"This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: (2) That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: (3) Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, (4) And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. (5) For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: (6) Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: (7) But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."
If there were no other authority than what the opening of this Chapter affords, in testimony, that the Apostle Peter is the inspired writer of it; this would be enough. For it proves, first, that he had written a former Epistle; secondly, that it was to the same persons to whom he sent his first, and in both which he calls them beloved; and, thirdly, he tells them, that the object of both was one and the same, to stir up their-minds to remembrance. And his adverting both to the Prophets of the Old Testament, and to himself and his brother Apostles under the New, shews what a beautiful harmony is in both.
Reader! it is worthy your observation, how much the Apostle's mind was directed by the Holy Ghost, to admonish the Church of the latter-day heresy, and of heretics. Scufflers are very awful characters. And nothing can more pointedly manifest the bitterness of the heart. The scoffing of men is, in human nature, in correspondence to the hissing of the serpent in his. The devil is the author of both. But we have not simply the sneer, but the contemptuous language of the enemy to contend with. Where is the promise of his coming? Alluding to what Jesus said before his departure. John 14:3. And so blind, and given up to a deluded mind, are such men; that God's Covenant with the earth, which he made after the destruction by the flood, and which the Lotto frequently alludes to, in confirmation of his Covenant of grace, they pervert to the very reverse of the Lord's intention. Every man upon earth is this day a living testimony of the former. Genesis 8:21-22. And God makes this an argument for the belief of the latter. See Jeremiah 31:35-36. with Genesis 9:11-15
But what I more particularly desire the Reader to notice, in confirmation of this Covenant m Christ, as all along shadowed forth, under every dispensation, and more especially in this of Noah is, that the Holy Ghost, by Peter, refers to it in this very scripture. He expressly declares, that this ark, in which Noah and his family were saved, represented Christ, while the Patriarch and his household represented the Church. And however inattentively regarded by men, and though, according to philosophers, the rainbow may be accounted for on physical principles, yet God, from the first, designed, it as a token of his Covenant. And every child of God ought to regard it as such, upon every renewed occasion, when that beautiful arch is seen by him in the heavens. God saith, that he will took upon it, and remember his everlasting Covenant, and so ought all his people, Genesis 9:11-16. And it is a further inducement for the child of God so to do, not only to bear him up against all the sin and folly of scoffers, but to lead his heart on to the contemplation of Jesus, whom that bow represents, The New Testament Church, in, and through, the ministry of the beloved Apostle, is invited to behold that Rainbow which John saw round about the throne, meaning Christ, Revelation 4:3. And this representation of Jesus was intended to teach, that as it encircled the throne, so that no dispensations can issue from the throne but what must pass through it, neither can any manifestations of God, in all the departments of nature, providence, grace, or glory, come forth, but in, and through Christ. Yea, all the views of Jehovah, with which he beholds his Church, must be in, and through Him. Reader! what a thought is this to refresh the soul of the regenerated child of God, not only against the blasts of ungodly-scoffers, but under all the exercises and trials which the faithful meet.