Cannot cease from sin] Which cease not from sin; they might cease from sin, but they do not; they love and practise it. Instead of ακατάπαυστους, which cannot cease, several MSS. and Versions have akaraπavorov, and this requires the place to be read, Having eyes full of adultery, and of incessant sin. The images of sinful acts were continually floating before their disordered and impure fancy. This figure of speech is very common in the Greek writers; and Kypke gives many instances of it, which indeed carry the image too far to be here translated. Beguiling unstable souls] The metaphor is taken from adulterers seducing unwary, inexperienced, and light, trifling women; so do those false teachers seduce those who are not established in righteousness. Exercised with covetous practices] The metaphor s taken from the Agonista in the Grecian games, who exercised themselves in those feats, such as vrestling, boxing, running, &c., in which they proposed to contend in the public games. These persons ad their hearts schooled in nefarious practices; they ad exercised themselves till they were perfectly expert n all the arts of seduction, over-reaching, and every kind of fraud. Cursed children] Such not only live under God's curse here, but they are heirs to it hereafter. Verse 15. Which have forsaken the right way] As Balaam did, who, although God showed him the right way, took one contrary to it, preferring the reward offered him by Balak to the approbation and blessing of God. The way of Balaam] Is the counsel of Balaam. He counselled the Moabites to give their most beautiful young women to the Israelitish youth, that they might be enticed by them to commit idolatry. See the notes on Numb. xxii. 5, &c., and xxiii. 1, &c. The son of Bosor] Instead of Borop, Bosor, two ancient MSS. and some of the Versions have Bεwp, Beor, to accommodate the word to the Hebrew text and the Septuagint. The difference in this name seems to have arisen from mistaking one letter for another in the Hebrew name, ya Beor, for Betsor or Bosor; tsaddi v and ain y, which are very like each other, being interchanged. Verse 16. The dumb ass, speaking with man's voice] See the note on Numb. xxii. 28. The madness of the prophet.] Is not this a reference to the speech of the ass, as represented in the Targums of Jonathan ben Uzziel and Jerusalem? "Woe to thee, Balaam, thou sinner, thou madman; there is no wisdom found in thee." These words contain nearly the same expressions as those in St. Peter. Verse 17. These are wells without water] Persons who, by their profession, should furnish the water of life to souls athirst for salvation; but they have not this water; they are teachers without ability to instruct; they are sowers, and have no seed in their basket. Nothing is more cheering in the deserts of the East than to meet with a well of water; and nothing more distressing, when parched with thirst, than to meet with a well that contains no water. Clouds that are carried with a tempest] In a time of great drought, to see clouds beginning to cover the face of the heavens raises the expectation of rain; but to see these carried off by a sudden tempest is a dreary disappointment. These false teachers were equally as unprofitable as the empty well, or the light, dissipated cloud. is, an eternal separation from the presence of God, To whom the mist of darkness is reserved] That and the glory of his power. They shall be thrust into outer darkness, Matt. viii. 12; into the utmost False and corrupt degrees of misery and despair. teachers will be sent into the lowest hell; and be "the most downcast, underfoot vassals of perdition." It is scarcely necessary to notice a various reading here which, though very different in sound, is Instead of νεφέλαι, clouds, nearly the same in sense. which is the common reading, kai opuxλai, and mists, or perhaps more properly thick darkness, from ¿μov, together, and axλvs, darkness, is the reading in ABC, sixteen others, Erpen's Arabic, later Syriac, Coptic, Æthiopic, and Vulgate, and several of the Fathers. This reading Griesbach has admitted into the text. Verse 18. They speak great swelling words of vanity] The word vπEроукa signifies things of great magnitude, grand, superb, sublime; it sometimes signifies inflated, tumid, bombastic. These false teachers spoke of great and high things, and no doubt promised their disciples the greatest privileges, as they themselves pretended to a high degree of illumination; but they were all false and vain, though they tickled the fancy and excited the desires of the flesh; and indeed this appears to have been their object. And hence some The dreadful state of A. M. cir. 4064. words of vanity, they allure they are again entangled