CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
James 4:13. Such a city.—“This city”; the one the speaker is supposed to have in mind.
James 4:14. What shall be.—“What your life shall be on the morrow.” Vanisheth away.—Alford, “vanisheth as it appeared.”
James 4:15. Ought to say.—Lit. “instead of saying.”
James 4:16. Boastings.—Same word as translated “pride of life” in 1 John 2:16. The undue self-confidence of the ungodly. “Ye glory in your braggings.” Aristotle defines the term as indicating the character of the man who lays claim to what will bring him credit, when the claim is altogether false or grossly exaggerated.
James 4:17. Doeth it not.—“Inconsistency is of the very essence of sin.” “Supposing him not to do it.” Illustrate by Pollok’s figure of the sentence ever in the vision of lost souls—“Ye knew your duty, and ye did it not.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— James 4:13-17
Self-confidence in Our Life-plans.—St. James has still in mind the same wrong mood of self-reliance and self-assertion. It is altogether unbecoming to those who have professed to make full surrender of their hearts and wills and lives to Christ. Its evil influence is seen in the relations and associations of Christians. This St. James has already shown. Now he shows that it will make the Christian professor look wrongly at his own life, take it out of the hand of God, and try to manage it himself. It leads him to say what he will do, and what he will not do, without any acts of loving dependence upon God—without any thought that his “times are altogether in God’s hands,” and that he has no “to-morrow” until God gives it to him, and then he must call it “to-day.” St. James’s teaching recalls to mind our Lord’s parable of the rich fool, who made his plans for many a year, and died the very night after he had made his resolves (Luke 12:16).
I. Human life is in a sense in human control.—“The earth hath He given to the sons of men.” Every man has a right to anticipate that he will live through to old age; and every man ought to look upon the life given to him as the scene on which he is to put his impress, and in which he is to show his energy, ministering to his generation. Every man ought to have
(1) a consciousness of power;
(2) a noble aim;
(3) a well-formed plan; and
(4) a persistent energy in carrying through his plan. Life is, to every man, very much what he chooses to make of it. It is true that he is surrounded by forces that are wholly beyond his control, and that keep him in limitations; but it is also true that he is entrusted with forces, which he is able to control and use in order to carry through plans and purposes which he may form. To each individual whom God sets forth in His world, He repeats the command given to the first man whom He made.—“Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” It does not honour God to detract from the dignity and independence of the creature that He was pleased to make in His own image. And we may be sure that all advanced truths of revelation are perfectly consistent with the primary truths of nature. To a great extent, then, human life is in human control. A man may properly think over and decide what he shall do with it, where he shall bestow all his fruits and his goods. The business man is doing quite right when he anticipates the markets, and plans his productions accordingly—when he says to himself, “To-day or to-morrow we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get gain.” The thing planned is not wrong. The spirit of the planning may be altogether wrong. And it is the self-seeking, self-confident spirit in the planning with which St. James alone has to deal in this passage.
II. Human life is, in a sense, not in human control.—There is an overruling plan for every life which God makes, and holds as His own secret, so that it shall not, unnecessarily, interfere with man’s free experiment. It includes the length, the spheres, the bodily and mental powers, the circumstances, and the issues. Every life that has ever been lived was a Divinely shaped “puzzle-piece,” and fitted in precisely to its place in the making of the great picture of humanity. All true life has a Divine plan, does God’s work, and submits to His leading. As Dr. Bushnell so skilfully puts it, “God has a definite life-plan for every human person, girding him, visibly or invisibly, for some exact thing, which it will be the true significance and glory of his life to have accomplished.” “There is a definite and proper end, or issue, for every man’s existence,—an end which, to the heart of God, is the good intended for him, or for which he was intended; that which he is privileged to become, called to become, ought to become; that which God will assist him to become, and which he cannot miss, save by his own fault. Every human soul has a complete and perfect plan cherished for it in the heart of God—a Divine biography marked out, which it enters into life to live. This life, rightly unfolded, will be a complete and beautiful whole, an experience led on by God and unfolded by His secret nurture, as the trees and the flowers, by the secret nurture of the world; a drama cast in the mould of a perfect art, with no part wanting; a Divine study for the man himself, and for others; a study that shall for ever unfold, in wondrous beauty, the love and faithfulness of God; great in its conception, great in the Divine skill with which it is shaped; above all, great in the momentous and glorious issues it prepares.” How human life can thus be, in a sense, within our own control, and, in a sense, altogether beyond our control, we may learn from family life. Parents fashion life-plans for their children, and move steadily towards their outworking, overcoming, within the limits of their power, all hindrances that come in their way. But under the parental control the children move to and fro quite freely, working out their own little plans, so mysteriously influenced by the parents that their little plans all bear towards the working out of the parents’ great ones. Lives go wrong when strong wilfulness in children forces their plan against the parental. So long as man keeps the child-spirit towards God, he is fully content that thus his life should be, and yet should not be, in his own control.
