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Mic_3:1 And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; [Is it] not for you to know judgment?
Ver. 1. And I said] viz. At another time, and in a new discourse; the heads whereof we have here recorded. A stinging sermon it is, preached to the princes and prophets, those great heteroclites {a} in the house of Israel. For as in a fish, so in a Church and state, corruption begins at the head; and as rheum {b} falling from the head upon the lights, breeds a consumption of the whole body, so is it here. To the chieftains therefore, and capitanei, capital, our prophet applieth himself. And as it is said of Suetonius, that ea libertate, scripsit Imperatorum vitas qua ipsi vixerunt, that he wrote the emperors’ lives with as much liberty as they lived them; so did Micah as boldly reprove the princes’ sins as they committed them. Such another preacher among us was Latimer, and after him Deering; who in his sermon before Queen Elizabeth, speaking of the disorders of the times; These things are so, saith he, and you sit still and do nothing. And again, May we not well say with the prophet, saith he, It is the Lord’s mercy that we are not consumed, seeing there is so much disobedience both in subjects and prince. Once it was Tanquam ovis, as a sheep, before the shearer: but now it is Tanquam iuvenca petulca, as an untamed heifer. In our days Reverend Mr Stock had this commendation given him by a faithful witness; that he could speak his mind fitly, and that he dared speak it freely. I will go to the Bishop (Stephen Gardiner, then lord chancellor), and tell him to his beard that he doth naught, said Dr Taylor, martyr; and he did so, though his friends dissuaded him. Truth must be spoken, however it be taken. And if God’s messengers must be mannerly in the form, yet in the matter of their message they must be resolute and plain dealing. It is probable that Joseph used some kind of preface to Pharaoh’s baker in reading him that hard destiny, Gen_40:19, such haply as was that of Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, Dan_4:19, or as Philo brings him in with a Utinam tale somnium non vidisses. But for the matter he gives him a sound, though a sharp, interpretation. So dealeth Micah by these corrupt princes, to whom nevertheless he giveth their due titles; and of whom he fairly begs audience. "Hear, I pray you, ye heads of Jacob," &c. Or, hear ye now, who formerly have refused to hearken. It was in Hezekiah’s days that this sermon was preached, as appeareth Jer_26:18, not long before Sennacherib invaded the land, Mic_5:5. And although the king himself were religious and righteous, yet many of his princes and courtiers, who in the reign of his father Ahaz had been habituated in rapine and wrong-dealing, still played their pranks, and are here as barely told their own.
Is it not for you to know judgment?] To know it and do it? as it is said of our Saviour, that he knew no sin, that is, he did none. And have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? "they eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon God," Psa_14:4. Of all men magistrates should be knowing men, fearing God, hating covetousness and cruelty, Exo_18:21. They are the eyes of their country, and if they be dark, how great is that darkness! They are the common lookingglasses by which other men use to dress themselves. Judges they are, to discern and decide controversies; fit it is, therefore, and necessary that they know judgment, how else shall they execute it? Cicero complaineth of the Roman priests in his days, that there were many things in their own laws that themselves understood not. "I will get me to the great men," saith Jeremiah (when he found things far amiss among the Vulgate), "and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the Lord, and the judgment of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds," Jer_5:5.
{a} Deviating from the ordinary rule or standard; irregular, exceptional, abnormal, anomalous, eccentric. Said of persons and things. ŒD
{b} Watery matter secreted by the mucous glands or membranes, such as collects in or drops from the nose, eyes, and mouth, etc., and which, when abnormal, was supposed to cause disease; hence, an excessive or morbid ‘defluxion’ of any kind. ŒD