therein through the lusts of the flesh, them who live in error. d b 19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. think that the impure sect of the Nicolaitans is meant. scended from heaven." Now, it is by the knowledge See the preface. Those that were clean escaped] Those who, through hearing the doctrines of the gospel, had been converted, were perverted by those false teachers. Verse 19. While they promise them liberty] Either to live in the highest degrees of spiritual good, or a freedom from the Roman yoke; or from the yoke of the law, or what they might term needless restraints. Their own conduct showed the falsity of their system; for they were slaves to every disgraceful lust. For of whom a man is overcome] This is an allusion to the ancient custom of selling for slaves those whom they had conquered and captivated in war. The ancient law was, that a man might either kill him whom he overcame in battle, or keep him for a slave. These were called servi, slaves, from the verb servare, to keep or preserve. And they were also called mancipia, from manu capiuntur, they are taken captive by the hand of their enemy. Thus the person who is overcome by his lusts is represented as being the slave of those lusts. See Rom. vi. 16, and the note there. Verse 20. The pollutions of the world] Sin in general, and particularly superstition, idolatry, and lasciviousness. These are called paruara, miasmata, things that infect, pollute, and defile. The word was anciently used, and is in use at the present day, to express those noxious particles or effluvia proceeding from persons infected with contagious and dangerous diseases; or from dead and corrupt bodies, stagnant and putrid waters, marshes, &c., by which the sound and healthy may be infected and destroyed. The world is here represented as one large putrid marsh, or corrupt body, sending off its destructive miasmata every where and in every direction, so that none can escape its contagion, and none can be healed of the great epidemic disease of sin, but by the mighty power and skill of God. St. Augustine has improved on this image: "The whole world," says he, "is one great diseased man, lying extended from east to west, and from north to south; and to heal this great sick man, the Almighty Physician de of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, as says St. Peter, that we escape the destructive influence of these contagious miasmata. But if, after having be healed, and escaped the death to which we were exposed, we get again entangled, eμnλakevtes, enfolded, enveloped with them; then the latter end will be wars: than the beginning: forasmuch as we shall have si ned against more light, and the soul, by its conver sion to God, having had all its powers and faculties greatly improved, is now, being repolluted, more capable of iniquity than before, and can bear mcx expressively the image of the earthly. Verse 21. For it had been better for them not in have known] For the reasons assigned above; because they have sinned against more mercy, are capable of more sin, and are liable to greater punishment. The holy commandment] The whole religion of Christ is contained in this one commandment, “Thos shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with ai thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; and thy neighbour as thyself." He who obeys this great commandment, and this by the grace of Christ is possible to every man, is saved from sinning eithe against his God or against his neighbour. Nothing less than this does the religion of Christ require. Verse 22. According to the true proverb] This seems to be a reference to Prov. xxvi. 11: par 2700 kekeleb shab al keo; as the dog returneth to his comit so a fool repeateth his folly. In substance this proverb is found among the rabbins: so Midrash Ruth, in Sohar Chadash, fol. 62: Orphah is returned to her mire, Ruth persevered in spirit; and again, Ibid. fol 64: "Orphah, which is an wɔɔ nephesh habbehemith, the bestial soul, is returned to her mire." The Greeks have something like it; so Arrian, Dissert. Epict. 