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There is a leading idea in each of the verses thus read to you; and because these ideas are perhaps more striking when taken together, than when detached the one from the other, we may solicit your attention to the whole of this passage of Scripture, rather than to either of its separate parts. The ideas are the following: the first, that the Word of revelation generally serves as a mirror or a glass, in which the natural man may see himself imaged; the second, that he will be nothing advantaged by this reflexion of his features if it do not make him active in the correcting and amending; the third, that to him who is not only a hearer, but a doer, revelation becomes a "perfect law of liberty."

I. Now there are, as you will remember, expressions in Scripture which set before us THE WHOLE WORK, WHETHER OF CREATION OR REDEMPTION, AS ONE VAST MIRROR, upon which we must gaze if we would learn the great truths which have to do with the nature of our God. Thus St. Paul, wishing to contrast our present with our future condition, says to the Corinthians, "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face." He means, as it would seem, that here we have no direct vision; we see only as in a mirror — that is, by reflected rays — creation and redemption both imaging Deity, but neither our faculties nor our opportunities permitting us to look upon God face to face. And there is no doubt that in this sense the Word of God also is a mirror. God may be said to glass Himself in its pages; and when we look on those pages, they give back to us with greater clearness than any other reflector the attributes and perfections of our invisible Maker. But it cannot be in this sense that St. James represents the Word as a mirror; it is as showing man himself, and not as showing him God, that revelation is here likened to a glass. The supposition is that a man may place himself morally before the Bible, even as he may naturally before some polished surface, and learn with as much accuracy what are his lineaments or his features. And we may suppose that St. James refers to the same power in the Bible, as is referred to by St. Paul, when he describes himself and his fellow-workers in the ministry as "not walking in craftiness, nor handling the Word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending themselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." And this is what, probably, you must have often heard of as the self-evidencing power of Scripture — the power which there is in the contents of the Bible to act as the credentials of the Bible; so that if all external witness were swept away, revelation might yet so vindicate its pretensions as to place beyond doubt its being a message from God. And this self-evidencing power of Scripture goes mainly on this fact — that there is such a correspondence between what we read in the Bible and what we find in ourselves, as is not to be accounted for except on the supposition that He who wrote the Book had a superhuman acquaintance with the heart. The point is .here passed, in which we can allow the sufficiency of human sagacity; the acquaintance is too profound, too extensive, too accurate, to be measured by mere native powers, and our only way of accounting for the marvellous disclosure, which exhibits to us ourselves — every thought being laid bare, every motion of the will, every remonstrance of the conscience, every conflict between duty and inclination — our only way is by referring the document to more than human authorship. And is there any one of you utterly unaware of this power in Scripture to shadow himself? is there any one of you who has read so little of the Bible, and read it with so little attention, that he has not found his own case described — described with so surprising an accuracy that he feels as though he himself had sat for the portrait? When Scripture insists on the radical corruption of the heart, in its native enmity and deceitfulness, is there any one of us who must not allow that the affirmations in every way hold good — just supposing his own heart to be that of which the affirmations are made? And when, over and above these more general statements, the Bible descends into particulars — when it speaks of the proneness of men to prefer a transient good to an enduring, the objects of sight, however inconsiderable, to those of faith, however magnificent — when it mentions the subterfuges, the excuses of those whom conscience disquiets — when it shows the vain hopes, the false theories, the lying visions, with which men suffer themselves to be cheated, or rather with which they cheat themselves — who is there among us who will venture to deny that the representation tallies most nicely either with what he is or with what he was — with what he is if he have never repented or sought the forgiveness of sin, with what he was if his nature have been renewed by the operation of God's Spirit?

