Peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God......St. Peter. BY THE REV. ROBERT ROBINSON. New-York: PRINTED BY L. NICHOLS, NO. 308 BROADWAY. 1805. SERMON I. THE NECESSITY OF UNIVERSAL OBEDIENCE. James ii. 10. Whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. MY BRETHREN, WERE I obliged to give a title to this epis tle, from which I have taken my text, to distinguish it from the other books of our sacred canon, I would call it the paradoxes of St. James. It should seem, the apostle had no other design in writing than that of surprizing his readers by unheard-of propositions. In the first chapter he subverts that notion of religion, which is generally received both in the world and the church. To adore the God of heaven and earth, to receive his revelation, to acknowledge his Messiah, to partake of his sacraments, to burn with zeal for his worship, this is usually called religion. No, says St. James, this is not religion; at most this is only a small part of it. Religion consists in visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and in keeping themselves unspotted from the world, ver. 27. In the second chapter he seems to take pains to efface the grand character of a christian, and of christianity itself, and to destroy this fundamental truth of the gospel, that man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law, Rom. iii. 28. No, |