Commentary on the Gospels and Acts, Commentary 1 · Chapter 7 · Verse 2
Verse 2. For with what judgement ye judge, &c.]
Our … forth what he had said before by these two …; as well known among them as those amongst us: you shall sow as ye reap, drink as ye brew, be … with the same sawce &c. Compare herewith those divine Proverbs, Isa. 33 1.… Rev. …. 10. & …. 6. Prov. 12. 14. & 13. 2, 21. & 14. 14, 22. & 22. 8. Iob 4. 8. Mark. 4. 24. God delights to give men their own, as good as they brought, to pay them home in their own coyn, or as the text here, and the Hebrew proverb hath it, to remete them their own measure,Middah cenegedh …. Isa. 3. 10, 11. with the mercifull to shew himself mercifull, and with the froward to wrestle: he will be as froward asPsal. …. 26. they for the hearts of them, beat them with their own weapons, overshoot them in their own bowes, shape their estates according to their own …, and cause others to write after their copies, as it fared with Pharaoh, Adonibezek, Agag, &c. … sinned in fullnesse of bread, and it is … noted, that their victualsGen. 14 11. were taken from them by their four Kings. Their eyes were full of uncleannesse, and they were smitten with blindnesse: they burned …, and were burned with fire: they sinned against nature, and, against the course of nature, … and … them: Eglon stab'd into the guts, findes his bane the same way with his sinne; Sisera annoys Gods people with his iron …, and is slain by a nayle of iron. Iesabels brains, that devised … against the innocent, are strew'd upon the stones: by a … to Iezreel she shed the bloud of Naboth, and by a letter from …, the bloud of her sonnes is shed. Nebuchadnezzar destroid Solomons Temple (that … years work of so many thousands) therefore let him be turned a grazing, and seven seasons passe over him, saith the oracle, Dan. 4 16. The blasphemers in the Revelations, gnaw their tongues through pain, and Dives (for…. like …) was tormented in that part chiefly. Appion scoffing … Religion, and especially at circumcision, had an ulcer at the same time, and in the same place. Phocas a wilde, drunken, bloudy, adulterousCyprian. …. tyrant, was worthily slaughtered by Heraclius, who cut off his hands and feet, and then his genitals by peece-meale.Zonaras. The Donatists that cast the holy Elements in the Lords Supper to dogs, were themselves afterward devoured of dogs. Iohn Martin of Briqueras, a mile from Angrogne, vaunted every where, that heDikes Worthy Communicant. would … the Ministers nose of Angrogne, but was himself assaulted by a wolfe, which bit off his nose, whereof he died mad.Act and Mon. sol. …. St … Elerker, Knight Marshall of Callice, in Q Maries raign, being present at the death of Adam Damlip Martyr, bid the exetioner dispatch, saying, that he would not away till he saw the traytours heart out. Shortly after this Sr Rafe was slain, amongst others, in a skirmish at Bullein, and his heart cut out of his body…. …. by the enemies: a terrible example to all mercilesse and bloudy men, &c. … no cause was known, why they should use such indignation against him more then the rest, but that it is written, with what measure ye meat, it shall be measured to you again: B. Ridley told Steven Winchester, that it was the hand of GodIbid. 1232. that he was now in prison, because he had so troubled others in his time. And as he had inslamed so many good Martyrs, so he died miserably of an inflamation, that caused him to thrust out his tongue all swoln and black, as Archb. Arundell had died before…. 1622. him. The Archbishop of Toures made suit for the erection of a Court, called Chambre …, wherein to condemn the Protestants to the fire. He was afterward striken with a disease called The fire of God, which began at his feet, and so ascended upward,Ibid 1911. that he caused one member after another to be cut off, and so did miserably. And there is mention made of one Christopher an unmercifull Courtier, who suffering a poor Lazar to die in a … by him, did afterwards perish himself in a ditch. To return toIbid. 1907. the present purpose, Laurentius Valla censured all that wrote before him, Erasmus comes after, and censures him as much: Beza findes as many faults with Erasmus, and not without cause, as appeareth by that one passage among many in his Annotations on Rom. 7. 21. I finde then a law, that when I would doe good, evil is present with me; Erasmus Originem secutus, scripsit Paulum hoc … balbutire, quùm ipse potiùs ineptiat. Scaliger the Hyper-critick gives this absurd and unmannerlyScalig … Poet cap 16. censure; Gothi belluae, Scoti non minus Angli perfidi, inslati, feri, contemptoris, stolidi, amentes, inertes, inhcspitales, immanes. The Gothes are beasts, so are the Scots. English men are perfidious, proud, fierce, foolish, mad-men, slow-bellies, inhospitall, barbarcus. Another comes after him, and saith, His bolt, you see is soon shot, and so you may happily guesse at the quality of… Geog. … …. the Archer. Tacitus speaks reproachfully of both Jews and Christians;…, …; … … appeliat. and is paid his own as well, both by Tertullian and …. If men suffer in their good names, they may thank themselves, mostly. Contempt is a thing that mans nature is most impatient of: those that are given to slight and censure others, are punished with the common hatted of all. Imitation and retaliation are in all men naturally, as we may see in every childe. And that of Salomon is in this sense found most true; As in water face answereth to face; so doth the heart of a man to a man. None are so … and censured, as those that are most censorious. The places they live in, groan for a vomit to spew them out.