And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him.
Ver. 15. Suffer it to be so now] Or, let be now: for the Baptist seems to have laid hands upon Christ to keep him off. a Our Saviour assents to that John had said, but yet shows cause why he should suffer it so to be for the present.
To fulfil all righteousness] Not legal only, and of equality, but that of his present condition also, and of equity; to the end that all kind of sinners might have all kind of comfort in Christ, an absolute and all-sufficient Saviour.
Then he suffered him] The wisdom from above is gentle, and easy to be persuaded, when better reason is alleged, ευπειθης, James 3:17 : as in Peter, John 13:8, first peremptory, but after conviction pliable. A humble man will never be a heretic: show him his error, and he will soon retract it. Joannes Bugenhagius (a reverend Dutch divine) lighting upon Luther's book de Captivitate Babylonica, and reading some few pages of it as he sat at supper, rashly pronounced him the most pestilent and pernicious heretic that ever the Church had been troubled with since the times of Christ. But a few days after, having seriously read over the book, and well weighed the business, he returned to his collegioners, and recanted what he had said among them; affirming and proving that Luther only was in the light, and all the world besides in gross darkness, so that many of them were converted by him to the truth. (Scultet. Annal.) Joannes Denckius (a learned Bavarian) held this heresy, that no man or devil should be damned eternally, because God willeth that all should be saved: and Christ saith, "There shall be one shepherd and one sheep-fold." But being a humble minded man, he was convinced and converted by Oecolampadius, and died of the plague (but piously) at Basil, A.D. 1528. Of Swenckfeldius the heretic, because he prayed ardently, and lived unblameably, Bucholcerus the chronologer was wont to say that his heart was good, but his head not well regulated. b But how that could be, I see not, so long as he lived and died in his detestable opinions, and would not forego them. If the leprosy were gotten into the head, the priest was to pronounce such utterly unclean, Leviticus 13:44. And the prophet pronounceth his soul that is lifted up with pride and pertinace not to be upright in him, Habakkuk 2:4 .
a Consentaneum est, iniecta manu Ioannem conatum vetare Iesum. Erasmus.
b Non defuisse Swenckfeldio cor bonum sed caput regulatum.