This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;
Ver. 13. Rebuke them sharply] Gr. αποτομως, cuttingly, precisely, rigidly, severely, and to the quick. A metaphor from surgeons, who must not be melch-hearted, saith Celsus, a but pare away the dead flesh, Ne pars sincera trahatur. Howbeit, that is a good rule given by a godly divine, that although there must be some warmth in a reproof, yet it must not be scalding hot. Words of reviling and disgrace, they scald, as it were. But words that tend to stir up the conscience to a due consideration of the error or evil reproved, they be duly warm, and tend to make the medicine work more kindly. Evangelizatum non maledictum missus es, said Oecolampadins to Farellus: laudo zelum, mode non desideretur mansuetudo. Vinum et oleum in tempore suo infundendum. Evangelistam non tyrannicum legislatorem praestes. Thou art sent to preach, not to rail. Thy zeal I commend, so it be mingled with meekness. Wine must be poured into men's wounds one while and oil another. Thou must show thyself a peaceable preacher, not a tyrannical lawgiver. (Oecolamp. Ep. ad Gul. Farel.) Rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering, saith Paul to Timothy, 2 Timothy 4:2. Timothy, they say, was somewhat sharp and tart in his reproofs; and is therefore exhorted to patience and meekness. Titus was gentle, and of a mild disposition; and is therefore thus spurred on to sharpness and severity. The Cretians also were (possibly) a worse people than the Ephesians, and were therefore to be more hardly handled. Let it ever be remembered that matters of moment must be wisely but yet seriously dealt with. To tell wicked men of their sins so softly as Eli did his sons, or reprove them so gently as Jehoshaphat did Ahab ("Let not the king say so"), doth usually as much harm as good; like a weak dose in physic, it stirreth the humours, but purgeth them not.
a Chirurgos misericordes esse non oportet.