which it has been too often used since, that is "correct opinion," and taking the words "without the deeds of the law," with nothing further to explain them, and we have at once that most wicked doctrine which St. James condemns, namely, "that if a man's opinions about God be right, he need care nothing about his affections and conduct." And to show that this is the sense in which St. James is taking the word "faith," appears from the example given,-"Thou believest that there is one God," a point which, as so simply stated, is merely an abstract truth, the belief of which is no more than "a true opinion respecting a matter of fact," and may therefore be held by any one whose understanding is sound, though in his moral qualities he may be no better than the devils. He does not say, "Thou believest that God made thee," or "that God has redeemed thee," or "that God will judge thee," or "that God loves thee;" for belief in these matters is more than opinion, and becomes a principle of action; so that this cannot be believed by the devils, except so far as it is mere fact; and can, by reason of their lost condition, in them lead to nothing. Whereas St. Paul belief as was no

was not speaking of any such

more than opinion; he did not say that "He who believes in one God is justified," but "He who believes in Jesus Christ is justified;" nor, again, did he mean by "believing in Jesus Christ," believing

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in such facts about Him as the heathens believed, namely, that there had been a man so named crucified in Judæa, under Pontius Pilate; but "whosoever believed that Christ had died for his sins;" a thing which never was believed really by any one who did not care for his sins beforehand, and can be really believed by no man without its making him care for his sins a great deal more than he ever cared before.

The same notion of the word "faith," taking it exactly in the sense of opinion as distinguished from practice, is seen no less clearly in what follows about Abraham. St. James instances his offering up his son Isaac, and then adds, "Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by his works his faith was perfected." Which is exactly saying;-taking faith in the sense of opinion, it did nothing for Abraham, but as being "perfected by his works," that is, as being a principle of action, it justified him. Now this is the very sense in which St. Paul uses it; for he speaks of Abraham "against hope believing in hope, that he might become the father of many nations;" that is, that Abraham so believed God's promises to him, that he left his country, and sojourned all his life in a strange land, not tempted to despair of the prospects held out to him, and to give up following God because there seemed no natural possibility of the promise ever being fulfilled. It is manifest

that this faith, so far from being a mere opinion, was a strong and abiding principle by which the whole of his life was governed.

Or, again, take the case of Rahab. Had her faith been no more than opinion, it would certainly have done nothing for her. Suppose that she had heard and believed that the Egyptians had been visited with a great many plagues because they would not let the Israelites go, and that the Israelites had been wonderfully protected by their God through the wilderness. But suppose, also, that she had thought, as many heathens in like case would have thought, that all this was nothing to her or to the Canaanites; that the gods of Israel had been too strong for the gods of Egypt, but that it was yet to be proved whether they would be too strong for the gods of Canaan. It is manifest then, that her belief of the mighty works done in Egypt and in the wilderness would have been no more than a mere opinion; it would have led to nothing; and her belief would not have hindered her for an instant from giving up the spies into the hands of her countrymen. But because she believed that the mighty works done in Egypt showed the God of Israel to be mightier than all gods; to be Him whom she was bound first and above all to serve; therefore her belief was not mere opinion, but principle; and a principle so

strong as led her to break her most sacred earthly ties at her own great risk, in order to escape from the heavier danger of offending Him who was Lord of all.

All, then, that St. James says in this passage, and which he does say most strongly, is, that correct opinions will save no man; or,-to use the term faith, not in St. Paul's sense of it, but in the unhappy sense which others have too often attached to it, that a sound faith in religious matters will alone save no man. And most assuredly St. Paul has never said that it will, but as much the contrary as it is in the power of language to express. His faith which justifies is a principle of action so strong as to make a man abhor all former sin; and if it becomes weaker afterwards, then in that proportion it ceases to be faith, and ceases to justify. For, says he, "if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor:" if I return to the sins of which I repented, then I make myself a transgressor; but a transgressor is the very opposite to a man justified or acquitted, for a transgressor is guilty, and to be punished, an acquitted man is one judged to be innocent, and therefore not to be punished. So that, in St. James's sense, Faith without works is not justified; in St. Paul's sense, Faith without works is not justified either, for it is no faith at all.

But from this language of these two great Apostles, particularly from the expression which St. James does not hesitate to use, that "a man is justified by his works," we may surely derive an important lesson, not to make one another offenders for a word. How forward some would be to deny the very name of a Christian to one who were now to use the same language, and to say that "men's works justified them." Undoubtedly there is a sense in which St. James would have abhorred the notion of a man's being justified by his works as strongly as any one, if it was meant by it that a man had so lived that he could fairly challenge of God the reward of eternal glory. But there is a sense also in which St. James did use it without scruple; and others in the same sense may use it also. In the same sense in which Zacharias is said to have walked in all the ordinances of the law blameless, in that common sense meaning, which does not strain every sentence spoken or written to its strictest literal acceptation, men may be said to be justified by their works. If there is no sense in which this can be said truly, then to talk of our being judged according to our works is idle. Most true it is that we never do or can deserve heaven; that that is God's gift through Jesus Christ; but it is no less true that we should not condemn our brother for using words which an Apostle has used before him, as he,