were many among them which did clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and
did other good things: he hereunto maketh this answer:—That like as
one that layeth a foundation, and buildeth upon it a wall or two, yet
cannot be said to have built a house till he have finished it; so
although these might do some good things, yet they attained not unto
perfect goodness, which was only to be found in Christ. But this is
not the apostle's meaning only to exclude men from the perfection of
justice; for even the faithful and believers were short of that
perfection which is required; he therefore showeth what men are by
nature, all under sin and in the same state of damnation, without
grace and faith in Christ: if any perform any good work, either it is
of grace, and so not of themselves, or if they did it by the light of
nature, they did it not as they ought, and so it was far from a good
work indeed. Andrew Willet (1562-1621), on Romans
3:10.
Verse 4. "Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge?"
Men's ignorance is the reason why they fear not what they should
fear. Why is it that the ungodly fear not sin? Oh, it's because they
know it not. "Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge?" Sure
enough they have none, for "they eat up my people as they eat
bread;" such morsels would scald their mouths, they would not
dare to be such persecutors and destroyers of the people of God; they
would be afraid to touch them if they did but know what they did.
Richard Alleine.
Verse 4. "Who eat up my people as they eat bread." That
is, quotidi� , daily, saith Austin; as duly as they eat bread;
or, with the same eagerness and voracity. These man-eaters, these
Laobomoi, cruel cannibals, make no more conscience to undo a
poor man, than to eat a good meal when they are hungry. Like
pickerels in a pond, or sharks in the sea, they devour the poorer, as
those do the lesser fishes; and that many times with a plausible,
invisible consumption; as the usurer, who like the ostrich, can
digest any metal; but especially money. John Trapp.
Verse 4. "Who eat up my people as the eat bread." Oh,
how few consult and believe the Scriptures setting forth the enmity
of wicked men against God's people! The Scripture tells us "they
eat up God's people as bread," which implies a strange
inclination in them to devour the saints, and that they take as great
delight therein as a hungry man in eating, and that it is natural to
them to molest them. The Scripture compares them, for their hateful
qualities, to the lions, and bears, to foxes for subtlety, to wild
bulls, to greedy swine, to scorpions, to briers and thorns (grievous
and vexing things). The Scripture represents them as industrious and
unwearied in their bloody enterprises, they cannot sleep without
doing mischief. Herodias had rather have the blood of a saint than
half a kingdom. Haman would pay a great fine to the king that the
scattered Jews (who keep not the king's laws) may be cut off. Wicked
men will run the hazard of damning their own souls, rather than not
fling a dagger at the apple of God's eye. Though they know what one
word—aha!!—cost, yet they will break through all natural, civil,
and moral obligations, to ruin God's people. The Holy Ghost calls
them "implacable" men, fierce and headstrong; they are like the hot
oven for fury, like the sea for boundless rage; yet, "who hath
believed" this Scripture "report?" Did we believe what enemies all
wicked men are unto all saints, we should not lean to our own
prudence and discretion to secure us from any danger by these men; we
would get an ark to secure us from the deluge of their wrath; if at
any time we be cast among them and delivered, we would bless God with
the three children that the hot fiery oven did not consume us; we
would not wonder when we hear of any of their barbarous cruelty, but
rather wonder at God's restraining them every day; we would be
suspicious of receiving hurt when cast among light and frothy
companions; we would shun their company as we do lions and scorpions;
we would never commit any trust or secret into their hands; we would
not be light-hearted whilst in their society; we would not rely on
their promises any more than we would on the promise of the devil,
their father; we would long for heaven, to be delivered from "the
tents of Kedar;" we would not count any of the saints secured from
danger, though related to any great wicked man; we would not twist
ourselves with them by matching ourselves or children to these sons
and daughters of Belial; neither would we make choice of devils to be
our servants. Lewis Stuckley.
Verse 4. This is an evil world. It hates the people of God.
"Because ye are not of the world, therefore the world hateth you."
John 15:19. Haman's hatred was against the whole seed of the Jews.
When you can find a serpent without a sting, or a leopard without
spots, then may you expect to find a wicked world without hatred to
the saints. Piety is the target which is aimed at. "They are mine
adversaries because I follow the thing that good is." Psalm 38:20.
The world pretends to hate the godly for something else, but the
ground of their quarrel is holiness. The world's hatred is
implacable: anger may be reconciled, hatred cannot. You may as soon
reconcile heaven and hell as the two seeds. If the world hated
Christ, no wonder that it hates us. "The world hated me before it
hated you." John 15:18. Why should any hate Christ? This blessed Dove
had no gall, this rose of Sharon did send forth a most sweet perfume;
but this shows the world's baseness, it is a Christ- hating and a
saint-eating world. Thomas Watson.
