The Pulpit Commentary — James — Section 30

possessors of spiritual blessings, we must possess ourselves of them. If God gives grace freely to free beings such as we are, his giving is conditional upon our asking, and asking in faith. In the nature of things this is reasonable and right. "Let him llBk;" that he may realize more fully his own dependence and need; that he may value more truly the blessings sought; that he may learn God's large, 'free love. Could any , thing be simpler, more natural? Because of the creaturely relationship, a. recipient of the bounty of the Creator; because a. conscious, intelligent, free creature, a. conscious, free recipient, a suppliant. Ask, and have. "In faith." This the active element in the asking, the appropriating power. To truly realize God's power and blessing, we must have II trustful appreciation of God's purposes of love. So for a wise endurance of trial ; so for a wise meeting of temptation. It is better to endure, better to resist; this must be our assurance of faith. Contrast with this the waverer, or doubter; doubting in the sense of hesitating between God and the world, halting between two opinions ; most miserable. A double-minded ma.a, to his own cost; unstable; like the surge of the sea.. He shall receive nothing, for the true spirit of recipiency is altogether vitiated. The man is shutting his soul towards God even while professing to open it. No, "the just shall live by faith;" by a constant aliveness to spiritual realities; by an earnest, trustful appropriating of spiritual blessings. The two great lessons : God is single-minded in giving ; we are to be single-minded in receiving. But how does this bear on the special gift in question here-spiritual wisdom? This is largely an intuitive faculty of the spiritual life, and it is educated. by communion with God's mind and will, which brings our spiritual wisdom into harmony with his own. So the very prayer itself is the instrumentality of the answer to the prayer. And such wisdom, let us remember, is wisdom "unto salvation." A constant choosing between good and evil, which results at last in the total abolition of evil and triumph of good. May we thus prove to the uttermost "what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God" 1-T. F. L. Vers. 9-11.-Thegloryofman11ood in CJhrist. Diversities of condition among men- the millionaire and the pauper, the autocrat and the slave. The cry for a levelling-com- munism, socialism, nihilism. So other differences--of station, of education, and even of natural gifts. But, after all, what are these differences in comparison with that which is common to all-the royal humanity which each one has received from God? For take the highest, the most cultured, the best endowed, and again a poor peasant man or woman, and let some crisis of joy or of sorrow sound the depths of their co=on nature, and how utterly do the surface differences disappear in presence of the deep stirrings of the common manhood or womanhood! Ytis, when the great deeps are broken up, we take little account of the surface waves. This, then, the great truth, in presence of which all bickerings amongst men well might disappear. "Speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me"? Nay; "a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth" (see Luke xii. 13-15). A man's manhood is more than everything. But this is only true in all its truth when manhood becomes really manhood. What are we now? The wreck of a splendid ship; the ruins of a glorious temple; discrowned kings. Oh, let our manhood be re-made, let the crown of true royalty be placed on the brow, let Christ dwell in our hearts by faith, and then how little and ·paltry will seem either the possession or lack of the things which in their folly men call great I This is the exact thought which James urges in the text: "Let the brother of low degree glory in his high estate"-as being a man in Christ ; "and the rich, in that he is made low "-in the stripping off of his adventitious greatness, by the estimate of Christianity, that his true greatness may be realized. We have to consider-the exaltation of the poor, the humiliation of the rich. I. 'l'BE EXALTATION OF THE POOB. To Christianity belongs the unique glory of having recognized the worth of man as man, whether with or without the extraneous advantages on which other systems have laid such stress. How was it in cultivated heathendom? The foreigner was a " barbarian," forsooth ; and the slave? In some cases worse than the brute beasts I Judaism, too, had become exclusive-nay, worse than exclusive, proudly bigoted-in its relation to other people ; and even amongst the Jews themselves there was the same contemptible pride (Matt. ix. 11; Luke xviii. 11; John vii, 49). But it remained for Christianity to show that, however bemired and  24 THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES. [on. r. 1-27.