1 Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.



Ver. 1. Count their own masters] And not under a pretence of Christian liberty, and because in Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor free, seek to shake off the yoke of obedience that God hath hung upon their necks. See 1Pe_2:18.



That the name of God and his doctrine, &c.] Be traduced as a doctrine of liberty. Heathens lay at the catch, 1Pe_2:12, spying and prying (as the word åðïðôåõóáíôåò there signifies), and imputing all public judgments to Christian miscarriages. Nunc male audiunt castiganturque vulgo Christiani (saith Lactantius, de opif. Dei ad Demet.) quod aliter quam sapientibus convenit, vivent, et vitia sub obtentu nominis celent. Christians are very hardly spoken of to this very day, because their conversation is not as becometh the gospel of Christ, but they think to cover their faults with the fig leaves of profession.