Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
21 Wherefore lay apart. He concludes by saying how the word of life is to be received. And first, indeed, he intimates that it cannot be rightly received except it be implanted, or strike roots in us. For the expression, to receive the implanted word, ought to be thus explained, “to receive it, that it may be really implanted.” For he alludes to seed often...
In this part of the chapter we are required, I. To restrain the workings of passion. This lesson we should learn under afflictions; and this we shall learn if we are indeed begotten again by the word of truth. For thus the connection stands - An angry and hasty spirit is soon provoked to ill things by afflictions, and errors and ill opinions become prevalent...
Commenting on James 1:19-27
Verse 21. Wherefore. In view of the fact that God has begotten us for his own service; in view of the fact that excited feeling tends only to wrong, let us lay aside all that is evil, and submit ourselves wholly to the influence of truth. Lay apart all filthiness. The word here rendered filthiness, occurs nowhere else in the New Testament.