Reflections on the certainty of the Christian religion. 251 IMPROVEMENT. ii. verse MAY that uncertainty, that frailty and brevity of human life, SECT. which the ministers of Christ are frequently inculcating upon others, be seriously considered by themselves. Let them remember, that they must quickly put off this tabernacle, and be 14 dismissed from their present state of service; and while they have opportunity therefore, let them stir up the minds of the peo- 13 ple committed to their charge, by way of remembrance, and give diligence to make such impressions upon their hearts, that when they themselves are laid down in the silence of the grave, and sleeping among the clods of the valley, by the recollection and improvement of the lessons they taught, survivors may be quick- 15 ened in their preparation to quit their dissolving tabernacles likewise, and to follow their pious leaders into the joy of their Lord. It must undoubtedly yield us an inconceivable satisfaction as Christians, that we have not followed cunningly devised fables; 16 that the persons on whose testimony we rely as an authentic evidence to the truth of our holy religion, were eye witnesses of the illustrious facts on which it is founded; and particularly, that important oracle, the voice from heaven, by which the true and 17, 18 living God declared Jesus of Nazareth to be his well beloved Son, and recommended him to the obedient regard of all who reverence his own authority, was, on the mount of transfiguration, distinctly heard by Peter, James, and John; who at the same time were eye witnesses of his glory. Yet are we bound to acknowledge the Divine oracles of the Old Testament, and the numerous and various prophecies they contain, to be to us a superior, a more sure and incontestible evidence: let us therefore take heed to it, as a glorious light to our feet, and lamp to our paths. And let what is particularly said of the ancient prophets recommend to our regard the whole sacred volume; namely, that it was not written by private impulse, but by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Let us receive it with the profoundest humility, not as 20 the word of man, but as it is in deed and in truth the word of God, which is able to make us wise unto salvation; and let us follow its sacred illumination, till as length it conduct us to the dawning of an eternal day, and to the rising of that bright and 21 morning star, which will shine out hereafter with the full glory of the Sun of righteousness. 252 SECT. iii. 2 Pet. The apostle cautions Christians against false teachers; SECT. III. The apostle cautions Christians against false teachers; mentioning the judgments which God executed on the fallen angels, on the old world, and on Sodom, and the deliverance of Noah and of Lot, as considerations which should, on the one hand, terrify the ungodly, and on the other, comfort and establish the hearts of good men. 2 Pet. II. 1–9. 2 PETER II. 1. HAVE observed to a a 2. PETER II. 1. UT there were B damnable heresies, Divine impulse that the prophets delivered false prophets also among the peoand wrote their predictions in former times; ple, even as there ii. 1 but they were not always regarded in a becom- shall be false teaching manner; for there were also false prophets ers among you, who among the people of the Jews, as there shall privily shall bring in also be among you, the disciples of a greater even denying the Master than Moses; false teachers, who will Lord that bought make parties among you, and privately intro- them, and bring upduce pernicious and destructive heresies, even destruction. denying the Lord who bought and redeemed them; as those false prophets denied the God who had redeemed Israel from its bondage and misery; but they will at last be found in the same dreadful circumstances, bringing upon on themselves swift son of whom the 2 themselves swift destruction. And yet many 2 And many shall There were also false prophets among the served in the Introduction. He supposes people.] Dr. Sherlock, (the late bishop of it might be transcribed, or translated by London, has observed in his first disserta- them, from some Jewish or Hebrew book tion, at the end of his discourses on prophecy, that remained among them. See the episthat there is a sensible difference, not so tle of Jude, note . much between the first and second epistles As there shall also be among you.] of Peter, as between this second chapter, 'Hence Mr. Mede, I think somewhat prewhen compared with the first and third. cariously, infers a similitude between the This chapter abounds in pompous words errors propagated by the false prophets aand expressions. It is a description of mong the Jews, and those which were to false teachers, and seems to be extracted overrun the Christian Church; and infrom some Jewish writer, who had given stances in image worship, and the wora description of the false prophets, either ship of departed saints and heroes, custhose of his own time, or those who had tomary in the church of Rome. Mede in