Wednesday, December 30, 2009

1599 Geneva Bible: “The Garden of Faith”

2 Peter 1:5-9 (i)Therefore give even all diligence thereunto: (ii) join moreover virtue with your faith: and with virtue, knowledge: (iii) And with knowledge, temperance: and with temperance, patience: and with patience, godliness: And with godliness, brotherly kindness: and with brotherly kindness, love. (iv)For if these things be among you, and abound, they will make you that ye neither shall be idle, nor unfruitful in the acknowledging of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: For he that hath not these things, is blind, and (v) cannot see far off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

i. Having laid a foundation (that is, having laid out the causes of our salvation and especially of our sanctification) now he begins to exhort us to give our minds completely to the use of this grace we have access to. And he begins with faith without which nothing we do can please God, and he warns us to be completely charged up with virtue (that is to say) with good and godly conduct, that is joined with the knowledge of God's will, with out which there is neither any faith or any virtue.
ii. Supply also, and support or aide
iii. He accounts up certain principal virtues, whereof some pertain to the first table of the Law, others to the last
iv. As those fruits do spring up from true knowledge of Christ, so in a similar way the knowledge itself is fostered, and grows by bringing forth such fruits, in as much as he that is unfruitful did either not ever know the true light, or else has forgotten the gift of sanctification which he hath received.
v. He that does not have the effectual knowledge of God in himself, is blind concerning anything to do with the kingdom of God, for he can not see things that are afar off, that is to say, heavenly things.



[The above quoted scripture and accompanying Troy-a-phrased notes are taken from the 1599 Geneva Bible. A version of this great Bible, with modern spelling, may be purchased from the following link]