Matthew 22:38,39 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

This is the first and great commandment, &c.— From this head are to be deduced all the service, worship, and honour, which we owe and pay to our Creator and Redeemer. Of the love of God, our Saviour says, that it is the first and great commandment; and the love of our neighbour he stiles the second, like unto it. Now perhaps it may hence be inferred, that the love of God, which is the first and great commandment, is a law of superior obligation to that which is only the second, and may therefore, in some instances, controul and overrule it. Whence it should follow, that we might lawfully overlook the love of our neighbour, in obedience to the superior obligation that we are under to love God: but our Saviour's saying the love of God is the first commandment, is no manner of reason to think, that it ever is or ever can be inconsistent with the second. The love of God is properly styled the first commandment, in respect to God, who is the object of the love, and because it is indeed the fountain of all religion, and the ground even of that commandment which is styled the second. But this is so far from shewing that the love of God may ever clash with the love of our neighbour, that it proves the contrary; for if the love of our neighbour is deducible from the love of God, it must ever be consistent with it. No man who thinks himself bound to love and obey God, can think himself at liberty to hurt or oppress those whom God has taken under his protection. No man who believes it his interest as well as his duty to please God, but must likewise believe it is his interest and duty to be kind and tender to those who are the children of God, and in whose happiness he is not an unconcerned spectator. For this reason the love of God is called the first commandment, and for this reason it never can be inconsistent with the love of our neighbour, which is the second.