Jude 1:9-10 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses… As fire lieth not long in the stubble or in the flax, but the flame breaketh out, so hatred lieth not long in these men's hearts, but breaketh out in evil speeches, and many times. They will speak evil of things they know not. As an image is not seen in water that is troubled, no more is truth in a mind that is malicious, but it sendeth forth with violence all manner of evil speakings. Yet the world is as full of evil speakers as Nilus of crocodiles, as Sodom of sulphur, and Egypt of lice. Can the wound be cured, so long as the iron remain in it? Can the iron be cold, so long as it is in the smith's forge? Can the river cease running so long as the fountain floweth? And can the tongue refrain from evil speaking so long as hatred boileth in the heart? And as the water turneth the wheel, so the heart the tongue. They rail in their ignorance on things which they know not. The birds have no such enemy as the owl; nor the mariner no such enemy as the mermaid; so the learned no such enemy as the ignorant. Saint Peter, speaking of the epicures and atheists of the world, saith, "They knew not, and that willingly." And Paul said of the Gentiles, that they walked "in the vanity of their mind, having their cogitation darkened, and being strangers from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them." As there be degrees in sin, so is there a gradation in ignorance. It is a sin to be ignorant in that we should know, but a greater to be ignorant in that we are bound to know. A man without knowledge is as a workman without his hands, as a painter without his eyes. Only the wise man is a right man; and the man of understanding is only wise. But to proceed, if it be a sin to rail in ignorance, how execrable is it when it is in knowledge! Then it is a double sin. But pride planted it, and envy watered it; they sinned in knowledge, not in ignorance; they said that they knew God as well as God knew Himself. But, to return; most men rail in ignorance; they are like unto Herpasta Socrates, the fool, that having lost her eyes did not believe that she was blind, but thought the house to be dark. So we are blind, and yet will not see it; it is nothing to name the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the twelve Articles of Faith, the two sacraments, but to understand them. Men are not ignorant for want of teaching, but for want of learning; we will not learn. Nay, Jude chargeth them further, that they abused themselves, in that they knew not. Like the Doctors of Ephesus, of whom Paul reporteth thus: "They would be doctors of the law, and yet understand not what they speak, neither whereof they affirm." And also in that they knew; for, saith Jude, "Whatsoever things they know naturally, as beasts, which are without reason, in those things they corrupt themselves"; so that every way they are vile and miserable, as Revelation 3:17. Some things they knew naturally, as beasts that know sweet from sour, good from evil, meat from poison. Where let me distinguish of knowledge, that there is a natural knowledge and a spiritual knowledge; the first of these the apostle calleth the wisdom of the flesh; the second, the wisdom of the spirit. Lastly, he compareth them to beasts; for in many things the wicked are as beasts, if not worse; by creation little inferior to the angels; by conversation much inferior to brute beasts. Let us then no longer live beastly, lest we perish with the beast, but live Christianly, that so we may see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. (S. Otes.) Parallel Verses KJV: Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. |
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