judge of his own gifts, and of his right to act publicly on that
judgment. The initiative alone is supernatural; but all beginning is
necessarily miraculous, that is, hath either no antecedent, or one
[Greek: hetérou genous], which therefore is not its, but merely an,
antecedent,--or an incausative alien co-incident in time; as if, for
instance, Jack's shout were followed by a flash of lightning, which
should strike and precipitate the ball on St. Paul's cathedral. This
would be a miracle as long as no causative 'nexus' was conceivable
between the antecedent, the noise of the shout, and the consequent, the
atmospheric discharge.


The Epistle Dedicatory.

But this will be your glory and inexpugnable, if you cleave in truth
and practice to God's holy service, worship and religion: that
religion and faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is pure and
undefiled before God even the Father, which is to visit the fatherless
and widows in their affliction, and to keep yourselves unspotted from
the world.

James i. 27.

Few mistranslations (unless indeed the word used by the translator of
St. James meant differently from its present meaning), have led astray
more than this rendering of [Greek: Thraeskeía.] (outward or ceremonial
worship, 'cultus', divine service,) by the English 'religion'. St. James
sublimely says: What the 'ceremonies' of the law were to morality,
'that' morality itself is to the faith in Christ, that is, its outward
symbol, not the substance itself.