2 Pet. ii. 4 — 9. If God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to he reserved unto judgment ; and spared not the old loorld, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood, upon the world of the ungodly ; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly ; and delivered just Lot, vexed ivith the filthy conversation of the wicked : (for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds ;) the Lord knoweth hoiv to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.
THERE were in the Apostles' days a set of reli- gious professors, such as, I would fondly hope, scarcely exist at this time. If we take the chapter before us, and the Epistle of St. J tide, and mark the characters which are there portrayed, we shall not know where to look for persons of a similar descrip- tion : or, if we find a few, they are so few and so insignificant, that they have no influence whatever in the Church. If they were at all numerous, we should not wonder that " the way of truth should be evil spoken ofa." But what has been, may be : and, if we be not alive to the dangers of an Antinomian spirit, we may yet see " false teachers amongst us, privily bringing in their damnable heresies, and denying the Lord that bought them, and bringing both on themselves and their followers a swift de- struction1'." One of the most fearful and disgusting
a ver. 2. b ver. 1.