But he shall say, I [am] no prophet, I [am] an husbandman; for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.
Ver. 5. But he shall say, I am no prophet] Oυκ ειμι μοναχος, I am no monk, no clerk, I am not book learned, was the ignorant man's plea in Chrysostom's time, and so it is still to this day; though it serves not his turn. But here the like speech is taken up for a better purpose. Hoc etenim principium est resipiscentiae, saith Calvin here. Here begins their repentance, viz. in a free acknowledgment of their ignorance and utter unfitness for the office they had usurped.
I am no prophet] As for self-respects, that my belly might be filled and my back fitted, Si ventri bene, si lateri (Horat.), I sinfully took upon me to be one, but I am a husbandman, and can better hold the plough than handle a text; feed and follow a flock of sheep than feed the flock of God (that have golden fleeces, precious souls), taking the oversight thereof, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. 1 Peter 5:2
For man taught me to keep cattle from my youth] q.d. Shepherdy and husbandry I have been ever trained up to, and can better therefore skill of than of preaching, which is certainly Ars artium et scientia scientiarum, the art of arts, the science of sciences, as one said; whereunto Melancthon addeth that it is the misery of miseries. And of the same mind was his colleague, Luther, when he said, A householder's pains is great, a magistrate's greater, but a minister's greatest of all; and afterward added, that if it were lawful to him to leave his calling, he could with more ease and pleasure dig for his living, or do any other hard labour, than undergo a pastoral charge. The mystery thereof is not an idle man's occupation, an easy trade, as some fondly conceit. The sweat of the brow is nothing to that of the brain; besides dangers on every hand for the work's sake, and armies of cares, that give neither rest nor respite, but are ready to overwhelm a man, επισυστασις, 2 Corinthians 11:28, agmen subinde irruens (Illyr.). This made Luther affirm that a minister labours more in a day many times than a husbandman doth in a month. Let no man, therefore, in taking up the ministry, dream of a delicacy; neither let slow bellies either invade it or hold it (as Popish asses and some impudent Alastores today do) to pick a living out of it. It was an honest complaint of a Popish writer, We, saith he, handle the Scripture, tantum ut nos pascat et vestiat, only that it may feed us and clothe us. And Cardinal Cajetan, not without cause, cries out, that those among them that should have been the salt of the earth had lost their savour; and were good for little else but looking after the rites and revenues of the Church (Com. in Mat 5:1-48). Now for such as these that serve not the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own bellies, that, like body lice, live upon other men's sweat, or, like rats and mice, do no more but devour victuals and run squeaking up and down, good is the counsel of the apostle, "Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth," Ephesians 4:28; let him earn it before he eat it, 2 Thessalonians 3:10. This is hard to persuade those abbey lubbers, that live at ease in cloisters, feeding on the fat and drinking of the sweet; and those idol shepherds, that feed themselves and not the flock. O Monachi vestri stomachi. Erasmus truly told the Elector of Saxony that Luther, by meddling with the Pope's triple crown and with the monks' fat paunches, had procured himself so great ill-will among them. One of them brake out in a sermon into these angry words: If I had Luther here I would tear out his throat with my teeth; and then make no doubt with the same bloody teeth to eat my maker at the Eucharist. How much better were it for such false prophets with "quietness to work and eat their own bread," 2 Thessalonians 3:14, than to drink the blood of other men with their lives (as David spake in another case, 1Ch 11:19), yea, with their souls, which perish by their insufficiency and gastrimargy! Sed venter non habet aures. But the belly hath no ears. Ease slayeth the foolish. Non minus difficulter a deliciis abstrahimur, quam canis ab uncto corio, among other scandals and lets of the Jews' conversion this is not the least, that they must quit their goods to the Christian. And the reason is, for that in baptism they renounce the devil and all his works, part whereof (say the Papists among whom they live) are the Jews' goods; being gotten either of themselves or of their ancestors by usury. Now this is such cold comfort to men of their metal, that they have little mind to turn Christian; and as little doubtless have such as, with these in the text, have got their living by lying; and through covetousness with feigned words made merchandise or prize of men's precious souls, to return to the hard labour of husbandry or any other lawful but painful employment; yet this was done both in Wycliffe's days by many friars that fell to him, and embraced his opinions, and in the reformation by Luther, many monks and nuns betook themselves to honest trades, renouncing their Popish vows and orders; yea, Scultetus reporteth that at Augsburg, in Germany, by the powerful preaching of Dr John Speiser, A. D. 1523, some harlots forsook the public stews, and married to honest men, lived chastely, and were great painstakering persons.