John 7:35–36

This sadde and grave doctrine gets but bad entertainment among these wicked hearers; who in stead of making use of this sad message and admonition, do carp at his expressions, wondering what he meant by them, or if his meaning was to leave them and go to the Jewes dispersed among the Gentiles; For otherwise they could make no sense of them. It seemes they carp thus, not out of ignorance, for they might easily have understood what he spake so plainly, verse 33. of going to him that sent him: But they evidence their perversity and malice, in that they never trouble themselves to keep him, nor propound any thing to him for information, but do onely agitate the matter captiously among themselves. Doctrine 1. Such is the perversity of malicious men, that they will not onely not regard admonitions and threatnings, but will openly scorne them and wilfully mistake, and force obscurity upon the doctrine of faithful Teachers, that they may deride them; for, so did they here with Christ and his doctrine. 2. Men do bewray their own corrupt dispositions, pretend what they will, when they dare carp and cavil at doctrine, as dark and unclear, and yet never come to Christ, or the means he hath appointed, for resolution; for, albeit they once, and again, repeat his words, and descant upon them, and carp at them, yet they said it but among themselves, and so prove that they desired no: satisfaction, but were glad of somewhat to quarrel. 3. It is also a black mark upon men, (be their pretences what they will,) when they are little careful to keep Christ with them, or to make use of him while they have him; for, what ever they pretend of obscurity in his doctrine, yet they avow it clearly enough, that they understood he was to leave them, and yet are not affected with it. 4. It is the ordinary sin of a priviledged people, that they will not be sensible of any hazard of Christs forsaking and leaving them; for, while they enquire whither will he go? they insinuate that if he were the true Messiah, he could get no such people as them to go to, and if he went to the dispersed among the Gentiles, (or Greeks, as the Gentiles are oft-times called in the New Testament, because the Greeks, under Alexander and his successors, had been lately of greatest note among the Nations) and teach the Gentiles, it would rub more on him, as not being the true Messiah who left them, then upon them. And yet not onely did what they apprehended come upon them (for he left them, and sent his disciples to the Gentiles, and these scattered Jewes, to whom Peter and James wrote their Epistles) but even what they say, was a refutation of their presumption. For the condition of their dispersed brethren was a witnesse and evidence of what they all deserved, and how much pains God had taken to drive them from that carnal conceit of their singular priviledges and prerogatives.