John 21:20 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Then Peter, turning about,— "There is a spirit and tenderness in this plain passage, which I can never read (says Dr. Doddridge,) without the most sensible emotion. Christ orders Peter to follow him, in token of his readiness to be crucified in his cause. John stays not for the call; he rises and follows too; but he says not one word of his love and his zeal; he chose that the action should speak that; and, when he records this circumstance, he tells us not what that action meant, but with great simplicity relates the fact only. If here and there a generous heart, glowing, like his own, with love to Christ, sees and emulates it, be it so; but he is not solicitous that men should admire it: it was addressed to his Master, and it was enough that he understood it. And can any man be base or absurd enough to imagine, that such a man could spend his life in promoting a notorious falsehood, and, at last, in his old age, when his relish for everything but goodness and immortality was gone, would so solemnly attestit as he does in the conclusion of his gospel?—May God deliver every one that reads this from a head so fatally beclouded by the corruptions of the heart!"