Verse 5. "There were they in great fear." That we may
not mistake the meaning of the point, we must understand that this
faintheartedness and cowardliness doth not always come upon
presumptuous sinners when they behold imminent dangers, for though
none of them have true courage and fortitude, yet many of them have a
kind of desperate stoutness and resolution when they do, as it were,
see death present before their faces; which proceedeth from a kind of
deadness, that is upon their hearts, and a brawniness that hath
overgrown their consciences to their greater condemnation. But when
it pleaseth the Lord to waken them out of the dead slumber, and to
set the worm of conscience awork within them, then this doctrine
holdeth true without any exception, that the boldest sinners prove at
length the basest cowards: and they that have been most audacious in
adventuring upon the most mischievous evils, do become of all others
most timorous when God's revenging hand seizeth upon them for the
same. John Dod, 1547-1645.
Verse 5. "God is in the generation of the righteous;"
that is, he favours that generation or sort of men; God is in all
generations, but such he delights in most: the wicked have cause
enough to fear those in whom God delights. Joseph Caryl.
Verse 5. The King of Glory cannot come into the heart (as he
is said to come into the hearts of his people as such; Psalm
24:9,10), but some glory of himself will appear; and as God doth
accompany the word with majesty because it is his word, so he doth
accompany his own children, and their ways, with majesty, yea, even
in their greatest debasements. As when Stephen was brought before the
council, as a prisoner at the bar for his life, then God manifested
his presence to him, for it is said, "His face shone as the face of
an angel of God" (Acts 6:15); in a proportionable manner it is
ordinarily true what Solomon says of all righteous men, "A man's
wisdom makes his face to shine." Ecclesiastes 8:1. Thus Peter also
speaks (1 Peter 4:14): "If you be reproached for the name of Christ,
happy are you, for the Spirit," not only of God, or of grace, but "of
glory, resteth upon you." And so in the martyrs; their innocency, and
carriage, and godly behaviour, what majesty had it with it! What an
amiableness in the sight of the people, which daunted, dashed, and
confounded their most wretched oppressors; so that although the
wicked persecutors " did eat up God's people as bread " (verse
4), yet it is added that they were in great fear upon this very
account, that "God is in the generation of the just." God
stands, as it were, astonished at their dealings: "Have the
workers of iniquity no knowledge," (so in the words afore)
"that they eat up my people as bread," and make no more ado of
it that a man doth that heartily eats of his meat? They seem to do
thus, they would carry it and bear it out; but for all that they are
in great fear whilst they do thus, and God strikes their hearts with
terror when they most insult. Why? For, "God is in the generation
of, or dwelleth in the just," and God gives often some
glimmerings, hints, and warnings to the wicked (such as Pilate had
concerning Christ), that his people are righteous. And this you may
see in Philippians 1:28: "And in nothing terrified by your
adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to
you of salvation, and that of God." In that latter passage, I observe
that an assurance of salvation, and a spirit of terror, and that of
God, is given either. In the Old Testament it is recorded of David (1
Samuel 18:12), that although Saul hated him (verse 9), and sought to
destroy him (verse 10,11), "yet Saul was afraid of David, because the
Lord was with him, and was departed from Saul;" which is the reason
in hand. God manifested his presence in David, and struck Saul's
conscience with his godly and wise carriage, and that made him
afraid. Thomas Goodwin.
Verse 6. "Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because
the Lord is his refuge." In the fifty-third Psalm it is, "Thou
hast put them to shame, because God hath despised them." Of course,
the allusion is totally different in each; in this Psalm it is the
indignant remonstrance of the Psalmist with "the workers of iniquity"
for undervaluing and putting God's poor to shame; the other affirms
the final shame and confusion of the ungodly, and the contempt in
which the Lord holds them. In either case it sweetly illustrates
God's care of his poor, not merely the poor in spirit, but literally
the poor and low ones, the oppressed and the injured. It is this
character of God which is so conspicuously delineated in his word. We
may look through all the Shasters and Vedas of the Hindoo, the Koran
of the Mahometan, the legislation of the Greek, and the code of the
Roman, aye, and the Talmud of the Jew, the bitterest of all; and not
in one single line or page shall we find a vestige or trace of that
tenderness, compassion, or sympathy for the wrongs, and oppressions,
and trials, and sorrows of God's poor, which the Christian's Bible
evidences in almost every page. Barton Bouchier.
Verse 6. "Ye have shamed." Every fool that saith in his
heart there is no God, hath out of the same quiver a bolt to shoot at
goodness. Barren Michal hath too many sons, who, like their mother,
jeer at holy David. John Trapp.
Verse 6. "Ye have shamed," saith he, "the counsel of
the poor." There is nothing that wicked men do so despise as the
making God a refuge—nothing which they scorn in their hearts like
it. "They shame it," saith he, "It is a thing to be cast out of all
consideration. The wise man trusts in his wisdom, the strong man in
his strength, the rich man in his riches; but this trusting in God is
the foolishest thing in the world." The reasons of it are—1. They
know not God; and it is a foolish thing to trust one knows not whom.
2. They are enemies to God, and God is their enemy; and they account