A Practical Commentary on the Epistle of Jude

1. Because carnal hearts do assimilate all that they meet ¹with, and turn it into the nourishment of their carnal lusts, as the salt sea turneth the fresh Rivers, and the sweet Showers of Heaven into Salt waters, so do carnal men pervert the holy principles of the Gospel, or as sweet Liquors are soon soured in an unclean vessel, so do truths lose their use, and efficacy when laid up in a carnal heart, and are quite turned to anopurpose.

1. Because carnal hearts do assimulate all that they meet ¹with, and turn it into the nourishment of their carnal lusts, as the salt sea turneth the fresh Rivers, and the sweet Showres of Heaven into Salt waters, so do carnal men pervert the holy principles of the Gospel, or as sweet Liquours are soon sowred in an unclean vessel, so doe truths lose their use, and efficacy when layd up in a carnal heart, and are quite turned to anopurpose.

1. 1Reasons.

2. Because they would fain sin securely, & cum privilegio, with a free dispensation from God, and therefore seek by all means to entitle God to the sin, and the sin to God; they would find a great deal of ease from gripes of conscience if they could make God the Author, or at least the countenancer of their evil practices, and therefore when they can rub their guilt upon the Gospel, and pretend a liberty by Christ, the design is accomplished. Augustine often taketh notice, that the Heathens took the most liberty to sin, because ⟨p. 211⟩their Gods were represented as approvers and countenancers of such kind of actions; if men could once make God an approver of sin, and giving leave to satisfy our desires, the design of carnal nature were at an end, and they would be freed of that awe of a divine power which is only left in nature as the check and restraint of sin; and therefore because God hath revealed so much of his indulgence to the fallen creature in the Gospel, they strive to draw all the passages of it that way, as if God had given leave to sin freely.