was required of them ? It is plain that their "faith" was a totally different thing from the "faith" of Paul. Paul tells us again and again that his " faitVi" is a " faith that worketh by love ;" but the very characteristic of the " faith" which James is attacking, and the verj- reason why he attacked it, was that it did not work by love, but was a bare assent of the head, not influencing the heart; a faith such as devils can have, and tremble. James tells us that "Jides informis" is not sufficient on the part of man for justification ; Paul tells us that '■'■jidesformata^ is suffi- cient : and the reason \\\\yjides informis will not justify us is, according to James, because it lacks that special quality, the addition of which constitutes its fdesfo?-- matci. , See, on this subject, BuU's Ilarmonia Apostolica et Kxamen Censurce ; Ta3dor's Sermon on "Faith tcork- ini) hy Love," viii, 284 (Lond. 1850) ; and, as a corrective of Bull's view, Laurence's Bampton Lectures, iv, v, vi. Other discussions may be found in Knapp, Scripta, p. 511: Keuss, Theologie, ii, 524; Hofmann, Schriftbeiceis, I, 039 ; Wardlaw's Sermons ; Wood's Theology, ii. 408 ; Watson's Institutes, \\, G14; Lechler, i)«s Aposlol. und nachapostolische Zdt alter, p. 163. For monographs, see Walch, Biblische Theoloyie, iv, 941 ; Danz, Worterbuch, s. v. Jacobus. See JusTiKiCATiox; Faith.
(6) With respect to v, 14, 15, it is enough to say that the ceremony of extreme unction and the ceremony de- scribed by James differ both in the ir subject and in their object. The subject of extreme unction is a sick man who is about to die, and its object is not his cure. The subject of the ceremony described by James is a sick man -who is not about to die, and its object is his cure, together with the spiritual benefit of absolution. James is plainly giving directions with respect to the manner of administering one of those extraordinary gifts of the Spirit with which the Church was endowed only in the apostolic age and the age immediately succeeding the apostles.