1. iv., c. 11, says: Aяelle kai you diaλeyov, iv' ev ßopßopų μn evλintai, “Go and reason with the swine, lest he be rolled in the mire." This is called a true proverb: for it is a fact, that a dog will eat up his own vomit; and a swine, howsoever carefully washed, will again wallow in the mire. As applied here it is very expressive: the poor sinner, having heard the gospel of Christ, was led to loathe and reject his sin; and, on his application to God for mercy, was washed from his unrighteousness. But he is here represented as taking up again what he had before rejected, and defiling himself in that from which he had been cleansed. foretold and described. their formerly rejected lusts, and re-wallowed in the mire of corruption. It is no wonder that God should say, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning: reason and nature say it must be so ; and divine justice says it ought to be so; and the person himself must confess that it is right that it should be so. But how dreadful is this state! How dangerous when Here is a sad proof of the possibility of falling from the person has abandoned himself to his old sins! Yet grace, and from very high degrees of it too. These it is not said that it is impossible for him to return to had escaped from the contagion that was in the world; his Maker; though his case be deplorable, it is not they had had true repentance, and cast up "their sour- utterly hopeless; the leper may yet be made clean, sweet morsel of sin ;" they had been washed from all and the dead may be raised. Reader, is thy backtheir filthiness, and this must have been through the sliding a grief and burden to thee? Then thou art blood of the Lamb; yet, after all, they went back, not far from the kingdom of God; believe on the got entangled with their old sins, swallowed down | Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved. CHAPTER III. The apostle shows his design in writing this and the preceding epistle, 1, 2. Describes the nature of the heresies which should take place in the last times, 3-8. A thousand years with the Lord are but as a day, 9. He will come and judge the world as he has promised, and the heavens and the earth shall be burnt up, 10. How those should live who expect these things, 11, 12. Of the new heavens and the new earth, and the necessity of being prepared for this great change, 13, 14. Concerning some difficult things in St. Paul's epistles, 15, 16. We must watch against the error of the wicked, grow in grace, and give all glory to God, 17, 18. A. M. cir. 4064. HIS second epistle, be- | phets, band of the command A. D. cir. 60. An. Olymp. cir. CCİX. 4. A.U.C. cir. 813. remembrance: THIS loved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of 2 That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy pro Ch. i. 13.b Jude 17.- 1 Tim. iv. 1. 2 Tim. iii. 1. NOTES ON CHAP. III. Verse 1. This second epistle] In order to guard them against the seductions of false teachers, he calls to their remembrance the doctrine of the ancient prophets, and the commands or instructions of the apostles, all founded on the same basis. He possibly refers to the prophecies of Enoch, as mentioned by Jude, ver. 14, 15; of David, Ps. 1. 1, &c.; and of Daniel, xii. 2, relative to the coming of our Lord to judgment: and he brings in the instructions of the apostles of Christ, by which they were directed how to prepare to meet their God. Verse 3. Knowing this first] Considering this in an especial manner, that those prophets predicted the coming of false teachers: and their being now in the church proved how clearly they were known to God, and showed the Christians at Pontus the necessity of having no intercourse or connexion with them. There shall come-scoffers] Persons who shall endeavour to turn all religion into ridicule, as this is ment of us the apostles of the с A. M. cir. 4064. 3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, "walking after their own lusts, the most likely way to depreciate truth in the sight of the giddy multitude. The scoffers, having no solid argument to produce against revelation, endeavour to make a scaramouch of some parts; and then affect to laugh at it, and get superficial thinkers to laugh with them. Walking after their own lusts] Here is the true source of all infidelity. The gospel of Jesus is pure and holy, and requires a holy heart and holy life. They wish to follow their own lusts, and consequently cannot brook the restraints of the gospel: therefore they labour to prove that it is not true, that they may get rid of its injunctions, and at last succeed in persuading themselves that it is a forgery; and then throw the reins on the neck of their evil propensities. Thus their opposition to revealed truth began and ended in their own lusts. There is a remarkable addition here in almost every MS. and Version of note: There shall come in the last days, IN MOCKERY, εv eμπalyμovy, scoffers walking They will call in question A. M. cir. 4964. A. D. cir. 60. cir. CCIX. 4. A.U.C. cir. 813. A. M. cir. 4064. coming? for since the fathers that by the word of God the of the creation. 5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, . Gen. i. 6, 9. Ps. xxxiii. 6. Hebr. xi. 3. b Gr. consisting.c Ps. xxiv. 2. cxxxvi. 