The LIFE of St. JAMES,

The APOSTLE, surnamed the GREAT.

THIS apostle was a native of Galilee, born in all probability either at Capernaum or Bethsaida, as he was a partner with Simon Peter in the fishing trade. The epithet of Great was given him, to distinguish him from another apostle of the same name.

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He was the son of Zebedee, a fisherman, who kept several servants to carry on his trade, and therefore must have been a person of conséquence in his way. His mother's name was Mary, surnamed Salome, the daugh ter of Cleophas, and sister or rather cousin-german to Mary the mother of our Lord; so that he had the honour of being a near relation to CHRIST himself. He was brought up to the trade of his father; a mean occupation, indeed, in the eye of the world, but no employment is mean that is honest and industrious; and it should be remembered that the Son of God himself stooped so low, as to become the reputed son of a carpenter, an d during the retirement of his private life latoured himself at his fathers trade; not merely devoting himself to contemplations, nor withdrawing from all useful society with the world, and hiding himself in the solitudes of an anchoret, but busying himself in an active course ofer Iife as he continually went about doing good to the souls and bodies of mankind.

Not in the least discouraged at the meanness of his father's trade, St. James applied himself to it with remarkable assiduity, and was exercising his employment when the Saviour of the world passing by the sea of Galilee, saw him with his brother in the ship, and called them both to be his disciples. Nor was the call in vain; they carefully complied with it, and immediately left all to follow him: they did not stay to dispute his command, or solicitously inquire into the minute consequences of the undertaking, the troubles and dangers that might attend this new employment; but readily delivered themselves up to preform whatever service he should call them to.

He was called soon after this from the station of an ordinary disciple, to the apostolic office, and even honoured with some particular favours beyond most of the apostles, being one of the three whom the Lord made choice of, as his companions in the more intimate transactions of his life, from which the rest were excluded. Thus, with Peter and his brother John, he attended his Master when he raised the daughter of Jarius from the dead; he was admitted to CHRIST's glorious transfiguration on the mount, and heard the discourses that passed between him and the great ministers from the court of heaven; and when the holy JESUS was to00 undergo his bitter agony in the garden, as preparatory sufferings to his pas sion, James was one of the three taken to be a spectator of them.

It is not easy to determine what reasons induced the great Redeemer of mankind to admit those three apostles to peculiar acts of kindness; though he doubtless did it for wise and proper ends. Whether he designs. these three to be more solemn and peculiar witnesses of some remarkable transactions of his life than the other apostles; or that they would be more eminently useful and serviceable in some parts of the apostolic office; or to encourage them thereby to prepare for the sufferings that would attend them in the ministry; or whether he designed them for some more eminent kinds of martyrdom than the rest of his disciples.

It was not the least instance of particular honour that our Lord conferred on these apostles, when he called them to the apostolate, that he gives them a new name and titie. Athing not uncommon of old, for the Almighty often imposed new names on persons, when he intended then for..

some great and peculiar services and employment; instances of this we have in Abraham and Jacob. Accordingly our Lord, at the election of. these three apostles, gave them new names: Simon he called Peter, or rock, and James and John, Boanerges, or the sons of thunder. What our Lord intended by these surnames is much easier to conjecture than determine; some think it was given them on account of their being present in the mount, when a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son, &c. for when the people heard the same voice at another time, they said, " it thundered." But this observation is in itself very inconsiderable, because it was equally qually applicablé to Peter as to them. Others think it was given them on account of their loud and bold preaching the gospel to the world, fearing no threatenings, despising all opposition, and going on thundering in the ears of a drowsy and sleepy world; rousing and awakening the consciences of men with the earnestness and vehemence of their preaching, which resembled thunder, as the voice of God powerfully shakes the natural world, and breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. Others think it relates to the doctrines they delivered, teaching the great mysteries of the gospel in a more profound and loftier strain than the rest.

