Jam 1:27 | Clarke | e4.org | Verse 27. Pure religion, and undefiled ] Having seen something of the etymology of the word θρησκεια, which we translate religion , it will be well to consider the etymology of the word religion itself. In the 28th chapter of the 4th book of his Divine Instructions , LACTANTIUS, who flourished about A. D. 300, treats of hope, true religion , and superstition ; of the two latter he gives Cicero's definition from his book De Natura Deorum , lib. ii. c. 28, which with his own definition will lead us to a correct view, not only of the etymology , but of the thing itself. " Superstition ," according to that philosopher, "had its name from the custom of those who offered daily prayers and sacrifices, that their children might SURVIVE THEM; ut sui sibi liberi superstites essent. Hence they were called superstitiosi , superstitious. On the other hand, religion, religio , had its name from those who, not satisfied with what was commonly spoken concerning the nature and worship of the gods, searched into the whole matter, and perused the writings of past times; hence they were called religiosi , from re , again, and lego , I read." This definition Lactantius ridicules, and shows that religion has its name from re , intensive, and ligo , I bind, because of that bond of piety by which it binds us to God, and this he shows was the notion conceived of it by Lucretius , who laboured to dissolve this bond, and make men atheists. Primum quod magnis doceo de rebus, et ARCTIS RELIGIONUM animos NODIS EXSOLVERE pergo . For first I teach great things in lofty strains, And loose men from religion's grievous chains . Lucret., lib. i., ver. 930, 931 As to superstition , he says it derived its name from those who paid religious veneration to the memory of the dead, ( qui superstitem memoriam defunctorem colunt ,) or from those who, surviving their parents, worshipped their images at home, as household gods; aut qui, parentibus suis superstites, colebant imagines eorum domi, tanquam deos penates . Superstition , according to others, refers to novel rites and ceremonies in religion, or to the worship of new gods. But by religion are meant the ancient forms of worship belonging to those gods, which had long been received. Hence that saying of Virgil:- Vana superstitio veterumque ignara deorum . "Vain superstition not knowing the ancient gods." Here Lactantius observes, that as the ancient gods were consecrated precisely in the same way with these new ones , that therefore it was nothing but superstition from the beginning. Hence he asserts, the superstitious are those who worship many and false gods, and the Christians alone are religious , who worship and supplicate the one true God only. St. James' definition rather refers to the effects of pure religion than to its nature . The life of God in the soul of man , producing love to God and man, will show itself in the acts which St. James mentions here. It is pure in the principle , for it is Divine truth and Divine love. It is undefiled in all its operations: it can produce nothing unholy , because it ever acts in the sight of God ; and it can produce no ungentle word nor unkind act, because it comes from the Father . The words καθαρακαιαμιαντος, pure and undefiled , are supposed to have reference to a diamond or precious stone , whose perfection consists in its being free from flaws ; not cloudy , but of a pure water . True religion is the ornament of the soul, and its effects , the ornament of the life . To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction ] Works of charity and mercy are the proper fruits of religion; and none are more especially the objects of charity and mercy than the orphans and widows . False religion may perform acts of mercy and charity; but its motives not being pure , and its principle being defiled , the flesh , self, and hypocrisy, spot the man, and spot his acts. True religion does not merely give something for the relief of the distressed, but it visits them , it takes the oversight of them , it takes them under its care; so επισκεπτεσθαι means. It goes to their houses, and speaks to their hearts; it relieves their wants, sympathizes with them in their distresses, instructs them in Divine things and recommends them to God. And all this it does for the Lord's sake. This is the religion of Christ. The religion that does not prove itself by works of charity and mercy is not of God. Reader, what religion hast thou? Has thine ever led thee to cellars, garrets, cottages, and houses, to find out the distressed? Hast thou ever fed, clothed, and visited a destitute representative of Christ? The subject in suggests several reflections on the mutability of human affairs, and the end of all things. 