9. II^oo’w'roXTjcrrfi/rg, ye have respect to persons) The respecting of persons does not love all alike. — d^apriav epyafetfe, ye commit sin) Your whole proceeding is sin. For , in ver. 10, has reference to this. — e’kzyyjijjivoi, convinced , convicted) on account of your having respect to persons, and thus incurring conviction.
10. TLraiaeij shall offend) especially in some important matter. TLrufciv is used of an offence of daily occurrence, ch. iii. 2.
11. ‘o yap g/Vwv, for He who said) It is one and the same Being who gave the whole law ; and they who violate His will in one point, violate it altogether.
12. O'jrug ’kaXsTrtj so speak ye) Be such in speech. In this sum- ming up, he refers to ch. i. 26. — did vopov IXzvQe piagy by the law of liberty) See note at ch. i. 25. The law abhors slavery, and therefore also the having respect to persons.
13. 'H ydp xpiffig, for the judgment) That judgment of God respect-
ing us, which no one shall escape, will be such towards every one, as every one shall have been : without mercy to him who hath showed no mercy . — sXsog, mercy) This is synonymous with love , ver. 8; one common misery being presupposed. — zaraxavyarai, rejoiceth against) An important wrord, and a memorable sentence. Judgment itself willingly bears this rejoicing . The apostles frequently omit the
connecting particles. A proof of this is the great variety of particles which the copyists supply ; as in this passage, some prefix x«/, while others append ds. The shorter reading, which stands midway be- tween the two as their common starting point, is the genuine one. See App. Crit., Editio II., on this passage.1 — eXsog, mercy) Divine mercy, answering to that on the part of man.
14. T /, what) From ch. i. 22, the apostle has been using exhorta- tion to practice : now he meets the case of those who seek to avoid practice, by sheltering themselves under the pretence of faith. More- over, St Paul taught to this effect : — Righteousness and salvation are of faith , and not of ivorks. But even then pretended Chris- tians had abused this doctrine, as the perversity of man is accustomed to abuse every thing, and had employed the words of St Paul in a sense opposite to that intended by St Paul. Wherefore James (repeating in this place [ver. 23, 2J, 25] the same phrases, testi- monies, and examples, which St Paul used, Kom. iv. 3 ; Heb. xi.
1 A, Vulg. and later Syr. read Ss. Rec. Text, without any very old authority, prefixes kcci. C omits both ; and so Lachm. and Tisch. B reads either xctTct- xocv^drs, or xotTux.ctvx,ci ts, according as the Uncial letters, which flow on with- out divisions, are divided. — E.