Practical Commentary of 1 Peter Volume 2, Commentary · Chapter 2 · Verse 6
Verse 8.
And above all things have fervent charity among your selves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.
THE Graces of the Spirit are an entire frame making up the new Creature, and none of them can be wanting, therefore the Doctrine and Exhortation of the Apostles, speak of them usually, not only as inseparable, but as one. But there is amongst them all, none more cemprehensive, than this of Love: insomuch that St. Paul calls it the fullfilling of the Law; love to God the sum of all relative to him, and so likewise is it towards our Brethren. Love to God is that, which makes us live to him, and be wholly his, that which most powerfully weans us from this World, and causeth us delight in communion with him, in holy Meditation and Prayer. Now the Apostle adding here of the duty of Christians to one another, gives this the prime, yea, the sum of all: Above all have fervent love.
Concerning this, Consider, (1.) The Nature of it. (2.) The Eminent Degree of it. (3) The Excellent Fruit of it.
1. It is an union, therefore called a bond or chain that links things together. 2. 'Tis not a meer external union that holds in customs, or words, or outward carriage, but an union of hearts. 3. 'Tis here not a natural, but a spiritual supernatural union; it is that mutual love of Christians as Brethren. There is a common benevolence and good-will due to all; but a more particular uniting affection interchangeably one, amongst Christians.
The Devil being an Apostate Spirit, revolted and separated from God, doth naturally project and work division. This was his first exploit, and still his grand design and business in the World: he first divided Man from God, put them at an enmity by the first Sin of our first Parents, and the next we read of in their first Child, was enmity against his Brother, so Satan is called by our Saviour justly, a liar, and a murderer from the beginning; murdered man by lying, and made him a murderer.
And as the Devil's work is Division, Christ's work is Union; he came to dissolve the works of Satan by a contrary work, he came to make all Friends, to recollect and reunite all Men to God, and Man to Man; and both those unions hold in him by vertue of that marvellous union of Natures in his Person; and that Mysterious Union of the Persons of Believers with him as their Head, so the word, Eph. 1. 10. foreign. To unite all in one head.
Thus his great project in all: this he died and suffered for, and this he prayed for, Iohn 17. and this is strong above all ties, natural or civil, union in Christ; this they have that are indeed Christians, this they pretend to have, if they understood it, that profess themselves Christians. If natural friendship be capable of that expression one spirit in two bodies, Christian union hath it much more really and properly: for there is indeed one Spirit more extensive in all the Faithful; yea, so one Spirit that it makes them up into one body more intensive: they are not so much as divers bodies, only divers members of one body.
Now this love of our Brethren, is not another from the love of God, 'tis but the streaming forth of it, or the reflex of it: Jesus Christ sending in his Spirit into the heart, unites it to God in himself by love, which is all indeed; that loving of God supreamly and entirely with all the mind and soul, all the combined strength of the heart, and then that same love, first wholly carried to him▪ is not divided or impared by the love of our Brethren; 'tis but dilated and derived from the other: he allows, yea, commands, yea, causes, that it stream forth, and act it self toward them, remaining still in him, as in its source and center, beginning at him, and returning to him, as the Beams that diffuse themselves from the Sun, and the Light and Heat, yet are not divided, or cut off from it, but remain in it; and by emanation issue from it. Loving our Brethren in God, and for him, not only because he commands us to love them, and so the Law of Love to him ties us to it, as his Will; but because that love of God doth naturally extend it self thus, and acts thus, in loving our Brethren after a Spiritual Christian manner, we do even in that love our God.
Loving of God makes us one with God, and so gives us an impression of his divine bounty in his Spirit, and his love, the proper work of his Spirit dwelling in the Heart, enlarges and dilates it, as self-love contracts and streightens it, so that as self-love is the perfect opposite to the love of God, it is likewise so to brotherlylove, shuts out and undoes both; and where the love of God is rekindled, and enters the Heart, it destroys and burns up self love, and so carries the affection up to himself, and in him forth to our Brethren.
This is that bitter root of all enmity in man against God and amongst Men, against one another, Self, Man's Heart turned from God towards himself; and the very work of renewing Grace is, to annual and destroy Self, to replace God in his Right, that the Heart and all its Affections and Motions be at his dispose: so that instead of self-will and self-love that rul'd before, now the Will of God, and the Love of God commands all.
And where it is thus, there this foreign, this love of our Brethren, will be sincere. Whence is it that Wars, and Contests, and mutual Disgracings and Despisings abound so; but that men love themselves, and nothing but themselves, or in relation to themselves, as it pleases or is advantageous to them; that's the Standard and Rule, all is carried by interest, so thence are stri…es and defamings, and bitterness against one another; but the Spirit of Christ coming in, und…es all selfishness. And now according to God, what he wills and loves, that's Law, and a powerful Law, so written on the Heart, this Law of Love, that it obeys not unpleasantly; but with delight, no constraint but the sweet constraint of love; to forgive a wrong, to love even thine enemy for him, is not only feisible now, but de…ectable, that ere while thou thoughtest impossible.
