5:6 or condemned
5:8 or is at hand
5:12 Mt 5:34
5:14 Mk 6:13
5:17 1 Kgs 17; Sir 48; Lk 4:25;
5:18 1Kgs 18:41
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By the damnation to come upon the unmerciful rich, he exhorts the persecuted to patience, and by their own reward, and by examples. 12 Not to swear at all in common talk. 13 In affliction, to pray: in prosperity to sing: in sickness, to call for the Priests, and that they pray over them, and anoint them with oil: and that the sick persons confess their sins. 19 Finally, how meritorious it is, to convert the erring unto the Catholic faith, or the sinner to amendment of life.
1 GO to now you rich men, weep, howling in your miseries which shall come to you.
2 Your riches are corrupt: and your garments are eaten of moths.
3
Your gold and silver is rusted: and their rust shall be for a testimony
to you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. You have stored to yourselves
wrath in the last days.
4 Behold the hire of the workmen that
have reaped your fields, which is defrauded of you, cries: and their cry
has entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabboth.
5 You have made merry upon the earth: and in riotousness you have nourished your hearts in the day of slaughter.
6 You have *presented, and slain the Just One: and he resisted you not.
7
Be patient therefore brethren, until the coming of our Lord. Behold,
the husband man expects the precious fruit of the earth: patiently
bearing til he receive the *timely and the lateward.
8 Be you also patient, and confirm your hearts: because the coming of our Lord *will approach.
9 Grudge not brethren one against another: that you be not judged. Behold, the judge stands before the gate.
10 Take an example, brethren, of labor and patience, the prophets: which spoke in the name of our Lord.
11
Behold we account them blessed that have suffered. The sufferance of
job you have heard, and the end of our Lord you have seen, because our
Lord is merciful and pitiful.
12 But before all things my
brethren, *swear not, neither by heaven, nor by earth, nor other oath
whatsoever. But let your talk be, yea, yea: no, no: that you fall not
under judgement.
13 Is any of you in heaviness? Let him pray. Is he of a cheerful heart? Let him sing.
14
Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the Church,
and let them pray over him, *anointing him with oil in the name of our
Lord.
15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick: and our
Lord shall lift him up: and if he be in sins, they shall be remitted
him.
16 Confess therefore your sins one to another: and pray one
for another that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just
man avails much.
17 Elijah was a man like unto us passable: and
with prayer he prayed that it might not rain upon the earth, and it
rained not for three years and six months.
18 And he prayed again: and the heaven gave rain, and the earth yielded her fruit.
19 My brethren, if any of you shall err from the truth, and a man convert him:
20
he must know that he which makes a sinner to be converted from the
error of his way, shall save his soul from death, and covers a multitude
of sins.
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5:1 howling in your miseries: A fearful description of the miseries that shall befall in the next life to the unmerciful covetous men.
5:7 timely and the lateward: He means either fruit or rain.
5:16 confess therefore: The heretics translate, Acknowledge your sins, etc. So little they can abide the very word of confession.
5:20 covers a multitude: He that hath the zeal of converting sinners, procures thereby mercy and remission to himself: which is a singular grace.
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COMMENTARY
4. The hire. To withhold from the poor or laborer the hire or wages that is due or promised to him for his service or work done, is a great iniquity, and one of those five sins which in Holy Writ are said to call for vengeance at God's hand, as we see here. They are called in the Catechism, Sins crying to heaven. The other four are, Murder, Gen. 18:20. Usury, Exod. 22:27. The sin against nature, Gen. 18:20. The oppression and vexation of widows, fatherless, strangers and such like. Ibid, and Exod. 3:9.
12. Swear not. He forbids not all oaths, as the Anabaptists falsely say. For in justice and judgment we may be by our lawful magistrate put to swear, and may lawfully take an oath, as also for the confirming of any necessary truth when time and place require. But the custom of swearing, and all vain, light, and unnecessary oaths in our daily speech displease God highly, and are here forbidden by the apostle, as also by our Savior, Matt. 5.
