28. But you say: “Touch me
not.” You who wish to justify yourselves say, “He is
not our neighbour,” being more proud than that lawyer who wished
to tempt Christ, for he said “Who is my neighbour?”
He asked, you deny, going on like that priest, like that Levite passing
by him whom you ought to have taken and tended, and not receiving them
into the inn for whom Christ paid the two pence, whose neighbour Christ
bids you to become that you might show mercy to him. For he is
our neighbour whom not only a similar condition has joined, but whom
mercy has bound to us. You make yourself strange to him through
pride, in vain puffing up yourself in your carnal mind, and not holding
the Head. Col. ii. 18. For if
you held the Head you would consider that you must not forsake him for
whom Christ died. If you held the Head you would consider that
the whole body, by joining together rather than by separating, grows
unto the increase of God Col. ii. 19. by the bond
of charity and the rescue of a sinner.