Vars. 3, 4.-Error not to be trifled with, but to be earnestly dealt with. "It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith," etc. Least of all is the kind of error which acts upon the moral life to be lightly thought of or suffered to pass unchallenged. One of the most difficult, yet most imperative, of the Christian duties is to admonish and fortify brethren who are ready to yield to the seductions of error. The bond of a "common salvation" of which we are partakers together, pledges us to the discharge of such duty. The" faith" is the deposit of truth. 'l'he message of Christ is spirit and life. But the new spirit and the new life, in which the power of his gospel consists, rise out of the facts and truths of revelation, and work through these. To the Church universal, the whole body of believers, has been committed, therefore, a sacred deposit of truth, here called the faith, embracing evangelical history, doctrine, and precept. This body of truth is a permanent trust. It has survived the ti1Des of the Church's greatest declension, and by it she has lived. It is her chief advantage and distinction, as the possession of the "oracles of God " was the chief advantage of the Jew over the Gentile (Rom. iii. 2). It is something delivered to us, not elaborated by our own thought. How great the responsibility attaching to our stewardship therein! The trnstee's duty is to keep this deposit intact, to protect it agaiust corruption, and to hand it on to others.
Vere. 5-7.-The invasion of the Church by error is no accident or S'Urprise. "I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this," etc. It is not to be taken" as though some strange. thing happened" (1 Pet. iv. 12). Faith is apt to be staggered or darkened by it. Yet it is to be anticipated. It has been the subject of prophecy, It is provided for in the Divine guidance of the Church, and it works to its own retribution. The history of God's ways, too, is the best corrective for faith's perplexities and fears in presence of the march of error. The hi.story shows that what is, is only that which also has been. The dread things in its record bear witness to the fact that victory is not on the side of evil, but tha.t there is a defeat pre- determined for it-a. penalty which follows it by a certain law. God's terrible deeds in righteousness attest the temporal punishment of sin. The Old Testament history, in which these are registered, is the nurse of a faith which should be humble, strong, iourageous, hopeful. To neglect it is certain loss. It is gain to be "put in remem- brance" of it. "Them that believed not "-the explanation both of the sin, and of the destruction of the generation in the wilderness. So the evil heart of unbelief is the final secret of guilt and error, the hidden laboratory of all perversions of truth and all depravations of the moral life, the subtle inspiration of enmity to God and defiance to law. Vers. 8-11.-The mutual dependence of belief and life. '' Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the ilesh," etc. Religion is the streugth and securit.y of morality. M )rality is the outcome a11d flower of religio11. 'fhere must be some relation, therefore, JUDE, Q 18 THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JUDE. [l-25,
between the truth of the religions belief 1111d the purity Rlld elevalion of the moral life. A doctrine 0f G0d and things Diyine which becomes mistaken, imperfect, or corrupt,, cannot but affect the conduct which a man allows himself. A life of licence is the natural result of II denial of God a.nd Christ. Morals arc imperilled and impaired ns !!pirit,nal trut,h is scorned or depraved. The abuse of grace is the most fatal canker in the Church. The corruption of the best is the worst. 'l'he angel that fnlls becomes 11 devil. The grnce of God, corrupted, is tumed t( la.~civionsness. The liberty of the gospel, when perverted, becomes an occasion to the flesh. Humility is the true note of dignity. 'l'be highest natures are the most modest 11nd self-restrained; the lowest and most ignorant, the rashest and the most self-willed. Reverence is the safeguard both nf faith and of virtne. The latest developments of error and unbelief are no novelty. The corruptions of Jude's time were but the corruptions of ancient days. The evils ...-hich crept into the primitive Chnrch of Christ were but the renewals of the "way of C'.ain," the "error of Balaam," the" gainsaying of Korab." Sin only repeats itself as it perpetuates itself. Under many new forms we recognize only the old sins of envy avarice, and pride. '
Vers. 12, 13.-.A perfect Church a vain expectation. "These are spots iu your feasts of charity," etc. 'l'he teaching of our Lord's great parables gives us no warrant to look for II perfect Church till the end. Popular ideas of the purity of the primitive Church are far from being borne out by fact. The New Testament writings themselves, especially the Epistles to the Corinthians, the Pastoral Epistles, Jude, 2 Peter, and the Apocalypse, indicate with the utmost plainness how mixed the early Churches were, and to what an extent they suffered from grievous and varied evils. Neither have we any scriptural warrant for setting up impracticable terms of admission to the Christian Church, or impracticable conditions of discipline within it. 'l'he facility with which the most sacred usages and ordinances admit of abuse, e.g. the perverBion of the simple and beautiful institution of the love-feasts, shows the necessity of jealous watchfulness over ecclesiastical practice, and the wisdom of denying ourselves the most appropriate forms for the expression of Christian life and worship, when these become misunderstood, lifeless, or associated with evil. The most fatal form of selfishness is the selfishness which takes advantage of religion, and assumes the cloak of spirituality. Mark Jude's lurid picture of the brood of deceits, sensualities, and blasphemies that spring from it. Study, too, his equally lurid picture of the degradation, the emptiness, the death- in-life of such a life--the treacherous hopes like rainless clouds with which it beguiles and embitters, the barrenness worse than that of exhausted autumnal trees to which it is doomed, the shame which is the issue of its passionate licence.-There is a double punishment of fleshly sins. Their retribution comes in the penal law which ·works in nature and makes them in part their own avengers in time. It comes, too, in the nameless awards of eternity, which are in reserve.