NOTES ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES.

"The Unbridled Tongue."

Chapter i. 26, 27.-"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."

Preachers

THESE two verses form the practical application of a sermon which, throughout, has every word of it been practical, and of which therefore it might reasonably have been thought no further application was required. If one has preached a discourse in which every paragraph has been burdened with exhortation and warning, in which every sentence has been a winged arrow, not shot at a venture, but with direct and pointed aim, is it not sufficient to add: "these remarks have been practical cannot be too throughout, and the hearer may be left to apply them practical. for himself?" And yet, observe the apostle here. His sermon has surely been practical enough; surely he had made sufficiently clear the difference between a "doer of the word" and a mere "hearer;" nobody could possibly miss his meaning, and everybody must be going away too absorbed in self-application to wonder how or how far it fitted his neighbour; each of them must have been too busily occupied in looking into that mirror which had been held before him, that perfect law of liberty into the which if he looked, and continued to look, he would experience for himself the blessing promised to all who so did. It might be so, very likely it was so; but it might not be so; and, lest the searching word may have failed to search some heart, he will speak the still more searching word, he will bring out the last test of life and character, and make it impossible for

any not to judge themselves! "You are a doer of the Word and not a hearer ?" Make sure of this first: what about your selfrestraint ? What about your power to bridle your tongue, and what about your power not to bridle the outgoings of the compassions of your heart? Can you keep from saying bitter things? can you not keep from saying kind things? If you cannot keep from saying bitter things, well, you may think yourself very religious, you may be very zealous in all the outward activities of religion; but "if any man among you seem The two-fold to be religious and bridleth not his tongue, but

test. deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain!" On the other hand, if you can keep from saying kind things, if you can see your brother have need and shut up your bowels of compassion from him, then again, no matter all your religious observances, you are a mere hearer, your religion is vain for pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

:

A two-fold test whether a man is a doer of the Word, from the negative side, from the positive side: something he must keep himself from doing, something he must be eager to do.

I-First, from the negative side a "doer of the Word" is one who does not say bitter things; he does not give the reins to, he bridles his tongue. "If any man," &c.

man.

The man who is religious here is one who is so in his own opinion. He may be this in the opinion of others as well, but it is his own opinion about himself the apostle is concerned with. The man says to himself,-I am very much interested in religious things, I neglect no religious observance, I am a truly religious This is his opinion about himself; is it a correct one, and may he be classed among the "Doers?" Possibly, but first of all let the Apostle's test be applied. We must go close up to the The Man is man, we must get behind his religious activities: we religious in must get near enough to ask-What effect have all own opinion. these upon his power to refrain from speaking bitterly with his tongue! 'If any man among you," &c. Apostle lays great stress upon this test; he recurs to it further

his

The

on in his epistle, and at great length; it is the test which, with him, searches most searchingly into the secret springs of the heart. If a man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man; if he cannot bridle his tongue, his religion is vain, and there is an end of it! Is not James too strict here, very narrow, fanatical even; and is not some allowance to be made for his strong language? Must not we tone it down, and shade it away into something like conformity with truth and soberness ? Wait till we hear how we speak about the same thing! An ill-speaking person, a person who has never any good to say of anybody without a "but" after it which turns all his honey into gall, a person you dread to meet, for that some one's reputation is sure to suffer from the unbridled tongue: what do we think of such an one's religion? We think of it as James does, and we speak of it in even stronger terms than his! "If any man seem," &c., his religion is vain.

