An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth, and thirty-seventh chapters of…

He that doth not practise according to knowledge what he knows, is like, and worse than a beast that hath no knowledge. For when a beast doth any thing absurdly, he doth like a beast; but when man doth any thing absurdly, he degenerates or falleth from his own form, he doth not like a man, and therefore is worse than a beast. And that's it, I conceive, which the Apostle Jude aims at in the 10th verse of his Epistle, where rebuking a very vile generation of men, Revilers, who speak evil of those things which they know not; he presently adds, But what they know naturally as brute-beasts, in th•se things they corrupt themselves. When he saith, What they know naturally as brute-beasts, his meaning is, what they know in common with beasts, that is, by sense and appetite, which are common to man and beast, (as reason and understanding are common to Man and Angel•:) Now (saith the Apostle) what they know naturally as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves, which brute beasts do not. For these words, as brute beasts, are to be taken in construction and interpretation, with the former part of the sentence, What they know naturally, not with the latter, they corrupt themselves. Their knowledge indeed is no better than the knowledge of brute beasts, natural, but in corrupting themselves they are unlike to, and do worse than brute beasts, who run not to such excesses; yet there is nothing more common in Scripture, than to say that men act the beast, when they sin, and put off those manners which become and are worthy of an ingenuous and rational man. For as man is partaker both of a spiritual and sensitive nature, so he takes his denomination from that part to which in his disposition and conversation he most inclines: Hence he is sometimes called God, or an Angel of God, and sometimes he is compared to the most hurtful of beasts, a Lyon, sometimes to the worst of beasts, to a Fox, to a Wolfe, to a Dog, to a Swine, to a generation of Vipers, to what not, which may put a mark of dishonour and reproach upon him.

He that doth not practise according to knowledge what he knows, is like, and worse than a beast that hath no knowledge. For when a beast doth any thing absurdly, he doth like a beast; but when man doth any thing absurdly, he degenerates or falleth from his own forme, he doth not like a man, and therefore is worse than a beast. And that's it, I conceive, which the Apostle Jude aimes at in the 10th verse of his Epistle, where rebuking a very vile generation of men, Revilers, who speak evil of those things which they know not; he presently adds, But what they know naturally as brute-beasts, in thse things they corrupt themselves. When he saith, What they know naturally as brute-beasts, his meaning is, what they know in common with beasts, that is, by sense and appetite, which are common to man and beast, (as reason and understanding are common to Man and Angel:) Now (saith the Apostle) what they know naturally as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves, which brute beasts do not. For these words, as brute beasts, are to be taken in construction and interpretation, with the former part of the sentence, What they know naturally, not with the latter, they corrupt themselves. Their knowledge indeed is no better than the knowledge of brute beasts, natural, but in corrupting themselves they are unlike to, and do worse than brute beasts, who run not to such excesses; yet there is nothing more common in Scripture, than to say that men act the beast, when they sin, and put off those manners which become and are worthy of an ingenuous and rational man. For as man is partaker both of a spiritual and sensitive nature, so he takes his denomination from that part to which in his disposition and conversation he most inclines: Hence he is sometimes called God, or an Angel of God, and sometimes he is compared to the most hurtful of beasts, a Lyon, sometimes to the worst of beasts, to a Fox, to a Wolfe, to a Dog, to a Swine, to a generation of Vipers, to what not, which may put a mark of dishonour and reproach upon him.