A bishop then must be blameless,— With respect to his moral character. The priests under the law were to be without bodily infirmities, Leviticus 21:16; Leviticus 21:24. The bishops in the Christian church are to be of unblemished hearts and lives, Titus 1:6-7.—the husband of one wife; that is, "one who has not causelessly divorced his wife, and married another;" much less ought he to have more than one wife at a time. See 1 Timothy 3:12. Some understand the apostle here as prohibiting second marriages in the clergy; but the interpretation above given appears the most just and reasonable.
Which way soever the sentence be interpreted, it plainly condemns the practice of the church of Rome, which allows not bishops or clergy to marry at all: surely that can never be consistent with a bishop's being the husband of one wife.—We have in the course of this commentary, frequently observed, that in the Eastern country there were few houses of public entertainment; and therefore, though hospitality is at all times highly commendable in all, and especially in bishops and ministers of the gospel, there was the more necessity that the houses of bishops should at that time be famed for it, and always open to such as travelled about in order to spread the gospel