to speak, slow to wrath... lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. Here the duty recommended is a right hearing of God's word: hearing it not in a spirit of opposition and captiousness, but hearing it out of a teachable and willing heart.

And this, no doubt, is of the first importance. It is a great step made in the right direction when a man is swift to hear and slow to speak in matters of religion. The attentive, still, and teachable listener, is much more likely to profit by what he hears than one whose thoughts are wandering, and who is restless and unquiet while God's word is being read and preached to him.

Still the most attentive listener is but a hearer, and hearing will not by itself ever save a soul alive. And so, to his first admonition, Be swift to hear, St. James adds immediately this further counsel -But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves!

Now from this weighty sentence, coupled with other passages of holy writ, let me draw some plain words of counsel. Let me point out to you the vanity of hearing God's word when separated from the doing of it.

There is much need of such counsel-much need, at all times, that a minister of Christ should

guard his people against the common error of thinking that religion consists mainly in listening to sermons, or in reading the Bible, and in using Bible words and phrases in our common talk. Religion, pure religion, is something very different from this. Pure religion, as this same Apostle tells us, pure and undefiled religion, stands in the practice of God's laws, in acts of mercy and justice, and in personal holiness; it is, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world!

Yes, this is pure religion: this is the true worship of God. This is what He requires of us -not only to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest His holy word, but to make that word the rule and guide of our actions: to walk in all His statutes, and His judgments, and His ordinances. Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves!

Let us dwell a little on the contrast here drawn. When shall we say that a man is “ ጔ hearer only?" Why, when the word he hears makes no alteration in him for the better. When it does not separate him from his sins-does not work in him repentance-does not quicken his hand to do good.

Herod the king of Galilee, of whom we read in the Gospel, was such an hearer. He feared

John because he was a holy man, and heard him gladly. Yes, and he did many things that John charged him to do. But one chief thing he did not- he did not part with his sin; he went on living with his brother Philip's wife, though John had said, confronting him with God's commandment, Thou shalt not do it,—It is not lawful for thee to have her. Nay, he was angry with John for speaking to him so boldly; and went and cast him into prison for his words, and finally gave consent to his murder.

Such was Herod-a signal example of "a hearer only "-of a man "-of a man "deceiving himself:" stopping short of the performance of God's word.

Another instance is Judas Iscariot. Judas enjoyed the great privilege of being one of Christ's own Apostles-one of those who were with Him continually; who heard not only what He said in public, but what He expounded when they were alone to His disciples. And yet Judas heard to no good. He was a forgetful hearer. He forgot his Lord's warning against riches-he let a love of these grow up and take possession of his heart, till at length he sold his Master for the paltry gain of thirty pieces of money. If hearing alone could have kept a man from making shipwreck of his soul, surely Judas would never have been lost. But hearing only, and reading only, and knowing

well the letter of God's holy word, will never, by itself, save a soul from death. No, not though we sat as Jesus' own feet, and heard the word out of His own mouth. Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves!

Again. It is possible to take a great delight in hearing God's word, and to derive great comfort from it; and because we do delight in it, and receive comfort from it, to conclude that all must be right with us, that we need be in no anxiety about our salvation. But this also is a snare: this also is a deceiving of ourselves. There were many in the old time who so deceived themselves; and the description of them is given by the prophet Ezekiel-given for our warning. Hear it, my brethren-hear what the holy scripture saith of a people who were outwardly religious; who had a keen relish for God's word, delighted in hearing it read and preached to them, but who went no further, who did not put in practice what the word declared-who were hearers only, deceiving their own selves. Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people sit before thee by the walls, and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh from the Lord. And they

come, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with

their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument : for they hear thy words but they do them not! (Ezek. xxxiii. 30.)

So far I have dwelt on that part of the text which speaks of such as are hearers only of God's word; let us now look at that other class, the doers of the word. We have in the Gospel, from our Lord's own lips, the best description of them: Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him to a wise man which built his house upon the rock. And the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock!

Yes, the doer of God's word is a wise man ; his religion will stand when the religion of the mere hearer crumbles into ruin: he shall be blessed in his deed: he shall find that to be true which the Apostle says-Godliness the practice of God's commandments-is great gain, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come!

Be ye then doers of the word, and not hearers only. Hear it-be swift to hear it-hear it as often as you can; for faith cometh by hearing,