SECT. VI.

Whether St. James's doctrine, concerning faith and works, contradicts St. Paul's doctrine of faith without works.

ST

T. PAUL in his Epiftle to the Romans, ch. iii. 28. afferts, that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law:' and this doctrine he delivers in many other places. St. James, on the contrary, afferts, ch. ii. 17. 20. that faith without works is dead,' and ver. 22. fays that Abraham our father was juftified by works.' The question therefore is, how are thefe affertions, which apparently contradict each other, to be reconciled? The ufual methods of reconciling them I think are unfatisfactory, because they afcribe to the words of St. Paul and St. James meanings, of which they are hardly capable. But the contradiction will vanish immediately, if we only attend to the different fenfes, in which the two writers have used the words faith,' and 'justification.'

When St. Paul afferts, that we are juftified by faith, it is evident that he means faith in the death and facrifice of Chrift. He has fully explained his own meaning in the very chapter, from which the preceding quotation was made. For he fays, Rom. iii. 22. the righteoufnefs of God, which is by faith of Jefus Chrift:' ver. 25. whom God hath fet forth, to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood' and ver. 26. that he might be juft, and the juftifier of him, which believeth in Jefus.'

St. James, on the contrary, in the place, where he has been fuppofed to differ from St. Paul, does not fpeak of faith in Chrift, and his facrifice, but of faith in the one true God. This appears from ch. ii. 19. where he

fays

I do not mean to fay that St. James has in no part of his Epiftle fpoken of faith in Chrift, for he fpeaks of it in exprefs terms, Ch. ii. 1. I mean only to affert, that in that particular place, with which we are now concerned, he does not mean faith in Chrift.

fays thou believeft that there is one God; thou doest well the devils alfo believe and tremble.' This example St. James quotes, as a proof that a belief alone in the one true God is not fufficient for falvation. We fhall more clearly perceive the meaning of St. James, and the force of his proof, if we recollect, that according to the Jewish notions of idolatry, which St. Paul had delivered, 1 Cor. x. 19, 20, 21. devils or evils fpirits were worshipped in the gods of the heathens. For the heathens confidered their gods only as intermediate fpirits between themfelves and the infinite eternal Being, who was above all things: and they likewife called their gods dana. But fpirits, who fuffer themselves to be adored by men, must be evil spirits, and disobedient to the Supreme Being, to whom alone adoration is due. Now thefe evil fpirits, or devils, fays St. James, though they are worshipped as gods, are convinced, that there is only one God: they have in this refpect as much faith as Abraham; but their works do not harmonize with their faith, fince they take delight in being worshipped by men. Their faith therefore in the one true God, inftead of procuring them happiness, tends only to their condemnation and they tremble before that God, who will annihilate their affumed divinity, and punish them for being the feducers of mankind,

That men are juftified by faith in the one true God, and that every Jew,, who believed in this fundamental article, would be faved, is a doctrine, which St. Paul has never delivered. But fome perfons, who were known to St. James, muft have taught this doctrine, or he would not have taken fo much pains to confute it: and thefe perfons were certainly Jews', not difciples of St. Paul. For Jewish writers in their comments on Gen. xv. 6. and likewife on other occafions, affert, that they obtained falvation

To quote paffages from Rabbinic writings would be fuperfluous: but I will quote one from the works of Philo, who was a contemporary of St. James, Tom. II. p. 442. Mangey. Therefore he is faid to Have been the firft, who believed in God: for he was the firft, who maintained the firm and unchangeable pofition, that there is one fupreme cause, which protects the world and every thing in the world.'

falvation by faith"; but the faith, of which they speak, is only faith in the one true God, or at the utmost, faith alfo in a future ftate. Now St. James, in denying that this faith, if unaccompanied by works, would procure falvation, has faid nothing more than St. Paul himfelf has faid, though in other words, in the fecond chapter of his Epiftle to the Romans, where he combats the fame Jewish error, and afferts, that not the hearers, but the doers only of the law will be juftified, and that a knowledge of God's will without the performance of it, ferves only to increase our condemnation.

