2:1 But 1 there were false prophets also among the a people,
even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily
shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that
bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
(1) As in times past there were two kinds of prophets, the one
true and the other false, so Peter tells them that there
will be true and false teachers in the Church, so much so
that Christ himself will be denied by some, who nonetheless
will call him redeemer.
(a) Under the law, while the state and policy of the Jews
was yet standing.
2:22 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason
of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
(2) There shall not only be heresies, but also many followers
of them.
2:33 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words
make b merchandise of you: 4 whose judgment now of a
long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
(3) Covetousness for the most part is a companion of heresy,
and makes trade in souls.
(b) They will abuse you, and sell you as they sell cattle in
an auction.
(4) Comfort for the godly: God who cast the angels that fell
away from him, headlong into the darkness of hell, to
eventually be judged; and who burned Sodom, and saved Lot,
will deliver his elect from these errors, and will utterly
destroy those unrighteous.
2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast
[them] down to c hell, and delivered [them] into d
chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
(c) So the Greeks called the deep dungeons under the
earth, which should be appointed to torment the souls of
the wicked in.
(d) Bound them with darkness as with chains: and by darkness
he means that most miserable state of life that is full
of horror.
2:5 And spared not the e old world, but saved Noah the eighth
[person], a f preacher of righteousness, bringing in the
flood upon the world of the ungodly;
(e) Which was before the flood: not that God made a new
world, but because the world seemed new.
(f) For one hundred and twenty years, he did not cease to
warn the wicked both by word and deed, of the wrath of God
hanging over their heads.
2:8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in g seeing
and hearing, h vexed [his] righteous soul from day to day
with [their] unlawful deeds;)
(g) Whatever way he looked, and turned his ears.
(h) He had a troubled soul, and being vehemently grieved,
lived a painful life.
2:9 The Lord i knoweth how to deliver the godly out of
temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of
judgment to be punished:
(i) Has been long practised in saving and delivering the
righteous.
2:105 But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust
of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous [are
they], selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of k
dignities.
(5) He goes to another type of corrupt men, who nonetheless are
within the bosom of the Church, who are wickedly given, and
do seditiously speak evil of the authority of magistrates
(which the angels themselves that minister before God, do
not discredit.) A true and accurate description of the Romish
clergy (as they call it.)
(k) Princes and great men, be they ever so high in
authority.
2:126 But these, as natural brute beasts, l made to be
taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they
understand not; and shall utterly perish in their m own
corruption;
6 An accurate description of the same persons, in which they
are compared to beasts who are made for destruction, while
they give themselves to fill their bellies: For there is no
greater ignorance than is in these men: although they most
impudently find fault with those things of which they know
not: and it shall come to pass that they shall destroy
themselves as beasts with those pleasures with which they
are delighted, and dishonour and defile the company of the
godly.
(l) Made to this end to be a prey to others: So do these
men willingly cast themselves into Satan's snares.
(m) Their own wicked conduct shall bring them to
destruction.
2:13 And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, [as] they
that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots [they
are] and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own
deceivings n while they feast with you;
(n) When by being among the Christians in the holy banquets
which the Church keeps, they would seem by that to be
true members of the Church, yet they are indeed but
blots on the Church.
2:147 Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease
from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have
exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:
(7) He condemns those men, showing even in their behaviour and
countenance an unmeasurable lust, making trade of the souls
of vain persons, as men exercised in all the crafts of
covetousness, to be short, as men that sell themselves for
money to curse the sons of God in the same way Balaam did,
whom the dumb beast reproved.
2:178 These are o wells without water, clouds that are
carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of p darkness is
reserved for ever.
(8) Another note by which it may be known what manner of men
they are, because they have inwardly nothing but that which
is utterly vain or very harmful, although they make a show
of some great goodness, yet they shall not escape
unpunished for it, because under pretence of false freedom,
they draw men into the most miserable slavery of sin.
(o) Who boast of knowledge and have nothing in them.
(p) Most gross darkness.
2:18 For when they speak great q swelling [words] of vanity,
they r allure through the lusts of the flesh, [through
much] wantonness, those that were s clean escaped from
them who live in error.
(q) They deceive with vain and swelling words.
(r) They take them, as fish are taken with the hook.
(s) Unfeignedly and indeed, clean departed from idolatry.
2:209 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the
world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the
latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
(9) It is better to have never known the way of righteousness,
than to turn back from it to the old filthiness: and men
that do so, are compared to dogs and swine.
