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Diversities of condition among men - the millionaire and the pauper, the autocrat and the slave. The cry for a leveling - communism, socialism, nihilism. So other differences - of station, of education, and even of natural gifts. But, after all, what are these differences in comparison with that which is common to all - the royal humanity which each one has received from God? For take the highest, the most cultured, the best endowed, and again a poor peasant man or woman, and let some crisis of joy or of sorrow sound the depths of their common nature, and how utterly do the surface differences disappear in presence of the deep stirrings of the common manhood or womanhood! Yes, when the great deeps are broken up, we take little account of the surface waves. This, then, the great truth, in presence of which all bickerings amongst men well might disappear. "Speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me"? Nay; "a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth" (see Luke 12:13-15). A man's manhood is more than everything. But this is only true in all its truth when manhood becomes really manhood. What are we now? The wreck of a splendid ship; the ruins of a glorious temple; discrowned kings. Oh, let our manhood be re-made, let the crown of true royalty be placed on the brow, let Christ dwell in our hearts by faith, and then how little and paltry will seem either the possession or lack of the things which in their folly men call great! This is the exact thought which James urges in the text: "Let the brother of low degree glory in his high estate" - as being a man in Christ; "and the rich, in that he is made low" - in the stripping off of his adventitious greatness, by the estimate of Christianity, that his true greatness may be realized. We have to consider - the exaltation of the poor, the humiliation of the rich.

I. THE EXALTATION OF THE POOR. To Christianity belongs the unique glory of having recognized the worth of man as man, whether with or without the extraneous advantages on which other systems have laid such stress. How was it in cultivated heathendom? The foreigner was a "barbarian," forsooth; and the slave? In some cases worse than the brute beasts! Judaism, too, had become exclusive - nay, worse than exclusive, proudly bigoted - in its relation to other people; and even amongst the Jews themselves there was the same contemptible pride (Matthew 9:11; Luke 18:11; John 7:49). But it remained for Christianity to show that, however bemired and befouled, a human soul is a jewel of the rarest worth. Listen: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor" (Luke 4:18); and, "Go and show John those things which ye do hear and see:... the poor have the gospel preached to them" (Matthew 11:4, 5); and again, "Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God" (Luke 6:20). Now, this is the exaltation of the brother of low degree of which James speaks; the recognition of his "high estate" as possessing a God-made manhood - a manhood endowed with all the privileges and blessings of the salvation of Christ.

1. "In our image, after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26). That the inalienable dignity of "man"! Man's range of swift-winged thought, man's wealth of tender affection, man's intrepidity of heroic purpose; man's discernment of the eternal law of holiness, and power of freely choosing the good which he discerns; and man's immortality; - all these are flashes from the very life of God himself, communicated to man, and constituting man by native right God's child. Man has fallen? Yes, truly. But the very depth of the fall betokens the loftiness of the primal calling; the very degradation tells of the intended dignity.

2. And man's redemption? Oh, words can never tell the worth of the human soul in the sight of God, as evidenced by so wonderful a redemption of the soul of man from the degradation and death of sin. This truly is the sign-manual of the worth of man, as well as of the love of God: "Ye were redeemed... with the precious blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:18, 19). And the salvation itself? "Heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ:" ye see your calling, brethren! Well may "the brother of low degree glory in his high estate," so created, so redeemed!

II. THE HUMILIATION OF THE RICH. The antithesis is only one of outward seeming, for the rich is really endowed with all the glory of redeemed manhood equally with the poor, if he would but recognize and realize his endowment. But he is tempted to exalt himself by what is really a self-humiliation, and make his manhood depend upon his appendages and trappings. And therefore his real exaltation can only be by what might seem to the world as a self-humiliation. Let him throw off his regard for this vain show, and prize that wealth of human privilege and Divine blessing which are his in common with his "brother of low degree. Let go the shadow and grasp the substance; for these things are yours too, if you will have them, and they are the true riches. This needs no arguing, but it may need enforcing.

1. The false glorying of the world - glitter, pride, and power. The supercilious scorn of the high," as speaking of the "masses," and of them as the "vulgar," the "ignorant," the "plebeian. The essential vulgarity and ignorance is in the people who so speak; their words recoil upon themselves. Again, the false ambition of the low;" they covet those things that are above their reach, and so deserve most strongly the stigma of vulgarity. Yes, the vulgar man is he who cares inordinately about either the possession or the lack of these things; the true patrician is the man who values his manhood infinitely above them all. For these things? "As the flower of the grass" they "pass away." The great statesman and the mighty author - they die like common men. They are one with the grass of the field.

2. A false glorying in the Church. This which James hinted at; this which he directly rebukes in James it. Let us beware. Pride on one side, envy on the other. Both alike betray an utterly false estimate of worldly things in comparison with the "common salvation" of the grace of God. Ah yes! it is the "grace" of the common salvation that abides, and is alike our glory in life and our support in death. The humblest Christian upon whom Christ's Name is truly named ranks as high in the sight of God as the Christian millionaire or prince; and, when death comes, the man of consecrated wealth and the preacher of consecrated gifts die, like the poorest Christian peasant, clinging to the Name of Christ. Therefore, let "the rich' rejoice "in that he is made low;" for what seems his self-humiliation in the eyes of a false world, viz. his light esteeming of things that are but paltry and vain, this is his true exaltation, "which is in the sight of God of great price" (1 Peter 3:3, 4). May it be ours to possess, and duly to prize, "the exceeding riches of his grace, through Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:7)! Amen. - T.F.L.

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KJV: Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:

WEB: But let the brother in humble circumstances glory in his high position;