Further the word juftification,' which is a very material term in the two fuppofed contradictory doctrines, is ufed by St. James in a different fenfe from that in which it is ufed by St. Paul. In the third chapter of the Epiftle to the Romans, where St. Paul fays that we are juftified through faith in Christ, he uses the term juftified' to denote pronounced juft and exempt from punishment, or, pardoned in respect to our former fins.' Now it is evident, that if we have trefpaffed in the former part of our lives, fubfequent good works, which it is our duty at all times to perform, will not render us innocent in refpect to our past offences, and indeed no human court of Justice would admit of this plea. Equally evident is it, that the works of the Levitical law, fuch as the offering of animals, cannot produce a remiffion of fins, or juftification, in St. Paul's fenfe of the word. But this term may be used in other fenfes, though we are accustomed in our fyftemsof divinity to give it that fenfe only, which was afcribed to it by St. Paul. For inftance, juftification may denote a declaration of the Deity that a particular perfon is morally good, virtuous, and holy as it is faid of Job, that he was no hypocrite, that he had not his equal on earth,

Mohammed likewife has taught this doctrine, which he learnt from the Jews. The Koran promifes eternal falvation to the faithful. Now by the faithful, in the Koran, are understood they who believe in the unity of the Godhead, and in the refurrection of the dead: and by the unfaithful, they who deny thefe articles.

earth, that he feared God, and fled from evil. And that St. James really ufed the word juftification in this fenfe appears from what he adds, ch. ii. 23. and he was called the friend of God.' Now if we take the term juftification in this fenfe, it is clear that Abraham's juftification must be ascribed, not to his faith only, but likewife to his works, as St. James afferts, ch. ii. 21-23. For if Abraham, with all his faith in God, had refused to offer his fon Ifaac, he would not have been juftified. And on the other hand, works alone without faith would not have juftified him. For, if he had offered his fon without faith in God, without believing in God's infinite power, and ability to raise Ifaac from the dead, he would not only have been a murderer, and a defiler of the altar, but in his heart muft have accufed God of a violation of his word, in firft promifing to blefs Ifaac's pofterity, and then commanding him to be facrificed before he had children.

From what has been already faid in this fection, it appears, that it was by no means St. James's intention, as many fuppofe, to prevent St. Paul's doctrine on the efficacy of faith from being falfely understood: for it is not a misinterpretation of St. Paul's doctrine, against which St. James argues, but an erroneous doctrine of the Jews, which St. Paul combats, as well as St. James. Nor is the confutation of this doctrine the principal object of the Epistle, for St. James introduces it merely to enforce what he had faid relative to certain offences, fuch as complaining against God, and oppreffing the poor; and to convince his readers, that a knowledge of the law, if they did not follow it, would not avail them, In fact the fuppofition, that St. James intended to prevent a mifinterpretation of St. Paul's doctrine is in itself almoft incredible: for no man, whofe object was merely to prevent the doctrine of another from being falfely understood, would exprefs himself in fuch a manner, that his readers might fuppofe he meant to combat the doctrine itself. Whoever fubfcribes to the doctrine advanced by another, but is apprehenfive that it may be VOL. IV. falfely

U

falfely understood, will limit and explain that doctrine; and will not make ufe of terms, which have the appearance, rather of a confutation, than of an explanation. But whether the author of this Epiftle was the elder or the younger James, I think no one, who has read the Acts of the Apostles, can fuppofe, that he meant really to combat St. Paul's doctrine, and that he defignedly made ufe of expreffions, which might counteract what St. Paul had afferted.

Laftly, I think it highly probable, that St. James, when he wrote his Epiftle, had not feen St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. For if he had, he would probably have delivered his doctrine relative to faith and works in other words, and would have avoided the use of terms, which St. Paul had adopted in his doctrine of faith without works: fince he muft have been aware, that the ufe of the fame terms would unavoidably create at leaft an apparent contradiction to the doctrine of St. Paul.

SECT. VII.

Of the time, when the Epifle of St. James was written.

MOST

W

OST commentators fuppofe that this Epiftle was written about the year 60 or 61. But the arguments, which have been advanced in favour of this. late date, are very unftable. Appeal has been made to ch. iv. 4-6. where St. James is faid to have quoted from Rom. viii. 6. 7. Gal. v. 6. and I Pet. v. 5: and thence it has been inferred, that this Epiftle was written. later, than St. Paul's Epiftles to the Romans and the Galatians,

See for inftance Jo. Henr. Michaelis Introd. in Ep. Jacobi, § 8... Millii Prolegomena, 56. and Lardner's Supplement, Vol. III. Ch.. xvii. §2.