James Saurin on God’s Will for the Salvation of Sinners¹

1) St. Peter, as we said before, St. Peter meant to refute the odious objections of some profane persons of his own time, who pretended to make the doctrine of a universal judgment doubtful, and who said, in order to obscure its truth, or enervate its evidence, “Where is the promise of his coming, for since the fathers fell asleep all things remain as they were?” 2 Pet. iii. 4. I am aware that this comment is disputed, and some have thought that the destruction of Jerusalem was the subject of this whole chapter, and not the end of the world; but, however averse we are to the decisive tone, we will venture to demonstrate that the apostle had far greater objects in view than the fatal catastrophes of the Jewish nation. This I think clearly appears,

1. By the nature of the objection which libertines made. “Where is the promise of his coming, for since the fathers fell asleep all things remain as they were?” These libertines did not mean that from the beginning of the world the commonwealth of Israel had suffer ed no considerable alteration; they did not mean from that false principle, to draw this false consequence, that Jerusalem would al ways remain as it then was. How could they be such novices in the history of their nation, as not to know the sad vicissitudes, the banishments and the plunderings, which the Jews had undergone? They meant, that though some particular changes had happened in some parts of the world, the generality of creatures had always remained in the same state; thence they pretended to conclude that they would always remain so.

This appears further by the manner in which the apostle answers them in the verses preceding the text. He alleges against them the example of the deluge, “This,” says he, “they are willingly ignorant of, that the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished,” ver. 5, 6. To this he adds, “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the things that are therein, shall be burnt up,” ver. 10. On which we reason thus: The world that was formerly destroyed with water, is the same which shall be destroyed by fire; but the world that was destroyed with water, was not the Jewish nation only: St. Peter then predicts a destruction more general than that of the Jews.

3. This appears further by this consideration. The people to whom St. Peter wrote, did not live in Judea, but were dispersed through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. These people could have but little to do with the destruction of Jerusalem. Whether Jesus Christ terminated the duration of that city suddenly or slowly, was a question that regarded them indirectly only; but the day of which St. Peter speaks, interests all Christians, and St. Peter exhorts all Christians to prepare for it, as being personally concerned in it.

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