That Spirit of Christ is all sweetness and love, so calms and composes the Heart, that peace with God, and that unspeakably blessed correspondence of love with him, doth so fill the Soul with lovingness and sweetness, that it can breath nothing else, hates nothing but sin, pities the sinner, and carries to the worst that love of good-will, desiring their return and salvation: but to those, in whom appears the Image of their Father, those their heart cleaves to, as Brethren indeed. No advantages natural, no birth, no beauty, nor wit draws a Christian's love so much, as the resemblance of Christ, wherever that is found, it is comely, and lovely to a Soul that loves him.
Much communion with God sweetens and calms the mind, cures the distempers of passion and pride, that are the avowed enemies of love, particularly Prayer and Love suit well. (1.) Prayer disposes to this love; he that loveth not, knoweth not God, saith the beloved Apostle, for God is love; he that is most conversant with love, the spring of where 'tis purest and fullest, cannot but have the fullest measure of it, flowing in from thence into his heart, and flowing forth from thence, unto his Brethren; if they, that use the society of mild and good men, are insensibly assimilated to them, grow like them, and contract somewhat of their temper; much more doth familiar walking with God powerfully transform the Soul into his likeness; makes it merciful and loving, and ready to forgive, as he is.
2. This love disposes to prayer, to pray together, hearts must be consorted and tun'd together: otherwise how can they sound the same Suits harmoniously. How unpleasant in the exquisite ear of God, that made the ear, are the jarring disunited hearts, that often seem to joyn in the same prayer, and yet are not set together in love: and when thou prayest alone, thy heart imbitter'd and disaffected to thy Brother, altho' upon an offence done to thee, 'tis as a mistuned Instrument, the Strings are not accorded, so are not in tune amongst themselves, and so the sound is harsh, and offensive; try it well thy self, and thou wilt perceive it; how much more he, to whom thou pray'st when thou art stirr'd, and in passion against thy Brother, or not on the contrary, lovingly affected towards him; what broken disordered unfastened stuff are thy requests, therefore the Lord will have this done first, the Heart tun'd, go thy way, (says he,) leave thy Gift, and be reconcil'd to thy Brother, &c.
Why is this so much recommended by Christ, and so little received by Christians, given by him as the cognisance and badge of his Followers, and of them that pretend to be so, so few that wear it. Oh! little real Christianity were more worth than all that empty profession and discourse, that we think so much of. Hearts receiving the mould and stamp of this Rule; these were living Copies of the Gospel; ye are our Epistle, says the Apostle. We come together, and hear, and speak sometimes of one Grace, and sometimes of another; and the most never seek to have their hearts enricht with the possession of any of them. We search not to the bottom the perversness of our Nature, and the guiltiness that is upon us in these; or we shift off the Conviction, and find a way to forget it when the hour's done.
That accursed root, self-love, that makes man an enemy to God, and Men enemies and devourers one of another, who sets to the discovery and the displanting of it, bends the force of holy Endeavours and Prayer, supplicates the hand of God for the plucking of it up? Some Natures are quieter and make less noise, but till the heart be possest with the love of God, it shall never truely love either men, in that way due to all, or the Children of God in their peculiar relation.
Among your selves, &c.] That is here the point, the peculiar love of the Saints as thy Brethren, glorying and rejoycing in the same Father, the Sons of God begotten again to that lively hope of glory: now these as they owe a bountiful disposition to all, they are mutually to love one another as Brethren.
Thou, that hatest and reproachest the godly, and the more they study to walk as the Children of their holy Father, the more thou hatest them, art glad to find a spot to point at on them, or wilt dash mire on them where thou findest none; know, that thou art in this, the enemy of God, that the indignity done to them, Jesus Christ will take it, as done to himself: truely we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the Brethren: he that loveth not his Brother abideth in death. So then renounce this Word, or else believe that thou art yet far from the Life of Christ, that so hatest it in others. Oh! but they are but a number of Hypocrites, wilt thou say. Brethren, if they be so, this declares so much the more thy extream hatred of holiness, that canst not endure so much as the Picture of it, canst not see any thing like it, but thou must let fly at it, and this argues thy deep hatred of God, holiness in a Christian as the Image of God, and the Hyprocrite in the resemblance of it, is the Image of a Christian, so thou hatest the very Image of the Image of God: for deceive not thy self, it is not the latent evil in hypocrisie, but the apparent good in it that thou hatest. The prophane Man thinks himself a great Zealot against Hypocrisie, he is still crying out of it, but its only this he is angry at, that all should not be ungodly, wicked enemies of Religion, as he is, either dissolute, or meerly civil; and the civil man is readily the bitterest enemy of all strictness beyond his own size, as condemning him, and therefore he cries it down, as all of it false and counterfeit wares.
