02.01. Chapter 1 - Verse 04

James 1:4. But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting in nothing.

Here he cometh to show what patience is right, by way of exhortation, pressing them to perseverance, integrity, and all possible perfection. I will open what is difficult in the verse.

Ἔργον τέλειον, her perfect work.—For the opening of this, know that in the apostle’s time there were divers that with a great deal of zeal bore out the first brunt, but being tired, either with the diversity or the length of evils, they yielded and fainted; therefore he wisheth them to tarry till patience were thoroughly exercised, and its perfection discovered. The highest acts of graces are called the perfection of them: as of Abraham’s faith we say, in ordinary speech, there was a perfect faith; so when patience is thoroughly tried by sundry and long afflictions, we say there is a perfect patience. So that the perfect work of patience is a resolute perseverance, notwithstanding the length, the sharpness, and the continual succession of sundry afflictions. One trial discovered patience in Job; but when evil came upon evil, and he bore all with a meek and quiet spirit, that discovered patience perfect, or sufficiently exercised. It followeth:— That you may be perfect and entire, wanting in nothing.—The apostle’s intent is not to assert a possibility of perfection in Christians: ‘We all fail in many things.’ James 3:2. And all that we have here is but in part: 1 Corinthians 13:9-10, ‘We know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.’ Here grace must needs be imperfect, because the means are imperfect. But his meaning is either that we should be sincere, as sincerity is called perfection in scripture: Genesis 17:1, ‘Walk before me, and be thou perfect;’ so it is in the original and marginal reading, what in our translation is, ‘be thou upright;’ or else it is meant of the perfection of duration and perseverance; or rather, lastly, that perfection is intended which is called the perfection of parts,—that we might be so perfect, or entire, that no necessary grace might be lacking—that, having other gifts, they might also have the gift of patience, and the whole image of Christ might be completed in them—that nothing might be wanting which is necessary to make up a Christian. Some, indeed, make this a legal sentence, as implying what God may in justice require, and to what we should in conscience aim—to wit, exact perfection, both in parts and degrees. It is true this is beyond our power; but because we have lost our power, there is no reason God should lose his right. It is a saying of Austin,¹ O homo, in prœceptione cognosce quid debeas habere, et in correptione cognosce tuo te vitio non habere. Such precepts serve to show God’s right, and quicken us to duty, and humble us with the sense of our own weakness. So much God might require, and so much we had power to perform, though we have lost it by our own default. This is true, but the former interpretations are more simple and genuine.

¹ Aug. in lib. de Corrept. et Grat. c. 3. The notes are these:—

Obs. 1. The perfection of our graces is not discovered till we are put upon many and great trials. As a pilot’s skill is discerned in a storm, so is a Christian’s grace in many and great troubles.² Well, then, in all that doth befall you, say, Yet patience hath not had its perfect work. Expectation of a worse thing maketh lesser troubles more comportable; yet trust and patience is not drawn out to the height. The apostle saith, Hebrews 12:4, ‘Yet ye have not resisted unto blood, striving against sin.’ Should we faint in a lesser trial, before the perfect work cometh to be discovered? Job was in a sad condition, yet he putteth a harder case: Job 13:15, ‘If he should kill me, yet I will trust in him:’ in a higher trial I should not faint or murmur.

² ‘Gubernatoris artem tranquillum mare et obsequens ventus non ostendit; adversi aliquid incurrat oportet, quod animum probet.’—Sen. ad Marc. c. 5.

Obs. 2. That the exercise of grace must not be interrupted till it be full and perfect—till it come to ἔργον τέλειον, a perfect work. Ordinary spirits may be a little raised for a time, but they fall by and by again: Galatians 5:7, ‘Ye did run well; who hindered you?’ You were in a good way of faith and patience, and went happily forward; but what turned you out of the way? Implying there was as little, or rather less, reason to be faint in the progress as to be discouraged in the beginning. Common principles may make men blaze and glare for a while, yet afterward they fall from heaven like lightning. It is true of all graces, but chiefly of the grace in the text. Patience must last to the end of the providence, as long as the affliction lasteth; not only at first, but when your evils are doubled, and the furnace is heated seven times hotter. Common stubbornness will bear the first onset, but patience holdeth out when troubles are continued and delayed. The apostle chideth the Galatians because their first heat was soon spent: Galatians 3:3, ‘Are ye so foolish? having begun in the spirit, are ye made perfect in the flesh?’ It is not enough to begin; our proceedings in religion must be answerable to our beginnings.³ To falter and stagger after much forwardness,⁴ showeth we are ‘not fit for the kingdom of God,’ Luke 9:62. The beasts in the prophet always went forward (see Ezekiel 1:11); and crabs, that go backward, are reckoned among unclean creatures, Leviticus 11:10. Nero’s first five years are famous; and many set forth well, but are soon discouraged. Liberius, the Bishop of Rome, was zealous against the Arians, and was looked upon as the Samson of the church, the most earnest maintainer of orthodoxism; suffered banishment for the truth; but alas! he after failed, and to recover his bishopric (saith Baronius⁵), sided with the Arians. Well, then, while you are in the world, go on to a more perfect discovery of patience, and follow them that, ‘through faith’ and a continued ‘patience, have inherited the promises.’ Hebrews 6:12.

