Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
Ver. 6. Your glorying is not good] It is the height of wickedness to glory in wickedness, as Lamech, Genesis 4:23,24, and Alexander Pheraeus, who consecrated the javelin wherewith he had slain Polyphron. Protagoras boasted that he had spent forty years in corrupting of youth. (Plato.) Mark Antony vomited out a book concerning his own ability to eat and drink much. Joannes a Casa, dean of the pope's chamber, wrote a poem in commendation of his own beastly sin of sodomy. And Stokesly, Bishop of London in King Henry VIII's time, lying at point of death, rejoiced, boasting that in his lifetime he had burned fifty heretics, that is, good Christians. (Acts and Mon.)
A little leaven leaveneth, &c.] One spoonful of vinegar will soon sour a great deal of sweet milk; but a great deal of milk will not so soon sweeten one spoonful of vinegar. One sinner may destroy much good, saith Solomon, Ecclesiastes 9:18. He may be a common mischief, if tolerated, by spreading the infection of his wickedness, which is more catching than the plague.