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2:1 Lev 13:15; Deut 1:16; Prov 24:23; Sir 42:1
2:10 Lev 19:18; Mt 22:39; Rom 13:; Lev 19:37; Deut 1:18
2:15 Jn 3:17
2:20 idle-dead
2:21 Gen 22:10
2:23 Gen 15:6; Rom 4:3; Gal 3:3
2:25 Jos 2:1,18, and 6:22
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Against exception of persons. 10. From all and every sin we must abstain, having in all our words and deeds the judgment before our eyes: wherein works of mercy shall be required of us, 14. And faith only shall not avail us. 18. And that the Catholic, by his words, shows, that he has faith: whereas the Heretic has no more faith than the Devil, though he talk of faith ever so much, and of justification thereby only, by the example of Abraham, Rom. 4. For Abraham indeed was justified by works also, 15. And likewise Rahab.
1 MY brethren, Have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory *in acception of persons.
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For if there shall enter into your assembly a man having a golden ring
in goodly apparel, and there shall enter in a poor man in homely attire,
3 and you have respect to him that is clothed with the goodly
apparel, and shall say to him, You sit here well: but say to the poor
man, You stand there: or sit under my footstool:
4 Do you not judge with yourselves, and are become judges of unjust cogitations?
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Hear my dearest brethren: has not God chosen the poor in this world,
rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which God has promised to them
that love him?
6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you by might: and themselves draw you to judgements?
7 Do not they blaspheme the good name that is invocated upon you?
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If notwithstanding you fulfill the royal law according to the
Scriptures, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well:
9 but if you accept persons, you work sin, reproved of the Law as transgressors.
10 And *whosoever shall keep the whole Law, but offends in one: is made guilty of all.
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For he that said, You shall not commit adultery, said also, You shall
not kill. And if you do not commit adultery, but shall kill: you are
made a transgressor of the Law.
12 So speak, and so do, as beginning to be judged by the law of liberty.
13 For judgement without mercy to him that has not done mercy. And mercy exalts itself above judgement.
14 What shall it profit my brethren, if a man say he has faith: but has not works? Shall faith be able to save him?
15 And *if a brother or sister be naked, and lack daily food:
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and one of you say to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled: but you
give them not the things that are necessary for the body: what shall it
profit?
17 So faith also, if it have not works, is dead in itself.
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But some man says, You have faith, and I have works: show me your faith
without works: and I will show you by works my faith.
19 You believe that there is one God. You do well: the devils also believe and tremble.
20 But will you know O vain man, that faith without works is idle?
21 Abraham our father was he not justified by works, *offering Isaac his son upon the altar?
22 you see that faith did work with his works : and by the works the faith was consummate?
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And the Scripture was fulfilled, saying, *Abraham believed God, and it
was reputed him to justice, and he was called the friend of God.
24 Do you see that by works a man is justified: and not by faith only?
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And in like manner also *Rahab the harlot, was not she justified by
works, receiving the messengers, and putting them forth another way?
26 For even as the body without the spirit is dead: so also faith without works is dead.
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2:20 O vain man: He speaks to all the heretics that say faith alone without works saves, calling them vain men, and comparing them to Devils.
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COMMENTARY
1. Respect of persons. The apostle means not, as the Anabaptists, and other seditious persons sometimes gather from this, that there should be no difference in commonwealths or assemblies between the magistrate and the subject, the free man and the bound, the rich and the poor, between one degree and another: for God and nature, and the necessity of man, have made such distinctions, and men are bound to observe them. But it is meant only, or especially, that in spiritual gifts and graces, in matters of faith, sacraments, and salvation, and bestowing the spiritual functions and charge of souls, we must have regard to a poor man or a bond man, no less than to a rich man and the free, than to the prince or the gentleman: because as Christ himself calls all, and endows all sorts with his graces; so in such and the like things we must not be partial, but count all to be fellows, brethren, and members of one Head. And therefore the apostle says with a special clause, that we should not hold or have the Christian faith with or in such differences or partialities.
