Ver. 1. He departed thence to teach, &c.] Never out of action: the end of one good work was with our Saviour the beginning of another. So must it be with ministers: let them never look to rest till they come to heaven; but (as St Paul, that insatiabilis Dei cultor, as Chrysostom called him) teach God’s people publicly and from house to house, incessantly warning every one night and day with tears, Acts 20:20,31. Dr Taylor, martyr, preached not only every Sabbath day and holy day, but whensoever else he could get the people together. So did Bishop Ridley, Bishop Jewel, &c. So did not their successors, once a year was fair with many of them (like the high priest in the law), as if they had concurred in opinion with that Popish bishop, that said, It was too much for any man to preach every Sunday, and that bishops were not ordained to preach, but to sing mass sometimes, leaving all other offices to their suffragans. It is as rare a thing at Rome, said Dr Bassinet, to hear a bishop preach as to see an ass fly. Oh what will these slow bellies do when Christ riseth up? and when he visiteth, how will they answer him? Job 31:14. To preach in their cities] That is, in the cities of his twelve disciples, in the coasts of Galilee, while they were doing the same in Jewry. Maldonate the Jesuit will not have this to be the sense of this text, and only quia, inquit, est hereticorum, because it is the sense that the heretics (as he calls the Protestants) set on it. A goodly thing he holds it to dissent from them, though in a manifest truth. So George, Duke of Saxony, was heard to say, Though I am not ignorant that heresies and abuses are crept into the Church, yet I will never obey the gospel that Luther preacheth. For hatred to the man he would not hearken to the truth he taught. This is to have the faith of Christ “in respect of persons,” James 2:1.
Ver. 2. Now when John had heard in the prison] “Put this fellow in prison,” said Ahab of Micaiah, 1 Kings 22:27; who is thought to have been he that told him so barely of letting go Benhadad. So Jeremiah, that concionator admirabilis (as Kerkerman calleth him), was for forty years’ pains and patience cast into a deep and dirty dungeon. The apostles were often imprisoned: so were the ancient bishops under the ten first persecutions. “From the delectable orchard of the Leonine prison”: so Algerius, the Italian martyr, dates his letter. Within a few days of Queen Mary’s reign, almost all the prisons in England were become right Christian schools and churches. Bocardo, in Oxford, was called a college of quondams or the disposed, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, and others, being there kept captive. This is merces mundi: look for no better dealing. Kerk. Rhet. Ecclesiast. c. ult. λαμπροτατα πραξας αλγεινοτατα επαθεν.
Ver. 3. Art thou he that should come, &c.] This question the Baptist moved not for his own sake (for he was well assured, and had sufficiently testified, John 3:27-36), but for his disciples’ better settlement and satisfaction. This, while Tertullian observed not, he hath done the Baptist palpable injury in three different places; as if himself had doubted of the person of Christ. Let not us be troubled to be in like manner mistaken and misjudged.
Ver. 4. Jesus answered and said, &c.] Our Saviour rated them not, chased them not away from his presence, though zealously affecting their master, but not well, John 3:3-21, and envying for his sake, Galatians 4:17. The man of God must not strive, but be gentle, apt to teach, patient; in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, &c., 2 Timothy 2:24. Friar Alphonsus, a Spaniard, reasoning with Bradford, the martyr, was in a wonderful rage, and spake so high that the whole house rang again, chafing with om et cho, &c. So that if Bradford had been anything hot, one house could not have held them. Go and show John what things, &c.] He gives them a real testimony, an ocular demonstration. This was the ready way to win upon them, who might have suspected a simple assertion, not seconded with such undeniable arguments. Let our lives as well as our lips witness for us: Vivite concionibus, concionamini moribus, saith one. Nos non eloquimur magna, sed vivintus, said the Church of old. This is the way to slaughter envy itself, and to reign in the hearts of the righteous.
Ver. 5. The blind receive their sight] Our Saviour seems to say the same to John, that she did to Judah, Genesis 38:25. Discern, I pray thee, whose works are these. The end of his miracles was the proof of his majesty. The poor have the gospel, &c.] Gr. are gospelized (ευαγγελιζονται): they not only receive it, but are changed by it, transformed into it.
Ver. 6. And blessed is he, &c.] This he adds, as correcting the preposterous emulation of John’s disciples, who stumbled also at his meanness. Howbeit our Saviour saith not, Cursed be ye for being offended in me; but, Blessed is he, &c. God’s tender lambs must be gently handled. Evangelizatum, non maledictum missus es, said Oecolampadius to Farellus, who was a most excellent preacher, but over carried perhaps sometimes by his zeal for God. Laudo zelum, mode non desideretur mansuetudo, &c. I commend thine earnestness (as he there goeth on), so thou mingle it with mildness. Wine and oil are in their several seasons to be poured into men’s wounds. Show thyself to be a gentle evangelist, and not a tyrannical law maker.