“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.”
III. Human life is in the Divine control.—“It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” “I girded thee, though thou hast not known Me.” “For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that.” St. James puts this truth into one particular: the uncertainty of the length of life to man; the control of the length of life which God has. There is always this reminder of God whenever man tries to plan the future. He cannot be sure that he will live to carry out his plan. “Thou fool, this night thy soul is required of thee.” Let any man sit down to make a plan for to-morrow, for next year, and there must come into his soul this reminder of the Divine control over our “morrows.” “What is your life? For ye are a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”
“To-morrow, Lord, is Thine,
Lodged in Thy sovereign hand;
And if its sun arise and shine,
It shines by Thy command.”
IV. Within Divine control life is within human control.—And this is the precise attitude and relation in which the Christian stands. The Divine control he is fully assured of, and in it he greatly rejoices. But it in no way interferes with his sense of personal responsibility, with his energy and enterprise. He plans, as other men plan; he looks forward, as other men look forward; he works toward an aim, as other men work toward an aim. But there is a cherished mood of humility, submission, and dependence in him which the worldly man knows nothing of. When that mood finds expression in words, it says, “If the Lord will, we shall both live and do this or that.” What is wrong is
(1) the vauntings of self-confidence, as if we had full control of our lives, which we have not; and, on the other hand
(2) the fatalism—whatever pietistic form it may take—which leads us to think or to say we have no control of our lives, and therefore it is of no use to plan, or to anticipate and provide for the future. True religion ennobles a man’s manliness—it never enfeebles or crushes it. In everything that is manly the Christian’s sense of God should make him more manly. And it is manly and Christian to grip life with a strong hand. Life is entrusted to us that we may spend it in working out God’s plan, through working out our own; and “man is immortal till his work is done.” “Find out the plan of God in your generation, and then beware lest you cross that plan, or fail to find your own place in it” (Prince Albert). “Our work is but a segment in the great sphere of God’s eternal work; and if we have eyes to see, we may read in that portion of His work which belongs to us our name and the date of the present year” (Pastor Monod).
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
James 4:13. Over-confidence a Sign of Selfishness.—“We will.” The man says “I will” who is determined to get for himself. It is that getting for self which puts all the strength into the “I will.” Notice how differently men speak when the matter concerns some one else. If they are asked to do a kind deed, how cautious they become, what qualifications they put upon their promises: they will try; they will see if they can find the means and opportunity; but there never is the “We will” of self-centredness. It is true that there must be more strength and energy put into our own concerns, and it is the excess of confidence, not the confidence within wise limitations, which St. James reproves. What is called “success in life” is often the response to self-willed energy.
I. The over-confident man chiefly thinks about himself.—He would never be over-confident if he did not. It is just that circling of all his interests about himself, just that self-satisfaction, which makes him so confident. The man may be best seen in the boy. The boasting, bragging boy is self-centred, conceited, always talking about himself, and telling what he is going to do. And such a boy is usually left alone by his comrades, to enjoy the self of which he makes so much.
