Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.
Ver. 17. Thou therefore gird up thy loins,] q.d., Thou hast, I must needs say, a hard task of it. But hard or not hard, it must be done, a or thou art undone. About it therefore and play the man, plucking up thy best heart, as we say, and acting vigorously. Stir up the gifts of God that are in thee, and exercise thy talents committed unto thee. Verbi minister es: hoc age.
Be not dismayed at their faces, lest.] Ne conteritor, ne te conteram. b Be net afraid of them, lest I fright thee worse, to thy ruth and utter ruin. Excellently Bernard, If I deal not faithfully with you, you will be damnified, but I shall be damned. Let me suffer anything rather than be guilty of a sinful silence, said that heroic Luther. But Melanchthon, his colleague, was so timorous, that Luther was fain to chide him many times. And Calvin, in an epistle of his to John Sleidan, prayeth God to furnish him with a more noble spirit, ne gravem ex eius timiditate iacturam sentiat posteritas, lest posterity should rue for his timidity. Calvin himself, in his last speech to his fellow ministers on his death bed, speaketh thus: When I first came to this city (Geneva), the gospel indeed was here preached, but things were very far out of order, as if Christianity consisted wholly in the casting down of images, &c. There were also not a few wicked fellows who put me hard to, setting themselves against me to their utmost. But the Lord our good God did so steel me and strengthen me, who am naturally fearful and dastardly, that I stoutly withstood them, and went on with the work of reformation; to his glory alone be it spoken. c Melanchthon also admired that courage in Luther that he could not find in himself; for besides many passages of his in his epistles that way tending, one time when he saw Luther's picture, he uttered this verse immediately,
“ Fulminia erant linguae singulae verba tuae. ”
a Perquam difficile est, sed ita lex iubet.
b Antanaclasis.
c Melc. Ad. in Vit. Calvin, p. 106.