1 Wherefore laying away all malice and all guile and dissimulations and envies and all detractions,
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VERS. 1.-- *Wherefore laying aside all malice.* What is malice? what but the love of doing harm? What is guile? what but to do one thing and to feign another? What is flattery? what but seduction by deceitful praise? What is envy? what but hatred of another's happiness? What is detraction? what but a reproof more biting than truthful? Malice delights in another's evil. Guile doubles the heart. Flattery doubles the tongue. Detraction wounds a good name.
2 As newborn babes, desire the rational milk without guile, that thereby you may grow unto salvation:
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VERS. 2.-- *As newborn babes.* Because you have been so born again, and made eternal sons, be such through the pursuit of a good conversation as newly born infants are through the nature of their age. *Reasonable.* Be infants through malice put away, yet reasonable through wisdom: and let no reasoning draw you to the craftinesses of the world, but be without guile; whence: *Be ye wise as serpents*, etc. *Desire milk.* He touches upon those who come fastidious to the hearing of the sacred lessons, ignorant of that thirst and hunger of which the Lord says: *Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice*. And therefore they come the more slowly to the perfect increases of salvation, whereby they might be able to be refreshed with the solid food of the word, that is, to know the divine secrets, or to do greater goods. *That you may grow thereby.* That also by learning well you may come, through the sacred things of the Lord's incarnation, to the contemplation of the divine majesty.
3 If so be you have tasted that the Lord is sweet.
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VERS. 3.-- *If so be you have tasted.* In this manner, the malice of the heart being purged, desire the life-giving nourishment of Christ, if you have a savour of how great the divine sweetness is. For he who tastes nothing of his sweetness, it is no wonder if he does not avoid to defile this man with earthly desires.
4 Unto whom coming, as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men but chosen and made honourable by God:
5 Be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
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VERS. 5.-- *As stones, men.* Through unbelief indeed hard and insensible, but through discernment instructed, they are made alive and are fit to be joined together by charity in the building of God. *Be ye built up.* Unto the offering of good works, alms, prayers, and your own selves. *Through Jesus Christ.* This is referred to all, you are built up, you are priests, you offer, and all this, through Jesus Christ, by whose grace you have all things.
6 Wherefore it is said in the scripture: Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious. And he that shall believe in him shall not be confounded.
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VERS. 6.-- *Wherefore* it must be established that the Lord, by reason of his firmness, is rightly called a stone, etc.
7 To you therefore that believe, he is honour: but to them that believe not, the stone which the builders rejected, the same is made the head of the corner:
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VERS. 7.-- *To you therefore that believe there is honour to them that believe not,* etc., *whom the builders rejected.* So rejected by these as by those, and that stone here, that is to them that believe, *is made the head of the corner,* and to the unbelieving is made *a stone of stumbling and a rock of scandal.*
8 And a stone of stumbling and a rock of scandal, to them who stumble at the word, neither do believe, whereunto also they are set.
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VERS. 8.-- *And a stone of stumbling.* Whereas Christ is a stone in which the good are upheld and rest secure, to the unbelieving he shall be a cause of stumbling in the present, to them that believe not in him, and therefore they are falling from vice to vice. In the time to come he is a rock of scandal, because against that stone, Christ, whom they trod upon as lowly, their steps shall be dashed, and they shall fall into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels. *They stumble at the word.* He stumbles at the word who does so by this, that he has heard the word; he stumbles in mind, while he does not believe what he has heard, whose foolishness he aggravates. *Nor do they believe in that wherein they are set:* by nature men were made unto this, that they should believe God and obey his will.
9 But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people: that you may declare his virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:
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VERS. 9.-- *But you are a chosen generation.* This testimony of praise, once given to the ancient people through Moses, the Apostle gives to the Gentiles who believe in Christ: who, as a corner stone, gathered the nations into that salvation which Israel had had in itself. *A kingly priesthood.* United to the body of the high priest, who were bound to hope for a kingdom, and to offer to God the victims of an unspotted conversation. *Of acquisition,* in the blood of his redemption, as the people of Israel was once redeemed out of Egypt by the blood of the lamb. Whence also in the following verse he mystically calls to mind the ancient history, and teaches that it was fulfilled specially in one people. *That you may declare.* As they that were delivered out of Egypt sang a song of triumph to the Lord, so we, after the darkness was dissolved, after the remission received through Christ who leads us to the country of the supernal brightness, ought to repay to God thanks worthy of the heavenly benefits.
10 Who in times past were not a people: but are now the people of God. Who had not obtained mercy: but now have obtained mercy.
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VERS. 10.-- *Who in time past.* Hence it is proved that he writes this epistle to those who had come to the faith from among the Gentiles. These verses are taken from the prophecy of Osee, in which the calling of the Gentiles is treated of.