II. The over-confident man chiefly plans for himself.—The particular impulse to undue confidence is self-interest. This man is going to buy and sell and get gain for himself, and that accounts for the determination, the decided resolve, the “I will.” See what other considerations come in when a man plans for others. The best for them puts limitations on his positiveness. He knows what he would like, but he is not so sure what they would like. And he is strangely alive to hindrances and difficulties when he plans for others, which he never allows to disturb him when he plans for himself.
III. The over-confident man does not take God into his thought.—To do so at once puts limits on self-will; because if God is taken into account, our will must be ever kept in harmony with His will.
Plan-making.—With that absolute confidence in every truth that was true, though it might seem to conflict with some other truth, which was characteristic of the great Teacher, He both commended and condemned “forethought.” Wise attention to the responsibilities of the future, and careful preparation to meet them worthily, our Lord commended, when He spoke of the king taking serious counsel as to his ability to meet the advancing enemy. Worryful restlessness and fear, that people the future with nothing but ghostly shapes of disaster and woe, He condemned in His paradoxical way, by bidding His disciples even “take no thought for the morrow.”
I. The duty of making plans.—We cannot be intelligent and moral beings without recognising the duty of making plans. It is essential to developed manhood that it should have an aim in life. A man, to be a man, must have something to live for—something that he means to attain, or means to win. If he has, he cannot but order and shape his life so as to secure his aim; and that is making a plan. The duty is seen if we realise what the human life is that has no plan. What sort of a man is that who never makes any—who never sees beyond the place of his next footfall—who is satisfied if he is fed, and clothed, and gets a little pocket-money for his self-indulgences? Do you call that a man made in the image of God? There are very many around us who are in that way simply drifting down into eternity. They need to be shaken and aroused. They need to be told that they have a future. The uncertainty of life is not the supreme thing for them to take into account. They need to say to themselves, and in a very resolute way, “I have got to live, and I must plan to make the very best of my life.” Let no man think it is pious to imagine that he is going to die, and then let the imagination relax his moral muscles, and make his hands hang down. It is the duty of every man to make plans, to cover his life with plans—to use his judgment and his business ability, and so to make the best of both worlds, but first of this. If a man has not done nobly and well with the trust of this life which God has committed to him, how can he expect, or how can he be fitted for, the higher trusts of the life to come?
II. The revelation of men’s characters in their plan-making.—When imagination overmasters judgment, a man’s plans are but baseless, dreamy, hopeless “castles in the air.” When a man has gained but little self-restraint or skill in self-management, he plans so foolishly, and has so little power to carry out his plans, that he is constantly making plans, each new one as practically hopeless as those he made before. When a man is over-confident of himself, his plans are so absurdly big that no giant could ever carry them through. Men can always be searched through and through, if you can only get them to tell you their idea and hope for the future. Religion, because it tones and harmonises all a man’s faculties, and because it cultures the noblest elements of human character, helps a man to make sober, wise, reasonable, and workable life-plans. Religion does not crush the ambition that aims at high things. It inspires to really higher things than the man of the world can imagine, but it delivers from the self-interest and self-seeking and self-confidence which make the ambition seek unreasonable things, unworthy things, and things that can only be attained at the disadvantage and suffering of others. It is a matter worth taking into serious account that we are all disclosed to men, and to God, by the plans we have made for our lives.
III. The cherished spirit that ought to be behind all plan-making.—St. James tells us what that spirit should be. He does not mean that always and everywhere we should be qualifying our speech by inserting the sentence, “If the Lord will.” The man he introduces is making his plans by himself, he is talking them over to himself; he is not telling other people about them. He speaks thus in his heart; and “as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.” And the advice given is for the same private sphere. When a man is making his plans, he should be saying to himself, “If the Lord will.” This should represent the spirit that he cherishes—the spirit which gives character and tone to all his schemes. Is such a spirit in any sense at all unmanly? Nay, it is essential to truest manliness, if man is a creature, if man is a son, if man is a servant. To take life masterfully into our own hands, and say, “It shall be just as I wish,” is not to be a man at all; it is to make claim to be an independent being—a god—which man is not. But that spirit which ought to be behind all our plan-making is not easy to gain or easy to maintain. It has its rootage in right relations with God. It gains its support in our constantly keeping up those right relations.