Let me intreat you, if you would not be found fighters against God, let no revilings be heard amongst you, against any that are or seem to be Followers of Holiness: if ye will not reverence it your selves, yet reverence it in others, at least do not reproach it. It should be your ambition, else why are you willing to be called Christians: but if you will not pursue holiness, yet persecute it not: if you will not have fervent love to the Saints, yet burn not with infernal heat of fervent hatred against them; for truly that is one of the likliest pledge of these flames, and society with damned Spirits; as love to the Children of God is, of that inheritance and society with them in glory.
2. You that are Brethren and united by that purest and strongest tie; as you are one in your head, in your life derived from him, in your hopes of glory with him; seek to be more one in heart, in fervent love one to another in him. Consider the combinements and concurrences of the wicked against him, and his little flock; and let this provoke you to more united affections. Shall the Scales of Leviathan (as one alludes) stick so close together, and shall not the Members of Christ be more one and undivided: you that can resent it, stir up your selves, to bewail the present divisions and fears of more, suit earnestly for that one Spirit to act and work more powerfully in the hearts of his people.
2dly. The eminent degree of this love. 1. Its eminency amongst Graces above all. 2. The high measure of it required fervent love [foreign,] a high bent, or strain of it, that which acts strongly, and carries far.
1. 'Tis eminent, that which indeed among Christians preserves all, and knits all together; therefore called, Col. 3. the bond of perfection, all bound up by it. How can they pray together, advance the name of their God, keep in and stir up all Grace in one another, unless they be united in love? how can they have access to God, or fellowship with him, who is love, as St. Iohn speaks: if instead of this sweet temper there be rancours and bitterness amongst them? so then uncharity and divisions amongst Christians, doth not only hinder their civil good, but their spiritual much more: and that not only lucro cessante (as they speak) interrupting the ways of mutual profiting, but damno emergente, it doth really damage them, and brings them to losses; preys upon their Graces, as hot withering winds on Herbs and Plants: where the Heart entertains either bitter malice, or but uncharitable prejudices, there will be a certain decay of spiritualness in the whole Soul.
2. Again, for the degree of this love required, it is not a cold indifferency, a negative love, as I may call it, or not willing of evil, nor a lukewarm wishing of good, but fervent and active love: for if fervent, it will be active, a fire will not be smother'd, it will find way to extend it self.
3. The Fruits of this Love follow. 1. Covering of evil, in this verse. 2. Doing of good, verse 9. &c.
Covers▪ ] This from Solomon, and here as its represented to be thus done, as a main act of love: so love is commended by it, as a most useful, and laudible act of it, covers sins, and a multitude of sins.
Solomon saith, as the Opposition clears the Sense, hatred stirs strife, aggravates and makes the worst of all, but love covers a multitude of sins; delights not in undue disclosing of Brethrens failings, doth not eye them rigidly, nor expose them willingly to the eyes of others.
Now this commends charity, in regard of its continual usefullness and necessity this way, considering human frailty; and that in many things (as St. Iames speaks) we all offend; so that this is still needful on all hands: what do they think that are still picking at every appearing infirmity of their Brethren; know they not that the frailties that cleave to the Saints of God while they are here, doth stand in need of, and call for this mutual office of love to cover and pass by; who is there that stands not in need of this? if none, why are there any that deny it to others? there can be no society nor entertaining of Christian converse without it, giving as we speak the allowance, reckoning to meet with defects, and weaknesses on all hands, covering the failings one of another, seeing its needful from each to another.
Again, as the necessity of this commends it, and the love whence it flows; so there is that laudible ingenuity in it, that should draw us to the liking of it; 'tis the bent of the basest and worthlessest Spirits to be busie in the search and discovery of others failings, passing by all that is commendable and imitable, as base Flies readily sitting on any little sore they can find, rather than upon the sound parts: but the more Excellent Mind of a real Christian, loves not unnecessarily to touch, no nor to look upon them, rather turns away, never uncover their Brothers sore, but to cure it; and no more than of necessity must be for that end, would willingly have them hid, that neither they nor others might see them.
This bars not the judicial trial of scandalous offences, nor the delation of them, and bringing them under due censure: the forbearing of this is not charity, but both iniquity, and cruelty, and this cleaves too much to many of us; they that cannot pass the least touch of a wrong done to themselves, can digest twenty high injuries done to God by prophane persons about them, and resent it not, and such may be assured, they are yet destitute of love to God, and of Christian love to their Brethren which springs from it.