6. Col. i. 17. after their own lusts. This is the reading of ABC, eleven others, both the Syriac, all the Arabic, Coptic, Ethiopic, Vulgate, and several of the Fathers. They come in mockery; this is their spirit and temper; they have no desire to find out truth; they take up the Bible merely with the design of turning it into ridicule. This reading Griesbach has received into the text. The last days] Probably refer to the conclusion of the Jewish polity, which was then at hand. Verse 4. Where is the promise of his coming?] Perhaps the false teachers here referred to were such as believed in the eternity of the world: the prophets and the apostles had foretold its destruction, and they took it for granted, if this were true, that the terrestrial machine would have begun long ago to have shown some symptoms of decay; but they found that since the patriarchs died all things remained as they were from the foundation of the world; that is, men were propagated by natural generation, one was born and another died, and the course of nature continued regular in the seasons, succession of day and night, generation and corruption of animals and vegetables, &c.; for they did not consider the power of the Almighty, by which the whole can be annihilated in a moment, as well as created. As, therefore, they saw none of these changes, they presumed that there would be none, and they intimated that there never had been any. The apostle combats this notion in the following verse. Verse 5. For this they willingly are ignorant of] They shut their eyes against the light, and refuse all evidence; what does not answer their purpose they will not know. And the apostle refers to a fact that | militates against their hypothesis with which they refused to acquaint themselves; and their ignorance he attributes to their unwillingness to learn the true state of the case. By the word of God the heavens were of old] I shall set down the Greek text of this extremely difficult clause : Oupavot nav Ekradat, Kat yn darog rat it daroc OUVETTwra, Ty Tou tow oyu translated thus by Mr. Wakefield: "A heaven and an earth formed out of water, and by means of water, by the appointment of God, had continued from old time." By Dr. Macknight thus: "The heavens were anciently, and the earth of water; and through water the earth consists by the word of God." By Kypke thus: "The heavens were of old, and the earth, which is framed, by the word of God, from the waters, and between the waters." However we take the words, they seem to refer to the origin of the earth. It was the opinion | d Gen. vii. 11, 21, 22, 23. Ch. ii. 5. of the remotest antiquity that the earth was formed out of water, or a primitive moisture which ther termed in, hulé, a first matter or nutriment for all things; but Thales pointedly taught apxny de ray TaVTwy Cup Eva, that all things derive their eristener from water, and this very nearly expresses the sentiment of Peter, and nearly in his own terms too. But is this doctrine true? It must be owned that it appears to be the doctrine of Moses: In the beginning, says he, God made the heavens and the earth; and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Now, these heavens and earth which God made in the beginning, and which he says were at first formless and empty, and which he calls the deep, are in the very next verse called waters; from which it is evident that Moses teaches that the earth was made out of some fluid substance, to which the name of water is properly given. And that the earth was at first in a fluid mass is most evident from its form; it is not round, as has bea demonstrated by measuring some degrees near the north pole, and under the equator; the result of which proved that the figure of the earth was that of an oblate spheroid, a figure nearly resembling that of an orange. And this is the form that any soft or elastic body would assume if whirled rapidly round a centre, as the earth is around its axis. The mea surement to which I have referred shows the earth to be flatted at the poles, and raised at the equato". And by this measurement it was demonstrated that the diameter of the earth at the equator was greater by about twenty-five miles than at the poles. Now, considering the earth to be thus formed & idaroc, of water, we have next to consider what the apostle means by di' idaros, variously translated by out of, by means of, and betreen, the cater. Standing out of the water gives no sense, and shoul be abandoned. If we translate between the waters, it will bear some resemblance to Gen. i. 6,7: And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of, 12 bethoch, between, the raters; and let it diecide the waters from the waters : and God divided the souters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; then it may refer to the whole of the atmosphere, with