CHAPTER IV. APRIL 15, AUGUST 14, DEC. 11. 'FROM whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: 1 As with the Jews, so it is with ourselves. Wars, and civil broils, and contentions in neighbourhoods and families, spring from the indulgence of some or other evil passion. ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 In prayer, we must ask spiritual good-for Christ's sake, and in Christ's name. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? 6 Happy he, who submits himself humbly to the dispensations of his God. 6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. from you. * Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye 7 The command is distinct-and the promise is sure. Resist the devil, and he will flee 8 What a consolation! In all our troubles to have God nigh at hand to us. (See Col. i. 24.) sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your 11 9 Sin must be repented of with joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord. 14 The uncertainty of life is, or consolation: the troubles of life must little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to soon end. say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. CHAPTER V. APRIL 16, AUGUST 15, DEC. 12. 'Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon 4 1 Riches, if trusted in, lead to misery; by engendering worldliness and pride, and forgetfulness of God. flesh as it were fire. Ye have 4 The cry of the oppressed surely reacheth the Lord of Hosts-or Sabaoth. To withhold from the labourer his hire who shall wonder that such cruelty is a crying sin before the Lord? you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver 3 St. James warns his countrymen is cankered; and the rust that the last days are coming upon of them shall be a witness Jerusalem. against you, and shall eat your heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you. 7 Be 7 Remember the harvest !-why patient therefore, brethren, impatient at the toil of seedtime? unto the coming of the Lord. (Ch. iii. 18, and Col. i. 24.) Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door. Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have 11 The end of Job's patience, was an increase of honour and happiness the end brought about by the good providence of God. Job is our example. seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful and of APRIL 17, AUGUST 16, tender mercy. PETER I. 12 But above all things, my brethren, swear 12 An oath is only for the further- not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any 14 ? him call for the elders of the 16 14 The anointing with oil was upon occasions when there was miraculous healing; and was confined to that. church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil 16 Let neighbours own their of- may be healed. The effectual 20 20 A soul converted, is a soul saved by the merits of the Redeemer from all its sins, negligences, and igno rance. The first Epistle general of Peter. CHAPTER 1. APRIL 17, AUGUST 16, DEC. 13. PETER, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ; Grace unto you, and peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according 3 3 The resurrection of Jesus is indeed the foundation of that lively hope which stirreth our souls to ย to his abundant mercy hath 4 patience under trials, and endurance under ills, and joy amid the dark hours of sorrow, and sickness, and death. Fail not in Christian duty, lest dead, to an inheritance in- you lose your Christian inheritance. corruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through 7 Gold is purified in the fire; so manifold temptations: that is the soul in the furnace of afflicthe trial of your faith, being tion. 8 Faith bears us onward to that day, when we shall see Him, face to face, and know him as we are known. much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be rance: be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. 17 And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: forasmuch as ye know that 7 God loves equally, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, if they are good and faithful. ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: "3 being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. 24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower 25 23 Since ye are born again, children of God, take heed to be holy and just and good. 24 Think how short this life ishow soon its troubles will be over! The thought may well make you patient and resigned. (James v. 7.) 25 Blessed word-its promises are eternal! That word speaketh life and joy for ever. of grass. The grass wither- And this is the word which by CHAPTER II. GOOD FRIDAY, even. 1 Vain is religion before God, unless there be charity towards man. What says thine heart? APRIL 18, AUGUST 17, Dec. 14. 'WHEREFORE laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye 2 2 To the regenerate, as new born children of God, the word is their pure and proper nourishment. may grow thereby if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, 4 Jesus Christ is this living stonethis rock of ages: (Is. xxviii. 16.) the only sure foundation whereon to build our hope of heaven. ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. • Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious and he that They who think to be saved by their own reason and their own righteousness, will find at last, disappointment and misery and shame. believeth on him shall not be |