Jesus therefore, perceiving that they were about to come and take him by force, to make him king, withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
It is astonishing that five thousand men should have been seized with such daring presumption, that they did not hesitate, by making a new king, to provoke against themselves Pilate’s army and the vast power (128) of the Roman empire; and it is certain that they would never have gone so far, if they had not, relying on the predictions of the Prophets, hoped that God would be on their side, and, consequently, that they would overcome. But still they went wrong in contriving a kingdom of which the Prophets had never spoken. So far are they from having the hand of God favorable to aid their undertaking that, on the contrary, Christ withdraws. That was also the reason why wretched men under Popery wandered so long in gross darkness — while God was, as it were, absent — because they had dared to pollute the whole of his worship by their foolish inventions. (129) 