Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
Ver. 15. If thy brother shall trespass] As trespass he will, "for it must needs be that offences come," Matthew 18:7, such is human frailty. Two flints may as soon smite together, and not fire come out, as two or more men converse together and not trespasses in one kind or other fall out. A heathen could say, Non amo quenquam nisl offendam: for so, I shall know whether he love me or no, by his forbearing of me. And Augustine saith, Qui desinit sustinere, desinit amare, He that ceaseth to bear with me, ceaseth to love me. Here therefore our Saviour, after he had deterred his from doing wrong, instructeth them how to suffer wrong. If it be not considerable, it must be dissembled. As if it be,
Go and tell him] υπαγε, Get thee gone to him presently, lest else the sore rankle, and thou hate him in thy heart, Leviticus 19:17 : say not, he should come to me, &c., but get thee to him with speed. Lech lecha, as God said to Abraham, up and be packing; stand not to strain courtesy with him when both have haste; but seek peace and ensue it; it is best to be first in a good matter. Remember, said Aristippus to Aeschines (with whom he was fallen out), that though I were the elder man, yet I first sought to thee. Verily, said Aeschines, thou art not only an elder, but a better man than I; for I was first in the quarrel; but thou art first in seeking reconciliation. Nae tu profecto vir me longe melior es, &c. Plutarch.
Tell him his fault] God's little ones are so to be loved, as not to be let alone in their trespasses; but freely and friendly admonished, that they may see their sin and amend their way, as Denkius did when admonished by Oecolampadius. a He being a learned man held this heresy, that no man or devil should be damned eternally, but all saved at last, &c. But being also a humble man, he repented; being converted by Oecolampadius, in whose presence he died at Basil of the plague, but piously, A.D. 1528.
Thou hast gained thy brother] To God and thyself, and if to God, to thyself surely for ever, as Philemon (how much more Onesimus!) to Paul, to whom they therefore owed themselves also. Sir Anthony Kingston thus spake to Mr Hooper a little before his martyrdom: I thank God that ever I knew you, for God did appoint you to call me, being a lost child. For by your good admonitions and wholesome reproofs, whereas I was before both an adulterer and fornicator, God hath brought me to forsake and detest the same.
a Vir fuit doctus, demissi animi, Hebraicae linguae peritus, &c. Resipuit tandem conversus ab Oecolamp. Scultet. Annal.