IV. The influence of that spirit on the outworking and the issue of our life-plans.—When a man’s self-will is in his plans, he will put forth a tremendous energy, and resolutely persevere. Does not the spirit of dependence on God pluck away a man’s energy, and make his efforts fitful and uncertain? Such a question may be asked, and with some reasonableness, for Christians are sometimes very inefficient in the business of life, and in its battle. “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” But this is a matter of weakness of natural disposition, and is not to be charged to the influence of Christian principle. What is true is, that the cherished spirit of dependence at once inspires energy and tones it. It does give a man a calmness and a self-restraint which qualify the intensities and extravagances of human energy; but it knits the whole forces of a man’s nature together in such a way as to give the man the highest power for the life-struggle.
James 4:13-15. Negative and Positive Christian Duties.—The instruction here lies before us in a twofold form—the persuasive and the hortatory, the negative and the positive, what we are not to think and feel and do, and what we are to think and feel and do.
1. Here is dissuasion from presumption—from thoughtless, reckless confidence in the immediate future, in the year that is thought about, and in the self that is to make it so and so. The whole spirit of the persons here instructed and warned is full of presumptuousness, inconsiderateness, headstrong wilfulness. It is as if they had absolute control over events, over other men, over themselves, almost over God. It is not the self that is objected to, but the self alone—the self self-poised, self-nourished, self-directed, self-sustained: let it have direction from heaven, and inspiration of God, and secret nourishment from the fountain of His all-sufficiency, and the self is then the best thing in the world.
2. The spirit here condemned is a spirit of worldliness. What is worldliness? It is buying and selling and getting gain, and spending the strength of life and its years in that. But it is not the act; it is the motive in the act, the principle that rules it, the end that is sought by it, that makes it evil. To be unworldly is to be unsordid, unslippery, unselfish. It is to be honest, true, tender, generous, spiritual, devout. Look now at the positive side.
1. A distinct realisation and acknowledgment of God. “If the Lord will,” we ought to say—then of course there is a Lord God to will, and work, direct, watch, and keep.
2. The Lord has a will in everything that enters into a man’s life. There is no difficulty in understanding the will of God in the greatest things; there is in the smaller and seemingly unimportant things. What are we to do? Acknowledge God; ascertain His will concerning yourself, as far as you can; walk in the light of it, do it faithfully, and all else will unfold. Keep and cultivate the spirit of devoutness, of dependence, of submissiveness, of obedience, of godliness.—Alexander Raleigh, D.D.
James 4:14. “What is your life?”—Various answers are given to this question by men according to their disposition, experience, state of mind at the time, and degree of faith. The Bible images and conceptions of life are “sleep,” “flood,” “grass,” “tale told,” “flower,” “vapour.” The materialist, the philosopher, Voltaire, man who has lost and wept, man who has sinned deeply, and the Christian, would each give a different answer to this question. Our views of life change with changing time. Two mistakes are often made: the one in making too much of life, as if it were everything; the other in making too little of life, as if it were nothing.
I. Some considerations which make us think that life is small and mean.—
1. Common and valueless thing, because it seems to exist in such quantities. Valuable things are rare. Look at multitudes in great cities, in China—the infant mortality which seems to imply that life is a very cheap thing.
2. Its shortness. Things that do not last long are not regarded as worth much. Life is done before almost anything is completed.
3. The way it deceives men. Its appearances and promises are fallacious. An illusion, if not a delusion. The whole of life seems to be constructed on the principle of luring men on by the hope of one thing, and then giving them either nothing or something else.
4. For the great mass of people life escapes being an illusion only because it is so complete a drudgery. They wear harness almost without intermission. They are in the track, and round they must go.
5. If life were of value, surely men would have found out by this time that it is so. Yes; but life is allowed to slip through the impassive hands of men.
II. Some considerations which compel us to feel that life is great.—To triflers only is life a trifle.
1. Life is great in its moral significance. Even the confusion of his nature, his self-contradiction, his waywardness, his resolute set towards evil, do not take from the greatness of the nature and the significance of the life.