10. Is become guilty of all. He means not, that whosoever is a thief, is also a murderer, or that every murderer is an adulterer also: or that all sins are equal, according to the Stoics and the heresy of Jovinian: much less, that he shall have as great damnation, that transgresses one commandment, as if he had offended against every precept: but the sense is, that it shall not avail him to salvation, that he seems to have kept some, and not broken all the commandments: since anyone transgression of the law proves, that he has not observed the whole, which he was bound to do, so far as is required, and as is possible for a man in this life. St. Augustine, in his 29th epistle to St. Jerome, on this place of St. James, expounds it thus: that he who offends in one, that is, against the general and great commandment of love or charity (because it is in a manner all, as being the sum of all, the plenitude of the law, and the perfection of the rest) breaks after a sort and transgresses all, no sin being committed but either against the love of God, or of our neighbor.
13. Judgment without mercy. Nothing gives more hope of mercy in the next life, than the works of alms, charity and mercy, done to our neighbors in this life. Neither shall any be used with extreme rigor in the next world, but such as used not mercy in this world. St. Augustine, (de pec. merit, li. 2. c. 3). Which is true, not only in respect of the judgment to everlasting damnation, but also of the temporal chastisement in Purgatory, as St. Augustine signifies, declaring that our venial sins are washed away in this world by daily works of mercy, which otherwise would be chastised in the next. (See ep. 29.) aforesaid in fine, and (li. 21. de Civit. Dei. c. 17 in fine).
14. What shall it profit, etc. This whole passage of the apostle is so clear against justification or salvation by faith alone, defended by the Protestants, and so evident for the necessity, merit, and concurrence of good works, that their first author Luther and such as exactly follow him, boldly (after the manner of heretics) when they can make no shift nor false gloss for the text, deny the book to be canonical Scripture. But Calvin and his companions disagreeing with their masters, confess it to be holy Scripture. But their shifts and fond glosses, for answer to such plain places, are as impudent as the denying of the Epistle was in the others: who would never have denied the book, thereby to show themselves heretics, if they had thought, those vulgar evasions that the Zuinglians and Calvinists use (of which they were not ignorant) could have served. In both sorts the Christian reader may see, that all the heretic vaunting of express Scriptures and the Word of God, is no more than to delude the world. Whereas indeed, be the Scriptures ever so plain against them, they must either be wrested to sound as they say, or else they must be no Scriptures at all. And to see Luther, Calvin, Beza, and their companions, sit as it were in judgment of the Scriptures to allow or disallow at their pleasure, is the most notorious example of heretical pride and misery that can be. See their prefaces and censures upon this canonical Epistle, the Apocalypse, the Maccabees, and others.
21. Was not Abraham our father justified by works. It is much to be noted that St. Augustine in his book, (de fide and operibus, c. 1. 4.) writes that the heresy of faith alone justifying or saving, was an old heresy even in the apostles time, gathered by false interpretation of some of St. Paul's profound disputation in the Epistle to the Romans, wherein he commended so highly the faith in Christ, that they thought good works were not available: adding further, that the other three Apostles, James, John, and Jude, did of purpose write so much of good works, to correct the said error of faith alone, gathered by the misconstruction of St. Paul's words. Yea when St. Peter (in 2 Peter 3.) warns the faithful that many things are hard in St. Paul's writings, and by light unlearned men mistaken to their perdition; the said St. Augustine affirms, that he meant of his disputation concerning faith, which so many heretics did mistake to condemn good works. And in the preface of his commentary upon the 81st Psalm, he warns all men, that this deduction upon St. Paul's speech, Abraham was justified by faith, therefore works are not necessary to salvation: is the right way to the gulf of hell and damnation. And lastly (which is in itself very plain) that we may see this apostle did purposely thus commend unto us the necessity of good works, and the insufficiency of faith alone, to correct the error of such as misconstrued St. Paul's words for the same: the said holy Doctor notes that of purpose he took the very same example of Abraham, whom St. Paul said to be justified by faith, and declares that he was justified by good works, specifying the good work for which he was justified and blessed by God, to wit, his obedience and immolation of his only son. But how St. Paul says that Abraham was justified by faith, see the annotations upon that place, Rom. 4:1.