³ ‘Non incepisse sed perfecisse virtutis est.’—Aug. ad Frat. in Eremo. Ser. 8.

⁴ ‘Turpe est cedere oneri, et luctari cum officio quod semel recepisti; nou est vir fortis et strenuus qui laborem fugit, nec crescit illi animus ipsa rerum difficultate.’—Seneca.

⁵ Baronius ad annum Christi, 357.

Obs. 3. That Christians must aim at, and press on to perfection. The apostle saith, ‘That ye may be perfect and entire, nothing wanting.’ (1.) Christians will be coveting, and aspiring to, absolute perfection. We are led on to growth by this aim and desire: they hate sin so perfectly, that they cannot be quiet till it be utterly abolished. First, they go to God for justification, ne damnet, that the damning power of sin may be taken away; then for sanctification, ne regnet, that the reigning power of sin may be destroyed; then for glorification, ne sit, that the very being of it may be abolished. And as they are bent against sin with a mortal and keen hatred, so they are carried on with an earnest and importunate desire of grace. They that have true grace will not be contented with a little grace; no measures will serve their turn. ‘I would by any means attain to the resurrection of the dead,’ saith Paul, Php 3:11; that is, such a state of grace as we enjoy after the resurrection. It is a metonymy of the subject for the adjunct. Free grace, you see, hath a vast desire and ambition; it aimeth at the holiness of the glorious and everlasting state; and, indeed, this is it which makes a Christian to press onward, and be so earnest in his endeavours, as Hebrews 6:1, with Hebrews 6:4, ‘Let us go on to perfection;’ and then Hebrews 6:4, ‘It is impossible for those that were once enlightened,’ &c., implying that men go back when they do not go on to perfection; having low aims, they go backward, and fall off. (2.) Christians must be actually perfect in all points and parts of Christianity. As they will have faith, they will have patience; as patience, love and zeal. In 1 Peter 1:15, the rule is, ‘Be ye holy, as I am holy, in all manner of conversation.’ Every point and part of life must be seasoned with grace, therefore the apostle saith, ἐν πασῆ ἀναστροφῇ, in every creek and turning of the conversation: so 2 Corinthians 8:7, ‘As ye abound in everything, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, see that ye abound in this grace also.’ Hypocrites are always lacking in one part or another. The Corinthians had much knowledge and utterance, and little charity; as many professors pray much, know much, hear much, but do not give much; they do not ‘abound in this also.’ As Basil saith in his sermon ad Divites, I know many that fast, pray, sigh, πάσαν τὰν ἀδάπανον εὐλάβειαν ἐκδιανυμένους, love all cheap acts of religion, and such as cost nothing but their own pains, but are sordid and base, withholding from God and the poor, τὶ ὀφέλος τουτοῖς τῆς λοίπης ἀρετῆς. What profit have they in their other graces when they are not perfect? There is a link and cognation between the graces; they love to go hand in hand, to come up as in a dance, and consort, as some expound the apostle’s word, ἐπιχορηγήσατε: 2 Peter 1:5, ‘Add to faith, virtue,’ &c. One allowed miscarriage or neglect may be fatal. Say, then, thus within yourselves—A Christian should be found in nothing wanting. Oh! but how many sad defects are there in my soul! if I were weighed in God’s balance, I should be found much wanting! Oh, strive to be more entire and perfect. (3.) They aim at the perfection of duration, that, as they would be wanting in no part of duty, so in no part of their lives. Subsequent acts of apostasy make our former crown to wither; they lose what they have wrought, 2 John 1:8. All their spiritual labour formerly bestowed is to no purpose, and whatever we have done and suffered for the gospel, it is, in regard of God, lost and forgotten. So Ezekiel 18:24, ‘When he turneth to iniquity, all the righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned.’ As under the law, if a Nazarite had defiled himself, he was to begin all anew: Numbers 6:12, ‘The days that were before shall be lost, because his separation was denied;’ as if he had fulfilled the half part of his vow, or three parts of his vow, yet all was to be null and lost upon every pollution, and he was to begin again. So it is in point of apostasy; after, by a solemn vow and consecration, we have separated ourselves to Christ, if we do not endure to the end, all the righteousness, zeal, and patience of our former profession is forgotten.