John Trapp on Daniel 5:6

Ver. 6. Then the Kings countenance was changed] How ſoon is carnal joy extinct, the gallantry of it checkt with troubles and terrours! how ſuddainly is it put out as the fire of thornes! Pſal. 118.12. Eccleſ. 7.6. Surely as lightening is followed with rending and roaring: and as comets, when their exhaled matter is waſted, vaniſh and fill the ayre with peſtilent vapours: ſo is it here.

So that the joynts of his loyns were looſed] If a bare citation to judgment were ſo terrible to this jolly Prince, what ſhall the judgment it ſelf be? Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord, &c.

And hiis knees ſmote one againſt another] The writing on the wall he could neither read nor underſtand: but his conſcience had written bitter things againſt him, which being now held to the fire of Gods wrath become legible, as things written with the juyce of an onion are, when brought to the fire. The wounds alſo of an accuſing conſcience pierce the members of the body, Prov. 17.22. The mark that God ſet upon Cain was, in likelyhood, the perpetual trembling of his hands and whole body.Luctant. Tullus Hostilius, who profanely derided the devotions of his predeceſſour Numa, had deſervedly for his gods Pavorem and Pallorem. Caracalla, after the murther of his brother Geta was ſo haunted with the furies of his own evil conſcience, that he forbad any ſo much as to name him on pain of death, and was well-nigh mad: ſo was Theodoricus the Tyrant, upon the ſight of the fiſhes head ſet before him, wherein he thought he ſaw the face of Symmachus whom he had wrongfully ſlain. The like befel our Richard the third after the murther of his two innocent Nephews; and Charles the ninth of France after the Maſſacre at Paris.