Proverbs 14:18

The simple inherit folly: but the prudent are crowned with knowledge.

Ver. 18. The simple inherit folly.] Acceperunt per successionem seu haereditario iure, so one renders it; they are as wise as their forefathers, and they are resolved to be no wiser. Me ex ea opinione quam a maioribus accepi de cultu deorum, nullius unquam movebit oratio, said Cicero; I will never forsake that way of divine service that I have received from my forefathers, for any man's pleasure, or by any man's persuasion. The monarch of Morocco told the English ambassador for King John that he had recently read St Paul's epistles, which he liked so well, that were he now to choose his religion he would, before any other, embrace Christianity. But everyone ought, saith he, to die in the religion received from his ancestors, and the leaving of the faith wherein he was born was the only thing that he disliked in that apostle. a

But the prudent are crowned with knowledge.] They know that dies diem docet: and therefore are not so wedded to their old principles, superstitions, and fopperies, but that they can, as right reason requires, relinquish and abjure them, glorifying the word, Act 13:48 and "receiving the truth in love," 2Th 2:10 whereby it soon comes to pass, that they get "good repute and report of all men, as Demetrius had, yea, and of the truth itself," 3Jn 1:12 which is the crown of all commendation, Haud velim Erasmi gloria aut nomine vehi, saith Luther: I care not to be praised as Erasmus is, &c.

a Heyl. Geog.