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if down to the roots]; but for the sake of the elect, the Jews, that _they_ might not be utterly destroyed, and for the christians particularly, the days were shortened. These partly through the fury of the zealots on the one hand, and the hatred of the Romans on the other; and partly through the difficulty of subsisting in the mountains without houses or provisions, would in all probability, have all been destroyed, either by sword or famine, if the days had not been shortened." Let us hear Clarke explain how these christians were _scarcely_ saved. "But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." "It is very remarkable that not a single christian perished in the destruction of Jerusalem, though there were many there when Cestius Gallus invested the city; and had he persevered in the siege, he would soon have rendered himself master of it; but when he unexpectedly and unaccountably raised the siege, the christians took that opportunity to escape." Clarke says "_unto the end_" means "to the destruction of the Jewish polity." Therefore when Peter says, the righteous are _scarcely saved_, he had reference to the dreadful judgment which was coming upon "the wicked and ungodly" inhabitants of Jerusalem for shedding the blood of the righteous, and from this destruction the christians escaped with their lives in their hands to the mountains of Judea for safety as Jesus had directed them. They but just escape-- they were _scarcely_ saved. The christians also suffered persecution from the Jews; and Peter draws this inference from it--If we, who obey the gospel of God, have to endure so many persecutions from the Jews--if this judgment begins at us, how much sorer punishment will our enemies have to endure, who obey not the gospel of God? And if we the righteous are scarcely saved from this long-predicted destruction, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear? But how did Peter know that it was at hand? Because the persecutions, which Jesus had given them as a "_sign" or "token_" had then commenced at the house of God. The reader will now perceive that Peter was not speaking of a judgment at the end of time, because the judgment of which he was speaking had then commenced--"_The time is come_." Neither was he speaking of christians generally, nor of salvation in the future world; but of those christians _only_ who lived previous to the destruction of the Jewish polity, and of their being saved with _diffic
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