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Pro_17:5 Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker: [and] he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished.
Ver. 5. He that mocketh the poor, &c.] {See Trapp on "Pro_14:31"}
And he that is glad at calamities, shall not be unpunished.] He is sick with the devil’s disease, åðé÷áéñåêáêéá , which Job was not tainted with; {Job_31:16-40} as the Edomites, Ammonites, Philistines, and other of Sion’s enemies {Lam_1:21} were. How bitterly did the Jews insult our Saviour, when they had nailed him to the cross! And in like sort they served many of the martyrs, worrying them when they were down, as dogs do other creatures; and shooting sharp arrows at them when they had set them up for marks of their malice and mischief. Herein they deal equally barbarous manner with the saints, as the Turks did with one John de Chabes, a Frenchman, at the taking of Tripolis in Barbary. They cut off his hands and nose, and then, when they had put him quick into the ground to the waist, they, for their pleasure, shot at him with their arrows, and afterwards cut his throat. {a} Mr John Denly, martyr, {b} being set in the fire with the burniug flame about him, sang a psalm; then cruel Doctor Story commanded one of the tormentors to hurl a faggot at him; whereupon, being hurt therewith upon the face, that he bled again, he left his singing, and clapped both his hands upon his face. ‘Truly,’ said Doctor Story to him that hurled the faggot, ‘thou hast marred a good old song.’ This Story being, after the coming in of Queen Elizabeth, questioned in parliament for many foul crimes, and particularly for persecuting and burning the martyrs, he denied not but that he was once at the burning of a herewig, for so he termed it, at Uxbridge, where he cast a faggot at his face as he was singing psalms, and set a wine bush of thorns under his feet a little to prick him, &c. {c} This wretch was afterwards hanged, drawn, and quartered, {d} and so this proverb was fulfilled of him, "He that is glad at calamities, shall not be unpunished."
{a} Turkish History, fol. 756.
{b} Acts and Mon., fol. 1530.
{c} Ibid., 1918.
{d} Anno. 1571.