How far the latter opinion might be true with regard to St. James, the Scriptures are wholly silent; but it was certainly verified in his brother John, whose gospel is full of the more sublime notions and mysteries of the gospel concerning the divinity, pre-existence, &c. of CHRIST, that he is generally affirmed by the ancients to thunder rather than speak. Perhaps the expressions may denote no more than that in general they were to be prime and eminent ministers, in this new state of things; the introducing the gospel or the evangelical dispensation, being called "a voice shaking the heavens and the earth," and therefore exactly correspondent to the native importance of the word, signifying an earthquake, or a vehement commotion, that like thunder, makes an alarming noise.

However this be, our blessed Saviour doubtless by this term alluded to the furious and resolute dispositions of these two brothers, who seem to have been of a more fiery temper than the rest of the apostles, of which we have this memorable instance. When our Lord was determined on his journey to Jerusalem, he sent some of his disciples before him to make preparation for his coming; but, on their entering a village of Samaria, were rudely rejected, from the old grudge that subsisted between the Jews and the Samaritans, and because our Saviour, by going up to Jerusalem, seemed to slight their place of worship on mount Gerizim.

This piece of rudeness and inhumanity was so highly resented by St. James and his brother John, that they came to Jesus, desiring to know if he would not imitate Elias, by calling down fire from heaven to consume this barbarous and inhospitable people. So apt are men for every trifling provocation to call upon heaven to revenge them on the aggressors, according to the extravagancies of ther own unreasonable passions! But the holy JESUS soon convinced them of their mistake, by telling them, that he was come to save the lives of the children of men, and not to de

stroy them.

We have no account from sacred history, what became of St. James after the ascension of his great and beloved Master. Sophronius tells us, that he preached to the dispersed Jews, that is, to those converts who were dispersed after the death of Stephen. The Spanish writers will have it, that after preaching the gospel in several parts of Judea and Samaria, he visited Spain, where he had planted Christianity, and appointed some select disciples to perfect what he had begun; but if we consider the shortness of St. James's life, and that the apostles continued in a body at Jerusalem, even after the dispersion of the other Christians, we shall find it difficult to allow time sufficient for so tedious and difficult a voyaga as that was in

The LIFE of St. JAMES,

The APOSTLE, surnamed the LESS.

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BEFORE we enter upon the life of this apostle, it will be necessary to remove some difficulties relating to his person. It has been doubted by some whether this was the same with that St. James, who was afterwards bishop of Jerusalem, two of this name being mentioned in the sacred writings, namely, St. James the Great and St. James the Less, both apostles; the ancients mention a third, surnamed the Just, which they will have to be dsitinct from the former, and bishop of Jerusalein; butthisopinion is built on a sandy foundation; for nothing is plainer, than that St. James the apos tle whom St. Paul calls" our Lord's brother," and reckons with Peter and John, one of the pillars of the church, was the same who presided among the apostles doubtless by virtue of his episcopal office, and determined the causes in the synod of Jerusalem. Nor do either Clemens, Alexandrinus, or Eusebius, mention any more than two, St. James slain by Herod, and St James the Just, bishop of Jerusalem, whom they expressly affirm to be the same with him who is called the brother of our Lord by St Paul.

The difficulties with regard to his person being thus removed, we shall proceed to the history of his life. It is reasonable to think that he was the son of Joseph, afterwards the husband of Mary by his first wife, whom St. Jerom styles Escha, and adds, that she was the daughter of Aggi, brother to Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist: hence he was reputed our Lord's brother. We find indeed several mentioned as the brethren of our Saviour in the evangelical history; but in what sense, was greatly controverted by the ancients. St. Jerom, St. Chrysostom, and some others, will have them to have been so called from their being the sons of Mary, cousin-german; or according to the Hebrew idiom, sister to the Virgin Mary: but Eusebius, Epiphanius, and many others tell us, they were the children of Joseph by a former wife; and this seems most natural, and best agrees with what the evangelist says of them, when he enumerates the questions of the Jews: "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brethren, James and Joses, and Simeon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then has this man these things?" By which it is plain that the Jews understood these persons not to be CHRIST'S kinsmen only, but his brethren; the same carpenter's son having the same relation to him, that JESUS himself had: indeed they had more, CHRIST being only his reputed, they his natural sons. Upon this account the blessed Virgin, is sometimes called the mother of James and Joses; and by this name we frequently find her mentioned by the evangelists in relating our Lord's crucifixion : and though she was only mother-in-law to St. James, yet the evangelists might shoose to style her so, because she was commonly called his mother after the death of Joseph: perhaps she herself chose that title, that the Son of God, whom as a virgin she had brought into the world, might be the better concealed, and less exposed to the envious malice of the Jews. To this it might be added, that Josephus, who was eminently skilled in matters of genealogy and descent, expressly says, that St. James was the brother of JESUS CHRIST. There is indeed one objection against this, namely, that he is called "the son of Alpheus:" but this may mean no more, than either that Joseph was called by another name, a thing very common amongst the Jews, or that James himself was a disciple of some particular sect or synagogue called Alpheans, there being many such sects about this time amongst the Jews.

