Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
Ver. 15. Ye compass sea and land] They walked the round, as the devil doth, to gain proselytes; they spared for no pains to pervert men (as now the Jesuits those Circulatores et Agyrtae). Should not we be as diligent and indefatigable to convert them to God? Shall we not be as busy in building staircases for heaven as seducers are in digging descents to hell? If Saul seeking asses found a kingdom, shall not we, by seeking others, find heaven?
Ye make him twofold more the child of hell] Either because they relapse to Gentilism, as finding you so vile and vicious in your lives; or because ye teach them only ceremonies and superstitions; or, because you keep them ignorant of Christ, and plant in them a hatred of the truth, as the Jesuits do in their proselytes. So that of them we may say, as Ambrose did of Polemo, who of a drunkard, by hearing Xenocrates, became a philosopher, Si resipuit a vino, fuit semper tamen temulentus sacrilegio. Though he be now no drunkard, yet he remains drunk still with superstition.