Jeremiah 8:8

How do ye say, We [are] wise, and the law of the LORD [is] with us? Lo, certainly in vain made he [it]; the pen of the scribes [is] in vain.

Ver. 8. How do ye say, We are wise?] If ye were so, ye would never say so. "Surely I am more brutish than any man," said holy Agur. Pro 30:2 This only I know, that I know nothing, said Socrates. Neither know I so much as this, that I know just nothing, said a third. How could these in the text say, "We are wise," when the fowls of the air outwitted them? Compare Job 35:11 .

The law of the Lord is with us.] Vox est Pharisaeorum. The voice is of the Pharisees. So the Jesuits to this day (as of old the Gnostics) will needs be held the only knowing men. The empire of learning belongeth to the Jesuits, say they; a Jesuit cannot be a heretic. Iungantur in unum, dies cum nocte, lux cum tenebris, a &c., May they join into one, day with night, light with darkness &c, i.e., Let day and night be jumbled together, light and darkness, heat and cold, health and sickness, life and death; so may there be some likelihood that a Jesuit may be a heretic, saith one of them. The Church is the soul of the world, the clergy of the Church, and we of the clergy, saith another.

Lo, certainly in vain made he it,] i.e., The law, for any good use that this people or their leaders put it to. See Hos 8:12 Romans 2:17,25 .

a Casaub. ex Apologista.