Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.
Ver. 15. Then went the Pharisees] They were, as one saith, Puncti et repuncti, minime tamen ad resipiscentiam compuncti. They were stung with the former parables, and grew more enraged. It is a vain persuasion for any godly man to think by any discretion wholly to still and escape the clamours and hates of wicked persons; Christ himself could not do it.
How they might entangle him in his talk] As beasts are in the hunter's toil, or birds in the fowler's net. a Every man hunteth his brother with a net, was an old complaint, Micah 7:2. And, "They make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate," &c., Isaiah 29:21. Doctor Story's rule to know a heretic was, They will say, The Lord, and, We praise God, and, The living God. So, The Lord, and not to say, Our Lord, is called by Stephen Gardiner, Symbolum haereticorum, the heretic's badge. But God will take these wizards in their own craft,1 Corinthians 3:19, he will catch them in their own cunning, he will over shoot them in their own bow, he will take his handful of them, so that they shall not make escape, as the word there signifies, οο δρασσομενος, comprehendens et quasi manum complens. Aret.
a παγιδευσωσι, Metaph. a venatione ferarum. Piscator. Metaph. a feris quibus tenduntur laquei et retia. Par.