1. Nature herself is subject to mutability, though by her secret and inscrutable exertions she effects her renovation from her decay, and thus change is prevented from terminating in destruction . Yet nature herself is tending, by continual mutations, to a final destruction; or rather to a fixed state, when time , the place and sphere of mutability, shall be absorbed in eternity. Time and nature are coeval; they began and must terminate together. All changes are efforts to arrive at destruction or renovation; and destruction must be the term or bound of all created things, had not the Creator purposed that his works should endure for ever. According to his promise, we look for a new heaven and a new earth; a fixed, permanent, and endless state of things; an everlasting sabbath to all the works of God. I shall confirm these observations with the last verses of that incomparable poem, the Faery Queene , of our much neglected but unrivalled poet, Edmund Spenser :- "When I bethink me on that speech whylear, Of mutability , and well it weigh; Me seems, that though she all unworthy were Of the heaven's rule ; yet very sooth to say, In all things else she bears the greatest sway ; Which makes me loath this state of life so tickle, And love of things so vain to cast away; Whose flow'ring pride , so fading and so fickle , Short Time shall soon cut down with his consuming sickle . Then gin I think on that which Nature sayd, Of that same time when no more change shall be, But stedfast rest of all things, firmly stayd Upon the pillours of eternity , That is contrayr to mutability : For all that moveth , doth in change delight: But thenceforth all shall rest eternally With him that is the God of Sabaoth hight: O that great Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabaoth's sight!" When this is to be the glorious issue , who can regret the speedy lapse of time? Mutability shall end in permanent perfection, when time, the destroyer of all things, shall be absorbed in eternity. And what has a righteous man to fear from that "wreck of matter and that crush of worlds," which to him shall usher in the glories of an eternal day? A moralist has said, "Though heaven shall vanish like a vapour, and this firm globe of earth shall crumble into dust, the righteous man shall stand unmoved amidst the shocked depredations of a crushed world; for he who hath appointed the heavens and the earth to fail, hath said unto the virtuous soul, Fear not! for thou shalt neither perish nor be wretched." Dr. Young has written most nervously, in the spirit of the highest order of poetry, and with the knowledge and feeling of a sound divine, on this subject, in his Night Thoughts. Night vi. in fine . Of man immortal hear the lofty style:- "If so decreed, th' Almighty will be done. Let earth dissolve, yon ponderous orbs descend And grind us into dust: the soul is safe; The man emerges; mounts above the wreck, As towering flame from nature's funeral pyre; O'er desolation, as a gainer, smiles; His charter, his inviolable rights, Well pleased to learn from thunder's impotence, Death's pointless darts, and hell's defeated storms." After him, and borrowing his imagery and ideas , another of our poets, in canticis sacris facile princeps , has expounded and improved the whole in the following hymn on the Judgment . "Stand the Omnipotent decree, Jehovah's will be done! Nature's end we wait to see, And hear her final groan. Let this earth dissolve, and blend In death the wicked and the just; Let those ponderous orbs descend And grind us into dust. Rests secure the righteous man; At his Redeemer's beck, Sure to emerge, and rise again, And mount above the wreck. Lo! the heavenly spirit towers Like flames o'er nature's funeral pyre; Triumphs in immortal powers, And claps her wings of fire. Nothing hath the just to lose By worlds on worlds destroy'd; Far beneath his feet he views, With smiles, the flaming void; Sees the universe renew'd; The grand millennial reign begun; Shouts with all the sons of God Around th' eternal throne." WESLEY One word more, and I shall trouble my reader no farther on a subject on which I could wear out my pen and drain the last drop of my ink. The learned reader will join in the wish. "Talia saecla suis dixerunt, currite, fusis Concordes stabili fatorum numine Parcae. Aggredere O magnos (aderit jam tempus!) honores, Cara Deum soboles, magnum Jovis incrementum. Aspice convexo nutantem pondere mundum, Terrasque, tractusque maris, coelumque profundum: Aspice, venturo laetentur ut omnia saeclo. O mihi tam longae maneat pars ultima vitae, Spiritus, et quantum sat erit tua dicere facta!" VIRG. Eclog . iv. There has never been a translation of this, worthy of the poet; and to such a piece I cannot persuade myself to append the hobbling verses of Mr. Dryden. 