Ridiculum est, odio nocentis innocentiam perdere. Senec,

away our cloak, or twenty pounds, therefore to throw our coat or whole inheritance into the sea! When one has taken from us the cloak of our good name, or a little of our worldly estate, how wild a folly is it therefore to throw away by revenge the beautiful garment of our innocence, yea, the inheritance of heaven! It is ridiculous, for the hatred of him that hurt us, to cast away that which never hurt, will always be helpful to us; and because we are bereaved of something which we had, our goods, therefore to throw away all we are, our souls. What madness comparable to that, whereby in our prayers we daily pour forth curses against, instead of requests for ourselves! Who would not think him weary of his life, who being struck by one whom he knows to be full of leprosy and plague sores, will spend his time in grappling and contending with him again? None can avenge himself upon another without spiritual defilement and infection; and, which is most inexcusable, that malice for which he is so much enraged against another he loves in himself. The empty, transitory, though reproachful, expression of his brother he lays to heart; but the sword of revenge, with which the devil endeavours to kill him, he contemns and disregards. In a word, what temper is more childish than that of revenge, whereby, like children, men desire and delight to strike that thing which hurt them! It is folly to beat the instrument which wounded us; our wisdom is, to labour that the wound which is given us may be healed and sanctified. Yea, there is more of brutishness than manliness, when we are kicked to kick again. Nothing more honours a man than overcoming revenge. He who can master his own revengeful heart, has a spirit truly noble, and fit to govern others. Upon David's sparing Saul, wisely did Saul say thus to David, "The Lord hath delivered me into thy hands, and thou killedst me not: and now, behold, I know well that thou shalt be king," I Sam. xxiv. 18, 20. He only has something supernatural in charity who requites evil with good, who loves his enemies, does good to them that hate him, wearies them with patience, and writes after a heavenly copy, Matt. v. 14.

Obs. 6. The consideration of our having a God to whom we may commit our cause, is the best means to make us patient under wrongs. Michael was a servant to a great Lord, and to him he appeals, and lays the controversy before him: "The Lord rebuke thee." There would be more bearing in the world, were there more believing. Did we look more upon him that is invisible, we should less regard the evils which we see and feel. "Walk before me," saith God to Abraham," and be perfect." Nothing, either of pleasure or pain, will seem great to him, in whose eye there is this great Lord. The greatest prop in opposition is to have a God to fly to. The greatest loss for him shall be made up again by him. When David considered that God was his portion, he abhorred to go to other subterfuges, Psal. xvi. 4, 5. They who believe they have a God to right them, will not wrong themselves so much as to revenge their own wrongs. God, they know, will do it more equally, and more beneficially. And the true reason why there is no more willingness, either to forbear any sin, or to bear any sorrow, is because we think not of this great Lord, so as either to fear or trust him. They who can call God Father, may with Christ pray concerning their enemies, Forgive them.” They who can see heaven opened, and Christ at the right hand pleading for them, may with Stephen plead for their enemies, and pray, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge."

66

VERSE 10.

But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.

In this verse our apostle accommodates and applies the comparison of Michael the archangel, or further shows wherein the holy and humble carriage of Michael made the sin of these seducers appear more sinful and abominable. The angel was a creature, not only of the greatest created might and power, but also of wisdom and understanding, and knew what the devil was, namely, a wicked creature, and destined by God to eternal perdition; accurately also he understood that the cause wherein he contended with the devil was just and righteous, knowing the pleasure and will of God concerning the hiding of Moses's sepulchre; but these, saith he, speak evil of what persons and things they know not; are outrageous, though ignorant; active, though blind. And this want of due wisdom and understanding, in not knowing what they spake against, the apostle illustrates, by showing what that kind of knowledge was which was left in these seducers; namely, such as was merely brutish and sensual, and such as whereby they corrupted themselves: so that, as they sinned in what they hated and opposed, because they knew it not; they sinned also in what they embraced and loved, because they knew it, but after a natural, beastly manner, viz. for the satisfying of their sensitive appetites. Our apostle with admirable artifice subjoins this second, their natural brutish knowledge, to the former, their ignorance; because thereby he amplifies most wisely both those sins mentioned in ver. 8, viz. their defiling the flesh, and despising of dominions; though (as Junius notes) by a hysteron proteron, he amplifies the Tepov PÓTE latter, their despising of dominion, in the first place.

pov.

