But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels [and] in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
Ver. 24. But they hearkened not, nor inclined.] So cross grained they were, and thwart from the very first.
In the imagination of their evil hearts.] In sententia animi sui pessimi. a Heb., Aspectu cordis - so Deuteronomy 19:9 .
They went backward, and not forward.] As crab fish do; as vile apostates, in peius proficiunt, grow every day worse than other, being not only averse but adverse to any good, they daily "grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived," seipsis indies facti deteriores. Islebius first became an Antinomian, and the father of that sect, and then a Papist, and lastly an atheist and epicure, as Osiander testifieth. While he was an Antinomian only, he many times promised amendment, being convinced of his error, but performed it not. After that he condemned his error, and recanted it in a public auditory, and printed his recantation; yet when Luther was dead, he not only licked up his former vomit, but fell to worse, as aforesaid. b
a Trem.
b Cent. xvi. p. 802.