2. Can human life be small when God once passed through it? A thing is sacred by its associations. The Almighty once wore this human life as a garment.
3. Think of the Holy Ghost’s mission. A really Divine personal force in the place of human life transfigured; it gives infinite meaning.
4. Life is much to me, because it is mine. The only thing that is. My section cut out of the mass of ages. My handwriting on the huge scroll of time. My probation. This makes it of supreme value to me.
5. Life is great when we realise that it is passed on the edge of eternity. We have now all the significance that belongs to the spiritual and everlasting sphere, because we are, even now, all our life touching it. Surely this makes life an awful thing. “We should not always be thinking of death.” It depends entirely how we think of it. We should think of it, not to unman us, but to force us to be real. The sense of the possible nearness of death should make us collected and awed. What is my life? What do I wish it to be? Is Christ in it? is God in it? is hope in it? Is there eternal power in it? It is a vapour, a cloud. But there are different kinds of clouds. Let our life not be like those clouds which are chilled and fall to earth, but like those which soar upwards in the glory of the everlasting sun.—John F. Ewing, M.A.
An Emblem of the Uncertainty of Life.—“For ye are a vapour.” The point of the illustration lies in the transient character of vapour, steam, or mist—the breath of the mouth, the smoke from the chimney, the steam from the engine. It is palpable, but only for a while, and even while it is with us it is going, and soon it is gone. Uncertain in its going, for it is entirely dependent on the state of the atmosphere around. Life is like a vapour. It is here; but you cannot imprison and keep it. It is going even while it is here, and its time of going depends on so many things over which we have no control. If a man duly estimates the transient and uncertain character of human life, he cannot presume on any future, and make any absolute decisions as to what he will do and what he will not. For the figure see Job 7:7; Psalms 102:3; Wis. 5:9-16.
Life a Vapour.—We are not sure of life itself, since it is but as a vapour, something in appearance, but nothing solid or certain; it is easily scattered and gone. We can fix the hour and minute of the sun’s rising and setting to-morrow, but we cannot fix the certain time of a vapour’s being scattered. Such is our life: “it appear but for a little time, and then vanisheth away”; it vanisheth as to this world, but there is a life that will continue in the other world; and since this life is so uncertain, it concerns us all to prepare and lay up in store for that to come.—Matthew Henry.
Human Life transitory.
I. How men make the mistake of regarding their life as something solid and stable.—
1. They calculate upon the certain continuance of their strength.
2. They reckon on an indefinite prolonging of life. They think the next life will much resemble this.
II. The fact that human life is but a vapour.—
1. The uncertainty of life.
2. The universal certainty of death.
III. How we may rectify these errors in ourselves.—We should—
1. Understand the reality of the case.
2. Become entirely reconciled to it.
3. Accommodate all our views, feelings, and plans to it.—Dr. Kirk.
Lessons from Mist or Vapour.
I. Our first lesson is drawn from the ephemeral nature of vapour.
“Like mist on the mountain, like waves of of the sea,
So quickly the years of our pilgrimage flee.”
The time allotted to us here is none too long to fulfil the duties assigned us, and make preparation for the life which lies beyond. It is strange, indeed, that men should be so careless of the fact, even while they are profoundly convinced that there is a future for the soul, and that beyond the mists of this life there shall open an eternal day. It is not strange that those who are overwhelmed with the cares and pressing engagements and hard conflicts of this life should at times permit these things to dim their views of God, of coming judgment, and the heaven of the redeemed. But certain it is that the fact of these obscuring earth-born mists does not blot out the more substantial facts of God and eternity. This life hides heaven, but it comes out again with the vanishing mist. The vapour vanishes, but the day remains. Let us so live that we shall remain within the precincts of eternal day. It is the duty of man to think of his life in this its larger outlook. Our life is a vapour, but there are possibilities within it of which we never yet have dreamed.
