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COMPARATIVE RELIGION.
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day? Can we not go on living and enjoying ourselves, let us say, a bit moderately, in the world, and become divine at the same time? There are some persons who actually think that the teaching of the Bible not only provides such an easier method but is actually opposed to the more austere one. Let us see what is the truth for ourselves.
According to St. Paul, not the hearers of the law, but the practisers (doers) of the law, will be justified (Romans, ii. 13). In the Epistle of James (chap. i. 22), the warning is plainly given against self-deception in this respect :—
Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves."
Still more clear rings the voice of the preceptor when he
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says:
What doeth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him?
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If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto him, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give him not these things which are needful to the body, what doeth it profit?
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Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone" (James, ii. 14-17).
St. Paul laments man's inability to do what he should do and to refrain from what he should not do in forcible language (Romans, vi. 19-23) :—
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For the good that I would I do not but the evil that I would not, that I do.
Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
For I delight in the law of God after the inward man :
But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members."
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The culmination is reached in the next verse, which sums up the philosophical conclusion in a few words regarding the nature of the obstruction to right conduct and the acquisition of Soul's natural divinity. The language is remarkable and singularly Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
