Ver. 1. That ye should not be offended] As with a thing unexpected and intolerable. Darts foreseen are dintless. Crosses coming on the sudden find weak minds secure, make them miserable, leave them desperate.
Ver. 2. Whosoerer killeth you, &c.] Maximinian, the persecutor, thought that the blood of Christians would be a well pleasing sacrifice to his gods: Christianorum sanguinem Diis gratissimam esse victimam. (Tertul.) Budaeus thinks that the apostle, 1 Corinthians 4:13, alludes to those heathenish expiations, wherein certain condemned persons were brought forth yearly with garlands upon their heads, and offered up as sacrifices to their gods, in time of any contagious infection especially; and these they termed καθαρματα and περιψηματα. At Colon certain divines preached, that the death of certain heretics (as they called them) should pacify the wrath of God which then plagued Germa ny grievously with a strange kind of sweating sickness. (Budaeus in Pandect.) In the sixth Council of Toledo, it was enacted that the king of Spain should suffer none to live in his dominions that professed not the Roman Catholic religion. King Philip, accordingly, having hardly escaped shipwreck, as he returned from the Low Countries, said he was delivered by the singular providence of God to root out Lutheranism, which he presently began to do, professing that he had rather have no subjects than such. Another Catholic king said that if he thought his shirt were infected with that heresy, he would tear it from his own back, and rather go woolward; nay, if any member of his body had caught the contagion, he would cut it off, that it might creep no further. O sancta simplicitas! Oh holy candour, said John Huss, when at the stake he observed a plain country fellow busier than the rest in fetching fagots.
Ver. 3. Because they have not known] Through blind zeal. “The dark corners of the earth are full of cruelty,” saith the Psalmist. And “they shall not destroy in all mine holy mountain”; “for knowledge shall cover the earth, as the waters do the sea,” Psalms 74:20 Isa 11:9. [See Trapp on “Joh 15:21”]
Ver. 4. Ye may remember, &c.] And act, what I have foretold and taught you. The difference between divinity and other sciences is, that it is not enough to know, but you must do it; as lessons of music must be practised, and a copy not read only, but written after. Non est haec umbratilis philosophia, sed quae ad usum et praxin aptanda. (Calvin.)
Ver. 5. None of you asketh me, &c.] This they had asked him, but not as well paid of his going; this he would have of them, and of us, when we part with friends that die in the Lord, say as he, Tulisti liberos quos ipse dederas; non contristor, quod recepisti; ago gratias, quod dedisti. (Jerome ad Julian.)
Ver. 6. Sorrow hath filled your hearts] So that you are, for the time, not more uncomfortable than uncounsellable. Thus also it fared with those Israelites in Egypt; their ears were so full of gall, that meek Moses even lost his sweet words upon them, Exodus 6:9. Passions are headstrong, and can hear no counsel: “ Fertur equis auriga, nec audit currus habenas. ”
Ver. 7. I will send him unto you] This our Saviour often repeats, that they might once take notice of it, as an inestimable favour, that God should pour forth his Spirit upon all flesh, Joel 2:28. What so precious as spirit? what so vile as flesh? It is received among the Turks, that when Christ said that though he departed, he would send them a Comforter, it was added in the text, And that shall be Mahomet; but that the Christians in malice toward them have razed out those words. Is not this the efficacy of error
Ver. 8. And when he is come, &c.] This text had been easy, had not commentators made it so knotty. He will reprove] Or undeceive the world, by refuting those odd conceits and erroneous opinions, that men had before drunk in, and were possessed of, ελεγξει. Ita ut nihil habeat, quod praetexat. He shall clearly convince them of the hatefulness of sin, of the necessity of getting righteousness, both imputed and imparted; both that of justification, inherent in Christ, imputed to us, and that of sanctification also, imparted by Christ, inherent in us; this latter is here called judgment, as it is likewise Matthew 12:20. Till he bring forth (εκβαλη) judgment to victory; that is, weak grace (called before a broken reed, smoking wick) to perfect conquest over corruption. Cum vi quadam, frustra obsistente Satana. Compare with this text that of the apostle, 1 Corinthians 6:11; Such were some of you (scilicet, mundus immundus), but ye are (in general) washed from your sins, of the hatefulness whereof ye are now clearly convinced; and (in particular) ye are sanctified by the Spirit of our God, and ye are justified in the name, that is, by the merit, of the Lord Jesus the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins.