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