Vers. 3. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniqui∣tie: your lippes haue spoken lies, and your tongue hath murmured iniquitie.
* 1.1NOw he brings their workes to light, to stop their contendings: and that they should not call into question what these sins were, which had made this diuision. He takes away from thē all excuse then, in discouering vnto them these particular vices; as if their wicked life had been blazed in an open the∣ater. Now he speakes in the second person, in regard that he maintaines and prosecutes the cause of God, whose aduocate he is: and therefore he separates himselfe out of the wic∣keds societie, to whom now he will not ioyne himselfe, although hee were not vtterly ex∣empt from sinne. But hee feared and ho∣noured God notwithstanding: and therfore had his conscience cleare.* 1.2 For he which shal be tainted with the same offences, cannot freelie condemne others: neither shall he be fit to debate the matter, because he bereaues himselfe of his authoritie by his scandalous and wicked life. [ 1] For we ought not to be cul∣pable of the vices which wee reprooue in o∣thers, vnlesse we meane to make the doctrine which we teach, a matter of scorne and deri∣sion; and our selues to bee taken for bold and impudent fellowes. [ 2] But on the other side, when we serue our God in a pure and good conscience, then hath the doctrine which we deliuer maiestie and power in it, and leaues the aduersarie the more without excuse.
Now it is not to be held as a matter super∣fluous, that he laies forth the vngracious life of this people thus, by peece meale. For men are wont to seeke out many starting holes; neither can they be brought into any good order, vnlesse they bee first brought to ac∣knowledge their offences.
In mentioning of blood; his meaning is not that they committed open murthers; but thereby he notes out the inhumanitie, ra∣pines, violence and outrages which the hy∣pocriticall sort exercised ouer the poore, and such as were not able to resist. We must not thinke he had to deale with notorious mur∣therers or theeues; but with the King and States-men; who were honoured and re∣spected, in regard of their great places. These are they whom he calles men of blood; in that they cruellie vexed poore innocents: and in that by force and violence they wrung vnto themselues other mens goods.
For this cause in the next place, hee puts iniquitie in stead of blood. And howsoeuer hee seemes to extend his speech further off; yet it is but a repetition or redoubling of the words; which the Hebrewes often vse for amplifications sake. For he expresseth more by the fingers then by the hands. As if hee should haue said, There is not the least part of your bodies which is not stained with extor∣tion.
Next, hee toucheth another kind of wic∣kednesse: to wit, when one of them circum∣uented another by subtilties, periuries, and treacheries. For iniquitie by which we wrong our neighbours, is fortified with crueltie* 1.3 or lies and deceit, as with the court gard. Now the Prophet in this place insists vpon mat∣ters belonging to the second table, and by the sinnes which they had committed against the commandements therein contained, hee shewes that they were wicked persons, and vtterly void of the true feare of God. For that barbaritie and disloyaltie which vio∣lates humane societie, meerely proceeds from the contempt of God.* 1.4 See here the rea∣son then, why from the hands; that is to say, from extortions and outrages, hee descends to lying, wicked practises, periuries, and other diuellish subtilties, whereby wee circumuent our neighbours.