The uncovering of sin necessary to the curing of it is not only no breach of charity, but is indeed a main point of charity, and the neglect of it the highest kind of cruelty. But further then that goes, certainly this rule teaches the veiling of our Brethrens infirmities from the eyes of others, and even from our own, that we look not on them with rigour; no, nor without compassion.
First. Love is witty in finding out the fairest constructions of things doubtful, and this is a great point Take me the best action that can be named, pride, and malice shall find a way to disgrace it, and put a hard visage on't. Again, what is not undeniably evil, love will turn all the ways of viewing it, till it find the best and most favourable.
2. Where the thing is so a sin, that this way of covering it▪ can have no place, yet then will love consider what may lessen it most, whether a surprize or strength of tentation, or ignorance, as our Saviour, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, or natural complexion, or at least will still take in humane frailty, to turn all the bitterness of passion into sweet compassion.
3. All private reproofs, and where conscience requires publick delation and censure, even these will be sweetned in that compassion that slows from love, if such a sore as must not be let lie covered up, least it prove deadly: so that it must be uncovered to be lanc't, and cut, that it may be cur'd this to be done as loving the Soul of the Brother. Where the rule of consciences urges it not, then thou must bury it; and be so far from delighting to divulge such things, that as far as without partaking in it thou mayest, thou must veil it from all eyes, and try the way of private admonition, and if the party appear to be humble and willing to be reclaimed, then forget it, cast it quite out of thy thoughts, that as much as may thou mayest learn to forget it more. But this, I say, to be done with the tenderest bowels of pity, feeling the cuts thou art forc't to give in that necessary incision, and use mildness and patience. Thus the Apostle instructs his Timothy. Reprove, rebuke, exhort, but do it with long suffering, with all long suffering. 2. Tim. 4. 2. And even they that oppose, instruct, says he, with meekness: if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. chap. 2. verse. 25,
4. If thou be interessed in the offence, even by unfeigned free forgiveness, so far as thy concern goes, let it be, as if it had not been. And though thou meet with many of these; Charity will gain, and grow by such occasions. And the more it hath covered, the more it can cover, cover a multitude, says our Apostle, Covers all sins, says Solomon: yea though thou be often put to't by the same party, what made thee forgive once, well improved, will stretch our Saviours rule to seventy times seven times in one day.
And truly even this, Men mistake grosly, that think it is greatness of Spirit to resent wrongs, and baseness to forgive them; on the contrary, it is the only excellent Spirit scarce to feel a wrong, or feeling, straight to forgive it; 'tis the greatest, and the best of Spirits that enables to this, the Spirit of God, that Dove like Spirit, that rested on our Lord Jesus, and from him derived to all that are in him. I pray you think, is it not a token of a tender sickly body, to be altered with every touch from every blast it meets with? and thus is it of a poor weak sickly Spirit, to endure nothing, to be distemper'd at the least air of an injury; yea with the very fancy of it, where there is none.
Inf. 1. Learn then to beware of these evils, that are contrary to this Charity, do not dispute with your selves in rigid remarks and censures, when the matter will bear any better sense.
2. Do not delight in tearing a wound wider, and stretching a real failing to the utmost.
3. In handling of it, study gentleness, and pity, and meekness: these will advance the cure, whereas thy flying out into passion against thy fallen Brother, will prove nothing, but as the putting of thy nail into the sore, that will readily rankle it, and make it worse: even sin, may be sinfully reproved, and how thinkest thou, that sin shall redress sin, and reduce the sinner.
There is a great deal of spiritual art, and skill in dealing with another's sin, and requires much spiritualness of mind, and much prudence, and much love, a mind clear from passion, for that blinds the eye, and makes the hand rough, that a Man neither rightly sees, nor handles the sore he goes about to cure, and many are lost through the ignorance, and neglect of that due temper to be brought to this work. Men think otherwise, that their rigours are much spiritualness, but they mistake it, Gal. 6. 1. Brethren, if a Man be overtaken in a fault, yea which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thy self, least thou be also tempted.
4. For thy self; as an offence touches thee, learn to delight as much in that Divine way of forgiveness, as carnal minds do in that base and inhumane way of revenge. 'tis not, as they Judge, a glory to ruffle and swagger for every thing, but the glory of Man to pass by a transgression, makes him God like. And consider thou often, that love that covers all thine, that blood that was shed to wash off thy guilt; needs any more be said to gain all in this, that can be required of thee.
Now the other point of doing good, is. 1. In one particular, ver. 9. Then dilated to a general rule, ver. 20.