lived before him. This remark accounts loc. Dr. Whitby applies all these things for the great resemblance between this to the Nicolaitans, and Gnostics, who chapter and the epistle of Jude; as was ob- were a branch of them. Who should be punished like the fallen angels: words make mer : 253 2 Pet. ii. 3 infected with their disorders, or the vices of a SECT. 3 And through few, were to be imputed to all. And as for iii. covetousness shall the false teachers I mention, they will order they with feigned both their teaching and their conduct by views chandise of you and maxims of covetousness, and with deceitful whose judgment words will make merchandise of you, trafficking now of a long time lingereth not, and as it were for your immortal souls. These are their damnation wretches, whose judgment for a long time delays slumbereth not. not, but advances apace; and their destruction does not slumber; how fondly soever they may dream of escaping it. But if they consider the numerous examples God has already given, of his righteous indignation, they must cer4 For if God spar- tainly take the alarm; For if God did not 4 ed not the angels spare the angels that sinned, but, having cast them down to hell, [them] down from heaven, and sunk them to and delivered them the abyss of hell, delivered [them] to be reserved into chains of dark in chains of darkness, to the judgment of the great and terrible day of account; we may from hence reasonably conclude, that he will find out a proper season to punish wicked men, the confederates and instruments of those that sinned, but cast ness, to be reserved unto judgment; Does not slumber.] Mr. Blackwall observes, that this is a most beautiful figure, representing the vengeance that shall destroy such incorrigible sinners, as an angel of judgment pursuing them upon the wing, continually approaching nearer and nearer, and in the mean time keeping a watchful eye upon them, that he may at length discharge an unerring blow. See his Sacred Classics, Vol. I. p. 297. Did not spare the angels, &c.] Some have imagined this to be an imperfect sentence: I think it complete in the 9th verse. But as the length of the sentence is so necessarily increased, by such a method of paraphrasing as I have chosen, (though brought into the narrowest limits, which were judged consistent with answering the end,) I have thought it proper here, and in many other instances, to divide what, in the original, makes one sentence, into several; else I must have left many passages of the sacred writings far more intricate than I found them. cannot but think that the word raplagoas is illustrated by the description given of Tartarus in Homer (Iliad., Lin. 13— 25,) as a deep gulph, under the earth, where there are iron gates, and a brazen entrance. It is derived from a word expressive of terror, and signifies the doleful prison in which wicked spirits are reserved, till they should be brought out to public condemnation and execution. In chains of darkness.] It has been queried, how the confinement of these unhappy spirits in chains of darkness, is consistent with their wandering up and down in the air, and upon earth. I think we are to answer, not by saying, that the darkness is moral, or that the light is disagreeable to them, as some have suggested; (compare Reynold's Inquiry concerning the Angelic World, Query xxx. p. 191 ;) but rather, that a general confinement may be reconcileable with some degree of liberty, yet still liable to restraint, as God shall see fit. Compare Luke viii. 31; Rev. xx. 1, 3. And this air, over which they Cast [them] down to hell.] Mr. Mede seem indeed to have some power somewould translate the words, When God had times granted them, (Eph. ii. 2,) is to be condemned the angels that sinned to the punish- sure darkness, when compared with the ment of hell, he delivered them into chains light in which they originally dwelt. of darkness, to be reserved to judgment. I 1 254 iii. 2 Pet. And in like manner as the cities of the plain. SECT. rebellious spirits. And indeed the history of 5 And spared not mankind furnishes us with many awful instan- the old world, but saved Noah the eighth ces of this kind; and one, in which almost the person, a preacher of ii. 5 whole human species was made the monument righteousness, bringof Divine displeasure; for when God had ing in the flood upon been long insulted and provoked by their the world of the uncontinued wickedness, we know that he spared godly; not the inhabitants of the old antediluvian world. Nevertheless, it is worth our while at the same time to observe the favourable manner in which God interposed amidst the general ruin, for the preservation of the only good man that remained; for he kept Noah, the eighth [person,] who was a preacher of righteousness, and seven others, who were with him in the ark, when he brought the irresistible destruction of the universal deluge upon the whole world of the ungodly, and destroyed all the impious wretches who had derided the admonitions of that faithful patriarch. 