The heart of the righteous studieth to answer: but the mouth of the wicked poureth out evil things.
Ver. 28. The heart of the righteous studieth to answer.] His tongue runs not before his wit, but he weighs his words before he utters them (as carrying a pair of balance between his lips), and dips his words in his mind ere men see what colour they are of, as Plutarch saith Phocion did. a He hath his heart, not at his mouth, but at his right hand, saith Solomon, to make use of when he sees his time. Melanchthon, when some hard question was proposed to him, would take three days' deliberation to answer it. And, in his answer to Staphylus, he ingenuously confesseth, or rather complaineth, Quos fugiamus habemus, quos sequamur nondum intelligimus; We know whom we are to flee from (meaning the Papists), but whom to follow we as yet know not. Such divisions there were amongst themselves, and such lack of light at the beginning of the Reformation, that it was an ingenuous thing to be a right reformed catholic. A young man, one Vincentius Victor, as Chemnitius relates it, when learned Augustine demurred, and would not determine the point concerning the original of a rational soul, censured boldly the father's unresolvedness, and vaunted that he would undertake to prove by demonstration that souls are created de novo by God; for which peremptory rashness the father returned the young man a sober reprehension, a mild answer, as the Hebrew word b here used imports. Not so sharp as that of Basil to the emperor's cook, who yet well enough deserved it; for when the fellow would needs be pouring forth what he thought of such and such deep points of divinity which he understood not, Basil rounded him up with, Sον εστι της των ζωμων καρυκειας φροντιζειν : - It is for thee, man, to look well to thy porridge pot, and not to meddle with these disputes.
a προφερομενον τον λεξιν εις νουν αποβαπρειν .
b ענה, significat respondere, humiliare, negotiari.