And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD [be] God, follow him: but if Baal, [then] follow him. And the people answered him not a word.
Ver. 21. How long halt ye between two opinions?] Being as soon of this, and as soon of that; uncertain of either, unconstant to either; flying, like birds, off one bough on to another, as the Hebrew word a here used properly signifieth, waving as top branches, and wavering "like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed." Jam 1:6 Such "a double-minded man," saith that apostle, Jam 1:8 "is unstable in all his ways"; - Ecebolius, for instance, the late archbishop of Spalato; Baldwin, of whom Beza saith that he had religionem ephemeram, for each day a new religion; b Henry IV of France, whom Ravilliac stabbed, as himself confessed, because he was of two religions; and sundry of our sectaries with their Dies diem doces, which was once one of the sceptical marks of the Arminians, but now of our new-lighted men: surely, saith one, such a generation of moon-calves One born with undeveloped brain; a congenital idiot; a born fool. hardly ever appeared in the world, utpote quos molendini instar quovis doctrinae vento, circumagitat diabolus, the devil wherrying and whirling them about, as a mill "with every wind of doctrine."
If the Lord be God, follow him.] Less hateful to God are they that serve him not at all, than they that serve him with a rival. If God be God, follow him, said Mr Bradford, martyr, in one of his letters: if the mass be God, let him that will see it, hear, and be present at it, and go to the devil with it. c
And the people answered him not a word.] Baal's worshippers, self-condemned, could not plead for him: those that followed the Lord durst not speak for fear of Ahab and Jezebel. Many such cold friends religion hath now-a-days.
a הסעפים .
b Hos Cyprianus appellat palpatores temporum, in levitate tantum constantes.
c Act. and Mon.