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The spirit: this may be understood either, according to the marginal reading, of the breath; and then the sense is, that life and breath being inseparable companions, as the the of breath argues want of life in the body, so, lively faith and works being as inseparable, want of works argues want of life in faith: or, according to the reading in the text, spirit, taking it for that substance which animates the body, and is the cause of vital functions in it, which is sometimes called spirit, Psa_31:5 Ecc_12:7 1Co_2:11; and then the sense is, that as a body is without a soul, so faith is without works, i.e. both are dead. As a body without the soul hath the shape and lineaments of a man, but nothing that may discover life in it; so faith without works may be like true faith, have some resemblance of it, but hath nothing to discover the truth and life of it.
So faith; not true faith, for that cannot be dead, but an empty profession of faith, which is rather called faith by way of concession, or because of some likeness it hath to it, than really is so; as a dead body, though called a body, is really but a carcass.