And as troops of robbers wait for a man, [so] the company of priests murder in the way by consent: for they commit lewdness.
Ver. 9. And as troops of robbers wait for a man] This verse hath much of the former in it, saith an interpreter. The sum of it is, saith Wigandus, to show, that all the forementioned wickednesses were committed, instinctu doctorum, by the instinct of their priests, who were now turned tories or moss troopers. Jerome asked his Jewish doctor the meaning of this text, and received this answer: that at the time of the Passover and the Pentecost the people used to come to Jerusalem; and as they were going in their journey, these priests would stand in the way and slay them. Others think that these corrupt priests took into their city of refuge divers thieves and murderers; who not having whereupon otherwise to subsist, turned highwaymen (as they call them), and returning again into the city, divided the spoil with the priests, who had their share: and are therefore called companions of robbers, and are said to murder in the way by consent, or with one shoulder, or as Simeon and Levi did at Shechem, q.d. Sichemice, craftily and cruelly (for so many ways these words are rendered), and all this they did with malice forethought, of prepensed mischief (ex destinata malitia et inito consilio), called here committing lewdness. Even as they thought in their hearts so they acted, saith King David. They executed the counsel of the wicked, saith the Chaldee paraphrast. They machinated mischief, and then practised what they had plotted with a deliberate will, and as it were with a high hand. Look now upon the Popish monks, saith Tarnovius, and compare them with these priests whom Hosea reproveth, non tam ovum ovo simile. And Luther saith, that they had a proverb in Germany, that there was nothing so bad which the monks could think of but they would dare to do it. Faciunt quicquid cogitant. 079 &&& Ministers-Immoral
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