Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.
Ver. 63. Sir, we remember, &c.] They that had forgotten so many sweet and savoury sayings of our blessed Saviour, and written them all in the sand, could remember (but for no good purpose) that which his disciples could not so readily call to mind for their good and comfort; no, nor understand it when plainly told them, Mark 9:32. The soul should be as a holy ark, the memory as the pot of manna, preserving holy truths for holy uses. But most men have memories like nets, that let go the clear water, catch nothing but sticks and refuse stuff; or like sieves, that retain the chaff, let go the good corn; like the creature Cervarius, that if he but look back, forgets the food he was eating, though never so hungry, and seeks for new; or Sabinus in Seneca, who never in all his life could get by heart those three names of Homer, Ulysses, and Achilles. Old songs, old wrongs, &c., they can retain sufficiently; but in matters of God, their memories serve them not.
This deceiver said] "Men muse as they use." Quis tulerit Gracchos? Who could have tolerated the Gracchi brothers. Who can endure to hear the devil taxing God of envy, as he did to our first parents? or these deceitful workers calling "the faithful and true witness," πλανος, a deceiver, a cheater, one who doth profess an art of cozening men to their faces? for so the Greek word signifieth. We must look to hear all that nought is, either while alive, or when dead. Melancthon mortuus, tantum non ut blasphemus in Deum, cruci affigitur, saith Zanchy; and all because he pleased not, in all points, the peevish Lutherans. In like manner many lewd opinions were fathered upon John Wycliffe, after he was dead; yea, some that were monstrous and diabolical, as that men ought, yea, that God himself ought to obey the devil. (Speed.) And this famous doctor dying of a palsy, hath this charitable eulogy or epitaph bestowed upon him by a monk, The devil's instrument, church's enemy, people's confusion, heretic's idol, hypocrite's mirror, schism's broacher, hatred's sower, lie's forger, flattery's sink; who at his death despaired like Cain, and stricken by the horrible judgment of God, breathed forth his wicked soul to the dark mansions of the black devil (Tho. Walsingham). The servant is not greater than his master. Him they called Beelzebub, Samaritan (that is, conjuror), traitor, and here deceiver. But what a mouth of blasphemy opened that pseudo-Christian, Emperor Frederick the Second, who was heard often to say that there had been three notorious impostors who had cheated the world, viz., Moses, Christ, and Mahomet! Oh base!