And he said, Cursed [be] Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
Ver. 25. And he said, Cursed be Canaan.] Because an imitator, and abettor of his father's sin. Neither good egg, nor good bird, as they say. God himself hath cursed such captives with a curse. Pro 30:17 "The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother; the ravens of the valley shall pick it out; and the young eagles shall eat it." a Now they are cursed with a witness, whom the Holy Ghost thus curseth, in such emphatical manner, with such exquisite terms. Their parents also, through their unnaturalness, are compelled to curse them, as Noah here: as Oedipus of old; b and our Henry II., who, seeing a few hours before he died, a list of their names that had conspired, with the King of France and Earl Richard (his son and successor), against him, and finding therein his son John to be the first, falls into a grievous passion, both cursing his sons, and the day wherein himself was born; and in that distemperature, departs the world, which so often himself had distempered. c "The causeless curse," indeed (though from a parent's mouth), "shall not come". Pro 26:2 Such was it that befell Julius Palmer, martyr, d who, when he asked his mother's blessing, "Thou shalt," said she, "have Christ's curse and mine, wheresoever thou goest." He, pausing a little, as one amazed at so heavy a greeting, at length said: "O mother, your own curse you may give me, which God knoweth I never deserved; but God's curse you cannot; for he hath already blessed me, and I shall be blessed." "As for money and goods," said she, "which thou suest to me for, as bequeathed thee by thy father, I have none of thine. Thy father bequeathed nothing for heretics. Faggots I have to burn thee; more thou gettest not at my hands." "Mother," said he, "whereas you have cursed me, I again pray to God to bless and prosper you, all your life long." And so he departed, and shortly after, valiantly suffered for the truth, at Newbury in Berkshire, having some time been Fellow of Magdalen College in Oxford, and all King Edward's days an obstinate Papist. Thus for the causeless curse of parents. e But where it is just, it lights heavy. The very complaint of a parent makes a loud cry in God's ears. It is said, that God, by cutting off Abimelech, "rendered the wickedness that he did to his father". Jdg 9:56 And who can read with dry eyes that pitiful supplication of the old Emperor Andronicus to his young nephew of the same name (Turk. Hist ., fol. 172)? But when it proceeds to a curse, lamentable effects have followed. Leonard, son of the Lord Dacres (one of the rebels in the north against Queen Elizabeth), whose father prayed God upon his death-bed, to send him much sorrow for his disobedience, drew forth a most poor life in the Netherlands, to where he escaped, living upon a very slender pension from the Spaniards. f That rebellion (like the bubbles which children blow up into the air) was no sooner blown up, than blown out, and fell into the eyes of those who with the blasts of ambition and superstition held it up. But most remarkable is that, and apposite to our present purpose, that Manlius reports g of a certain mother, whom he and many others had seen leading about her miserable daughter, who was possessed by the devil upon her cursing her, and bidding "the devil take her." Involet in te diabolus. Luther and others prayed publicly for the girl; and when Luther said to the devil, Increpet te Deus ," The Lord rebuke thee, Satan," the devil answered, muttering through the maid's lips, Increpet, increpet. Another like example, the same author hath, h of a certain angry old man, in the town of Friburg in Misnia, who bidding his son do some business for him, and he making no haste to do it, nor stirring from the place he stood in; the father cursed him, and wished he might never stir alive from that place. God said Amen to it: and although he lived seven years after, yet there he stood leaning upon a desk while he slept, eating little, and speaking not much. When he was asked how he did, he would answer, that he was chastised justly by God, in whose hand it was what should at length become of him here. But of his eternal salvation, by the merits of Christ alone, he nothing doubted; being chastised of the Lord, that he might not be condemned with the world. The prints of his feet are to be seen in the pavement where he stood, to this day, saith the historian. After seven years' suffering, he departed in the true faith of Christ, with good hopes of a better estate in heaven, September the eleventh, Anno 1552.
A servant of servants shall he be to his brethren.] In which title the Pope of Rome (not without the providence of God) will needs be his successor. A servant of God's servants he will by all means be called. And yet he stamps upon his coin, "That Nation and Country that will not serve thee, shall be rooted out." What pride equal to the pope's, making kings kiss his pantofles (upon which he hath Christ's cross shining with pearls and precious stones, Ut plenis faucibus crucem Christi derideat)! What humility greater than his, to administer himself absolution daily to an ordinary priest! One while he will be styled, Servus servorum Dei; another while, Dominus regnorum mundi, which is one of the devil's titles; yea, Dominus Deus noster Papa; taking upon him a power to excommunicate the very angels; yea, lifting up himself above Christ, who is called Pontifex Magnus, Heb 4:14 but the Pope calls himself Pontifex Maximus. Gregory the Great was the first that styled himself "a servant of servants"; in opposition, forsooth, to that proud prelate of Constantinople, who affected to be called Universal Bishop. But after the death of Mauricius, when Phocas the traitor came to be emperor, this Gregory clawed him shamefully, and all to attain that dignity and dominion that he so much condemned in another. i The Pope of Constantinople could not bear a superior, nor the Pope of Rome an equal. The one sought to subdue to himself the East; the other, East and West too: and thence grew all the heat between them. See the like ambition under the colour of zeal for their religion in Selymus the Turk, and Hismael the Persian. j
a Effossos oculos voret atro guture corvus. - Catul .
b Per coacervatos pereat domus impia luctus. - Oedip. apud Ovid.
c Daniel's Chron., p. 112.
d Act. and Mon., fol 1755, 1761.
e The wild Irish inflict a heavy curse on all their posterity, if ever they should sow corn, build houses, or learn the English tongue. - Heyl. Geog., 508.
f Camden's Elisab., p. 116,117.
g Joh. Manlii, loc. com., 228.
h Joh. Manlii, loc. com., 228.
i Sands' Relation of West. Relig., sect. 12. - Johan. 23. in Extravag. - Phocae adulari, supparasitari, &c., ut suam potestatem per favorem parricidae extenderet. - Revii Hist. Pontif., p. 45.
j Turk. Hist., fol. 515.