The words contain principally these two parts: 1. The malicious ignorance of these seducers, in speaking evil of what they knew not. 2. Their sensual knowledge, in corrupting themselves in those things which, like brute beasts, they knew. In the former they showed themselves no Christians, in the latter

Three things here are to be opened.

1. What the things are which these seducers are here said not to know.

2. What kind of ignorance, or not knowing of those things, it was wherewith they are here charged. 3. Wherein appears this sin of speaking evil of those things which they knew not.

1. What the things are which these seducers are here said not to know.

Some conceive (as Ecumenius and others) that the things of which these seducers were ignorant, and spake evil, were sundry doctrines and points of faith, and mysteries of Christian religion. The doctrines of Christianity surpassed their reason, nor could they be perceived by the power of nature. These seducers were such as were "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth," 2 Tim. iii. 7; and having swerved from the

faith, turned aside to vain jangling; and desiring to be teachers of the law, understood not what they said, nor whereof they affirmed, 1 Tim. i. 7. They were blind leaders of the blind, not knowing the Scriptures, Matt. xv. 14. In a word, they consented not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, but were proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strife of words, 1 Tim. vi. 3, 4. And particularly, they were ignorant of that main, fundamental, gospel truth, viz. that the grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness; holding that they were by that grace freed from all holiness of life, and that all were thereby left at liberty to live as they pleased; so that their lusts, like the dust, put out the eyes of their understanding.

Others conceive, more probably, that though the apostle here uses an indefinite expression, in saying öga, those things, yet he here intends principally, that these seducers were ignorant of the nature, institution, and end of that dominion, those dignities which they so much despised and reviled, ver. 8, that they knew not that magistracy was appointed by God, and to continue, even in the time of the gospel, notwithstanding the liberty which Christ hath purchased for us; in short, they were ignorant of the great utility and benefit of civil government in and to the world; that it defends justice, opposes vice, preserves public peace, relieves the oppressed, and is that tree under the shadow whereof we quietly and safely sit, and are sheltered.

2. For the second, What kind of ignorance it was with which the apostle here charges the seducers. There are three sorts of ignorance. (1.) A happy and profitable ignorance, viz. not to know those things the knowledge whereof proves hurtful; thus it had been good for Ådam not to have known evil experimentally. It had been good for the Jews if they had never known the corrupt and idolatrous fashions of the heathens; and, in some respect, it had been good for apostates if they had never known the way of righteousness, 2 Pet. ii. 21. (2.) There is a knowledge of mere and simple negation; as Christ knew not the day of judgment, and as illiterate mechanics know not sundry arts and sciences, as physic, astronomy; and this is without sin. (3.) There is an ignorance of evil disposition, and this is twofold. 1. Of frailty, when we are ignorant, and naturally indisposed to the knowledge of those things which we ought to know; but yet we are holily sorrowful for it, mourn under it, and pray against it. Thus even the godly are ignorant. 2. Ignorance of evil disposition may be supine, gross, or affected; when men like themselves well enough in their ignorance, and their ignorance in themselves; and this is not only non profligata, an ignorance not fought against and opposed, but also affectata, affected and loved, by men who refuse instruction, that so they may sin the more freely, and prosecute evil the more without controlment. This sort of ignorance is not barely nescire, a nescience, and not knowing either of the things which we are enjoined and bound to know; but a nolle scire, a conceited, contracted, contented ignorance, which thinks it knows what it knows not, and desires to unlearn what it knows the former is the cause of sin, but of the latter sin is the cause; that ignorance whereby men desire not the knowledge of the ways of God, know not (as the psalmist speaks) nor will understand, but walk on in darkness, Psal. lxxxii. 5. In brief, this ignorance wherewith our apostle charges these seducers is not only that qua nesciunt, whereby they discern not; but qua respuunt, whereby they

Non est consequens, ut continuo erret, quisquis aliquid

nescit; sed quis scire quod nescit.

quis se existimat

Aug. c. 17. Enchir.

despise things needful to be known, approve not the things that are excellent, delight in error, quarrel with and resist the truth, and, as Peter speaks of this very sort of men, are willingly ignorant, 2 Pet. iii. 5. The heathen are said not to like to acknowledge God; their blindness was natural, and they also voluntarily chose their superstition before the knowledge of God, Rom. i. 28.

