Chapter III.
Verse 1. This second Epistle (beloved) I now write unto you, in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
Verse 2. That ye may be mindfull of the words which were spoken before by the holy Prophets, and of the commandement of us the Apostles of the Lord and Saviour.
The Analysis.
HE Apostle now making haste to the end of the Epistle, 1. Repeats the scope and aime that he had in writing, in the 1 & 2 verses. 2. He doth again describe those men, of whom he writes this Epistle, that they should beware, verse 3,4. 3. He refutes their [♦]blasphemies, from verse 5. to verse 11. 4. He shewes the use and fruit of his doctrine, which all the faithfull should make of it, from verse 11 to the end. In repeating the end and scope of the Epistle he sets it forth and describes it, 1. By the genus, that it is a putting in remembrance. 2. By the effect, that it stirres up. 3. By the object, that it was directed unto them, that had a pure minde. 4. By the means how to obtaine this effect, namely, those things which were spoken before by the Prophets, and commanded by the Apostles, verse 2. 5. By the manner how all these things might be made the more effectuall: to which purpose he useth a kinde of illustration, namely, that this putting in remembrance was iterated and repeated with an earnest vehemency. This second Epistle I write, and that with a fatherly kind of love, which is intimated in the title which he gives them, when he cals them beloved. Of the putting in remembrance we spake before, chapter 1. verse 12,13. and also of stirring up: Therefore passing over them, we come to the next.
[♦] “blaspemies” replaced with “blasphemies”