Lamentations 1:7

Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, [and] did mock at her sabbaths.

Ver. 7. Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction.] Misery is the best art of memory. Then those privileges we prized not in prosperity, we recount with regret. Bona a tergo formosissima: the worth of good things is best known by the lack of them; a and as we see things best at a distance, so here. Afflictions are pillulae lucis, that do notably clear the eyesight.

The adversaries saw her,] sc., With a spiteful and scornful eye.

And did mock at her Sabbaths.] Calling the Jews in contempt, Sabbatarians, and jeering them as those that lost more than a seventh part of their time that way, and telling them, in scorn, that now they might well a while to keep a long Sabbath, as having little else to do. Juvenal thus describeth a Jew -

“ Cui septima quaeque fuit lux

Ignava, et partem vitae non attigit ullam. ” - Satyr. v.

Paulus Phagius telleth likewise of a black mouthed Egyptian, who said that Christians were a colluvies b of most loathsome, lecherous people, that had a foul disease upon them, and were therefore fain to rest every seventh day.

a Magis carendo quam fruendo.

b A collection or gathering of filth or foul matter; spec. foul discharge from an ulcer. ŒD