^ Tacitus saith that he did servili animo excrcere imperium per libldincm el scevitiam, 2 Theod. Ub. iii. 15.
360 AN EXPOSITION, WITH NOTES, [VeR. 22, 23.
which separation was a solemn profession how much the church did detest the wickedness.
Ohs. 1. There is a time wlien we may use severity ; ' others save with fear.' Weak physic doth but stir bad humours, not purge them out ; nettles, if gently touched, sting the more ; fair, plausible lectures do hurt to seared hypocrites. There is a time for the trumpet as well as the pipe. When we pipe to men in the alluring strains of grace, and they dance not, then ' Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet,' Isa. Iviii. 1. But who are these others who must be dealt with roughly ? I answer : —
1. The seducers themselves. These must be laid forth in their colours, though the seduced must be pitied: see Titus i. 11 with 13, ' They subvert whole houses, teach things which they ought not ; them rebuke sharply.' The prophet flouteth at Baal's priests, 1 Kings xviii. 27 ; and Christ everywhere giveth the Pharisees their due load : 'Oh! ye generation of vipers,' and 'Scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites.'
2. Those that are hardened, and grown perverse and stubborn. When the iron is blunt we put to the more strength ; softer strains would but harden these more.
3. Those that are secure libertines, wallowing in sin and pleasure. We had need ' put them in fear ;' though it be distasteful to the flesh, it is healthful for the soul. None hate you worse than those that ' suffer sin upon you.' If physic gripe the bowels, it is for your good. If the chirurgeon lance and cut you, yet he doth not hate you.
06s, 2. Observe, this severity must arise from zeal, a desire of God's glory and their salvation. 'Save them with fear,' saith the apostle, 'plucking them out of the fire;' see 2 Cor. x. 8, 'The Lord hath given us an authority for your edification, not destruction,' so that either God will have us use gentle means, or violent to a gentle pur- pose : Titus i. 13, ' Eebuke them sharph^ that they may be sound in the faith.' Well, then — (1.) Take admonitions in good part ,■ it is a sharp- ness needful and profitable ; he is not a friend that dealeth mannerly with you when you are in the fire. (2.) It reproveth the undue use of church censures ; weighty ordinances are not to lackey upon trifles, nor to be prostituted to carnal ends. The ' power of the keys ' is a great trust, and is to be faithfully managed ; we read of abuses of this power in scripture, John ix. 34, and xvi. 2 ; 2 John 10. The watch- men may take away the spouse's veil. Cant. v.
Obs. 3. Again, observe, that fear is a way to reclaim obstinate sinners. It is sweet to use arguments of love, but sometimes we must lay before men the ' terrors of the Lord,' 2 Cor. v. 11 : Paul, an elect vessel, made use of threatenings, 1 Cor. ix. 27. Surely men have a mind to sleep in sin when they would always have us come in the still voice. Dives was more charitable than they would have us to be ; he would fain dismiss a flamy messenger to his brethren, Luke xvi. 27, 28. Sluggish creatures need the goad. In innocency God saw it meet to propound a threatening, and fenced the forbidden fruit with a curse, Gen. ii. 17. If a boisterous lust bear down all milder motives, it is good to scare the soul with threatenings of the law. Fear is good, but the servility or slavishness of it is sinful ; fear itself, or a tender sense of God's wrath and displeasure against sin, is so far from being a sin,
VeR. 22, 23.] UPON THE EPISTLE OF JUDE. 361
that it is a grace rightly conversant with its object. God's wrath and vindicative justice is the proper object of fear, and so it must be looked upon by the converted and unconverted. (1.) For the unconverted : It is the great fault and security that they do not consider what a dreadful thing it is to lie under the wrath and displeasure of God, Ps. xc. 11. There is but a step between them and hell, and they mind it not. Tell them of their danger, and they scorn it. (2.) The con- verted are to fear God's wrath. Mat. x. 28. It is a duty Christ enjoineth to his own disciples. Tlie woi-ds do not only contain a description of the person who ought to be feared, but of the ground and reason why he ought to be feared ; 'Fear him who is able to cast body and soul into hell-fire,' is as much as ' because he is able to cast body and soul into hell-fire,' as appeareth by the antithesis, ' Fear not them that kill the body,' that is, because they are able to kill the body : see also Heb. xii. 28, 29. Though we are not to fear hell as an evil likely to fall upon us, when we are assured of God's favour, yet we must fear it, as an evil which God hath power to inflict, and will certainly upon those that disobey him. We are to fear it so as to eschew it, with a fear of flight and aversation, not with a perplexing and doubting fear.