He, that being often reproved hardeneth [his] neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
Ver. 1. He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck.] As an untamed heifer, that "pulleth away the shoulder," Zec 7:11 and detracteth the yoke; or as the creature called monoceros, the unicorn, interimi potest, capi non potest, a may be slain but not taken; so those that refuse to be reformed, b hate to be healed, will not bend, shall surely and severely be broken, certissime citissimeque confringentur, they shall certainly and suddenly be dashed in pieces as a potter's vessel, that cannot be pieced together again. Isa 30:13-14 Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel, Jer 15:12 and shall not the fierce wrath of God shatter and shiver out a silly sinner that will needs stout it out with him, and yet is no more able to stand before him than a glass bottle before a cannon shot? Let Eli's sons, and such refractories, look for ruin. The prophet fitly compares them to headstrong horses that get the bit into their mouths, run desperately upon the rocks, and so in short time break first their hoofs and then their necks. Queen Elizabeth, in talking with Marshal Biron - whom the French king sent ambassador to her, anno 1601 - sharply accused Essex (who had recently lost his head) of obstinacy, rash counsels, and wilful disdaining to ask pardon, and wished that the French king would rather use mild severity than careless clemency, and cut off the heads of treacherous persons in time, &c. This might have terrified Biron from those wicked attempts which he was even at this time plotting against his king, had not his mind been besotted. But the power of his approaching fate did so blind him, that within few months after he underwent the same death that Essex did - though nothing so piously and Christianly, as having hardened his neck against wholesome counsel. c Now if men harden their hearts, God will harden his hand, and hasten their destruction, and that without remedy.
a Solinus.
b Corriptimur sed non corrigimur. - Augustine.
c Cambden's Elisabeth, fol. 562.