II. The mist teaches that our brief life should be a life of blessing. The mist is one of the nutritive forces of nature. Our life may be a vapour in the benevolent phase of the figure of the text. Life is brief, but it may be a benediction. And God is best glorified by an honest endeavour on the part of every man to bring and keep a blessing within the world.
III. Our third lesson comes to us from the obedience of the mist to the will and law of the Creator. See Job 37:7-8; Psalms 135:7; Psalms 148:7-8. We may well be shamed into our duty by the obedience to Divine law which is stamped everywhere upon the creatures of inanimate nature. From cloud, rain, and dew, from vapour of water, from mist, we expect, always expect, expect without deviation, qualification, or delay, most implicit discharge of the functions which the almighty Creator has imposed upon them. They never fail the hand that made them. They never go counter to the will whose force set them originally in play.
IV. Our last lesson comes from the use of mist as a symbol of judgment upon the wicked. See Acts 13:11; 2 Peter 2:17. In the one of these cases the judgment appears to have been a physical, in the other a spiritual one. The figurative expression “mist” is an apt symbol of that soul out of whose horizon the vision of the Sun of righteousness with healing in His wings has been permitted to drop away. If it be but a momentary mist—“a vapour that appeareth for a little while”—even thus it is sad enough, for a life without the presence of Christ to brighten and bless it must be a hopeless one. The rejection of Christ, the doubt of unbelief, is a mist of darkness which can only deepen the misery of man’s estate. It brings to him in this life restlessness, hopelessness, and despair. Let us devoutly hope that upon none of us shall this mist of darkness settle in the coming eternity. It is sometimes the case in Christian experience that there comes a glimpse of the horror of this mist of darkness in the form of spiritual fears and doubts. These do not cover the fundamental points of faith, but simply obscure the individual’s hope as to his own interest in these great facts. Such may take this comfort. Mists love the lowlands. Forsake the lowlands of unbelief. Go higher! on wings of faith mount nearer to the throne, nearer to that hill whose healing cross is the central point of human hopes. As you draw near in reverent trust, there shall fall for you the light that, if it do not disperse all mists in this weary and wicked world of ours, shall at least lift your spirit out of them, and give you that sunshine which God appoints for His own.—H. C. McCook, D.D.
James 4:15. The Saying, “If God will.” “Deo Volente.”—In the same way as Jews, with an over-literalness, put little boxes, containing the words of the law, on their foreheads and on their arms, so have Christians, with an over-literalness, put D.V. into their writings, and even into bills of services and meetings. No such formal obedience of St. James’s injunction is either necessary or expected. And that over-literalness is in peril of nourishing a hypocritical or a pietistic sensationalism. Too often it comes to represent the “Stand by, I am holier than thou” kind of feeling, which most seriously injures our Christian relations. The spirit of dependence on God, and of entire submission to His will, is a spirit which must be cherished, but which, if cherished, will find its fitting expression in the tone and temper of all our words and intercourse, and never need gain any forced and precise utterance in a mere sentence. When it is the mood of the soul, all who have to do with us feel it; and that is better for them than merely hearing it; and certainly far better for us.
Acknowledging God’s Will.—The Jews began nothing without an if God or if THE NAME (meaning God) will. And it was a saying of Ben Syra, a distinguished Jew, “Let a man never say he will do anything before he says, ‘If God will.’ ” So Cyrus, king of Persia, when, under the pretence of hunting, he designed an expedition into Armenia, upon which a hare started and was seized by an eagle, said to his friends, “This will be a good or prosperous hunting to us, if God will.” So Socrates says, “But I will do this, and come unto thee tomorrow, if God will” (Xenophon’s Cyropedia, lib. ii., cap. 25; Plato in Alcibiade, p. 135). And it is reported of the Turks that they submit everything to the Divine will, as the success of war, or a journey, or anything of the least moment they desire to be done; and never promise themselves or others anything but under this condition, Inshallah, that is, “If God will.”—Ingram Cobbin, M.A.