14. Let him bring in the Priests. The Protestants through their special hatred of the holy order of priesthood, as elsewhere often, so here they corrupt the text evidently, translating Presbyteros, Elders. As if the apostle had meant men of age, and not such as were by holy office priests. St. Chrysostom, who knew the sense and signification of the Greek word according to the ecclesiastical use and the whole Church's judgment, better than any Protestant alive, takes it plainly plainly for Sacerdotes, that is, Priests. (Lib. 8. de Sacerdotes prope initium). And if they confess that it is a word of office with them also, though they call them Elders, and not Priests; then we demand whether the apostle mean here men of that function which they in their new churches call Elders? If they say no, as they must needs (for Elders with them are not deputed specially to public praying or administration of the sacraments, such as the apostle here requires to be sent for,) then they must needs grant, that their Elders answer not to the function of those who in the New Testament are called Presbyteri in Greek and Latin, and therefore both their translations to be false and fraudulent, and also their naming of their new degrees or orders to be fond and in congruous. If they say their Ministers are correspondent to such as were called Presbyteri in Holy Writ and in the primitive Church, and that they are the men whom the apostle wills to be called for to anoint the sick and to pray for him, why do they not then translate Presbyteros Ministers? Which they might do with as good reason, as call such as they have taken instead of our Catholic priests, Ministers. Which word, being in large acception common to all that have to do about the celebration of Divine things, was never appropriated by the use either of Scripture or of the holy Church, to that higher function of public administration of the Sacraments and service, which is priesthood: but to the order next under it, which is deaconship. And therefore if any should be called ministers, their deacons properly should be so termed. And the Protestants have no more reason to keep the ancient Greek word of deacons, appropriated to that office by the use of antiquity, than to keep the word priest, being made no less peculiar to the state of such only as administer the holy Sacraments, and offer the sacrifice of the altar. But these men follow neither God's word, nor ecclesiastical use, nor any reason, but mere fancy, novelty, and hatred of God's Church. And how little they follow any good rule or reason in these things, may appear by this, that here they avoid to translate priests, and yet in their Common-Prayer Book, in their order of visiting the sick, they commonly name the minister, priest.
Anointing him with oil. Here is the Sacrament of Extreme Unction so plainly promulgated (for it was instituted, as all other Sacraments of the New Testament, by our Savior Christ himself, and, as Venerable Bede thinks and other ancient writers, the anointing of the sick with oil, Mar. 4. appertains there unto) that some heretics, for the evidence of this place also (as of the other for good works) deny the epistle. Others (as the Calvinists) through their confidence of cunning shifts and glosses, confessing that St. James is the author, yet condemn the Church of God for using and taking it for a Sacrament. But what dishonor to God is it (we pray them) that a Sacrament should be instituted in the matter of oil, more than in the element of water? Why may not grace and remission of sins be annexed to the one as well as to the other, without derogation from God? But they say, Sacraments endure forever in the Church, this but for a season in the primitive Church. What Scripture tells them that this general and absolute prescription of the apostle in this case should endure but for a season? When was it taken away, abrogated or altered? They see the Church of God has always used it upon this warrant of the apostle, who knew Christ's meaning and institution of it better than these deceived men, who make more of their own fond guesses and conjectures, grounded neither on Scripture nor upon any circumstance of the next, nor any one authentic author that ever wrote, than of the express word of God. It was (say they) a miraculous practice of healing the sick, during only in the apostles' time, and not long after. We ask them whether Christ appointed any certain creature or external element unto the apostles generally to work miracles by Himself used sometimes clay and spittle, sometimes he sent them that were diseased, to wash themselves in waters: but that he appointed any of those or the like things for a general medicine or miraculous healing only, that we read not. For in the beginning, for the better inducing of the people to faith and devotion, Christ would have miracles to be wrought by sundry of the Sacraments also. Which miraculous works ceasing, yet the Sacraments remain still unto the world's end. Again we demand, whether ever they read or heard that men were generally commanded to seek for their health by miraculous means? Thirdly, whether all priests, or (as they call them) elders had the gift of miracles in the primitive Church? No it cannot be. For though some had yet all these indifferently, of whom the apostle speaks, had not the gift: and many that were not priests had it, both men and women, who yet could not be called for, as priests were in this case. And though the apostle and others could both cure men and revive them again, yet there was no such general precept for sick or dead men as this, to call for the apostles to heal or restore them to life again. Lastly, had any external element or miraculous practice, unless it were a Sacrament, the promise of remission of all kind of actual sins joined unto it? Or could St. James institute such a ceremony himself, that could save both body and soul, by giving health to the one, and grace and remission to the other? At other times these contentious wranglers rail at God's Church, for annexing only the remission of venial sins to the element of water, made holy by the priest's blessing of it in the name of Christ, and his word: and lo here they are driven to hold that St. James prescribed a miraculous oil or creature which had much more power and efficacy. Into these straits are such villains brought that will not believe the express word of God, interpreted by the practice of God's universal Church. Venerable Bede in 9th chapter of Luke says thus: "It is clear that this custom was delivered to the holy Church by the apostles themselves, that the sick should be anointed with oil, consecrated by the bishop's blessing." See for this and for the assertion and use of the Sacrament, (St. Innocentius, ep. 1. ad Decentium Eugubinum, c. 8. to. 1. Cone. & 1. 2. de visitatione infirmorum in St. Augustin, c. 4. Con- cil. Cabilonense 2 cap. 48. Concil. Wormatiense, cap. 72. to. 3. Cone. Aquisgra. c. 8. Florentinum, and other latter Councils. St. Bernard in the life of Malachy in fine.) This holy oil, because the faithful saw to have such virtue in the primitive Church, divers carried it home and used it in their infirmities, not using it in the sacramental manner which the apostle prescribes, as the adversaries unlearnedly object unto us: but as Christians now do (and then also did) concerning the water of baptism, which they used to take home with them after it was hallowed, and to give it to their diseased to drink.
