but, notwithstanding, ye give them not those things which be needful" for the clothing or feeding of the body, what doth it profit them to hear your kind words? Would it not be a mere mockery, if your pretended compassion issued only in fine words and a courteous manner towards them? Even so faith professed with the mouth, if it hath not works answerable to that profession, is dead and fruitless as these words, "being alone;" being, that is to say, unaccompanied by works to shew its reality.-The illustration which the Apostle here produces of the folly of pretending to love without deeds to prove it, clearly develops his idea respecting faith. You do not condemn the quality of Christian love, because a pretender to it will suffer his brother to starve; but you justly condemn the man, and deny that he possesses this love. Even so, when a man says he has faith," but has no works to demonstrate it; you would not condemn faith, but this pretender to faith, and reprove him by saying, that "faith without works is dead."

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We now come to the eighteenth verse." Yea a man" (an opposer of the Christian faith, as a Jew, for instance,)" may say" to such an empty pretender to faith, Thou boastest that "thou hast faith, and I have works; shew me thy faith" (to which

thou pretendest) "without thy works," if thou

art able. For my part, I will prove the superiority of that faith which thou despisest; because "I will shew thee my faith by my works."

"Thou believest that there is one God. Thou (in this) dost well;" but if this faith has no influence upon thy conduct, what is it more than "the devils" possess?" The devils believe" in the power of God, and their faith has some influence upon them; for "they tremble." Can thy pretended faith, which has less influence on thee than even that of the devils, save thee?

Verse 20." But wilt thou know," he then adds, “O vain man!" who makest profession of such a naked faith," that faith without works is dead," is a mere nullity? Is it therefore such a faith as this which will justify thee?

He then comes to the example of Abraham. "Was not Abraham our father justified," not by such a lifeless fruitless faith without works as you possess, but "by" a faith which produced "works" (for such I take to be the sense of the passage, though the detached words might not seem to convey it) when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar."Seest thou how faith wrought with his works," to produce them, " and by works was faith made perfect?" "And the Scripture was ful

filled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it (his faith) was counted to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God!"

The argument respecting Abraham appears to be this:-God had promised to Abraham a son; Abraham stedfastly believed that promise, though it was most unlikely, according to human appearance, to be fulfilled. And we are told, in the Book of Genesis, that God so approved of this faith, that "he counted it to him for righteousness."-From these words St. Paul infers, that Abraham was justified by faith; the expression, having righteousness imputed to him, being equivalent to "being justified." And from this use of the example of Abraham, by St. Paul, against the Jews, as establishing the power of faith to justify, the argument had probably grown familiar with the Church, and might be misinterpreted by the false professor whom St. James reproves, as though it authorized his want of works.

What then is the object of St. James in producing this example of Abraham? Did he wish to contradict the Old Testament;-to contradict it also in that part which was used as an important bulwark of the Christian Church? Did he mean to assert, in contradiction to Moses, that Abraham was not justified by faith, but by his works? If he

did, why quote the very Scripture which makes against him, and why speak of its being fulfilled, but upon the supposition that the object of the Apostle in the preceding verses is what I have shewn it to be? There he quotes the example of Abraham, as a case full in point, to strengthen the assertion just made, that a faith not productive of works is useless or dead, and therefore will not justify. On this supposition the example he produces is important, and the declaration of Scripture in harmony with it. It is to this effect:-Abraham was justified by faith. But consider the character of his faith. Was it not so powerful and active a principle, that, under the most trying circumstances, he stood ready to sacrifice his child to God? Was he, therefore, justified by a fruitless faith? Or by a faith which produced works? "Seest thou not how his faith wrought by his works," constraining him to produce them; and that thus his faith was completed, was rendered perfect, by his works? Thus the Scripture was fulfilled which said, "Abraham believed in God, and his faith was imputed to him for righteous, ness;" and thus, on account of his faith, so manifested by works, he was called the friend of God.

The Apostle then adds, "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith

In

only." This is the conclusion from the case of Abraham, and can therefore mean no more than is warranted by that case. Suppose it to mean, as the words detached from the context would seem to mean, that it is not faith by which a man is justified, but works. In this case, the example of Abraham, and the quotation from Genesis, are both foreign to the to the purpose. this case, there could be no occasion to particularize the kind of faith by the adverb only, or alone. But, on the contrary, suppose the Apostle to have the same object in view throughout; viz. to convince a false professor of the worthlessness of an empty faith; and that he quotes the Book of Genesis, which says, that Abraham's faith saved him, in order to strengthen his argument, and concludes from it merely what is necessary to his main object; then, we shall also interpret the last verse in conformity with the general scope of the passage. We shall conclude that the Apostle intends merely to prove, that a barren faith will not justify; that a man is justified by works, i. e. by a faith productive of works, instead of a faith which is without works or alone.

In like manner must the example of Rahab be understood. St. Paul asserts her works also to have been done by faith. And St. James main