11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, to refrain yourselves from carnal desires which war against the soul,
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VERS. 11.-- *Dearly beloved.* Thus far he has instructed the Church generally, etc., *as far as* the liberty of a laxer life to bear the greater perils of tickling allurements. *As strangers.* Set your mind under earthly things so much the less, as you remember that you have a country in the heavens. The reprobate have their country here, after whose desires they gape, and therefore they shall be banished into perpetual exile, lacking their pleasures.
12 Having your conversation good among the Gentiles: that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by the good works which they shall behold in you, glorify God in the day of visitation.
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VERS. 12.-- *Considering by your good works.* It has for the most part come to pass that pagans who used to disparage the faith of Christians, afterwards considering their good conversation, began to praise Christ.
13 Be ye subject therefore to every human creature for God's sake: whether it be to the king as excelling,
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VERS. 13.-- *Be ye therefore subject to every human creature for God's sake, whether it be to the king,* etc. And that your conversation may please all, resist not any dignity of men, any person, any principality to which God has willed you to be subject, because there is no power but from God, and he who resists the power resists the ordinance of God. And he expounds the creature by its parts, *saying, whether to the King,* etc.
14 Or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of the good.
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VERS. 14.-- *As sent by him.* Many a time God permits some evil man to exercise tyranny, that both the evil may be confounded, and the good the more proved. *Unto the punishment.* This he says, yet not so that it should always come to pass, but he simply relates what the action of a ruler ought to be, who even if he condemns the good; what he does pertains no less to their praise, if the good patiently bear his wickedness, and wisely resist his cunning.
15 For so is the will of God, that by doing well you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:
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VERS. 15.-- *But the praise of the good. For so it is.* Truly the godly, whatsoever rulers may do, obtain praise: because God wills this, who uses even evil men unto good, whence do you also use even them unto good, whether they be good or evil, *making to be silent, of imprudent and ignorant men.* That in whatsoever way you may use them unto good, and through them may merit praise, and that they themselves may not find what to blame in you, while you honour and bear with even them, although they be unclean.
16 As free and not as making liberty a cloak for malice, but as the servants of God.
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VERS. 16.-- *Not as a cloak.* Not having your liberty for a cloak of malice, etc., *as far as* whence he adds: *But as the servants of God.*
17 Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.
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VERS. 17.-- *Love the brotherhood.* And among all things, love as brethren in Christ even those who by a temporal condition are subject to you.
18 Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward.
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VERS. 18.-- *Servants, being subject.* Thus far he has exhorted the free to subjection, now he speaks to servants, that they also may be subject to their masters. *Not only to the good.* Another version: *Not only to the good and gentle: but also to the more difficult. To the froward.* That is, to the undisciplined. Schola in Greek, in Latin a place, in which they used to come together to hear the masters of the liberal arts, whence schola is interpreted leisure, because there they were at leisure for their studies. Scholastics therefore are the learned. Dyscoli are the untaught and rustic. See how above he was admonishing that men be subject to human creature for God's sake.
19 For this is thankworthy: if, for conscience towards God, a man endure sorrows, suffering wrongfully.
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VERS. 19.-- *If for conscience towards God.* If, for God who knows a good intention, some patient man is unjustly beaten by his lord, though he serve him well, and endures it, that is, accounts his sorrows light, this is grace, and by this he is made pleasing to God, and this the grace of faith requires. *Suffering wrongfully.* If you suffer unjustly, you acquire the grace of God. For if you patiently bear the punishments inflicted by your masters, you, I say, sinning by refusing to obey them, and buffeted by those same masters, that is, often corrected by them, that through buffetings you may be led to obey, what grace will you have thereby? Nothing, on this account shall you receive from God.
20 For what glory is it, if, committing sin and being buffeted for it, you endure? But if doing well you suffer patiently: this is thankworthy before God.
21 For unto this are you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps.
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VERS. 21.-- *For unto this you are called.* He greatly glorifies the condition of servants, whom, well-doing and beaten without fault by cruel and wicked masters, he affirms to be imitators of the Lord's passion. *Because Christ also.* Whereas above he instructed servants specially, now he instructs the whole Church, that he may recall to the memory of masters also what their author endured for their salvation or deliverance.
22 Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.
23 Who, when he was reviled, did not revile: when he suffered, he threatened not, but delivered himself to him that judged him unjustly.
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VERS. 23.-- *But he delivered himself to him that judged him unjustly.* To those judging according to an unjust law, being himself just. Or, he delivered to God the Father those judging unjustly, that is, those who most wickedly condemned him, and pressed for his death, that by undergoing punishments they might be instructed. He touches upon the evangelical parable, where it is said that the good shepherd, leaving ninety-nine sheep in the desert, came to visit the one that had perished.VERS. 25-- *And the bishop.* Or the visitor, which is the same thing. For a bishop, that is, an overseer, because *the eyes of the Lord are upon the just, and his ears unto their prayers.* And, *The Orient from on high hath visited us.*
24 Who his own self bore our sins in his body upon the tree: that we, being dead to sins, should live to justice: by whose stripes you were healed.
25 For you were as sheep going astray: but you are now converted to the shepherd and bishop of your souls.