15. The prayer of faith. He means the form of the Sacrament, that is, the words spoken at the same time when the party is anointed, which no doubt are most ancient and apostolic. Not that the word or prayer alone should have that great effect here mentioned, but joined with the aforesaid unction, as is plain.
Shall save. The first effect of this Sacrament is, to save the soul, by giving grace and comfort to withstand the terrors and temptations of the enemy, going about, (especially in that extremity of death) to drive men to despair or distress of mind and other damnable inconveniences. The which effect is signified in the matter of this Sacrament especially.
Shall raise him up. When it shall be good for the salvation of the party, or agreeable to God's honor, this Sacrament restores also a man to bodily health again, as experience often teach- eth us. Which yet is not done by way of miracle, to make the party suddenly whole, but by God's ordinary providence and use of second Causes, which otherwise would not have had that effect, but for the said Sacrament. This is the second effect.
They shall be forgiven him. What sins soever remain unremitted, they shall in this Sacrament and by the grace of it be remitted, if the persons worthily receive it. This is the third effect. St. Chrysostom of this effect says thus: They (speaking of priests) do not only remit sins in baptism, but afterwards also, according to the saying of St. James; If any be sick, let him bring in the priests, etc. (Li. 3. de Sacerd. prope initium). Let the Protestants mark that he calls Presbyteros, Sacerdotes, that is priests, and makes them the only ministers of this Sacrament, and not elders or other laymen. By all which you see this Sacrament of all other to be marvelous plainly set forth by the apostle. Only sick men, and (as the Greek word gives) men very weak must receive it: only priests must be the ministers of it: the matter of it is holy oil: the form is prayer, in such sort as we see now used : the effects are as is aforesaid. Yet this so plain a matter and so profitable a Sacrament, the enemy by heretics seek wholly to abolish.
16. Confess therefore. It is not certain that he speaks here of sacramental confession, yet the circumstance of the letter well bears it, and very probable it is that he means of it: and Origen does so expound it, (ho. 2. in Levit.) and Venerable Bede writes thus, "In this sentence (says he) there must be this discretion, that our daily and little sins we confess one to another, unto our equals, and believe to be saved by their daily prayer. But the uncleanness of the greater leprosy let us according to the law open to the priest, and at his pleasure in what manner and how long time he shall command, let us be careful to be purified." But the Protestants flying from the very word Confession in despite of the Sacrament translate thus, Acknowledge your faults one to another. They do not well like to have in one sentence, priests praying over the sick, anointing them, forgiving them their sins, confessing and the like.
17. He prayed. The Scriptures to which the apostle alludes, make no mention of Elijah's prayer. Therefore he knew it by tradition or revelation. By which we see that many things unwritten are of equal truth with the things written.
20. to be Converted. Here we see the great reward of such as seek to convert heretics or other sinners from error and wickedness; and how necessary an office it is, especially for a priest.
Shall save. We see, it derogates not from God, to at tribute our salvation to any man or angel in heaven or earth as to the workers of it under God, by their prayers, preaching, correction, council, or otherwise. Yet the heretics are so foolish and captious in this kind, that they cannot hear patiently, that our blessed Lady or others should be counted means or workers of our salvation.
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