2. Taken in every point of view, is one of the most curious and singular in the New Testament. It has been well observed, that the first words make a regular Greek hexameter verse , supposed to be quoted from some Greek poet not now extant; and the last clause of the verse, with a very little change, makes another hexameter:- πασαδοσιςαγαθηκαιπανδωρηματελειον εσταποτωνφωτωνπατροςκαταβαινονανωθεν "Every goodly gift, and every perfect donation, Is from the Father of lights, and from above it descendeth." The first line, which is incontestably a perfect hexameter , may have been designed by St. James, or in the course of composition may have originated from accident, a thing which often occurs to all good writers; but the sentiment itself is immediately from heaven. I know not that we can be justified by sound criticism in making any particular distinction between δοσις and δωρημα� our translators have used the same word in rendering both. They are often synonymous; but sometimes we may observe a shade of difference, δοσις signifying a gift of any kind, here probably meaning earthly blessings of all sorts, δωρημα signifying a free gift -one that comes without constraint, from the mere benevolence of the giver; and here it may signify all spiritual and eternal blessings . Now all these come from above ; God is as much the AUTHOR of our earthly good , as he is of our eternal salvation . Earthly blessings are simply good ; but they are imperfect , they perish in the using. The blessings of grace and glory are supreme goods, they are permanent and perfect; and to the gift that includes these the term τελειον, perfect , is here properly added by St. James. There is a sentiment very similar to this in the ninth Olympic Ode of Pindar, l. 41:- αγαθοιδε καισοφοικαταδαιμονανδρες Man, boast of naught: whate'er thou hast is given; Wisdom and virtue are the gifts of Heaven. But how tame is even Pindar's verse when compared with the energy of James! 3. In the latter part of the verse, παρωουκενιπαραλλαγηη τροπηςαποσκιασμα, which we translate, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning , there is an allusion to some of the most abstruse principles in astronomy. This is not accidental, for every word in the whole verse is astronomical. In his πατηρτωνφωτων, Father of lights , there is the most evident allusion to the SUN, who is the father, author , or source of all the lights or luminaries proper to our system. It is not only his light which we enjoy by day, but it is his light also which is reflected to us, from the moon's surface, by night . And it is demonstrable that all the planets-Mercury, Venus , the Earth , the Moon, Mars, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta, Jupiter, Saturn , Saturn's Rings , and Herschel , or the Georgium Sidus , with the four satellites of Jupiter, the seven satellites of Saturn, and the six satellites of the Georgium Sidus, thirty-one bodies in all, besides the comets , all derive their light from the sun, being perfectly opaque or dark in themselves; the sun being the only luminous body in our system; all the rest being illumined by him. The word παραλλαγη, which we translate variableness , from παραλλαττω, to change alternately, to pass from one change to another , evidently refers to parallax in astronomy. To give a proper idea of what astronomers mean by this term, it must be premised that all the diurnal motions of the heavenly bodies from east to west are only apparent , being occasioned by the rotation of the earth upon its axis in an opposite direction in about twenty-four hours. These diurnal motions are therefore performed uniformly round the axis or polar diameter of the earth, and not round the place of the spectator, who is upon the earth's surface. Hence every one who observes the apparent motion of the heavens from this surface will find that this motion is not even, equal arches being described in unequal times; for if a globular body, such as the earth, describe equally the circumference of a circle by its rotatory motion, it is evident the equality of this motion can be seen in no other points than those in the axis of the circle, and therefore any object viewed from the centre of the earth will appear in a different place from what it does when observed from the surface. This difference of place of the same object, seen at the same time from the earth's centre and surface, is called its parallax .

