Ver. 1. Boast not thyself of tomorrow.] That is, Of what thou wilt do hereafter, (Exodus 13:14, marg.) in quovis tempore postero. See 1 Samuel 28:19 Jas 4:14. He was a wise man, that being invited to a feast on the next morrow, answered, Ex multis annis crastinum non habui, For these many years I have not had a morrow day to promise for any business. But what luxurious fools were those Sybarites, that intending a feast, did use to invite their guests a whole year before! For thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.] A great bellied day. While a woman is yet with child, none can tell what kind of birth it will be. (Luke 21:23) Time travaileth with God’s decrees, and in their season brings them forth; but little doth any man know what is in the womb of tomorrow, till God hath signified his will by the event. David in his prosperity said, that he should “never be moved”; but he soon after found a sore alteration: God confuted his confidence. (Psalms 30:6,7) So the evil which men intend against us may prove abortive, either die in the womb, or else they may travail with mischief, and bring forth a lie—that is, somewhat contrary to what they intended; but fata viam invenient—stat sua cuique dies. (Judges 5:28-30 1 Kings 20:10) Accidit in puncto quod non speratur in anno. Petrarch, lib. iii. Memorab. ad finem. Aelian. Nescis quid serus vesper vehat. Hinc Hebraei eventa appellant “filios temporis.”
Ver. 2. Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth.] Unless it be in defence of thine innocence, as David, (Psalms 7:10) or when the concealing of thy goodness may turn to the hindrance of the truth, or to the hurt of the Church, or impairing of God’s glory, as Paul. (2 Corinthians 11:1-12:21) Let a man “do worthily in Ephrata,” and he shall be “famous in Bethlehem”; (Ruth 4:11) he need not be his own trumpeter, as Jehu, the proud Pharisee, and other arrogant, vain glorious braggards. See my Common Place of Arrogance. God will take order that those that honour him be honoured of all, and that fame shall attend virtue, as the shadow doth the body. Say that wicked men will not speak well but ill of us, yet we have a testimony in their consciences, as David had in Saul’s, Daniel in Darius’s, &c. “Demetrius hath a good report of all good men, and of the truth itself”; (3 John 12) and that is enough for him, since “not he that commendeth himself, or hath the world’s applause, is approved, but he whom the Lord and his people commendeth.” (2 Corinthians 10:18) Haec ego primus vidi, I see these matters first, was a vain glorious brag that Zabarel had better held in. And haec ego feci, I made these things, proves men to be no better than faeces, dregs, saith Luther, wittily. These brags are but dregs; Laus proprio sordeseit in ore; that which had been much to a man’s commendation, if out of another man’s mouth, sounds very slenderly out of his own, saith Pliny. Let her “works,” not her words, “praise her in the gates,” (Proverbs 31:31) as they did Ruth. “All the city of my people knows that thou art a virtuous woman.” (Ruth 3:11) She was so, and she had the credit of it; so had the Virgin Mary, and yet she was troubled when truly praised of the angel. They shall be praised of angels in heaven, who have eschewed the praises of men on earth, and blush when but justly commended, speaking modestly and meanly of their own good parts and practices. Saint Luke saith, “Levi made a great feast.” (Luke 5:27-29) But when himself speaks of it, (Matthew 9:10) he saith only, that Christ came home and ate bread in Levi’s house, to teach us the truth of this proverb, that another man’s mouth should praise us, and not our own. Like as in the Olympic games, those that overcame did not put the garlands on their own heads, but stayed till others did it for them so here. Quod magnificum referente alio fuisset, ipso qui gesserat recensente vanescit. -Plin., Ep. 8, lib. i.
Ver. 3. But a fool’s wrath is heavier than them both.] Himself cannot rule nor repress it, but that he dies of the sullens sometimes, as that fool Nabal did. Much less can others endure it without trouble and regret, especially when so peevish and past grace as to be angry with those that approve not, applaud not his folly. How angry was Nebuchadnezzar, how much hotter was his heart than his oven against those three worthies, for refusing to fall down before his golden mawmet! How unsufferable was Herod’s anger in the massacre at Bethlehem, and the primitive persecutors for the two first ages after Christ, that I come no lower. See my Common Place of Anger.
Ver. 4. Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous.] Or, Overflowing all the banks, or carrying all before it as an impetuous land flood, and therefore most intolerable, as Proverbs 27:3; but behold a worse matter: Envy is an evil that none can stand before for it knows neither end nor measure, as appears in the devil and his patriarch Cain; in Saul, the Pharisees, those spiteful Jews, Acts 13:45. And to this day they do antiquum obtinere, bear the old grudge to us Christians, cursing us in their daily prayers, calling us bastard Gentiles, professing that if their Messiah were come, rather than we should have any part in him, or benefit by him, they would crucify him a hundred times over. They have a saying among them, Optimus qui inter gentes est dignus cui caput conteratur tanquam serpenti; The best of us Gentiles is worthy of the serpent’s punishment, viz., to have his head bruised, &c., so great is their envy still against Christians, who pity them and pray for them; and truly it is no more than need, since by the question here propounded we may easily guess how potent this quick sighted and sharp fanged malignity, envy, is; indeed the venom of all vices is found in it; neither will it be drawn to embrace that good which it envies to another, as too good for him. (Acts 13:44,45)