Open rebuke [is] better than secret love.
Ver. 5. Open rebuke is better than secret love.] For, after the nature of pills, rebuke, though it be not toothsome, yet it is wholesome, and a sure sign of a faithful friend, if rightly managed. See my Common Place of Admonition. Secret love, that either seeth nothing amiss in a friend, or dare not say so, is little worth in comparison. "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart," but, as an argument of thy love, "thou shalt reprove him," plainly, but wisely, "and not suffer sin upon him," Lev 19:17 much less further it, and be his broker or pander in it, as Hirah the Adullamite was to his friend Judah, and Jonadab to his cousin Amnon. 2Sa 13:5