About the same time that the paper on Jude 4 appeared in print I received a letter from M–, Reading, Pa., reading as follows:

" In your articles on Jude, now running in help and food, I would like you to answer these questions:

" (a) Does the apostle teach that these apostates (in verse 4) at one time in their lives possessed divine faith in their souls ?

" (b) They must have had the grace of God ere they could have turned it into lasciviousness; and if they had grace at one time, how could they get it apart from faith ?

"(c) If these things are so, a soul can once have faith, lose the faith, and eventually be lost."

I think (a) is fully answered in the paper referred to (see June Help and Food). But I merely add that these men were ungodly, who had crept in with a view to leading astray the people of God. Who could conceive of such as these ever possessing divine faith in their souls ? Observe, they were false from the start; otherwise they would not have "crept in." Like the "creeping things" of Lev. ii:29-31, they were ever unclean.

As to the statement made in (b), the questioner misses the force of the word " grace " as here used. " The grace of God" is here synonymous with "the gospel of God." They perverted the message of God's favor toward guilty men by professing to believe the glad tidings of grace while living in sin, and teaching others to put license in the place of true Christian liberty. The questioner's premise here being unsound, the question based upon it becomes irrelevant.

As to (c), what has been supposed throughout is not according to the truth of God, which assures us of the abiding character of divinely-imparted faith. The word received is the " incorruptible seed." The life communicated is " eternal life." Consequently the believer shall never perish.

I would earnestly urge M– to send to the Publishers for three very helpful pamphlets entitled, " Fallen from Grace; or, Castaway," by W. Barker; "Final Perseverance:What Is It?" by C. H. M.; and "The Perseverance of the Saints," by F. W. Grant. The three will be sent postpaid for 15 cents, and, if all are studied prayerfully over an open Bible, may prove to be one of the best investments ever made. H. A. I.