Wesley Corpus

W. 21. Fifthly. Those who so effectually know Christ, as by that knowledge to have escaped the pollutions of the world, may yet fall back into those pollutions, and perish everlastingly. For thus saith the Apostle Peter, “If after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” (the only possible way of escaping them,) “they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.” (2 Peter ii. 20, 21.) That the knowledge of the way of righteousness, which they had attained, was an inward, experimental knowledge, is evident from that other expression,-they had “escaped the pollutions of the world;” an expression parallel to that in the preceding chapter, verse 4: “Having escaped the corruption which is in the world.” And in both chapters, this effect is ascribed to the same cause; termed in the first, “the knowledge of Him who hath called us to glory and virtue;” in the second, more explicitly, “the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” And yet they lost that experimental knowledge of Christ and the way of righteousness; they fell back into the same pollutions they had escaped, and were “again entangled therein and overcome.” They “turned from the holy com mandment delivered to them,” so that their “latter end was worse than their beginning.” Therefore, those who so effectually know Christ, as by that knowledge to have escaped the pollutions of the world, may yet fall back into those pollutions, and perish everlastingly. 22. And this is perfectly consistent with St. Peter's words, in the first chapter of his former Epistle: “Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.” Undoubtedly, so are all they who ever attain eternal salva tion. It is the power of God only, and not our own, by which we are kept one day or one hour. VI. 23. Sixthly. Those who see the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and who have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost, of the witness and the fruits of the Spirit, may nevertheless so fall from God as to perish everlastingly.