And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
1 And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles.
Ver. 1. And Saul, &c.] It is all one to hold the sack and to fill it, to do evil or to consent to it.
And Saul was consenting to his death] Gr. αναιρεσει, "to his murder;" for it was no better,Acts 12:2; Acts 5:33. Damnari, dissecari, suspendi, decollari, piis cum impiis sunt communia. Varia sunt hominum iudicia: ille faelix qui iudice Deo absolvitur, saith Erasmus concerning Berquin, the martyr, burnt in Germany. Dorotheus witnesseth, that when Stephen was stoned, there were 2000 other believers put to death the same day. Certain it is, that after Mr Rogers had broken the ice here under Queen Mary, there suffered in like sort, one archbishop, four bishops, 21 divines, eight gentlemen, 84 craftsmen, 100 farmers, servants, and labourers, 26 wives, 20 widows, nine virgins, two boys, and two infants; in all 277. Some say a great many more.
And they were all scattered] To the Church's great advantage, which, like the sea, what ground it loseth in one place, it getteth in another. So at Melda in France (10 miles from Paris), Brissonet, the bishop thereof, desirous of a reformation, put away the monks and called in the help of various godly ministers. But being persecuted by the Sorbonists, he soon fell off from the profession of the truth; and those good ministers (Faber, Farelhs, Ruffus, and others) were driven into various other places of France, where they planted various churches; the destruction of one being the edification of many. a Farellus, one of those afore mentioned ministers, was God's instrument of gaining the inhabitants of Geneva, Lausanne, Novocoma, &c.
a Unius Ecclesiae destructio multarum fuit aedificatio. Scultet. Annal.