3. Briefly for the third, Wherein appears the sinfulness of their speaking evil of those things which they knew not.

(1.) It is a sin discovering the grossest folly. Not to understand is a man's infirmity, but to speak what, and evilly of what, he understands not is his folly. If folly be discovered in speaking much, even of what we know, more is it manifested in speaking any thing of what we know not. If an ignorant speaker, much more is an ignorant reviler, his own enemy; he shoots up arrows, which, for aught he knows, may fall upon his own pate; he speaks that in his fury which he cannot unsay, and for which he may be undone in his sobriety. "He that answers a matter before he hears it, it is a folly and a shame unto him," Prov. xviii. 13. “The heart of the wise teaches his mouth," Prov. xvi. 23.

(2.) To speak evil of what we know not is greatest injustice. If he speaks unjustly who utters what is good and just in a cause which he knows not, because it is more by hap (as they say) than by honesty; how much greater is his injustice, who speaks that which is evil and unjust of what he knows not. It is unjust to speak evil of any without a call, though we do know it; much more when we do not know it. How unequal is it that another should suffer for my ignorance, much more from myself! It is the happiness of him who suffers, but the sin of him who offers the injury, that the former has no fault but the ignorance of the latter. Though David will ever be reckoned among good men, yet his act of ignorant censuring Mephibosheth, unheard Mephibosheth! will ever be reckoned among his unjust actions. The like may be said of Potiphar's doing evil to Joseph before he knew his cause, and Eli's censuring Hannah for drunkenness before he heard her.

(3.) To speak evil of what we know not argues the height of malice. He may be malicious who speaks the evil he knows, much more he who utters that which he knows not. It is from want of love, to discover the sin we find in another, but it is the excess of malice to make that sin which we could not find. If love makes us believe that good which we know not in another, I Cor. xiii. 7, then must it be malice which makes us believe and report that evil of which we are ignorant. To conclude, it is a malicious rejoicing in evil, 1 Cor. xiii. 6, to delight in uttering an evil which we really behold in another. But how great a pleasure does he take in another's evil, who rejoices in his very fancying and imagining that evil against another which he frames in his own thoughts!

(4.) To speak evil of what we know not discovers impudence in wickedness, and a sinful immodesty as well as maliciousness: such an evil-speaking argues that a man has sinned away shame as well as love. What greater impudence than for a man to outface at once the common observation of hearers, who haply can contradict foolish slander, and also the danger that false accusation incurs among men; yea, conscience checking, and representing God himself both observing and threatening ignorant and evil speaking.

Obs. 1. None are so ready to speak as the ignorant. They who know least speak most and oftenest. A

ἐν πίθω κερα μίαν μανθάνειν. Inter proverbia Nazianani. In dolio discere figulinam.

fool is hardly discerned when silent; his picture is best taken when he is speaking; if he In multiloquium, holds his peace, he is accounted wise; stultiloquium. he is, by Solomon, called "a prating fool:" "A fool," saith he, " is full of words," and is known thereby, Eccl. x. 14; v. 3: empty vessels sound. A wise man has something to do before he speaks, and besides speaking; namely, to consider, and let down the bucket of his tongue into the well of his reason, before he pour forth words. A fool's work is only to speak; no wonder then if he does it with greater speed than a wiser person; and if he, like Jacob in his hasty providing of meat for his father, more suddenly presents the hearer with a kid of the goats than another shall with venison; and more easily brings what comes next hand, and is at the tongue's end, than another does that for which he has laboured and yet deluded hearers, to whom such a present of empty words is tendered, commonly, like blind Isaac, bless and applaud the bringers thereof sooner and more than those whose words are more weighty, and prepared with greater pains. Their backwardness to learn of others has made them so forward to teach others; and because they were fruitless scholars, they are forward and fruitless teachers. And yet these empty speakers, that they may be commended by the ignorant for knowing, care not if they are condemned by those who are knowing for ignorant. It is good counsel of the apostle, to be slow to speak, James i. 19, and to take heed of coveting, with Ahimaaz, to be messengers before we have tidings ready, 2 Sam. xviii. 22; and with the empty and ambitious bramble, of desiring to be erected over others as their instructors, when, having never been instructed, we can administer nothing to the hearer but fruitless words, empty leaves, and unsavoury discourses. The faulty in this kind may well give good measure, for they give but bad weight, and may sell that cheap which costs them nothing. It is inverted order to be teachers before we are scholars. The apostle commands that a bishop be not didάokaλoç only, a teacher; but didaktikos, fit, or meet, or apt to teach, 1 Tim. iii. 2; and that he attend to reading as well as speaking, 1 Tim. iv. 13. As without the blessing of God no means are prevalent, so without the use of means no blessing can be expected. It is only suitable, that his tongue only should be the pen of a ready writer, whose heart has first been inditing a good matter, Psal. xlv. 1. Nor should the hearer be less careful to discern, than the speaker is to indite, a good matter, Prov. xviii. 15. How few hearers have we that can yet difference between matter and words! it suffices the most, if the hour be filled up with an empty noise, without any solid instruction: how rare is it to find, though we run to and fro in the streets of London, a man, I mean, in understanding! Obs. 2. Ignorance is the cause of opposing the ways of God. "They speak evil of those things which they know not." The opposing and crucifying of Christ himself proceeded from ignorance. "Had they known," saith the apostle," they would not have crucified the Lord of glory," I Cor. ii. 8. "I wot that through ignorance," saith Peter to the Jews, "ye did it," speaking concerning the killing "the Prince of life," Acts iii. 15, 17. Christ himself testifies of his murderers that they knew not what they did. "And these things," saith Christ, speaking of the unkindness and cruelties of sinners against his servants, "will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me," John xvi. 3. "If thou knewest," saith Christ to that poor Samaritan, "the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee

