He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.
Ver. 8. He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it.] As heedless huntsmen do. He that being of base beginning, and unmeet for government, seeks to set up himself upon better men's ruins, and where he finds not a way to make it, shall fall from his high hopes into remediless misery; as he hath made a match with mischief, so he shall have his belly full of it. As he hath conceived with guile, so (though he grow never so big) he shall bring forth nothing but vanity, and worse. Job 15:35
And whoso breaketh an hedge.] The hedge of God's commandments, as our first parents did, to come to the forbidden fruit. A serpent bites such, Pro 23:32 and the poison cannot be gotten out. Others sense it thus (and I rather incline): He that seeks to overthrow the fundamental laws and established government of a commonwealth, and to break down the fences and mounds of sovereignty and subjection, shall no less (but much more) imperil himself than he that pulls up an old hedge, wherein serpents, snakes, and adders do usually lurk and lie in wait to do mischief. Wat Tyler the rebel dared to say that all the laws of England should come out of his mouth. a Stratford uttered somewhat to the like sense in Ireland. Our good laws are our hedges; so our oaths - ορκος quasi ερκος. Let us look to both, or we are lost people. Det Deus ut admonitio haec adeo sit nobis omnibus commoda quam sit accommoda.
a Speed.