But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
Ver. 29. Persecuted him] By cruel mockings and real injuries, challenging the birthright and deriding the covenant, &c. Moses's word, מצזחק Genesis 21:9, holds forth, that Ishmael did not only himself mock Isaac, but made others also to mock him, exposing him to their jeers. The Papists made way for their great project of perdition in 1588, (Spanish Armada) by dividing the people here under the terms of Protestant and Puritan, and provoking them thereby to real and mutual both hate and contempt. (George Abbot's Answer.)
Even so it is now] And so also it is now, may we say at this day. For what do Papists persecute us for else, but because we reject their justification by works? They poisoned their own Cardinal Contarenus, for that he declared himself sound in this point, by a book that he set forth some four years before the Council of Trent.