---

I. SOME CASES IN WHICH IT IS ALLOWABLE TO MEDDLE WITH THE AFFAIRS OF OTHERS.

1. Superiors may meddle with the business of those who are subject to their charge: magistrates, fathers, pastors.

2. When the honour of God is concerned we may and must interpose in vindication, as Phineas, Elijah, John the Baptist, our Lord.

3. When the public weal and safety are manifestly concerned we may interfere to support or secure them.

4. We may meddle for the succour of right against palpable wrong and outrage.

5. We may interpose when our own just defence requires it.

6. When the life or welfare, spiritual or temporal, of our neighbour is concerned, we may yield our aid: for we are "our brother's keeper."

7. If any opportunity of doing our neighbour good, especially his soul, offers itself, we should in charity embrace it. In these cases we may intermeddle, and in doing so be quiet, and doing our own business.

II. SOME GENERAL RULES ACCORDING TO WHICH SUCH MEDDLESOMENESS IS COMMONLY BLAMABLE.

1. We should never out of ambition, covetous desire, or self-conceit, so meddle as to invade any man's office, or to assume the exercise of it.

2. We should notwith out call or allowance, meddle with our superiors, so as to advise or blame them.

3. We should not meddle, indeed, with the affairs of our equals so as to control or cross them.

4. We should not without desire or leave intermeddle in the smaller temporal interests of others on pretence to further them, or with design to cross them.

5. We should not, indeed, in matters of an indifferent and innocent nature so far meddle, as, without considerable reason to infringe any man's liberty, cross Isis humour, obstruct his pleasure, however discordant with our judgment and taste.

6. We should never offer to put a force on any man's inclination, or strive to bend it in compliance with ours.

7. We should not in conversation meddle so as to impose our opinions and conceits on others.

8. We should not ordinarily in converse affect or undertake to teach, for this implies pretence to a kind of superiority.

9. We should be cautious of interrupting any man's discourse or taking the words out of his mouth; for this is a rude way of dispossessing men of that which, by the common law of society, they suppose themselves to enjoy.

10. We should be careful of entrenching on any man's modesty in any way, either of commendation or dispraise, so as to put him to the blush, or to expose him to scorn.

11. It is good to be cautious of talking about other men and their concernments in way of passing characters upon them (1 Timothy 5:13).

12. We should not be inquisitive into the designs of men, press into their retirements, or pry into their secrets.

13. We should not lie in wait to catch any man at an advantage.

14. We should not meddle with things we do not understand.

III. SOME DIRECTIONS CONCERNING PARTICULAR KINDS OF MEDDLING.

1. As to meddling by advice we may do well to observe these directions.

(1) Advise not (except on call) a superior or one more eminent than thyself in authority, dignity, or age.

(2) Thrust not with violence or importunity advice on an equal, or any man not subject to thy charge who is unwilling to receive it.

(3) Be not obstinate in pressing advice.

(4) Affect not the office of a counsellor except through friendship or humanity.

(5) Advise not otherwise than with reservation and diffidence.

2. As to meddling for reproof.

(1) Reprove not a superior, which is to soar above our pitch, to confound ranks, and pervert the order of society.

(2) Reprove not rashly, and without certain cognisance of the facts.

(3) Neither rashly as to the point of right, or without being able to show that the affair is really culpable.

(4) Reprove not for slight matters, or such faults as proceed from natural frailty or inadvertency.

(5) Reprove not unseasonably, when a person is indisposed to bear rebuke.

(6) But mildly and sweetly, in the calmest manner and gentlest terms.

(7) Neither affect to be reprehensive, or willingly to undertake the office of censor.

3. As to interposing in the contentions of others.

(1) We should never meddle so as to raise dissensions, or to do such things as breed them.

(2) We should not foment dissensions already commenced, blowing up the coals that are kindled by abetting or aggravating strife.

(3) Especially we should not make ourselves parties in any faction where both sides are eager and passionate.

(4) Nor interpose ourselves, without invitation, to be arbitrators in points of difference; though we may perhaps cautiously meditate or devise agreement.

(5) If we would at all meddle in these cases it should be only by endeavouring to renew peace by the most fair and prudent means.

IV. SOME CONSIDERATIONS PROPOSED, INDUCIVE TO QUIETNESS AND DISSUASIVE FROM PRAGMATICAL TEMPER.

(1) Consider that quietness is just and equal, pragmaticalness is injurious to the rights and liberties of others;

(2) Quietness signifies humility, modesty, and sobriety of mind.

(3) It is beneficial to the world, preserving the general order of things, and disposing men to keep within their proper station, etc.

(4) It preserves concord and amity.

(5) Quietness to the person endued with it, or practising it, begets tranquillity and peace; since men are not apt to trouble him who comes in no one's way.

(6) It is a decent and loving thing, indicating a good disposition, and producing good effects.

(7) It adorns any profession, bringing credit, respect, and love to the same.

(8) Quiet also is a safe practice, keeping men not only from the incumbrances of business but from the hazards of it, and the charge of bad success; but pragmaticalness is dangerous from the opposite effects, etc.

(9) It is consequently a great point of discretion to be quiet, and a manifest folly to be pragmatical.

(10) We may also consider that every man has sufficient business of his own to employ him, to exercise his mind, and to exhaust his labour; but those who attend pragmatically to the affairs of others are apt to neglect their own: advice on this head from Scripture and philosophy.

(11) But suppose that we have much spare time and want business, yet it is not advisable to meddle with that of other men; for there are many ways more innocent, pleasant, and advantageous to divert ourselves and satisfy curiosity. For instance, investigation of the works of nature; application to the study of the most noble sciences, to the history of past ages, and to the cultivation of literature in general.

(Isaac Barrow, D. D.)

---

---

KJV: But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.

WEB: But concerning brotherly love, you have no need that one write to you. For you yourselves are taught by God to love one another,