22. Faith did co-operate. Some heretics hold that good works are harmful to salvation and justification: others, that though they be not hurtful but required, yet they are no causes or workers of salvation, much less meritorious, but are as effects and fruits issuing necessarily out of faith. Both which fictions, falsehoods and flights from the plain truth and God's word, are refuted by these words, when the apostle says, That faith works together with good works: making faith to be a helper and cooperator with works, and so both jointly concurring as causes and workers of justification: yea afterwards he makes works the more principal cause, when he resembles faith to the body, and works to the spirit or life of man.
23. The friend of God. By this also another false and frivolous evasion of the heretics is overtaken, when they feign, that the apostle here, when he says, works do justify, means that they show us just before men, but avail not to our justice before God. For the apostle evidently declares that Abraham by his works was made or truly called the friend of God, and therefore was not (as the heretics say) by his works approved just before man only.
24. Not by faith only. This proposition or speech is directly opposite or contradictory to that which the heretics hold. For the apostle says, Man is justified by good works, and not by faith only. But the heretics say, Man is not justified by good works, but by faith only. Neither can they pretend that there is the like contradiction or contrariety between St. James's speeches and St. Paul's. For though St. Paul says, Man is justified by faith, yet he never says, By faith alone, nor ever means by that faith which is alone, but always by that faith which works by charity, as he expounds himself. Though concerning works also, there is a difference between the first justification, whereof St. Paul especially speaks, and the second justification, whereof St. James does more specially treat. Of which enough has been already said. The Fathers indeed use sometimes this exclusive, sola, alone, but in far other sense than the Protestants. For some of them thereby exclude only the works of Moses's law, against the Jews: some, the works of nature and moral virtues without the grace or knowledge of Christ, against the Gentiles: some, the necessity of external good works, where the parties want time and means to do them, as in the case of the penitent thief: some, the false opinions, sects, and religions contrary to the Catholic faith, against heretics and reprobates: some exclude reason, sense, and arguing in matters of faith and mystery, against such as will believe nothing but what they see or understand: some, the merit of works done in sin before the first justification: some, the arrogant Pharisaical vaunting of man's own proper works and justice, against such as refer not their actions and good deeds to God's grace. To these purposes the holy Doctors say sometimes, that only faith saves and serves: but never (as Protestants would have it) to exclude from justification and salvation, the co-operation of man's free-will, dispositions and preparations of our hearts by prayers, penance, and sacraments, the virtues of hope and charity, the purpose of well-working and of the observation of God's commandments: much less, the works and merits of the children of God, proceeding from grace and charity, after they are justified and are now in his favor: which are not only dispositions and preparations to justice, but the meritorious cause of greater justice, and of salvation.
25. Rahab. This apostle alleges the good works of Rahab by which she was justified, and St. Paul (Heb. 11) says, she was justified by faith. Which are not contrary one to another: for both is true that she was saved by faith, as one says, and that she was saved by her works, as the other says. But it were untruly said, that she was saved either by only faith, as the heretics; or by only good works, as no Catholic man ever said. But because some Jews and Gentile philosophers affirmed; they, that they should be saved by the works of Moses's law; these, by their moral works: therefore St. Paul to the Romans disputed specially against both, proving that no works done without or before the faith of Christ, can serve to justification or salvation.
26. Faith without works is dead. St. James (as the Protestants feign) says that faith without works is no faith, and that therefore it justifies not, because it is no faith: for he says that it is dead without works as the body is dead without the soul, and therefore being dead, has no activity or efficacy to justify or save. But it is a great difference, to say that the body is dead, and to say that it is no body: even so it is the like difference, to say that faith without works is dead, and to say that faith without works is no faith. And if a dead body be notwithstanding a true body, then, according to St. James's comparison here, a dead faith is not withstanding a true faith, but yet not available to justification, because it is dead, that is, because it is only faith without good works. And therefore it is a great impudence in heretics, and a hard shift, to say that the faith of which the apostle disputes all this while, is no true or properly called faith at all. It is the same faith that St. Paul defined and commended in all the 11th chapter to the Hebrews, and the same which is called the Catholic faith, and the same, which, being formed and made alive by charity, justifies. Nay true it is, that it is not that special faith which the heretics feign only to justify, to wit, when a man does firmly believe as an article of his faith, that himself shall be saved. This special faith is not that of which the apostle here speaks. For neither he, nor St. Paul, nor any other sacred writer in all the Holy Scriptures ever spoke or knew of any such forged faith.
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