THE ORDERING OF PRIESTS.

THE DIFFICULTY AND DANGER OF THE
PRIESTLY OFFICE.

[BISHOP BULL]

A VISITATION SERMON, CONCERNING THE GREAT DIFFICULTY AND DANGER OF THE PRIESTLY OFFICE.

JAMES, iii. 1.

My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.

THE text may, at first sight, appear to some to stand at a very wide distance from the present occasion. But I hope, by that time I have spent a little pains in explaining it, I shall set the text and occasion at a perfect agreement.

The words, therefore, are by interpreters diversely expounded. Among the rest, two interpretations there are which stand as the fairest candidates for our reception.

1. Some understand the "masters" here in my text, to be proud, malicious censors, and judges of other men's actions, and so expound the text as a prohibition of rash and uncharitable judgment, and make it parallel to that of our Saviour, "Judge not, that ye be not

judged." Be not rash and hasty in censuring or judging the actions of others, or speaking evil of them, considering that, by so doing, you will but procure a greater judgment of God upon yourselves. The chief, if not the only argument for this interpretation, is the context of the Apostle's discourse, which, in the following verses, is wholly spent against the vices of the tongue. But,

2. Others there are who interpret the "masters" in the text to be pastors or teachers in the church of God; and, accordingly, understand the words as a serious caution against the rash undertaking of the pastoral office or function, as an office attended with great difficulty and danger, a task very hard to be discharged, and wherein whoever miscarries makes himself thereby liable to a severer judgment of Almighty God.

This latter interpretation (with submission I speak it) seems to me, almost beyond doubt, the genuine sense of the Apostle. The reasons are evident in the text itself. For, 1. Unless we thus expound the words, it will be hard to give a rational account of this word Toλλo, "many," why it should be inserted. For if we understand those masters the Apostle speaks of to be rash judges and censurers of others, it is most certain then, one such would be too many, and the multiplicity of them would not be the only culpable thing. But, on the other side, if we receive the latter interpretation, the account of the word tool is easily rendered, according to the paraphrase of Erasmus, thus: "Let not pastors or teachers be too vulgar and cheap among

a Matt. vii. 1.