A commentary or, exposition upon the divine second epistle general, writtenA commentary or, exposition vpon the diuine second epistle generall, written

The next cause is envy and malice: if this fury be in the heart, the devil may save a labour of driving. As they talk of a coach that moves without horses, being set forward by some vices and devices within, certain wheels and weights: so malice hurries away it self, and tarries not for the Auriga, or driver. All Heretics are malicious, and carried with a rancorous hate to pervert others. As Ar•hytas took no pleasure in viewing heaven, with all the celestial beauties, unless he may have one to tell it to again: so the Sectary takes no pleasure in his error, unless he can work others to the same faction, Matth. 23.15. The Pharisees would compass sea and land to make one Proselyte: it was but a trick of their Father, the •ivell compasseth the whole earth to spill a soul. Like men sick of the plague, they have an itching desire to infect others. Hoc fonte derivata clades, that does in patriam •epulúmque fluere: this is the head from whence springs all mischief. If Ahab must be deceived, there is no fitter means to deceive him by, than Spiritus menda•i, a lying spirit. Generally all the corruptions of Israel are fathered upon the ⟨p. 384⟩tongues of false prophets: their responsive oracles being not Dictum Domini, sed fictum cordis sui, not Gods word, but their own conceit. This God acknowledged, that their sour grape had set the peoples teeth an edge: and they might excuse themselves with Eve; The Serpent gave it them, and they gave it the people. But it was an old saying, Execrabilis ille qui ininxit in torrentem, cursed is he that poisons our current. The Jews did so once in England, and would have spilt lives: the emissaries of Rome strive still to be the Jews successors, but with a worse even for they spill souls. Now when the spring by the high way is poisoned, the poor traveller that drinks of it, dies for it. Psal. 104.11. Such a place is to give drink to every beast of the field, and there the wild asses quench their thirst. Now that being envenomed, infecteth all the beasts of the forrest, all the birds among the branches, and especially the wild Asses, that there quench their thirst. Quid meruistis eves? Alas what have the poor Lambs deserved, that they must be thus deceived? alas, that they cannot be content to go to hell alone? He that hath once made himself a villain, studies how to make all others fools.