6: Whose children ye are - In a spiritual as well as natural sense, and entitled to the same inheritance, while ye discharge your conjugal duties, not out of fear, but for conscience' sake.(Ge 18:12).

7: Dwell with the woman according to knowledge - Knowing they are weak, and therefore to be used with all tenderness. Yet do not despise them for this, but give them honour - Both in heart, in word, and in action; as those who are called to be joint - heirs of that eternal life which ye and they hope to receive by the free grace of God. That your prayers be not hindered - On the one part or the other. All sin hinders prayer; particularly anger. Anything at which we are angry is never more apt to come into our mind than when we are at prayer; and those who do not forgive will find no forgiveness from God.

8: Finally - This part of the epistle reaches to (1Pe 4:11). The apostle seems to have added the rest afterwards. Sympathizing - Rejoicing and sorrowing together. Love all believers as brethren. Be pitiful - Toward the afflicted. Be courteous - To all men. Courtesy is such a behaviour toward equals and inferiors as shows respect mixed with love.

9: Ye are called to inherit a blessing - Therefore their railing cannot hurt you; and, by blessing them, you imitate God, who blesses you.

10: For he that desireth to love life, and to see good days - That would make life amiable and desirable.(Ps 34:12), &c.

11: Let him seek - To live peaceably with all men. And pursue it - Even when it seems to flee from him.

12: The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous - For good. Anger appears in the whole face; love, chiefly in the eyes.

13: Who is he that will harm you - None can.

14: But if ye should suffer - This is no harm to you, but a good. Fear ye not their fear - The very words of the Septuagint,(Isa 8:12,13). Let not that fear be in you which the wicked feel.

15: But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts - Have an holy fear, and a full trust in his wise providence. The hope - Of eternal life. With meekness - For anger would hurt your cause as well as your soul. And fear - A filial fear of offending God, and a jealousy over yourselves, lest ye speak amiss.

16: Having a good conscience - So much the more beware of anger, to which the very consciousness of your innocence may betray you. Join with a good conscience meekness and fear, and you obtain a complete victory. Your good conversation in Christ - That is, which flows from faith in him.

17: It is infinitely better, if it be the will of God, ye should suffer. His permissive will appears from his providence.

18: For - This is undoubtedly best, whereby we are most conformed to Christ. Now Christ suffered once - To suffer no more. For sins - Not his own, but ours. The just for the unjust - The word signifies, not only them who have wronged their neighbours, but those who have transgressed any of the commands of God; as the preceding word, just, denotes a person who has fulfilled, not barely social duties, but all kind of righteousness. That he might bring us to God - Now to his gracious favour, hereafter to his blissful presence, by the same steps of suffering and of glory. Being put to death in the flesh - As man. But raised to life by the Spirit - Both by his own divine power, and by the power of the Holy Ghost.

19: By which Spirit he preached - Through the ministry of Noah. To the spirits in prison - The unholy men before the flood, who were then reserved by the justice of God, as in a prison, till he executed the sentence upon them all; and are now also reserved to the judgment of the great day.

20: When the longsuffering of God waited - For an hundred and twenty years; all the time the ark was preparing: during which Noah warned them all to flee from the wrath to come.

21: The antitype whereof - The thing typified by the ark, even baptism, now saveth us - That is, through the water of baptism we are saved from the sin which overwhelms the world as a flood: not, indeed, the bare outward sign, but the inward grace; a divine consciousness that both our persons and our actions are accepted through him who died and rose again for us.

22: Angels and authorities and powers - That is, all orders both of angels and men.