31 And as they went about to kill him, tidings came unto the chief captain of the band, that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.



Ver. 31. And as they went about to kill him] The devil was first a liar and then a murderer. The persecutors ever first belied the Church, and then did their worst against her. Slander is a kind of murder, and makes way for it, Eze_22:9, as in the massacre of Paris. The monks had given out before that the Protestants met for no other purpose but to feast their carcases, and then (the lights being put out) to satisfy their unlawful lusts promiscuously. Thus they prepared and provoked the people to that bloody butchery, and so slew the innocent Huguenots twice; like as it is said of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, that he was thought by the people of England to be doubly murdered, viz. by detraction and deadly practice.