As a dog returneth to his vomit, [so] a fool returneth to his folly.
Ver. 11. As a dog returneth to his vomit.] A homely comparison, able to make a true Christian ready to lay up all, but good enough for the odious apostate to whom it is applied. Such a one was Judas, Julian, Ecebolius, Baldvinus, Islebius, Agricola, that first Antinomian, - who did many times promise amendment, and yet afterwards fell to his error again; - after that he condemned his error, and recanted it in a public auditory, and printed his revocation; yet when Luther was dead, he relapsed into that error, so hard a thing is it to get poison out when once swallowed down. Harding, Bishop Jewel's antagonist, was in King Edward's days a thundering preacher against Popery, wishing he could cry out against it as loud as the bells of Oseney, so that by his preaching many were confirmed in the truth. All which to be so they can testify that heard him and be yet alive, saith Mr Foxe. See an excellent letter of the Lady Jane Grey's to him while she was prisoner in the Tower, "Acts and Monuments," fol. 1291, wherein she wills him to remember the horrible history of Julian of old, and the lamentable case of Spira a late, &c.