And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Ver. 3. Except ye be converted] i.e. Except ye turn over a new leaf, and cast away these fond conceits and crotchets, a these golden dreams of an earthly kingdom, and your high preferments therein, which like bullets of lead fastened to the eyelids of your minds, make you that you cannot look upwards.
And become as little children] In simplicity, humility, innocence, ignoscence, &c., not in childishness, peevishness, pragmaticalness, talkativeness, open heartedness, &c. Non praecipitur Apostolis ut habeant aetatem parvulorum, sed ut innocentiam, &c. (Jerome.) How absurd was that Anabaptist Aurifaber, who understanding this text Nicodemically, as one saith, stirreth up people wherever he came to carry themselves childishly, if ever they would have heaven. (Scultet. Annal.) Upon whose persuasion you might have seen ridiculous imitations of boys and girls; women especially, skipping up and down, clapping their hands together, sitting naked on the ground, tickling, toying, apishly imitating one while Christ, another while antichrist, &c., pretending this text for their authority. So did Massaeus the Franciscan, who is famous among his fellow friars, for that, at the command of his superior, St Francis, he wallowed on the ground as a little one, and showed all, in obedience to this text, as Sedulius testifieth, Ridiculum caput, a laughable person! Many such like examples may be met with in the legends of the Fathers, of such as were voluntaries in humility (as the apostle styles them), or rather in hypocrisy, Colossians 2:18, θελων εν ταπεινοφροσυνη. For, huius virtutis postea homines Christiani adeo studiosi et aemuli fuere, ut tota in hypocrisin vere abierit, saith Aretius, here. Humility in many of the ancients degenerated into hypocrisy.
Ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven] One sin allowed excludes out of the kingdom, be it but ambition or some such inward evil, such as the world takes no notice of, makes no matter of. Inward bleeding killeth many times, and God by killing Jezebel's children with death (i.e. throwing them to hell) will make all the Churches know that he searcheth the inwards, Revelation 2:23 .
a A whimsical fancy; a perverse conceit; a peculiar notion on some point (usually considered unimportant) held by an individual in opposition to common opinion. ŒD