‏ James 1:27

Verse 27. Pure religion, and undefiled] Having seen something of the etymology of the word θρησκεια, which we translate religion, it will be well to consider the etymology of the word religion itself.

In the 28th chapter of the 4th book of his Divine Instructions, LACTANTIUS, who flourished about A. D. 300, treats of hope, true religion, and superstition; of the two latter he gives Cicero's definition from his book De Natura Deorum, lib. ii. c. 28, which with his own definition will lead us to a correct view, not only of the etymology, but of the thing itself.

"Superstition," according to that philosopher, "had its name from the custom of those who offered daily prayers and sacrifices, that their children might SURVIVE THEM; ut sui sibi liberi superstites essent. Hence they were called superstitiosi, superstitious. On the other hand, religion, religio, had its name from those who, not satisfied with what was commonly spoken concerning the nature and worship of the gods, searched into the whole matter, and perused the writings of past times; hence they were called religiosi, from re, again, and lego, I read."

This definition Lactantius ridicules, and shows that religion has its name from re, intensive, and ligo, I bind, because of that bond of piety by which it binds us to God, and this he shows was the notion conceived of it by Lucretius, who laboured to dissolve this bond, and make men atheists.

Primum quod magnis doceo de rebus, et ARCTIS

RELIGIONUM animos NODIS EXSOLVERE pergo.

For first I teach great things in lofty strains,

And loose men from religion's grievous chains.

Lucret., lib. i., ver. 930, 931

As to superstition, he says it derived its name from those who paid religious veneration to the memory of the dead, (qui superstitem memoriam defunctorem colunt,) or from those who, surviving their parents, worshipped their images at home, as household gods; aut qui, parentibus suis superstites, colebant imagines eorum domi, tanquam deos penates. Superstition, according to others, refers to novel rites and ceremonies in religion, or to the worship of new gods. But by religion are meant the ancient forms of worship belonging to those gods, which had long been received. Hence that saying of Virgil:-

Vana superstitio veterumque ignara deorum.

"Vain superstition not knowing the ancient gods."

Here Lactantius observes, that as the ancient gods were consecrated precisely in the same way with these new ones, that therefore it was nothing but superstition from the beginning. Hence he asserts, the superstitious are those who worship many and false gods, and the Christians alone are religious, who worship and supplicate the one true God only. St. James' definition rather refers to the effects of pure religion than to its nature. The life of God in the soul of man, producing love to God and man, will show itself in the acts which St. James mentions here. It is pure in the principle, for it is Divine truth and Divine love. It is undefiled in all its operations: it can produce nothing unholy, because it ever acts in the sight of God; and it can produce no ungentle word nor unkind act, because it comes from the Father.

The words καθαρακαιαμιαντος, pure and undefiled, are supposed to have reference to a diamond or precious stone, whose perfection consists in its being free from flaws; not cloudy, but of a pure water. True religion is the ornament of the soul, and its effects, the ornament of the life.

To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction] Works of charity and mercy are the proper fruits of religion; and none are more especially the objects of charity and mercy than the orphans and widows. False religion may perform acts of mercy and charity; but its motives not being pure, and its principle being defiled, the flesh, self, and hypocrisy, spot the man, and spot his acts. True religion does not merely give something for the relief of the distressed, but it visits them, it takes the oversight of them, it takes them under its care; so επισκεπτεσθαι means. It goes to their houses, and speaks to their hearts; it relieves their wants, sympathizes with them in their distresses, instructs them in Divine things and recommends them to God. And all this it does for the Lord's sake. This is the religion of Christ. The religion that does not prove itself by works of charity and mercy is not of God. Reader, what religion hast thou? Has thine ever led thee to cellars, garrets, cottages, and houses, to find out the distressed? Hast thou ever fed, clothed, and visited a destitute representative of Christ?

The subject in Jas 1:11 suggests several reflections on the mutability of human affairs, and the end of all things.

