the word, listening to preaching, belonging to the Church, -with privileges, professions, passing impressions, partial amendments? Many go no farther. The heart is not really changed. The life is not brought into subjection to. the Saviour. There is no doing of the Divine will, doing it cordially and habitually. Well, such persons may have fine houses, but they are houses with sand, not rock, for their foundation. They are sure to come down sooner or later, down with a terrible crash, burying the foolish occupants in their ruins, unless they make a speedy escape. Mere hearers, you get glimpses of yourselves in the glass, and you are moved for the moment; but away you go to your vanities and vices, to your money-making and pleasure-hunting, and you forget the filthy spots, the hideous impurities and deformities so lately discovered. You repair not to the fountain opened for the washing away of sin and uncleanness. You flee not to that Saviour who can fashion you after his own glorious likeness, making you new creatures. On you no blessing is pronounced,-no, but woe, curse, destruction everlasting. So far from your hearing being of any benefit to you, it will condemn you, it will be a millstone about your necks, a fire to consume you like stubble. O rest not in it, I beseech you, as you would not perish, but hasten to become doers, by believing with mind and heart in Christ; for this is the first and the great work, the work which must precede, and is sure to issue in every other! Embrace the gospel. Escape to the stronghold while you are prisoners of hope. Strive to enter in at the strait gate, and cry to him who can effectually bring you in, and set you in the way which conducts to the life everlasting. Are you doers, real, though not perfect doers? Then you are blessed, blessed though you may still have heavy burdens to carry, and sore trials to endure,-blessed whatever your earthly circumstances and your spiritual troubles. In the service of God you have a spring of comfort, the flow of which neither the heat of summer nor the cold of winter can interrupt. The more you devote yourselves to it, the greater will be your enjoyment. Hearken more and more to the commandments, so shall your peace be like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea. And soon you shall stand before the throne, having come out of all tribulation, and there, in perfect doing you shall have perfect blessedness, finding, as you shall, that full conformity to God carries wrapt up in it the full fruition of God. "Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.' "1 1 Rev. vii. 15, 16, 17. X. VAIN RELIGION AND TRUE. "If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion, and undefiled, before God and the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."-JAMES i. 26, 27. N all ages men have been prone to satisfy themselves with the mere hearing of God's word. They have thought it enough to sit under the sound of the gospel, without submitting to its authority and exhibiting its spirit. They have substituted privileges and professions in the room of the principles and practice of religion. How many found their hopes on reading the Scriptures, listening to sermons, possessing knowledge, and such like, while their hearts and lives are not conformed to the perfect law, are adorned with none of the beauties of holiness! One thing is lacking, but then that is everything— the doing of the word, the keeping of the commandments, the walking in the paths of righteousness. Our Lord strikingly warned all of this tendency, and of the fatal consequences of yielding to it, by comparing those who should hear his sayings and not do them, to a man who foolishly built his house on the sand, where it fell as soon as the storm arose; and those who should hear his sayings and do them, to a man who wisely built his house on a rock, where it stood unshaken amidst all the fury of the tempest. James presses home the same truth in the preceding verses, and he does it also by means of an exceedingly appropriate and expressive figure or illustration. It is that of two persons, the one of whom, having beheld his natural face in a glass or mirror, straightway goes off and forgets the appearance he presented; while the other, having looked at himself far more intently, and continuing to do so, makes fuller discoveries, receives deeper impressions, which exert a real, decisive, lasting influence on his whole conduct. But there is still room for self-deception. There may be a great deal of what seems doing of God's work, which yet may be entirely vitiated by some vital flaw, proved to be worthless by some evil habit or practice. There may be a fly James here specifies in the ointment, spoiling all its flavour. such a radical defect, one already alluded to in the exhortation to be slow to speak and much dwelt on at a subsequent part of this Epistle. In these verses we have two things for consideration, and in dealing with them, as we proceed to do, let us earnestly seek the teaching and blessing of the Holy Spirit. I. A specimen of vain religion. I. A specimen of vain religion.-Ver. 26, "If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain." The matter is presented, as you observe, in the form of a supposition; but there can be no question that James pointed to what actually existed among those whom he addressed. He was dealing with a real case, while he spoke of it thus indirectly, hypothetically. The particular sin mentioned must have been specially prevalent among his readers, as we see from other parts of the Epistle, and it had all the significance, all the deadly influence which he here states. "If any man among you,"-any man, be K he who he may, be his standing and authority, his profession and position, what they may, among you Christians. By putting the matter thus, he would lead them to deal with themselves individually, one by one, to look each at his own particular, personal case, and inquire whether the supposition was realized in regard to himself. "Seem to be religious." "Seem," that is not so much to others as to himself—if he think that this is his character and condition. It is more than the bare appearance, which may easily impose on those around; it is the impression, conviction in our own minds that we are devout, God's true worshippers, and servants. The term religious points to the outward manifestation of pious feeling, the observance of sacred ordinances, the performance of sacred offices. "And bridleth not his tongue,"―restrains not its licence, curbs not, governs not this unruly member; "but deceiveth his own heart"namely, with the idea that he may be in a gracious state, may be a true Christian, while giving the reins to his tongue. Persons who fear and avoid grosser sins are apt to think very little of this offence, and not to regard it as at all inconsistent with real godliness. Indeed, they are sometimes ready to draw inferences from it in their own favour, taking it as an evidence of faithfulness and zeal, inability to bear them that are evil, ardent attachment to the truth and cause of the Saviour. "This man's religion is vain."-Yes, however multiplied its observances, however exact its external forms,-it is vain, fruitless, without value, without effect. It possesses no reality, and it brings no blessing. It is not soul-sanctifying, and therefore cannot be soul-saving. They who have nothing better can never return and come to Zion as the ransomed of the Lord. They have neither the title nor the meetness, the state nor the character, without which heaven's gate cannot be entered. With these preliminary remarks, let us examine a little more closely both the sin here specified, and the evidence |