Ver. 1. Count their own masters] And not under a pretence of Christian liberty, and because in Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor free, seek to shake off the yoke of obedience that God hath hung upon their necks. See 1 Peter 2:18. That the name of God and his doctrine, &c.] Be traduced as a doctrine of liberty. Heathens lay at the catch, 1 Peter 2:12, spying and prying (as the word εποπτευσαντες there signifies), and imputing all public judgments to Christian miscarriages. Nunc male audiunt castiganturque vulgo Christiani (saith Lactantius, de opif. Dei ad Demet.) quod aliter quam sapientibus convenit, vivent, et vitia sub obtentu nominis celent. Christians are very hardly spoken of to this very day, because their conversation is not as becometh the gospel of Christ, but they think to cover their faults with the fig leaves of profession.
Ver. 2. Partakers of the benefit] i.e. Of Christ who is here called the benefit, as John 4:10, the gift of God.
Ver. 3. If any man teach otherwise] ετεροδιδασκαλει, discover himself heterodox out of af fectation of singularity, &c., as divers do in this licentious age; broaching things different from the received doctrine, as holding it, with Phocion, a goodly thing to dissent from others. Consent not to wholesome words] Words that have a healing prope rty in them. The Scripture (as that library of Alexandria) may be properly said to be the soul’s medicine, η της ψυχης ιατρεια. By the reading of Livy, Curtius, Aventinus, and other historians, many are said to have been recovered of various desperate dise ases. 0 facile et beatum curationis genus, saith John Bodin (de Utilit. Historiae). But the reading of the Holy Scriptures doth a far greater cure than this upon the soul. King Alphonsus, cured of a fever by reading Quintus Curtius, cried out, Valeat Avicenna, vivat Curtius, Farewell medicine, well fare history. May not we better say so of these wholesome words, this doctrine according to godliness, purposely composed for the promoting of piety in the world?
Ver. 4. He is proud] Gr. τετυφωται, he is blow n up, big swollen. Swelling is a dangerous symptom in the body; but much more in the soul. Pride and self-conceit is a bastard (saith one) begotten between a learned head and an unsanctified heart; which being once conceived in the soul, causeth it to swell till it burst asunder with unthankfnlness to God for the bestowing, with envy, scorn, and disdain of men in the imparting of such gifts as may be to them beneficial. Some think that the apostle alludeth here to the wind Typhon, which the ancients held hurtful to men’s wits and senses; so that those that were blasted with it ran mad. Knowing nothing] sc. Aright, and as they ought to know, 1 Corinthians 8:2. [See Trapp on “1Co 8:2”] The Gnostics boasted that they knew all things knowable. Irenaeus saith, that they were so besotted with an opinion of themselves, that they accounted their own writings to be gospel. Such self-admirers also were the Illuminates (as they called themselves), the Manichees, the Novatians. And such are now the Jesuits, the sectarians, &c.; and other male feriati fanatici, who lest they should not be reputed to know something unknown to others, profess skill beyond the circumference of possible knowledge. Doting about questions] Gr. Question sick. As the schoolmen, and our new questionists. But God loveth curristas non quaeristas, saith Luther. And strifes of words] λογομαχιας, frivolous questions and quarrels. The wit of heretics and schismatics will better serve them to dev ise a thousand shifts to elude the truth than their pride will suffer them once to yield and acknowledge it.
Ver. 5. Perverse disputings] ταραδιατριβαι, endless and needless discourses and exercises, opposite to those above, 1 Timothy 4:13-15. The Greek word signifieth galling one another with disputes, or rubbing one against another, as scabbed sheep will, and so spreading the infection. Of men of corrupt minds] That lack not time but waste it, aliud agendo. As Lactantius saith of some brain sick idolaters in his time, they feigned what they pleased, and then feared what they feigned; so many conceit what they like, and then think themselves bound to justify their wild conceivings. From such withdraw thyself] Gr. αφιστασο, stand off, keep at a distance, as you would from one that hath a plague sore; say of them to yourselves and others, as Austin doth of certain heretics, Illi garriant, nos credamus. Let them prate as they please, let us hold fast the faithful word.
Ver. 6. But godliness with contentment] True piety hath true plenty, and is never without a well contenting sufficiency, a full self-sufficiency. The wicked in the fulness of his sufficiency is in straits, Job 20:22. Contrariwise the godly in the fulness of their straits are in an all sufficiency.