1. Nature herself is subject to mutability, though by her secret and inscrutable exertions she effects her renovation from her decay, and thus change is prevented from terminating in destruction. Yet nature herself is tending, by continual mutations, to a final destruction; or rather to a fixed state, when time, the place and sphere of mutability, shall be absorbed in eternity. Time and nature are coeval; they began and must terminate together. All changes are efforts to arrive at destruction or renovation; and destruction must be the term or bound of all created things, had not the Creator purposed that his works should endure for ever. According to his promise, we look for a new heaven and a new earth; a fixed, permanent, and endless state of things; an everlasting sabbath to all the works of God.

I shall confirm these observations with the last verses of that incomparable poem, the Faery Queene, of our much neglected but unrivalled poet, Edmund Spenser:-

"When I bethink me on that speech whylear,

Of mutability, and well it weigh;

Me seems, that though she all unworthy were

Of the heaven's rule; yet very sooth to say,

In all things else she bears the greatest sway;

Which makes me loath this state of life so tickle,

And love of things so vain to cast away;

Whose flow'ring pride, so fading and so fickle,

Short Time shall soon cut down with his consuming sickle.

Then gin I think on that which Nature sayd,

Of that same time when no more change shall be,

But stedfast rest of all things, firmly stayd

Upon the pillours of eternity,

That is contrayr to mutability:

For all that moveth, doth in change delight:

But thenceforth all shall rest eternally

With him that is the God of Sabaoth hight:

O that great Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabaoth's sight!"

When this is to be the glorious issue, who can regret the speedy lapse of time? Mutability shall end in permanent perfection, when time, the destroyer of all things, shall be absorbed in eternity. And what has a righteous man to fear from that "wreck of matter and that crush of worlds," which to him shall usher in the glories of an eternal day? A moralist has said, "Though heaven shall vanish like a vapour, and this firm globe of earth shall crumble into dust, the righteous man shall stand unmoved amidst the shocked depredations of a crushed world; for he who hath appointed the heavens and the earth to fail, hath said unto the virtuous soul, Fear not! for thou shalt neither perish nor be wretched."

Dr. Young has written most nervously, in the spirit of the highest order of poetry, and with the knowledge and feeling of a sound divine, on this subject, in his Night Thoughts. Night vi. in fine.

Of man immortal hear the lofty style:-

"If so decreed, th' Almighty will be done.

Let earth dissolve, yon ponderous orbs descend

And grind us into dust: the soul is safe;

The man emerges; mounts above the wreck,

As towering flame from nature's funeral pyre;

O'er desolation, as a gainer, smiles;

His charter, his inviolable rights,

Well pleased to learn from thunder's impotence,

Death's pointless darts, and hell's defeated storms."

After him, and borrowing his imagery and ideas, another of our poets, in canticis sacris facile princeps, has expounded and improved the whole in the following hymn on the Judgment.

"Stand the Omnipotent decree,

Jehovah's will be done!

Nature's end we wait to see,

And hear her final groan.

Let this earth dissolve, and blend

In death the wicked and the just;

Let those ponderous orbs descend

And grind us into dust.

Rests secure the righteous man;

At his Redeemer's beck,

Sure to emerge, and rise again,

And mount above the wreck.

Lo! the heavenly spirit towers

Like flames o'er nature's funeral pyre;

Triumphs in immortal powers,

And claps her wings of fire.

Nothing hath the just to lose

By worlds on worlds destroy'd;

Far beneath his feet he views,

With smiles, the flaming void;

Sees the universe renew'd;

The grand millennial reign begun;

Shouts with all the sons of God

Around th' eternal throne." WESLEY

One word more, and I shall trouble my reader no farther on a subject on which I could wear out my pen and drain the last drop of my ink. The learned reader will join in the wish.

"Talia saecla suis dixerunt, currite, fusis

Concordes stabili fatorum numine Parcae.

Aggredere O magnos (aderit jam tempus!) honores,

Cara Deum soboles, magnum Jovis incrementum.

Aspice convexo nutantem pondere mundum,

Terrasque, tractusque maris, coelumque profundum:

Aspice, venturo laetentur ut omnia saeclo.

