If thou forbear to deliver [them that are] drawn unto death, and [those that are] ready to be slain;
Ver. 11. If thou forbear to deliver them, &c.] That is, That are wrongfully butchered. Here, not to save a man, if it be in our power, is to destroy him. Mar 3:4 Job "brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the prey out of his teeth." Job 29:17 The people rescued Jonathan, and Ebedmelech Jeremiah. Henry VIII delivered his Queen Katherine, and King Philip with his Spaniards kept the Lady Elizabeth from the cruel mercies of Stephen Gardiner, who had designed them destruction. Sir George Blage (one of King Henry VIII's privy chamber), being condemned for a heretic, was yet pardoned by the king. He coming afterwards to the king's presence, - "Ah, my pig," saith the king, for so he was wont to call him. "Yea," said he, "if your Majesty had not been better to me than your bishops were, your pig had been roasted ere this time." But what a bloody mind bore Harpsfield, archdeacon of Canterbury, who, being at London when Queen Mary lay dying, made all post haste home to despatch those whom he had then in cruel custody. a
a Acts and Mon., fol. 1899, 1135, 1862.