The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.
Ver. 1. The wicked fly when none pursueth.] None but their own consciences. Facti sunt a corde suo fugitivi, as Tertullian hath it. Such a fearful fugitive was bloody Cain, who cried out, when there were yet few or none to pursue him, "Every man that meets me shall kill me." Gen 4:14 Such were those cursed Canaanites that were chased by God's hornet sent among them - that is, by the blood hounds of their own consciences. Jos 24:12 Such were those Syrians that, struck with a panic terror, fled for their lives, and left their rich camp for a booty to the Israelites. 2Ki 7:7 The shadow of the mountains seemed armed men to guilty Gaal. Jdg 9:36 The Burgundians, expecting a battle, thought long thistles were lances. God sends a faintness into the hearts of the wicked, and the sound of a shaken leaf frightens them. In arithmetic, of nothing comes nothing, yet they fear where no fear is. As Cardinal Crescentius feared a fancied devil walking in his chamber like a great mastiff a, and couching under his table as he was writing letters to Rome against the Protestants. b As Richard III thought he saw in his sleep various images like terrible devils, pulling and hauling at him, after he had, Joab-like, slain two men more righteous than him, his two innocent nephews. c As Charles IX of France, after the cruel massacre, could neither sleep nor wake without music to divert his self-accusing thoughts, so hotly was he haunted and followed with the furies of his own conscience. d As the Spanish fleet, in 1588, Venit, vidit, fugit, as the Zealanders thereupon stamped their new coin. e The Hollanders also stamped new money with this invincible armada, as the Spaniards in their pride had styled it, having this motto Impius fugit, nemine sequente, f The wicked fly when no man pursueth. I pity the loss of their souls, saith a reverend man, g that serve themselves as the Jesuit in Lancashire, followed by one that found his glove with a desire to restore it him, but pursued inwardly with a guilty conscience, leaps over a hedge, plunges into a gravel pit behind it unseen and unthought of, wherein he was drowned.
But the righteous is bold as a lion.] Conscientia pura semper secura, A good conscience hath sure confidence; and he that hath it sits, Noah-like, mediis tranquillus in undis, quiet in the greatest combustions, freed, if not from the common destruction, yet from the common distraction; for he knows whom he hath trusted, and is sure that neither life nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, can ever sunder him from God's love in Christ. Rom 8:38 He is bold as a lion, saith the text; yea, as a young lion, that is in his hot blood, and therefore fears no other creature; yea, when he is fiercely pursued he will never once alter his gait, though he die for it. No more will the righteous man his resolution against sin, such is his Christian courage. Daniel chose rather to be cast to the lions, than to bear a lion in his own bosom, to violate his conscience. The primitive Christians chose rather to be abandoned, ad leones quam ad lenones, they preferred affliction before sin. And this their persecutors counted not courage and magnanimity, but wilfulness and obstinace. h But they knew not the power of the Spirit, nor the private armour of proof that the righteous have about their hearts; that insuperable faith whereby some have "stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire," &c., Heb 11:33-34 and whereby they do all daily encounter and conquer that roaring lion, the devil, "quenching his fiery darts," &c. Eph 6:16
a A large, powerful dog with a large head, drooping ears and pendulous lips, valuable as a watch dog.
b Acts and Mon.
c Polyd. Virgil.
d Thuan.
e Carlton's Remembrancer.
f Speed., 1206.
g Mr Sam. Ward.
h Tertul. in Apolog.