2 John 1:5

Not as though I wrote a new commandment.

The feminine danger

No one was more likely than a woman to think that the precept of loving was something altogether different in kind from the precepts of the old law; no one was more likely to say, “Love has nothing to do with precepts; it springs up unbidden in the heart.” And no one was more likely than a woman to suffer from these very natural opinions; to turn love into a mere taste and sentiment; to suppose it had its origin in herself, and that its continuance might be trusted to her strong feelings; to separate it from obedience; to make it unpractical; so to divorce it from self-denial and endurance. Nothing would be so fatal to all that is noblest in the female character, to the sacrificing and persevering affection for which women have been so eminent, as this temper of mind. Nothing, therefore, appears more entirely appropriate than the apostle’s double admonition, which is enforced in the following verse: “This is love,” etc. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)