prison. They would add also, that spirit here could not be taken for the divine Spirit neither, which was the efficient cause of the vivification of our Saviour's body at his resurrection; because then there would be no direct opposition, betwixt being put to. death in the flesh, and quickened in the Spirit, unless they be taken both alike materially. As also the following verse is thus to be understood, that our Saviour Christ, went without Spirit, wherein he was quickened, when he was put to death in the flesh, and therein preached to the spirits in prison. By which spirits in prison also would be meant, not pure incorporeal substances, or naked souls, but souls clothed with subtile spirituous bodies; as that word may be often understood elsewhere in Scripture.. See Cudworth, p. 805.

It is principally from this passage that the Roman Catholics derive the doctrine of purgatory, or “a middle state of souls, suffering for a time, on account of their sins."

No. 2.

(See Note on Matt. xii. 32. No. 3.)

(UNITARIANISM.)

"By which, after he was gone, he preached unto the spirits in prison."-Unitarian Version.

"i. e. By the Holy Spirit, which after his ascension (see ver. 22,) he communicated to his Apostles,

he preached to spirits, i. e. to persons in prison, to idolatrous heathen, the slaves of ignorance and vice: he thus proclaimed liberty to the captives; Isaiah xlii. 6, 7. xlix. 9. See Mr. Lindsey's Sequel, p. 285, 286."

Note to the Unitarian Version.

1 PETER iii. 20, 21.

"Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh," &c.
(QUAKERS.)

A member of the " Society of Friends" observes, that Peter, (who, he allows, had continued the practice of water-baptism,) changed his views, as his experience in the service of the Gospel increased; and argues, that this description is by no means applicable to water-baptism, which, as it was then administered by immersion, did put away the filth of the flesh.

Mr. Tuke observes, "that the better translation of ver. 20, di udaros, would be, not by, but from or through the water."

(See Notes on Acts x. 47.; Matt. xxviii. 19.;
Matt. iii. 11.)

1 PETER iv. 1.

"Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh."

(CERINTHUS.)

"Cerinthus was one of the earliest and most distinguished seceders from the church. (See Note on Rev. xx, 4.) He taught, that in order to destroy

his corrupted empire, the Supreme Being had commissioned one of his glorious Eons *, whose name was Christ, to descend upon earth, who entered into Jesus' body, which was crucified; but that Christ, had not suffered, but ascended into heaven."

Mosheim.

Eons.-The word aiwv, or Eon, is commonly used by the Greek writers, but in different senses. Its signification in the Gnostic system is not extremely evident, and several learned men have despaired of finding out its true meaning. Aiy, or Eon, among the ancients, was used to signify the age of man, or the duration of human life. In after times it was employed by philosophers to express the duration of spiritual and invisible beings. These philosophers used the word xpovos as the measure of corporeal and changing objects; and aiùv as the measure of such as were immutable and eternal. And as God is the chief of those immutable beings, which are spiritual, and consequently not to be perceived by our outward senses, his infinite and eternal duration was expressed by the term aiwv, or Æon, and that is the sense in which that word is now commonly understood. It was, however, afterwards attributed to other spiritual and invisible beings; and the oriental philosophers, who lived about the time of Christ's appearance upon earth, and made use of the Greek language, understood by it the duration of eternal and immutable things, the space, or period of time in which they exist. Nor did the variations through which this word passed end here; from expressing only the duration of beings, it was, by a metonomy, employed to signify the beings themselves. Thus the Supreme Being was called aiùv, or Æon, and the angels distinguished also by the title of æons. All this will lead us to the true meaning of that word amongst the Gnostics. They had formed to themselves the notion of an invisible and spiritual world, composed of entities, or virtues, proceeding from the Supreme Being, and succeeding each other at certain intervals of time, so as to form an eternal chain, of which our world was the terminating link; a notion of eternity very different from that of the Platonists, who represented it as stable, permanent, and void of succession. To the beings that formed this eternal chain, the Gnostics assigned a certain term of duration, and a certain sphere of action. Their terms of duration were at first called aшvɛs, and they themselves were afterwards metonomically distinguished by that title.-Maclaine's note.

Xenaias of Hierapolis, in opposition to the tenets of Julian, from which it was supposed to follow, that Christ did not suffer in reality, but only in appearance, maintained, that Christ had indeed truly suffered the various sensations to which humanity is exposed, but that he suffered them not in his nature, but by a submissive act of his will.

Asseman Biblioth. Orient. Vatican, tom. ii.

SECOND PETER.

2 PETER i. 21.

"For the prophesy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

(QUAKERS.)

The Quakers draw an analogy between the prophecy of the old and Gospel ministry of the present time, and conceive, therefore, that persons voluntarily undertaking that office, must speak "as they are moved by the Holy Ghost."

(See Note on Gal. i. 1.)

2 PETER ii. 4.

"For if God spared not the angels that sinned.”

(UNITARIANISM.)

"Or, if God spared not the messengers who had sinned, i. e. the spies who were sent to explore the