Land of Canaan, &c. see Simpson's Essays, p. 205, &c. But if the common interpretation be admitted, it will not establish the popular doctrine concerning fallen angels. For 1. The Epistle itself is of doubtful authority. 2. From the change of style, this is the most doubtful portion of the Epistle. 3. By those who admit the genuineness of the Epistle, this chapter is supposed to have been a quotation from some ancient apocryphal book, and the Apostle might not mean to give authority to the doctrine, but to argue with his readers upon known and allowed principles. See Sherlock's Discourses, and Benson and Doddridge's Introduction to this Epistle. The Epistle of Jude is supposed to allude to, or to quote from, the same apocryphal work.”

Note to the Unitarian Version.

2 PETER iii, 5.

By the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water." ·

Aquam dixit Thales esse initium rerum,” saith Cicero, "Deum autem eam mentem quæ ex aqua cuncta fingeret."

"Thales said the water was the first principle of all corporeal things, but that God was the mind which formed all things out of water;" for Thales was a Phoenician by extraction, and, accordingly,, seemed to have received his two principles from thence; water, and the divine Spirit moving upon the water. The first whereof is thus expressed by Sanchoniathon, in his description of the Phoenician Theology

Xάos foλεpòv épεbles, a turbid and dark chaos; and the second is intimated in these words ηράσθη το πνεύμα των ιδιων αρχων, the Spirit was affected with love towards its own principles, perhaps expressing the force of the Hebrew word Merachepheth, and both of them implying an understanding prolifical goodness, forming and hatching the corporeal world into perfection; or else a plastic power subordinate to it. Zeno, who was also originally a Phoenician, tells us, that Hesiod's chaos was water, and that the material heaven, as well as earth, was made out of water, (according to the judgment of the best interpreters,) is the genuine sense of Scripture, 2 Peter iii. 5, by which water some, perhaps, would understand, a chaos of atoms confusedly moved.

Cudworth.

Porphyrius testifieth, that the ancient Pagans thought the water to be divinely inspired. "They thought that souls attended upon the water, or resorted thereunto, as being divinely inspired, as Numenius writeth, adding, the prophet also therefore to have said, that the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.' Gen. i. 2.

Cudworth, cap. iv. book i. p. 249.

2 PETER iii. 12. <

"The heavens being on fire shall be dissolved.”

(UNITARIANISM.)

"This, in a literal sense, is impossible, because the heavens are incombustible. Nor is it reasonable to believe, that an event so little countenanced by natural appearances as that of the destruction of the earth by a general conflagration, is the subject of divine prediction. It is well known, that in the language of prophecy, great political changes and revolutions are foretold under the symbol of terrible convulsions in the natural world. In this language, our Lord foretells the approaching desolation of Jerusalem. Matt. xxiv. 29. And in language preeisely similar, borrowed indeed from the prophet Joel, the Apostle Peter himself, Acts ii. 31, describes the calamities of the Jewish nation, which were then impending. It can hardly admit of a doubt, that the sublime language of this context is to be interpreted in a similar manner. The 13th verse is a quotation from Isaiah lxv. 17, where, the new heavens and the new earth are universally understood to signify the Gospel dispensation. Consequently, 'the heavens and the earth which are now,' ver. 7, must necessarily signify the Jewish dispensation or the then moral state of the world, which must pass away to make room for the promulgation of the Christian religion. But this revolution cannot take place without producing great changes and convulsions in the political world, which, in prophetic language, is expressed by the heavens being on fire,

the elements melting, and the earth, with the works

on it, being burned up."

Note to the Unitarian Version.

No. 1.

2 PETER iii. 16.

“ In which are some things hard to be understood.”

(ROMAN CATHOLICS.)

The Roman Catholics conceive themselves warranted by these words, to deny the free use of the Scriptures to the Laity.

In the thirteenth century, when ignorance and superstition held almost unlimited sway, m most of the Expositors, but chiefly the Mystics, extracted, according to their own blind imaginations, what they called the hidden juice or marrow of Scripture.

Brown.

"What was at first, what we heard, what we saw with our eyes, what we observed, and our hands handled, concerning the doctrine of life (for this life shewed itself, and we saw it and bear testi\mony, and declare unto you this eternal life, which was with the Father, and shewed itself unto us,) what we saw and heard we de clare unto you, that ye also," &c.—Wakefield's Translation.

"Concerning the word of life*, him, who was from the beginning †, whom we have heard, whom we have seen with our eyes, whom we have looked upon and our hands have handled, (for the life ‡ was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness, and declare unto you that everlasting life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us:) him whom we have seen and heard, we declare unto you," &c.-Unitarian Version.

"This version of the three first verses of this chapter was proposed by Theophilus Lindsey, in his second address to the students at Oxford and Cambridge, p. 302."

"* The word of life, i. e. Jesus Christ, who is called the Word, Luke i.2. John i. 1, and the Word