ON THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JAMES. BY THE REV. BERNARD JACOBI, OF PETERSHAGEN, NEAR MINDEN, IN PRUSSIA. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN. LONDON: THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, INSTITUTED 1799; DEPOSITORY, 56, PATERNOSTER-ROW, AND 65, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD 1838. DIVINITY SCHOOL LIBRARY HARVARD UNIVERSITY INTRODUCTION. MY BELOVED FRIENDS, We have lately celebrated the Feast of Pentecost, the last in the series of our yearly church festivals, and we are now entering on that portion of time in which our public services will not receive a distinctive character from any of the extraordinary events in the Gospel history.* It appears to me desirable, during the part of the year now before us, to take some one book of the Bible as the subject of exposition; and for this purpose I have selected the Epistle of James. Notwithstanding some very difficult expressions, it is, on the whole, one of the books of the New Testament that may be most easily understood; and if you follow me with your wonted attention and interest, there will not, I trust, remain much that will seem obscure. In this Epistle we are led directly to the consideration of the duties of the christian life; and as, during the former part of the year, we have been chiefly occupied with the Person and history of the Redeemer, for the purpose of exciting and strengthening your faith, so now it will be our aim to show you how, on the foundation of such a faith, the superstructure of the christian life is to be built, and what course of conduct must be pursued, to evince the reality of that great inward change by which believers are created anew, after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness. Thus we shall be enabled to try the purity of our conduct by the elevated maxims and solemn warnings of this apostle, and by the aid of his superior light ascertain the degree of our christian proficiency. * Referring to the Gospels for the day, from which, on certain days in the year, the text is commonly taken in the Lutheran church. LECTURE I. JAMES i. 1-4. JAMES, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting: My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. THE first question that offers itself to us, is, Who is this James? To which we reply, One of the twelve whom the Lord chose to be his apostles. But among the apostles there were two who bore this name. One, the son of Zebedee, and the elder brother of the evangelist John, was put to death in the first perse-. cution of the christians at Jerusalem. "Herod the king" (we are told in Acts xii. 1) "stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword." But the other James, the son of Alpheus, who is sometimes called the brother, that is, the half-brother or near relation of the Lord, of all the apostles remained the longest at Jerusalem, where he was held in great repute, and was invested with the office of bishop of B |