V ers. ] 4-19.-Future jvdgment an anti<.:ipaliun of nature and a truth of rei•elution. "To execute judgment upon all," etc. Its declared era is the Lord's advent; its declared functions are those of correction and retribution. "Great swelling words "-the natural language of the errorist and the deceiver. "Very many such words are recorded in Church history, and that, too, as spoken in justification of unbridled lust. Some of the more openly abominable belong to the Gnostic and other antinomian heretics of early times, when men were taught that by faith and what was called knowledge they were raised above all restraints of law and obligations of morality- became, in fact, incapable of sin, and especially so superior to matter and all material influences that no degradation or pollution of the body could possibly affect them in any way whatever, any more than the ocean is defiled by what you throw into it. The later centuries also supply abundant illustrations of the text, as in the arrogant pretensions of popery, the extravagances of the libertines in the Reformation, and the Mormon and• free Jove' and spiritualistic ravings of our own day" (Lillie). ".Mockers" -the class most impervious to grace, the most hopeless to reclaim. Tho rise of s~ch is the most deadly symptom of evil in the Church. But the sins of discontent with 1,rovidence, immoral licence, swelling vanity, cringing servility, and rnaliguant scoffing are n<·ar of kin. "The lack of the Spirit" is the last word in the description of impiety. 1-25.J 'flIE GENI<~RAL EPISTLE OF JUDE. 19
The grnco of that Spirit is the sole guarantee of tho hi 6her life. The loss of that Spirit le the way of death. Vere. 20, 21.-The law of Ohriseian safety-to l1eep ourselvP,s in lh1 fovo llf G0rl. "Keep yourselves in the love of God," etc. 'l'he soul's one asylum and retreat is the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. The act of grace which calls us to the Christian lifo introduces us to the knowledge of that love, and brings us within its pavilion. The sum of all subsequent Christian duty is to be true to it; the sum of all Christian wisdom is to suffer nothing to turn us away from it. But our continuance within it demands that we persevere in building up the structure of a holy life on the foundation of the faith given us; that we nourish and strengthen that life by prayer, and that we keep the eye of expectation on the future. The Christian life, too, is necessarily a progressivtJ life. Growth is its security against decay, and its protection against temptation. An•l the prayer that nourishes and strengthens is prayer in the Holy Ghost -prayer prompted by him, directed in its subjects and its frames by him, interpreted in its deep and unutterable longings by him. "So great is the sloth and coldness of our carnal nature," says Calvin, "that no one can pray as he ought unles~ movcu by the Spirit of God; even as we are so prone to distrust and fear that no one dare call God •Father' save by the dictation of the same Spirit. Hence comes the desire, hence the earnestness and vehemence, hence the activity, hence the confidence of obtaining, hence, finally, those unutterable groanings of which St. Paul speak,. Therefore not without cause does Jude teach them that none can pray as he ought save by the guidance of the Spirit." The judicial decisions of the future am com- mitted to the Son of roan. The hope of mercy in the day of his coming is one of the gifts of the regenerating and sanctifying Spirit. That hope is the light which brighter.s the believet's path in the darkened present, and makes him proof against the seductions of sin and error. The expectation of that mercy is the inspiration of his courage ; it is the call from beyond the stars which maked it easy for him to hold by the love and tr11th of God, and bid away whatever would tempt him to depart from these.
Vers. 22, 23.-The law of <Jhriseian duty to others in times of peril and evil. " And of some have compassion," etc. There is a duty to all, but the duty is not the same to each. Christian wisdom must decide how to distinguish between cases, and to act in each so as at once to seek the good of others and to keep ourselves pure. "Different courses are to be pursued according to their different circumstances, characters, and dispositions. Some must be dealt with sternly, even as that Hymeneus and Alexander, whom St. Paul • delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.' 8ome may be saved by promptness and decision even from the extremity of danger. Some, while they a.waken compassion, must yet be dealt with tremblingly, lest he who seeks to save them himself suffer from the contact. Such is obviously the part of wisdom. An insight into character, and a ready fact in adapting one's efforts to its various phases, is an important qualification in those who would win souls- from the error of their ways. All souls are to be cared for; but not all by the same methods" (Gardiner).
Vers. 24, 25.-Tlte grace of God the believer's first and last dependence. "Now unto him that is able to keep you," etc. Only his power can protect us from our own weakness and sin and error, and make us capable of standing, and purify us for the manifestation of the great day. But that grace is sufficient, and it is at hand to give success to our own efforts in keeping onrselves in the asylum of God's love. "Full of consolation," says the writer immediately quoted," must have been the thought in days when danget· pressed on over): side, and un~odly men, bringing wi_th them all _error of doctrine and viciousness of life, had crept mto the very fold whither the faithful had turned for safety. Equally comforting must it prove in an age when the name of Christ is made the cloak for strange oppositions to his teaching and his example, and when in the wide wilderness of error it is diflfoult to discern the narrow path way of truth.'' 20 THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JUDE. [l-26.