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1:1 A servant of Jesus Christ - Whose name the apostle mentions but once more in the whole epistle, Jam 2:1. And not at all in his whole discourse, Act 15:14, etc ; or Act 21:20-25. It might have seemed, if he mentioned him often, that he did it out of vanity, as being the brother of the Lord. To the twelve tribes - Of Israel; that is, those of them that believe.Which are scattered abroad - In various countries. Ten of the tribes were scattered ever since the reign of Hosea; and great part of the rest were now dispersed through the Roman empire: as was foretold, Deu 28:25, etc Deu 30:4. Greeting - That is, all blessings, temporal and eternal.

1:2 My brethren, count it all joy - Which is the highest degree of patience, and contains all the rest. When ye fall into divers temptations - That is, trials.

1:4 Let patience have its perfect work - Give it full scope, under whatever trials befal you. That ye may be perfect and entire - Adorned with every Christian grace. And wanting nothing - Which God requires in you.

1:5 If any want - The connexion between the first and following verses, both here and in the fourth chapter, will be easily discerned by him who reads them, while he is suffering wrongfully. He will then readily perceive, why the apostle mentions all those various affections of the mind. Wisdom - To understand, whence and why temptations come, and how they are to be improved. Patience is in every pious man already. Let him exercise this, and ask for wisdom. The sum of wisdom, both in the temptation of poverty and of riches, is described in the ninth and tenth verses. Who giveth to all - That ask aright.And upbraideth not - Either with their past wickedness, or present unworthiness.

1:6 But let him ask in faith - A firm confidence in God.St. James also both begins and ends with faith, Jam 5:15; the hinderances of which he removes in the middle part of his epistle. He that doubteth is like a wave of the sea - Yea, such are all who have not asked and obtained wisdom. Driven with the wind - From without. And tossed - From within, by his own unstableness.

1:8 A doubleminded man - Who has, as it were, two souls; whose heart is not simply given up to God. Is unstable - Being without the true wisdom; perpetually disagrees both with himself and others, Jam 3:16.

1:9 Let the brother - St James does not give this appellation to the rich. Of low degree - Poor and tempted.Rejoice - The most effectual remedy against doublemindedness. In that he is exalted - To be a child of God, and an heir of glory.

1:10 But the rich, in that he is made low - Is humbled by a deep sense of his true condition. Because as the flower - Beautiful, but transient. He shall pass away - Into eternity.

1:11 For the sun arose and withered the grass - There is an unspeakable beauty and elegance, both in the comparison itself, and in the very manner of expressing it, intimating both the certainty and the suddenness of the event. So shall the rich fade away in his ways - In the midst of his various pleasures and employments.

1:12 Happy is the man that endureth temptation - Trials of various kinds. He shall receive the crown - That fadeth not away.Which the Lord hath promised to them that love him - And his enduring proves his love. For it is love only that "endureth all things."

1:13 But let no man who is tempted - To sin. Say, I am tempted of God - God thus tempteth no man.

1:14 Every man is tempted, when - In the beginning of the temptation. He is drawn away - Drawn out of God, his strong refuge. By his own desire - We are therefore to look for the cause of every sin, in, not out of ourselves. Even the injections of the devil cannot hurt before we make them our own.And every one has desires arising from his own constitution, tempers, habits, and way of life. And enticed - In the progress of the temptation, catching at the bait: so the original word signifies.

1:15 Then desire having conceived - By our own will joining therewith. Bringeth forth actual sin - It doth not follow that the desire itself is not sin. He that begets a man is himself a man. And sin being perfected - Grown up to maturity, which it quickly does. Bringeth forth death - Sin is born big with death.

1:16 Do not err - It is a grievous error to ascribe the evil and not the good which we receive to God.

1:17  No evil, but every good gift - Whatever tends toholiness. And every perfect gift - Whatever tends to glory.Descendeth from the Father of lights - The appellation of Father is here used with peculiar propriety. It follows, "he begat us." He is the Father of all light, material or spiritual, in the kingdom of grace and of glory. With whom is no variableness - No change in his understanding. Or shadow of turning - in his will. He infallibly discerns all good and evil; and invariably loves one, and hates the other. There is, in both the Greek words, a metaphor taken from the stars, particularly proper where the Father of lights is mentioned.Both are applicable to any celestial body, which has a daily vicissitude of day and night, and sometimes longer days, sometimes longer nights. In God is nothing of this kind.He is mere light. If there Is any such vicissitude, it is in ourselves, not in him.

1:18 Of his own will - Most loving, most free, most pure, just opposite to our evil desire, Jam 1:15.Begat he us - Who believe. By the word of truth - The true word, emphatically so termed; the gospel. That we might be a kind of first - fruits of his creatures - Christians are the chief and most excellent of his visible creatures; and sanctify the rest. Yet he says, A kind of - For Christ alone is absolutely the first - fruits.

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8:30 He enjoined them silence for the present,

1. That he might not encourage the people to set him up for a temporal king;
2. That he might not provoke the scribes and Pharisees to destroy him before the time and,
3. That he might not forestall the bright evidence which was to be given of his Divine character after his resurrection.

8:31  Mat 16:21; Luk 9:22.

8:32 He spake that saying openly - Or in express terms. Till now he had only intimated it to them. And Peter taking hold of him - Perhaps by the arms or clothes.

8:33 Looking on his disciples - That they might the more observe what he said to Peter.

8:34 And when he called the people - To hear a truth of the last importance, and one that equally concerned them all. Let him deny himself - His own will, in all things small and great, however pleasing, and that continually: And take up his cross - Embrace the will of God, however painful, daily, hourly,continually. Thus only can he follow me in holiness to glory.