The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
Ver. 6. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb.] Not worrying as he was wont, but made tame and tractable. Lo, such a blessed change is wrought in all true converts, as is to be seen in Paul, that wolf of the tribe of Benjamin, prophesied of by Jacob, Gen 49:27 as some hold. And the like may be said of Petrus Paulus Vergerius, once the Pope's nuncio, but afterwards a great preacher of the gospel. Hugh Latimer, once as obstinate a Papist as any was in England - they are his own words - but converted by blessed Bilney, as he called him usually, he became a zealous promoter of the truth according to godliness, confessor general to all Protestants troubled in mind, and the treasury into which restored ill-gotten goods were cast, to be bestowed on the poor according to his discretion, a
And the leopard shall lie down with the kid.] As they did at the creation, and afterward in Noah's ark; all bloodiness and rapine laid aside. Those that love not one another out of a pure heart fervently, but are filled with envy, malice, debate, deceit, malignity, are none of Christ's subjects, nor fellow-citizens with the saints.
And a little child shall lead them.] That is, the child Jesus, say some interpreters, by the conduct of his Holy Spirit; or the apostles and other godly ministers, who were counted but as little children to the Pharisees and philosophers, called the grandees and "princes of this world." 1Co 2:8 But they do best that understand it of such a tractableness and teachableness in Christians, that they can be content to learn of any one, though never so mean, that can better inform them. b See this in Apollos. Act 18:26 Augustine, as himself witnesseth thus in one of his epistles, En adsum senex a iuvene coepiscopo, episcopus tot annorum a collega nondum anniculo paratus sum discere, I am here an old man, ready to learn from a young man, my coadjutor in the ministry; and so old a bishop, from one who hath scarce been a year in the service. Hippocrates adviseth men not to slack or disdain to learn even of those who are counted idiots. c
a Sleidan, lib. xxi., p. 650. Bucholc., A.D. 1548. Act, and Mon., 919; Fuller's Church History, fol. 405.
b Ut vel ex puero, i.e., ex inopi et simplici quovis. - Scultet.
c Mη οκνεειν και παρα ιδιωτεον ιστορεειν .