26 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.