II. We now turn to the second great truth presented in the passage which is under review; THE TRUTH THAT WE SHALL BE NOTHING ADVANTAGED BY THIS REFLECTING POWER OF THE WORD, UNLESS WE SET OURSELVES TO THE ACTING ON ITS DISCLOSURES. St. James, as we before pointed out to you, is speaking of a man who is a hearer only, and not also a doer of the Word. He likens such a man to one, who "having beheld his natural face in a glass, goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was." Are there not many of you who would be ready to own that sermons have occasionally had on them a mighty and almost overcoming effect; so that they have felt constrained to give their full assent to truths uttered in their hearing, though those truths have convinced them of heinous offences, and proved them placed in terrible danger? It is not that no impression has been made; it is not that the preacher's strength has been wholly thrown away, and that there has been no response to his statements in the breasts of those by whom he has been surrounded; it is rather that the hearers have taken no pains to deepen and make permanent the impressions which the preaching has made; nay, perhaps in many cases, that t-hey have actually taken pains to obliterate those impressions, dreading the sacrifices which they must make if resolved to be religious, and therefore crushing the convictions which would have led them to repentance. It is that they have gone from the church into the world, with the voice of the preacher yet ringing in their ears, and so that voice has been drowned in the whirl of business, or in the sounds of pleasure.

III. But now turn, lastly, to the third truth presented by the passage which forms our subject of discourse. This is the truth — THAT BY SUBMITTING IMPLICITLY TO WHAT IS TAUGHT US BY GOD'S WORD, WE SHALL FIND THAT IT BECOMES TO US A "PERFECT LAW OF LIBERTY." There has been no such nurse of freedom as the Christian religion. The principles which that religion expounds and enforces — the accuracy with which it defines the province and prerogatives of rulers and the duties of subjects — the rigour with which it denounces every form of injustice, enjoins benevolence, and asserts the brotherhood of man with man — these have caused it to become, though it professes not to interfere with civil institutions, the great extirpator of oppression, the great founder and the great guardian of all that deserves to be called liberty. And this beautiful word "liberty" may be prostituted and abused; it may be bandied about by venal statesmen or turbulent demagogues; but liberty and Christianity are synonymous terms, as are slavery and irreligion. He who would guide a nation to freedom, must take the Bible as his statute-book: and to attack its vices is the direct way to loosen its chains. They little know, who brawl about liberty and show contempt for Christianity, how ignorant they show themselves of the very essence and life of that which they profess to idolise and pursue. God guard us from the liberty which would be enjoined when Christianity was prostrate! It would be near akin to that liberty of which we read in the book of Jeremiah. "Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord" — a liberty "to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine." But it is rather of an individual, than of a nation, that the apostle speaks in our text. And who, we may well ask, but the true Christian — the doer as well as the hearer of the Word — deserves to be accounted free? Is a man free, just because there are no fetters on his limbs, and he is not the inmate of a prison? There are fetters of the spirit; there are mental chains forged of such material, and fastened with such strength, that he who wears them may sit upon a throne, and be unspeakably more a bondsman than many a wretched thing that grinds in a dungeon. What think ye of the fetters of bad habits? What think ye of the chains of indulged lusts? What think ye of the slavery of sin? The drunkard, who cannot resist the craving for the wine — know ye a more thorough captive? The covetous man, who toils night and day for wealth — what is he but a slave? The sensual man, the ambitious man, the worldly man — those who, in spite of the remonstrances of conscience, cannot break away from their enthralments. But whoso looketh into Scripture and continueth therein, finds himself gradually delivered from all this oppression and all this thraldom. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." If it be not the liberty of him who has no opponent, no tempter, it is the liberty of him who has broken the yoke, and who is ever on the watch that it may never be again fastened round his neck. It is not indeed to our lusts that Christianity proclaims liberty, nor to our natural inclinations and propensities; against these it proclaims war — a war of extermination; but on this very account it is that we declare it brings liberty to man. These lusts, these inclinations, are the taskmasters of man; and until grace gain the ascendency, and give the spirit dominion over the flesh, man is literally in bondage to himself — the lowest of slaves, because he does not hate slavery. And in respect of fears, the bondage is too apparent to admit of debate. But let the Spirit of God apply these blessed words to his heart, "There is now therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus," and he casts off his chains and springs from his dungeon. Glorious liberty! Who would not long to be the freed man, by thus being the servant of Jehovah?

(H. Melvill, B. D.)

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KJV: But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

WEB: But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves.