If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
Ver. 6. If they shall fall away] Totally and finally, as Judas and Julian did, and as Mr John Glover thought he had done, and did therefore eat his meat against his appetite, only defer the time of his damnation, which, by mistake of this text, he thought he could not possibly avoid. But God, who comforteth those that are cast down, did not only at last rid him out of all his fears, but also framed him to such mortification of life, as the like lightly hath not been seen, saith Mr Fox, who knew it.
And put him to an open shame] As if they had not found him the same that they took him for. In those that have wilfully resisted divine truths made known to them, and after taste, despised them, a persuasion that God hath forsaken them (set on strongly by Satan) stirs up a hellish hatred against God; carrying them to a revengeful desire of opposing whatsoever is God's, though not always openly (for then they should lose the advantage of doing hurt), yet secretly and subtlely, and under pretence of the contrary, as one well observeth.