James 4:17. The Responsibility of Knowledge.—It is a noble saying of Lotze, “We do not honour God by elaborating proofs of His existence.” We are still elaborating the proofs. Preaching is apologetic rather than declarative. The best way of honouring Jesus Christ is to believe His word, trust His grace, mark the triumphs of His saving power, and, for ourselves, to act on the facts we know. The text has two things—an exhortation and a statement.
I. The exhortation.—Act on what you know. We all know more than we live up to. We see Christianity very much more clearly in our intelligence than others witness it in our lives. We understand Jesus Christ better than we live Him. Our practice lags lumberingly behind our knowledge. Conscience is always ahead of conduct; knowing, of doing. In almost no respect do we practise, in morals, all we know. Now it is remarkable that, notwithstanding this state of things, our efforts are bent on increasing our knowledge rather than on improving our conduct. Men want to know all about Christianity before practising the A B C’S. I find myself seeking to expound Christianity to your intelligence, when, just now, the far more urgent matter is to get the elements of Christianity, which all understand, into your conduct. It is just so that the wide discrepancy between our knowledge and our practice has obtained. We have pushed, and are still pushing, our knowledge of Christian teaching at the expense of our practice of Christian teaching. It is far more important to a well-rounded character to blot out this discrepancy than to push our intellectual comprehension of Jesus. The greater need is to practise, to act on what we know, not to know more. Besides, our present course ignores two important facts:
(1) The very end of knowledge is to be enacted; and
(2) to practise what we know is the very best way of extending our knowledge. He “that willeth to do … shall understand.” Those people who insist on understanding all of Christian teaching before practising any of it never understand any of it profoundly. Jesus said His teaching had to be lived before it could fully certify itself. The exhortation of the text is a ringing one, and comes to our time with peculiar aptness and force—Act on what you know! It is an exhortation to Churches, as well as to individuals, and to the Church at large. Churches are still busy at work purging and elaborating and refining their creeds. Thus is Christianity of the head continually refined, while Christianity of the heart and conduct remains, on an average, below par. The demand of the hour upon the Church is, Bring up the rear; bring conduct up to conscience, practice up to profession; bring deeds up to knowledge. It is safe to say that if the Church should devote a generation to the effort to bring its life up to present statements of belief and knowledge, we might bring in the millennium.
II. There is here not only the exhortation, Act on what you know—but the statement, If you do not, it is sin. Knowledge entails immediate responsibility, failure to meet which is sin. A man whose conduct falls short of his knowledge of what is right is a sinner. So a Church. To defer the doing of what we know of Christian teaching—a right thing—is to do a wrong thing; and, moreover, our omissions of known duty unfit us more and more for new duties—indeed, for all duties: the movements of the soul are clogged by disuse. “Ignorance of the law excuseth no man.” The text refers only to those who know to do good, but who do it not. These are sinners, whether they are unsaved and neglect the salvation of which they are well informed, or Christians whose profession is one thing and whose practice is another, or Churches who spend their time expelling heretics while the poor and vicious and godless surge past their doors unpitied and unsought.—E. M. Poteat.
Knowing with Doing.—In the Beautiful Legend there is a strife between the call of duty to give out a dole of bread to the hungry, and the temptation to linger in religious ecstasy over a vision of Christ. But the true brother knew “to do good,” and did it; and, returning at the end of his work, found his cell full of the radiant presence of the Lord, and heard the words of gracious approval—
“Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 4
James 4:14-15.—Providence acknowledged.—With all our wish to inquire into the future, a thoughtful mind will not fail to acknowledge the wisdom and love of God in keeping it back from us. “What little child,” says the author of Recreations of a Country Parson, in an essay on the “Art of Putting Things”—“what little child would have heart to begin the alphabet, if, before he did so, you put clearly before him all the school and college work of which it is the beginning? The poor little thing would knock up at once, wearied out by your want of skill in putting things. And so it is that Providence, kindly and gradually putting things, wiles us onward, still keeping hope and heart through the trials and cares of life. Ah! if we had had it put to us at the outset how much we should have to go through to reach even our present stage of life, we should have been ready to think it the best plan to sit down and die at once; but, in compassion for human weakness, the great Director and Shower of events practises the art of putting things.”