The sacred history is silent with regard to the place of his birth: the Jews in their Talmud, calls him a man of the town of Sechinia; but where that place was situated is uncertain : nor is it known what his particular way or course of life was before he was called to the apostleship; the sacred writers having been silent with regard to this particular, mentioning nothing concerning him during the life of our Saviour.

St. James, was honoured, after the resurrection, with a particular appearance of our Lord to him, which, though passed over in silence by the evangelists, is recorded by St. Paul, St. Jerom, from the Hebrew gospel of the Nazarenes, which contain several particulars omitted by the evangelical historians, gives the following relation of his appearance to this apostle. St. James had solemnly sworn, that from the time he had drank of the cup at the institution of the supper, he would eat bread no more, till he saw the Lord risen, from the dead, our Lord, therefore, being returned from the grave, came and appeared to him, and commanded bread to be set before him, which he took, blessed, and brake, and gave to St. James; say. ing, " Eat thy bread, my brother, for the Son of man is truly risen from amongst them that sleep."

After the resurrection of our Saviour, he was chosen bishop of Jerusalem, being preferred before all the rest for his near relation to CHRIST; and for the same reason, we find Simeon chosen to be his immediate successor in that see, because, after St. James, he was our Lord's next kinsman; a consideration that made Peter and the two sons of Zebedee. though they had been peculiarly honoured by our Saviour, not to contend for this high and honourable station, but ifreely chose James the Justy bishop of Jerusalem. This dignity is indeed said by some of the ancients to have been conferred on him by CHRIST, who constituted him bishop at the time of his appearing to him: but it is safest to follow the general opinion, that this dignity was conferred upon him by the apostles; though possibly they might receive some intimations from our Lord himself concerning it.

St. Paul, when he came to Jerusalem, after his conversion, applied to St. James, and was by him honoured by the right hand of fellowship: and Peter sent to St. James the news of his miraculous deliverance out of the prison, "Go," said he, "shew these things unto James, and to the brethren;" that is, in the church, especially to St. James the pastor of it that time.

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This apostle was remarkably active in the synod of Jerusalem, when the great cause relating to the Mosaic rites was debated; for the cause being opened by Peter, and further debated by Paul and Barnabas, St. James stood up to pass the final and decretory sentence. - That the Gen. tile converts were not to be loaded with the Jewish yoke; a few indifferent rites only being ordered to be observed in order to produce an accommodation between the Jews and Gentiles, ushering in the expedient with this positive conclusion, "This is my sentence and determination :" a circumstance the more considerable, because spoken at a time when Peter was in council, and produced not the least intimation of the authority afterwards ascribed to him.

St. James performed every part of his charge with all possible care and industry, omitting no particular necessary to be observed by a diligent and faithful guide of souls; strengthing the weak, instructing the ignorant, reducing the erroneous, reproving the obstinate; and, by the constancy of his sermons, conquering the stubbornness of that perverse and refractory generation he had to deal with, many of the noble and better sort being persuaded to embrace the Christian faith: but a person so careful, so successful in his charge, could not fail of wakening the spite and ima lice of his enemies; a sort of men of whom the apostle has given too true character, that "they pleased not God, and are contrary to all men. The Jews being vexed to see St. Paul had escaped their hands by appealing unto Cæsar, their malice became as great and insatiable as hel