O mihi tam longae maneat pars ultima vitae,

Spiritus, et quantum sat erit tua dicere facta!"

VIRG. Eclog. iv.

There has never been a translation of this, worthy of the poet; and to such a piece I cannot persuade myself to append the hobbling verses of Mr. Dryden.

2. Taken in every point of view, Jas 1:17 is one of the most curious and singular in the New Testament. It has been well observed, that the first words make a regular Greek hexameter verse, supposed to be quoted from some Greek poet not now extant; and the last clause of the verse, with a very little change, makes another hexameter:-

πασαδοσιςαγαθηκαιπανδωρηματελειον

εσταποτωνφωτωνπατροςκαταβαινονανωθεν

"Every goodly gift, and every perfect donation,

Is from the Father of lights, and from above it descendeth."

The first line, which is incontestably a perfect hexameter, may have been designed by St. James, or in the course of composition may have originated from accident, a thing which often occurs to all good writers; but the sentiment itself is immediately from heaven. I know not that we can be justified by sound criticism in making any particular distinction between δοσις and δωρημα� our translators have used the same word in rendering both. They are often synonymous; but sometimes we may observe a shade of difference, δοσις signifying a gift of any kind, here probably meaning earthly blessings of all sorts, δωρημα signifying a free gift-one that comes without constraint, from the mere benevolence of the giver; and here it may signify all spiritual and eternal blessings. Now all these come from above; God is as much the AUTHOR of our earthly good, as he is of our eternal salvation. Earthly blessings are simply good; but they are imperfect, they perish in the using. The blessings of grace and glory are supreme goods, they are permanent and perfect; and to the gift that includes these the term τελειον, perfect, is here properly added by St. James. There is a sentiment very similar to this in the ninth Olympic Ode of Pindar, l. 41:-

αγαθοιδε

καισοφοικαταδαιμονανδρες

Man, boast of naught: whate'er thou hast is given;

Wisdom and virtue are the gifts of Heaven.

But how tame is even Pindar's verse when compared with the energy of James!

3. In the latter part of the verse, παρωουκενιπαραλλαγηη τροπηςαποσκιασμα, which we translate, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, there is an allusion to some of the most abstruse principles in astronomy. This is not accidental, for every word in the whole verse is astronomical. In his πατηρτωνφωτων, Father of lights, there is the most evident allusion to the SUN, who is the father, author, or source of all the lights or luminaries proper to our system. It is not only his light which we enjoy by day, but it is his light also which is reflected to us, from the moon's surface, by night. And it is demonstrable that all the planets-Mercury, Venus, the Earth, the Moon, Mars, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta, Jupiter, Saturn, Saturn's Rings, and Herschel, or the Georgium Sidus, with the four satellites of Jupiter, the seven satellites of Saturn, and the six satellites of the Georgium Sidus, thirty-one bodies in all, besides the comets, all derive their light from the sun, being perfectly opaque or dark in themselves; the sun being the only luminous body in our system; all the rest being illumined by him.

The word παραλλαγη, which we translate variableness, from παραλλαττω, to change alternately, to pass from one change to another, evidently refers to parallax in astronomy. To give a proper idea of what astronomers mean by this term, it must be premised that all the diurnal motions of the heavenly bodies from east to west are only apparent, being occasioned by the rotation of the earth upon its axis in an opposite direction in about twenty-four hours. These diurnal motions are therefore performed uniformly round the axis or polar diameter of the earth, and not round the place of the spectator, who is upon the earth's surface. Hence every one who observes the apparent motion of the heavens from this surface will find that this motion is not even, equal arches being described in unequal times; for if a globular body, such as the earth, describe equally the circumference of a circle by its rotatory motion, it is evident the equality of this motion can be seen in no other points than those in the axis of the circle, and therefore any object viewed from the centre of the earth will appear in a different place from what it does when observed from the surface. This difference of place of the same object, seen at the same time from the earth's centre and surface, is called its parallax.