6 And in a succeeding age, when the inhabit- 6 And turning the ants of those places were sunk into the lowest cities of Sodom and degeneracy, he condemned the cities of Sodom Gomorrah into ashand Gomorrah, with the most dreadful destruc- with an overthrow, es, condemned them tion, reducing them to ashes, by raining down making them an enfire and brimstone from heaven upon them; sample unto, those that after should live setting [them] as an example and pattern of that ungodly; final vengeance he will bring on those sinners who should afterwards be ungodly, that they might learn their own condemnation and misery from the memorials of the destruction of those once noble, pleasant and flourishing cities 7 of the plain. And by the miraculous interposition 7 And delivered The eighth [person] a preacher of right- both might give, Dr. Winder has finely cousness.] Bishop Pearson would render represented. Winder's History of knowthis clause, Noah the eighth preacher of righteousness; supposing, that Enos was the first, (Gen. iv. 26,) from whom Noah was the eighth; that all the intermediate persons bore the same office, and that Christ preached by them all. 1 Pet. iii. 19; Pears on the Creed, p. 113. To which Bishop Cumberland assents, supposing God had a continued succession of extraordinary persons in the patriarchal church. Cumb. on Gen p. 49. But I think it certain, that Enos could not be the first preacher of righteousness: Adam was in a wonderful manner fitted to perform that of fice in the first world, as Noah was in the second; and what excellent instructions ledge, Vol. I. p. 17, &c. p. 81-92. Bishop Pearson adds, that if we are not disposed to refer door to xxpuxa, and translate it, the eighth preacher of righteousness, it may be understood as denoting, not the order in which Noah was ranked, but merely the number of persons that were with him, Noah with seven others, or Noah one of eight; and accordingly I have determined it to this sense in the paraphrase. The Bishop hath produced several passages in the Greek classics in support of this sense of the word: and others may be seen in Raphelius. Compare also 1 Pet. iii. 20. Reflections on the destruction of the old world, &c. 255 2 Pet. just Lot, vexed with of his Providence, he rescued righteous Lot, SECT. the filthy conversa- who was so long grieved and afflicted by the iii. tion of the wicked: lascivious conversation of these lawless men. 8 (For that righteous man dwelling For that righteous man, while he dwelt amongii. 8 among them, in see-them, seeing and hearing from day to day, the ing and hearing, instances of their profligate and abandoned vexed his righteous soul from day to wickedness, tormented his upright soul by day, with their un- [those] unlawful and scandalous works, whose lawful deeds :) cry came up at length to heaven, and brought down upon them this flaming destruction. 9 The Lord know. And thus on the whole, we discern in this 9 eth how to deliver memorable example, that on the one hand, the godly out of temptations, and to The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from reserve the unjust temptation and danger, and on the other, to reunto the day of judg- serve the unrighteous to the day of judgment to ment to be punish- be punished with a severity becoming their guilt and wickedness. ed. IMPROVEMENT. THERE is no church so pure, but some false members, and even verse false teachers, may insinuate themselves into it; yet it is our 1 duty to watch and pray, that the churches to which we respectively belong, may be guarded against their pernicious insinuations, and especially against the destructive heresies of those who deny the Lord who bought them. As we regard the edification of the church, and the salvation of our own precious and immortal souls, let us guard against whatever may justly deserve such an imputation as this. Wo be to those teachers who are actu- 3 ated with a covetous spirit, who teach things which they ought not for the sake of filthy lucre, and make merchandise of the souls of their hearers! How swiftly does their damnation approach, though they perceive not the gradations by which it advances; and with what irresistible terror will it at length overwhelm them! That our hearts may be preserved under an awful impression 4 of the Divine judgments, let us often meditate on those displays of them of which the scripture informs us. And let us, in particular, reflect on the fall of the apostate angels, who were, for their first offence, precipitated from heaven, and reserved in chains of darkness to the judgment of the great day; and while we contemplate this awful dispensation, let us adore that distinguishing grace and compassion which laid hold on apostate man, and provided an all sufficient Saviour for him. Let us call to 5, 6 remembrance the dissolution of the old world by a deluge of water, and the tremendous destruction of the cities of the plain by fire from heaven; and let us fear that God, who can at pleas ure break open the fountains of the great deep, and open the |