Delight is not seemly for a fool; much less for a servant to have rule over princes.
Ver. 10. Delight is not seemly for a fool.] Dignitas in indigno est ornamentum in luto, saith Salvian. Health, wealth, nobility, beauty, honour, and the like, are ill bestowed upon a wicked man, who will abuse them all to his own and other men's undoing. The wisest have enough to do to manage these outward good things. What may we hen expect from fools? a See Trapp on " Pro 14:24 " If they make wise men fools, they will make fools mad men.
Much less for a servant to rule over princes.] As Abimelech, that bramble, did over the cedars of Lebanon; as Tobiah, the servant, the Ammonite, sought to do over Nehemiah and the princes of Judah; as the servants of the Emperor Claudius did over him and the whole State, which occasioned that verse to be pronounced on the theatre -
‘ Aφορητος εστιν ευτυχων μαστιγιας .'
As Becket and Wolsey affected to do in their generations; and as the bridge maker of Rome, who styles himself servus servorum, a servant of servants, and yet acts as a dominus dominantium et rex regum, lord of lords, and king of kings. Round about the Pope's coins are these words stamped, "That nation that will not serve thee shall be rooted out." His janissaries, also, the Jesuits, are as a most agile sharp sword, whose blade is sheathed at pleasure in the bowels of every commonwealth, but the handle reacheth to Rome and Spain. This made that most valiant and puissant prince, Henry IV of France, when he was persuaded by one to banish the Jesuits, say, "Give me then security for my life."
a Secundae res etiam sapientum animos fatigant; quanto magis insolescent stulti rerum successu prospero? - Salust.