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1:3 Rom 5:3 1:6 Mat 21:22; Mar 11:24 1:10 Ps 102:15; Eccl 14:18; Is 4:6; 1 Pet 1:24; Job 5:17 1:19 Prov 17:27 1:22 Mt 7:21; Rom 2:13

We have reason to rejoice in persecution (that it if we are patient, and withal abstain from all mortal sin) 9. Considering how we shall be exalted and crowned for it, when the persecutor (who enriches himself with our spoils) shall fade away. 13. But if any be tempted to fall, or to any other evil, let him not say, God is the Author of it, who is the Author of all good only. 19. Such points of the Catholic faith we must be content to learn without contradiction and anger, and to do accordingly. 26. Because otherwise we may talk of Religion, but indeed it is no Religion. 1 JAMES the servant of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes that are in dispersion, greeting. 2 Esteem it, my brethren, all joy, when you shall fall into divers temptations: 3 knowing that the *probation of your faith works patience. 4 And let patience have a perfect work: that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing. 5 But if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men abundantly, and upbraids not: and it shall be given him. 6 But * let him ask in faith nothing doubting, for he that doubts, is like to a wave of the sea, which is moved and carried about by the wind. 7 Therefore let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of our Lord. 8 A man double of minded is inconstant in all his ways. 9 But let the humble brother glory, in his exaltation. 10 and the rich, in his humility, because as the *flour of grass shall he pass: 11 for the sun rose with heat, and parched the grass, and the flour of it fell away, and the beauty of the shape thereof perished: so the rich man also shall wither in his ways . 12 Blessed is the man that suffers temptation: for when he has been proved, he shall receive the crown of life, which God has promised to them that love him. 13 Let no man when he is tempted, say that he is tempted of God. For God is not a tempter of evils, and he tempts no man. 14 But every one is tempted of his own concupiscence abstracted and allured. 15 Afterward when it has conceived, brings forth sin. but sin when it is consummate, engenders death. 16 Do not err therefore my dearest brethren. 17 Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, descending from the Father of lights, with whom is no transmutation, nor shadowing of alteration. 18 Voluntarily has he begotten us by the word of truth, that we may be some beginning of his creature. 19 You know my dearest brethren, And *let every man be swift to hear : but slow to speak, and slow to anger. 20 For the anger of man works not the justice of God. 21 For the which thing casting away all uncleanness and abundance of malice, in meekness receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 *But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer: he shall be compared to a man beholding the countenance of his nativity in a glass. 24 For he considered himself, and went his way, and by and by forgot what an one he was. 25 But he that has looked in the law of perfect liberty, and has remained in it, not made a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work: this man shall be blessed in his deed. 26 And if any man think himself to be religious not bridling his tongue, but seducing his heart: this man's religion is vain. 27 Religion clean and unspotted with God and the Father, is this, to visit pupils and widows in their tribulation: and to keep himself unspotted from this world.

1:15 concupiscence: The ground of temptation to sin, is our concupiscence, and not God. 1:25 blessed in his deeds: Beatitude or salutation consists in good works.

COMMENTARY 6. Ask in faith, nothing wavering. The Protestants would prove by this, that no man ought to pray without assurance that he shall obtain that which he asks. Where the apostle means nothing else, but that the asker of lawful things must not either mistrust God's power and ability, or be in doubt and despair of his mercy: but that our doubt be only in our unworthiness or undue asking. 13. Let no man say that he is tempted by God. We see by this, that when the Scriptures (as in the Our Fether and other places) seem to say, that God does sometimes tempt us, or lead us into temptation: they mean not, that God is any ways the author, causer, or mover of any man to sin, but only by permission, and because, by his gracious power, he keeps not the offender from temptations. Therefore the blasphemy of heretics, making God the author of sin, is intolerable. See St. Augustine, ser. 9. de di vers, c. 9. God is not a tempter of evils. The Protestants, as much as they can, to diminish the force of the apostle's conclusion against such as attribute evil temptations to God (for other temptations God does send to try men's patience and prove their faith) take and translate the word passively, in this sense, that God is not tempted by our evils. Where more consonantly to the letter and circumstance of the word before and after, and as agreeably to the Greek, it should be taken actively as it is in the Latin, that God is no tempter to evil. For being taken passively, there is no coherence of sense to the other words of the apostle. 15. Concupiscence has conceived. Concupiscence (we see here) of itself is not sin, as heretics falsely teach: but when, by any consent of the mind, we do obey or yield to it, then is sin engendered and formed in us. Sin, when it is completed, etc. Here we see, that not all sin, nor all consent unto concupiscence, is mortal or damnable, but when it is consummate, that is, when the consent of man's mind fully and perfectly yields to the committing or liking of the act, or motion, whereunto concupiscence moves or incites us. 25. The law of liberty. The law of the Gospel and grace of Christ, is called the law of liberty, in respect of the yoke and burden of the old carnal ceremonies, and because Christ has by his blood of the New Testament delivered all that obey him from the servitude of sin and the Devil. But not as the immoral and other heretics of his time would have it, that in the New Testament every man may follow his own liking and conscience, and may choose whether he will be under the laws and obedience of Spiritual or temporal rulers, or not. 27. Religion clean. True religion consists not only in talking of the Scriptures, or only faith, or Christ's justice; but in purity of life, and good works, especially of charity and mercy done by the grace of Christ. This is the Apostolical doctrine, and far from the heretical vanity of this time.