As they were increased, so they sinned against me: [therefore] will I change their glory into shame.
Ver. 7. As they were increased] sc. in number, wealth, and honour. Their prosperity undid them, they flourished at this time in court and country, they waxed fat and kicked. The priests are here accused of detestable ingratitude, and of insufferable pride and insolence.
As they were multiplied or magnified, they have sinned against me] That is, they have abused my gifts to my great dishonour. Like fed hawks, they have forgotten their master. Nay, like young mules, which, when they have sucked, turn up their heels and kick their dam; so did these haughty and haunty priests. Their hearts were fat as grease, they were enclosed in their own fat, but they delighted not in God's law, Psalms 17:10; Psalms 119:70. Cum ipsis opibus lascivire coepit Ecclesia, saith Platina. The Church began to be rich and wanton at once, rich and riotous. They had golden chalices, but wooden priests, repugnante ceutra teipsum felicitate tua, as Salvian saith to the Church in his time: thy prosperity is thy bane. What would he have said if he had seen the pope in his princely state, thundering from his capitol, and heard their big swollen titles of Padre benedicto, Padre Angelo, Archangelo, Cherubino, Seraphino? &c. Ammianus Marcellinus, a heathen historian, inveighed against the bishops of Rome, even in those purer times, for their pride and luxury. Odi fastum illius ecclesiae, saith Basil, I hate the haughtiness of that Western Church. It caused the lamentable separation of the Greek Church from the Latin; the other four patriarchs (not without the like pride and stomach) dividing themselves from the bishop of Rome, and at their parting using these or the like words: Thy greatness we know, thy covetousness we cannot satisfy, thine encroaching we can no longer abide: live to thyself. And yet, if they could have held them there, and shunned those evils which they blamed in others (walking humbly with God, and committing themselves to him in well doing), they might have flourished to this day. But wrangling away the truth, and contracting rust with long ease and prosperity, God was forced to scour off their rust with bloody war by the Turks. Of whom these Churches, being in fear and danger, fled to carnal combinations: sent and subjected themselves to the bishop of Rome, that they might have his help. But all in vain; for shortly after they were destroyed, and lost all. God covered them with confusion, and turned their glory into shame. So he hath done the Roman glory in part, and will do more every day (Parei Medull.).
Roma diu titubans variis erroribus acta,
Corruet: et mundi desinet iste caput.
God will cast dirt in the faces of proud prelates, he will stain the pride of all glory, cast upon them with ignominy, Isaiah 23:9 , reproach, Proverbs 18:3 , crush their crown with a woe, Isaiah 28:1 , change their glory (their dignity and greatness wherein they gloried) into shame, not without much bitterness in the change, as the Hebrew word אמיר here used seemeth to import. Miserum enim est, fuisse felicem.