If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.

Ver. 26. Seem to be religious] There is a great deal of this seemingness now abroad: Aliud in titulo, aliud in pyxide. Verba tua Dei plane sunt, facta veto Diaboli, as one told Pope Innocent III: You speak like a God, but do like a devil; a fair professor, but a foul sinner. The form of religion is honos; the power onus. Many do but act it, play it: they do no more than assume it, as the angels did the dead bodies without a soul to animate them, or as Jeroboam's wife put on her demure apparel when she was to go to the prophet. The mere seemer is a fraud, Job 13:16, imposturam facit et patitur: fumum vendidit, fumo peribit. He is like the painted grapes that deceived the living birds, saith one, or the golden apples with this motto, "No further than colour;" touch them and they vanish.

But deceiveth] The heart first deceiveth us with colours, and when we are once doting after sin, then we join and deceive our hearts by fallacious reasonings.

Continues after advertising
Continues after advertising