by which we have receiv'd the most inestimable promises, that thereby you might become partakers of the divine perfections, after having escap'd from the corruption of a sensual world.

but he that is destitute of them is blind or short-sighted, having forgot he was purified from his past sins.

knowing that I must soon leave this tabernacle, as our Lord Jesus Christ has signify'd to me.

we our selves heard this voice, that came from heaven, when we were with him upon the holy mountain.

But you must above all consider, that no prophecy of the scripture did proceed

since he did not spare the old world, having preserved only eight persons, including Noah, that preacher of virtue, when he brought the deluge upon the impious world:

since he deliver'd that just man Lot, who was grieved at the enormous practices of the licentious;

But as for these, they have no more reason than brute beasts that are naturally made for hunting, and slaughter: so these who calumniate what they do not understand, shall receive the reward of their iniquity by perishing in their own corruption.

whilst they promise others liberty, they themselves are slaves to their corrupt passions. for he that is vanquished, is a slave to the conqueror.

for it had been better for them, not to have made any profession of the gospel, than after they have embraced it, to abandon the holy injunction, that was delivered to them.

but the proverb is exactly verified in them, "the dog is return'd to his own vomit: the sow that was wash'd, is wallowing in the mire."

Above all things you are to know, that in these last times, impostors will appear, who will abandon themselves to their own sensual passions, whose cry will be,

but they are wilfully ignorant, that the heavens were originally form'd by the divine Logos, and likewise the earth, which was separated from the water, and still subsists upon it.

But there is one thing, my brethren, you ought to be appriz'd of, which is this, that "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

the Lord does not delay the accomplishment of his promise, as some do imagine. but he waits with patience upon our account, as being unwilling that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

As for that day of the Lord, it will advance like a thief: then the heavens will rush with violence, the boiling elements will be dissolved, and the earth with all its contents, shall be burnt away.

that the patience of our Lord is for your advantage: as our dear brother Paul, according to the information he receiv'd, has writ to you,

as it were in all his epistles, where he takes notice of these things: in which there are some passages that are difficult to understand, which the illiterate, and unstable wrest, as they do the rest of the scriptures, to their own ruin.