Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred.
Ver. 24. Teach me, and I will hold my tongue] If I be in an error, I am willing to be rectified. Hitherto you have mistook my case; and so your speech hath been to small purpose. But if you will come home to my case indeed, and weigh things in an even balance, I shall gladly submit to your more mature judgment and direction. Teach me, and you shall find that I am not indocible, that I am not as "horse and mule that have no understanding," Psalms 32:9, nor will learn any; much less than the creature called rhinoceros, untameable and untractable. It shall appear to you that I am not utterly uncounselable, as those of whom Basil complaineth, qui quid verum sit neque sciunt, neque sustinent discere, that neither know what truth and right is, nor will endure to be taught it (Epist. ad Euagr. 10). Job was not to be told that it was easier to deal with 20 men's reasons than with one man's will; he promiseth therefore not to stand out against his friends, because he will stand out. It is not my will, saith he, that opposeth what you have spoken, but my understanding. I am a slave to right reason; and if convinced thereby, I shall soon lay down the bucklers. Teach me, and I will hold my tongue, and not strive for the last word to lengthen out the contention; I am willing to reason, but not to wrangle. See Proverbs 30:32 .
Cause me to understand wherein I have erred] A humble man will never be a heretic; err he may (that is common to mankind, triste mortalitatis privilegium); but convince him by solid reasons and good arguments, and he will not long stand out: a little child shall lead him, Isaiah 11:6. It is by pride that contention cometh, Proverbs 13:10, for it maketh a man drunk with his own conceit, Habakkuk 2:5; and who so wilful, so quarrelsome, as he that is drunk? A heretic may be condemned of himself, Titus 3:10, but he will not be convinced by another (such is his pertinacy, or rather obstinacy), no, though he be stoned with hardest arguments, holden out of that crystal book of the Holy Scriptures, he stands as a stake in the midst of a stream; and you may as soon move a rock as cause him to understand wherein he is out of his judgment of practice: Lapidandi sunt haeretici (Athan.).