which the earth is every where surrounded, and which contains all the vapours which belong to our globe, and without which we could neither have animal nor vegetative life. Thus then the earth, or terraqueous giòle, which was originally formed out of water, subsists by water; and by means of that very water, the water compacted with the earth-the fountains of the great deep, and the waters in the atmosphere-the life with eternity, we shall find no difference between windows of heaven, Gen. vii. 11, the antediluvian | earth was destroyed, as St. Peter states in the next verse the terraqueous globe, which was formed originally of water or a fluid substance, the chaos or first matter, and which was suspended in the heavens-the atmosphere, enveloped with water, by means of which water it was preserved; yet, because of the wickedness of its inhabitants, was destroyed by those very same waters out of which it was originally made, and by which it subsisted. long and short. Τα γαρ χιλια, και τα μύρια έτη, στιγμη τις εστιν αοριστος, μαλλον δε μόριον τι βραχύτατον σrypns for a thousand or ten thousand years are but a certain indefinite point, or rather the smallest part of a point." The words of the apostle seem to be a quotation from Ps. xc. 4. Verse 7. But the heavens and the earth, which are now] The present earth and its atmosphere, which are liable to the same destruction, because the same means still exist (for there is still water enough to drown the earth, and there is iniquity enough to induce God to destroy it and its inhabitants), are nevertheless kept in store, renoavioμevoi, treasured up, kept in God's storehouse, to be destroyed, not by water, but by fire at the day of judgment. From all this it appears that those mockers affected to be ignorant of the Mosaic account of the formation of the earth, and of its destruction by the waters of the deluge; and indeed this is implied in their stating that all things continued as they were from the creation. But St. Peter calls them back to the Mosaic account, to prove that this was false; for the earth, &c., which were then formed, had perished by the flood; and that the present earth, &c., which were formed out of the preceding, should, at the day of judgment, perish by the fire of God's wrath. Verse 8. Be not ignorant] Though they are wilfully ignorant, neglect not ye the means of in struction. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years] That is: All time is as nothing before him, because in the presence as in the nature of God all is eternity; therefore nothing is long, nothing short, before him; no lapse of ages impairs his purposes, nor need he wait to find convenience to execute those purposes. And when the longest period of time has passed by, it is but as a moment or indivisible point in comparison of eternity. This thought is well expressed by PLUTARCH, Consol. ad Apoll.: "If we compare the time of Verse 9. The Lord is not slack] They probably in their mocking said, "Either God had made no such promise to judge the world, destroy the earth, and send ungodly men to perdition; or if he had, he had forgotten to fulfil it, or had not convenient time or leisure." To some such mocking the apostle seems to refer; and he immediately shows the reason why deserved punishment is not inflicted on a guilty world. But is long-suffering] It is not slackness, remissness, nor want of due displicence at sin, that induced God to prolong the respite of ungodly men; but his long-suffering, his unwillingness that any should perish: and therefore he spared them, that they might have additional offers of grace, and be led to repentance—to deplore their sins, implore God's mercy, and find redemption through the blood of the Lamb. As God is not willing that any should perish, and as he is willing that all should come to repentance, consequently he has never devised nor decreed the damnation of any man, nor has he rendered it impossible for any soul to be saved, either by necessitating him to do evil, that he might die for it, or refusing him the means of recovery, without which he could not be saved. Verse 10. The day of the Lord will come] See Matt. xxiv. 43, to which the apostle seems to allude. The heavens shall pass away with a great noise] As the heavens mean here, and in the passages above, the whole atmosphere, in which all the terrestrial vapours are lodged; and as water itself is composed of two gases, eighty-five parts in weight of oxygen, and fifteen of hydrogen, or two parts in volume of the latter, and one of the former (for if these quantities be put together, and several electric sparks passed through them, a chemical union takes place, and water is the product; and, vice versa, if the gal |