Jam. iii. 2. In many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.
THAT persons instructed in divine truth should be anxious to instruct others is well : but to rush
uncalled into the ostensible office of the ministry, is by no means expedient. By his life, as well as by his doctrine, must a minister instruct his people : and if, on the one hand, his reward will be glorious if he discharge his duties aright ; his punishment will, on the other hand, be proportionally severe, if by word or deed he " cast a stumbling-block before others," and " cause the way of truth to be evil spoken of." Before a man therefore engage in this arduous call- ing, he should see his way clear : lest, by entering rashly upon it, he involve himself in the heavier con- demnation. This is the hint given by St. James, in the verse before my text : and, to enforce it, he reminds us of our extreme frailty ; since " in many things we all offend," and have therefore abundant reason for caution in contracting, without necessity, such an augmented responsibility.
Let me, then, shew you,
I. What even good men have to mourn over, in their daily walk before God —
" There is no man that liveth, and sinneth not." By reason of our extreme weakness, and the num- berless obstacles which lie in our way, there is not any man who does not occasionally " make a trip," and " offend,"
1. By a slip of his feet —
[No good man will, knowingly and deliberately, do that which is evil. " A man truly born of God cannot so commit sin." He has a principle within him which will not suffer it. But, sometimes through ignorance and inadvertence, and some- times through iveakness and corruption, the very best of men may err : as it is said, "The righteous falleth seven times." When James and John proposed to call fire from heaven, to consume a Samaritan village, it was doubtless from a mistaken idea, that the example of Elijah, who so vindicated the honour of Jehovah, was applicable to the occasion which then pre- sented itself to them ; and that such was a proper way of expressing their indignation against those who had refused to their Master the rights of hospitality. It was also from a mis- taken love to his Divine Master that Peter dissuaded Jesus from subjecting himself to the sufferings which he had just predicted. But the principle, in both these instances, was