And it be told thee, and thou hast heard [of it], and enquired diligently, and, behold, [it be] true, [and] the thing certain, [that] such abomination is wrought in Israel:
Ver. 4. And it be told thee.] See Trapp on " Deu 13:12 "
And inquired diligently.] Men must be "swift to hear, slow to speak," that is, to censure, or pass sentence. Amongst the Athenians an indictment of any crime was but αιτια : the evidence and conviction made it ελεγχος : the sentence αδικημα. Athanasius passeth for a sacrilegious person, a profane wretch, a bloody persecutor, a blasphemer of God, &c., and was so condemned before he was heard by fourscore bishops in that Pseudosynodus Sardicensis. Sunt quidem in Ecclesia Catholica plurimi mali; sed ex haereticis, nullus est bonus, says Bellarmine: There be many bad men Papists, but not one good to be found among Protestants. The Catholics follow the Bible, saith Hill a in his "Quartern of Reasons," but the Protestants force the Bible to follow them; yea, their condemnation is so expressly set down in their own Bibles, saith another Popeling, and is so clear to all the world, that nothing more needs hereto, than that they know to read, and have their eyes in their heads at the opening of their Bible. b By the shooting of which bolt, you may easily guess at the archer.
a Reas. viii. p. 41.
b Gagge, Of the New Gospel: Pref. to Reader.