James 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction… I. It is here asserted that religion, in order to be pleasing and acceptable unto God, must exhibit itself in acts of SYMPATHISING KINDNESS AND COMPASSION towards those who are placed in circumstances of helplessness, difficulty, and distress. As all these manifestations of benevolence could not be enumerated, they are represented by the apostle under one prominent form — that of visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, thus presenting a case of affliction, and an occasion for kindness, from which no age of the world and no condition of society can be altogether exempt. He knew that other losses might be more easily compensated; that other sorrows might with less difficulty be soothed; that other bereavements would leave less of helplessness and loneliness behind them. He knew that the loss of property might be repaired by liberality, industry, and perseverance; that the loss of health was not invariably without its remedy; but that the loss of the fatherless and the widow would necessarily leave a vacuum which nothing could adequately supply. It is to the alleviation of this peculiar form of affliction, therefore/that the energies and the sympathies of the pure and undefiled religion of Him who cherished every form of social and domestic tenderness, who made little children the objects of His most gracious regard, and manifested towards His mother a most filial and watchful attention, are to be specially directed. In this amiable feature of its character, indeed, Christianity stands honourably distinguished from all the other forms and theories of religion which have ever prevailed in the world. It is the pure and undefiled, the compassionate and godlike religion of Jesus Christ alone, which has taught men their duty in this respect, as well as supplied them with adequate motives to the practice of it. It is this alone which has taught its professors to regard the whole human species, amidst all the diversity of its ranks, and pursuits, and conditions, as one great family. It has thus unsealed the great fountains of human sympathy and tenderness, which had hitherto been in a great degree locked up in the unconscious ignorance of our obligations, or concealed beneath the frost of selfishness. II. But, in connection with the exercise of sympathetic kindness and practical benevolence, the apostle subjoins another essential constituent of pure and undefiled religion — that it maintains A CHARACTER UNSTAINED BY THOSE VARIOUS FORMS OF MORAL AND SPIRITUAL POLLUTION, with which the atmosphere of the present world is so deeply impregnated. Christian charity must not be less pure than generous; though she is in the world, she must not be of the world; though she blesses the earth with her presence, her origin is from heaven, and she must never forget the high and holy motives by which she is to be actuated. Like the sunbeam, she must illumine the darkest recesses of ignorance and vice without being contaminated by the contact; she must warm the desolate abodes of poverty without kindling into pride and self-righteousness; she must dispense her blessings with an open hand, and yet ascribe all the glory to that Father of lights, from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift; she must be willing, as occasion requires and her strength allows, to mingle in scenes from which the eye of taste and the sensibilities of worldly refinement, which have net been trained in the discipline of Christian humility and self-denial, would recoil; and yet she must be "as the wings of a dove, which are covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold." But this exemption from the predominent sway and the polluting influence of the world, as contradistinguished from true and scriptural piety, is not only necessary as the concomitant of pure religion in general, but it is also indispensable to the due exercise of the duty previously inculcated. The spirit of Christian benevolence and the spirit of the world are diametrically opposed to each other. Where every effort of labour and science and art is directed with such intense energy to the main end of multiplying and accumulating wealth, it requires a more than ordinary measure of watchfulness and prayer — of the generous, and effusive, and constraining influence of the love of Christ shed abroad in the heart, to keep it untainted by the contracting and indurating spirit of covetousness and grasping selfishness. Whatever has a tendency to concentrate the thoughts and feelings upon self, and to make the enjoyment of personal gratification the great business of life, must inevitably impede the free and spontaneous development of that great and diffusive principle of Christian love. Amidst the various trials and sufferings which are more or less inseparable from the present state of existence, she unfolds to their view a world where sin and sorrow are unknown; a world whose atmosphere is health, whose resources are exhaustless, whose pleasures are untainted, and whose honours are unfading; a world in which there are neither fatherless nor widows, because all earthly unions and relations have been lost and absorbed in the delightful fellowship of one great family, of "which God Himself is the Father, Jesus Christ the Elder Brother, and the eternal Spirit the all-pervading bond of holy and affectionate communion. (J. Davies, B.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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