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I. WHAT IS MEANT BY VISITING THE FATHERLESS AND WIDOWS IN THEIR AFFLICTION.

1. The objects of our charity; the fatherless and widows in their affliction; in any want or distress wherein they need and are capable of our assistance.

2. The charitable act we are to exercise towards them who are in want or distress.

II. THIS IS A NECESSARY AND PRINCIPAL PART, AND A SIGNAL TESTIMONY, OF TRUE RELIGION. Mercy and charity are those duties which the gospel, the rule of our religion, doth in. a most earnest and especial manner require and press the performance of (1 Timothy 1:5: 1 Corinthians 13:13; 1 Peter 4:8; Hebrews 13:16; Luke 3:8; Matthew 5:7; James 2:13; 1 Timothy 6:17-19). Other exercises of religion can be of no value in the sight of God, where this duty of charity is neglected. What an affront must it be to God to pretend to join in prayers to Him for those who are in trouble, need, sickness, or any other adversity, if He hath put it in our own power to relieve them, and we will not! What mockery is it to come and sit before God as His people, and to hear His word, if covetousness hath so possessed our hearts that we have no regard to the most plain and express commands of it! The vanity and inefficacy of all such religious exercises, without charity, is most frequently asserted in Holy Scripture (Isaiah 1:11, 12, 17, 18; Isaiah 58:6, 7, 9). The great ends of religion, the glory of God, the good of His people here, and the disposing us for heaven hereafter, are most highly promoted by charity, and therefore it must be a principal part of it.

III. IT IS A SINGULAR TESTIMONY OF TRUE RELIGION, AND WHAT IT OBLIGETH ALL SORTS OF MEN TO; TO TAKE PARTICULAR CARE OF THE FATHERLESS CHILDREN AND WIDOWS OF GOD'S MINISTERS IN THEIR AFFLICTION, AND TO HAVE A MORE SPECIAL REGARD TO THEM IN THE EXERCISE OF THEIR CHARITY.

(L. Butler, D. D.)

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KJV: Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

WEB: Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.