Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.
Ver. 4. I have sinned, &c.] Here was contrition, confession, restitution (most men go not so far, that yet profess large hopes of heaven); there was wanting that transmentation, conversion, obedience of faith that should have completed his repentance. He died in the birth, as that foolish child Ephraim. He confessed to men, and not to God; and by his confession he sought no more than to ease his heart, as drunkards by vomiting rid their stomachs. So Latemus of Louvain confessed, inter horrendos mugitus, se contra conscientiam adversatum esse veritati, roaring and crying out, that against his conscience he had persecuted the truth of God. a In trouble of mind, all will out. Conscience, like Samson's wife, conceals not the riddle: like Futvia, a whorish woman, who declared all the secrets of her foolish lover Cneius, a noble Roman. Sallust. in Bel. Catil.
What is that to us? See thou to that] Miserable comforters, physicians of no value. "To him that is afflicted pity should be showed from his friend: but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty,"Job 6:14. The devil and his imps love to bring men into the briers, and there leave them; as familiar devils forsake their witches, when they have brought them once into fetters. Thus the old Bethelite, that had been at pains to fetch back the prophet, would not go back with him. Thus the Papists burnt Cranmer recanting, and the present prelates cast off their great anti-Sabbatarian, White, when they had served their turns on him. David, when he was hunted from Samuel the prophet, fled to Abimelech the priest, as one that knew that justice and compassion should dwell in those breasts that are consecrated to God. But Judas met with no such matter in the priests of his time. Those mischievous men left him, when they had led him to his bane.
a Melancth. in Chronic.