Deceit [is] in the heart of them that imagine evil: but to the counsellors of peace [is] joy.
Ver. 20. Deceit is in the heart of them, &c.] Incendiaries and make-baits, counsellors of contention, have twenty devices to make trouble, and to put all into a combustion; but they shall either be defeated of their purposes, or have small joy of their achievements; - witness our late English boutifeaus, with the whole nation of Ignatius, whose practice is to machinate mischief, and breed hate; being herein no less dangerous than once those Jews were, who, before they were banished hence, threw bags of poison into the wells and fountains that the people were to drink from, and so endeavoured to poison them all. The just judgment of God upon Nicholas Saunders, priest, the firebrand of Ireland, 1580 AD, spent with famine and forsaken of all help, is most worthy to be kept in perpetual remembrance. He being impatiently grieved at the evil success of his rebellion with Earl Desmond, and seeing that neither the Pope's blessing, nor the consecrated banner, nor the plume of phoenix feathers, so said to be at least, sent from Rome, could do him any help, lost himself, and ran stark mad, wandering up and down in the mountains and woods, and, finding no comfort, died miserably. a Thus God met with a restless and wretched man, and that foul mouth was stopped with famine that was ever open to sow sedition and stir up rebellions against the state.
But to the counsellors of peace there is joy.] They shall have peace for peace: peace of conscience for peace of country, pax pectoris peace of the heart for pax temporis; peace of time, they shall be called and counted the children of peace, yea, "the children of God," have the comfort and credit of it, Mat 5:9 See Trapp on " Mat 5:9 " as Augustus Caesar and our Henry VII had; who as he went into banishment together with the public peace, so he brought it back with him at his return, and was afterwards wont to say, If we princes should take every occasion that is offered, the world should never be quiet, but wearied with continual wars.
a Bishop Carleton's Thankf. Remem., p. 49.