living water," John iv. 10. The reason why those profane ones refused God's service, and asked what profit they should have if they prayed to him, is plainly implied to be their ignorance; they desired not the knowledge of his ways; and, Who, say they, is the Almighty? &c., Job xxi. 14, 15. The reason why the heathen did not call upon God, is said to be this, they knew him not, Psal. lxxix. 6. "There is none that understandeth, that seeketh after God," Rom. iii. 11. Ignorance made the Gentiles strangers from the life of God, Eph. iv. 18. It is a sin which never went single; it ever walks in company, and is an inlet to all impiety. Although the prayer of Christ for his ignorant enemies, showed that God might take occasion from their ignorance to forgive them, yet it plainly implies that the sin to be forgiven them took its rise from their ignorance; their doing was from their not Insipientes in knowing what they did. An unregene- gentes in supplicio. rate man's practice is a fashioning himself according to lusts in his ignorance, 1 Pet. i. 14.

peccato, intelli

Did men either see the deformity of sin, or the beauty of holiness, they would neither delight in the former, nor dislike the latter: when there is no knowledge of God in the land, there is neither "truth nor mercy," but "swearing, lying, killing, stealing, committing adultery," Hos. iv. I, 2. The foundation of obedience must be laid in knowledge, which, in a sort, is the root of other graces: "Grace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God," 2 Pet. i. 2. See also ver. 3. The will and affections are led by the understanding, which sits at the stern in the soul: all the sins of the people are called errors, Heb. ix. 7. As Eve, so others since, are drawn to sin by being deceived, 1 Tim. ii. 14.

The first work of grace is to reform the understanding. Be ye changed by the renewing of your mind, Rom. xii. 2. And, "The new man is renewed in knowledge," Col. iii. 10. The imaginations and thoughts of the mind are by the apostle called those strong holds and high things exalted against the knowledge, and to be subdued “to the obedience, of Christ," 2 Cor. x. 4, 5. How dangerous then is ig norance! He who wants the right knowledge of God is still under the dominion of Satan, who is called "the ruler of the darkness of this world," Eph. vi. 12. This ruler of darkness takes up his throne in dark hearts; none are turned off the ladder but such whom he first blinds. "I send thee," saith Christ to Paul, “to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God," Acts xxvi. 18. Ignorance is the beaten path to hell: My people perish for want of knowledge, Hos. iv. 6. Whomsoever God will have to be saved, he will bring "to the knowledge of the truth," 1 Tim. ii. 4. They who have not known God's ways, shall never, if we may believe God's oath, enter into his rest, Psal. xcv. 10, 11. Foolish are they who boast of their good minds and meanings, and yet continue ignorant. Without knowledge the mind is not good, Prov. xix. 2. Many cry up practice and good meaning to cry down knowledge: ignorant devotion is but feet without eyes, which the farther and faster they carry us, the greater is our deviation and danger.

To conclude this point. How excellent is every way of God, of which only ignorant ones speak evil! besides the ignorant, heavenly learning has no enemy. There is none who know it, as we say of some men, but love it. All the children of wisdom justify her, Matt. xi. 19; nor was she ever condemned but by those who never would hear what she could say for herself. How patient should every saint be under all the reproaches which he meets with for holiness from blind sinners, whose tongues are in this no