But I [was] like a lamb [or] an ox [that] is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, [saying], Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.
Ver. 19. But I was like a lamb or an ox.] Harmless and blameless, busied in my function, and not in the least suspecting any such evil design against me. "I send you forth as lambs among wolves," saith Christ, Mat 10:16 who, himself being the Lamb of God, was slain from the beginning of the world; his servants also are slain all the day long, and counted as sheep to the slaughter. Rom 8:36
Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof.] Let us poison his food, so the Chaldee senseth it, Ponamus tignum taxi in sorbitiunculam. Others, Let us destroy the prophet and his prophecies together: others, Let us make an end of him either by sword or by famine, as the punishment threatened Jer 11:22 pointeth us to.
That his name may be no more remembered.] Sic veritas odium peperit. So the Papists have given order that wheresoever Calvin's name is found, it shall be blotted out; and by a most malicious anagram they have turned Calvin into Lucian. One of them recently took a long journey to Rome only to have his name changed from Calvin to some other, and that out of devilish hatred of that most learned and holy man,
“ Ipsa a quo virtus virtutem discere posset. ”