And all this is not remote from our lives, it is all as applicable to us as it was to the "twelve tribes scattered abroad." It is true these were very prone to the sins of the tongue, inclined to bitter wrangling, uncharitable, intolerant of opinions that did not in all points square with their own, not slow to express their intolerance, to pass off their gloomy suspicions as if they had been well-attested facts, to traduce the characters of those with whom they differed, and to think all the while they were doing God service! The Jews were peculiarly prone to sins of the tongue, and the Apostle's test was peculiarly fitted for them: shall we say it is not fitted for ourselves? Here is something which, perhaps, even we know something about. We have been crossed by some one in some of our schemes; we have been angered thereby, and, in our anger we have allowed ourselves to think unjustly of him. While in this mood, have we not said to others the unjust things we had been harbouring in our hearts, without letting it be known that the unjust things were but the ill-natured off-spring of our own Application of ill-natured feelings! The next day, after the sun

the test. had gone down, and we had had the blessed hours of the divine darkness in which to see things more clearly, we would not have said what we did last night: but we said it, and

it will be repeated, and where the mischief of it may end who can tell? But suppose that all we thought about him had been quite correct; suppose that after an impartial review of his conduct, and from knowledge of all the facts of the case, our opinion was not unjust, was it a right thing, a Christian thing, was it not to trample upon the very spirit of religion itself, to go away out to the streets with it, and to proclaim it aloud in the hearing of every passer by? Suppose we knew something about a man which, if it were known, would grievously injure him, would it not need a very strong reason to justify us in telling it? If he were our brother, no power would drag it from us; we should move heaven and earth to keep it secret as the grave! What then? Is not this man, whom with a word we could consign to social disgrace, to cold averted looks, to poverty itself, is not this man so near to us as to have the right to the shelter of a brother; has he not the claim upon us signed and countersigned by His hand Who said, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them," that we shall befriend him, and cover him, and hide him in the Why reveal what dark and cloudy day? We should justly be held up God conceals? to the execration of our fellow-men were we thus to lay bare what God has concealed, and for aught we know has forgiven and forgotten! The bridle of the tongue is three-ply : The bridle is charitableness, the Golden Rule, Christian brotherthree-ply. liness; and if any man were to say of another,—“ I'll say what I like about him, and I'll not be held back by the bit and the bridle of considerations of charity, of doing as I would be done by, of Christian brotherliness, he is but justifying the apostle's condemnation of him, a condemnation which at firstsight seems harsh, but to which in the hearing of this man's unbridled tongue we give in our hearty amen!

With this practical matter before us it becomes us to be practical. For example, you could say many a clever thing if you could but allow yourself to be bitter; you could be smart if you chose to be cruel; you might be brilliant if you could let yourself wound sensitive feelings. Which do you prefer, your jest to your friend; to say the clever, witty, sharp thing, though

B

Heartless

it should cut to the quick, knowing it would cut to the quick, careless of the pain? or, to leave it unsaid, to consent to be thought common-place and dull rather than wound, cleverness. to let your clever jest die on your lips rather than leave the rankling sore? Do you put a bridle on your tongue when of your smart thing some one would otherwise go away saying it smarts? This commandment is exceeding broad. This test is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword; it divides, lays bare, shows to be utterly irreligious some of those uses, abuses of the tongue which custom and thoughtlessness, and the contagion of evil example, have drugged us into imagining could harmonise and live with religious character and conduct. Charity suffereth long and is kind, is not easily provoked, never faileth." "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."

between

the substance

II. Second, from the positive side. "Pure religion," &c. This is not the only form religion takes, but it is one of its forms, and that religion which, of all the forms it takes, never takes this one, is empty, profitless, vain. The substance of religion, the essence of it, is the soul's relation of, dependence upon, and obedience to Distinguish God, and is one and the same in all circumstances; the form, the outward expression of religion, varies of religion in every circumstance, according to the special season and its forms. or special need which calls it forth; and at one time "pure religion and undefiled" may utter itself in a psalm, at another in a kindly word to a stranger, at another in a visit to the lonely abode of the widow and the orphan. As the English words before us stand, pure religion seems to consist in visiting the fatherless and the widow, as if this were the substance or essence of religion: as it is in the original, it means that pure religion manifests itself in, takes on the form and expresses itself by such kindly and compassionate acts. As if the Apostle would say, the way to test your religion is to ask whether it puts on that form which is so dear to God's own heart,-God, who is the Father of the fatherless and the Judge of the widow. Pure religion is such love to God as draws and inclines a man to