Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that [were] in the high gate of Benjamin, which [was] by the house of the LORD.
Ver. 2. Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet.] Either with his fist, as Zedekiah did Micaiah, 1Ki 22:24 and as Bonner did Hawkes and other martyrs, pulling off part of their beards; or else with a staff, as they dealt by our Saviour, Mat 26:67 and as that Popish bishop, degrading a martyr minister, struck him so hard with his crosier staff as he was kneeling on the stairs at Paul's, that he fell down backwards and broke his head. a Atqui lapidandi sunt haeretici sacrarum literarura argumentis, saith Athanasius. b But heretics are to be stoned with Scripture arguments; and men may a great deal sooner be cudgelled into a treaty than into a tenet.
And put him in the stocks.] As they did afterwards Paul and Silas; Act 16:22-24 Clerinus the martyr, mentioned in Cyprian's epistles; c Mr Philpot, in the Bishop of London's coal house; and that good woman who, suffering afterwards for the same cause, rejoiced much that her leg was put in the same hole of the stocks where Philpot's leg had lain before.
That were in the high gate of Benjamin.] Which might be a prison like Lollard's tower in London whereunto were sent the martyrs, many of them for their zeal and forwardness. Action and passion go together - omne agens agendo repatitur - especially if men go a little faster than others do. "They who will live godly in Christ Jesus" - and be set upon it - "shall suffer persecution." This gate-house might well be the priests' prison, whither they used to send such as they took for false prophets.
a Acts and Mon.
b Contra Arrian., orat. ii.
c Epist., lib. iv.