(Continued from December number, page 322.)

UNHOLY SEPARATISTS.

"These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaks swelling words, admiring persons for the sake of profit. But ye, beloved, remember the words spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they said to you, that at [the] end of the time there should be mockers, walking after their own lusts of ungodlinesses. These are they who set [themselves] apart, natural [men], not having [the] Spirit" (vers. 16-19).

Just as the true servant of the Lord bears not only the doctrine of Christ, but commends himself by the manifestation of the fruits of the Spirit, so Satan's false apostles not only come with the sophistical denial of the truth upon their lips, but there are characteristic signs that soon make known to the godly the presence of these wolves in sheep's clothing. They may attempt to lisp in the voice of the believer, but their habits and ways betray them.

Like the mixed multitude who came up out of Egypt, in company with redeemed Israel, those of whom Jude writes to warn us are murmurers and complainers. Never having learned the initial lesson of subjection to God, they soon find the path of outward obedience to His word unspeakably irksome, for "the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Hence their continual objecting to the plainest precepts of the Holy Scriptures.

Aiming only to please themselves, they walk un-blushingly after their own lusts, using their sacred calling as a ladder to worldly gain and ecclesiastical preferment. Self-denying service for Christ's sake, constrained by His all-conquering love, they understand not, yet resent with indignation the suggestion that greed for mammon and power is the actuating principle controlling them. But He who seeth not as man seeth has searched them through and through, and here records their true character as discerned by those Eyes which are as a flame of fire.

Great swelling words fall glibly from their uncircumcised lips as they boast of human progress and accomplishments, while forgetting the dreadful fact that man's will, till subdued by divine grace, is as much opposed to God as ever it was in the past- even when it nailed His blessed Son to a gibbet and poured contumely on His devoted head. Forgetting His sorrows, they pander to the ordered system of things that slew Him and now fain would adorn His sepulcher.

The fifth count against these deceitful workers is one to which the majority are now so accustomed that it never occurs to them as one of the special signs of the apostasy-"Admiring persons for the sake of profit." The extent to which the public laudation of church dignitaries is often carried (even in their very presence) is shameful and disgusting.* *At a recent meeting, where the writer was one of an audience of about three thousand persons, one D. D. introduced another Rev. Dr. as follows:"For years some of us have sat at the feet of this Gamaliel of the Occident, sometimes wondering, sometimes approving, sometimes venturing for the moment to disapprove, but ever carried at last by this master of men, this mighty brain-worker, to see the strength of his positions and to accede to his views. Such an intellectual genius appears hut seldom in a generation," etc., etc., ad nauseam. The Lord Jesus said. "How can ye believe which receive honor one from another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God only?" It should be added that both lecturer and chairman above referred to were pronounced higher critics.* Adulation is carried to such an extreme as to be positively nauseating; but it is the order of the day, and will become increasingly marked as man is, inch by inch, pushed into the place of God and His Christ, till the full consummation of the Man of Sin of 2 Thess. 2. The deification of humanity and the humanizing of Deity in the minds of men is the natural outcome of all this. How different was the spirit of Elihu, who, having no advantage or profit of his own to seek, could speak with all due deference before the aged, yet with firmness declare, " Let me not, I pray you, accept any man's person; neither let me give flattering titles unto man. For I know not to give flattering titles; in so doing my Maker would soon take me away" (Job 32:21, 22).

Well it is for the soul who seeks to be guided by Scripture to remember that nothing which he beholds on every side was unforeseen by God. Unbelief and apostasy may abound, but nothing takes Him by surprise. Long since, the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ had warned us that the last days would be characteristically days of spiritual declension and departure from the truth. The coming of mockers, walking after their own unholy desires, has long been foretold.

For the simple believer there is both strength and encouragement in this. If he look about him and see, as it were, star after star falling from heaven, teacher after teacher apostatizing from the truth, the love of many waxing cold, with error proudly defiant and apparently carrying all before it, he is apt to be overcome by fear and gloom. Like the prophet, he will be ready to cry, " Truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey" (Isa. 59:14, 15). But he may forget to add, with the same prophet, "The Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no judgment." But let him remember that all that is so solemn in the on rushing tide of evil has been foreknown and foretold long ago by Him who knows the end from the beginning, and he at once begins to take heart. He realizes that he is not to expect anything else. Therefore what he sees but the more firmly establishes him in the truth of Scripture. And, more than that, it is in the time of the end all this iniquity is to come to its height, before being forever overthrown by the personal appearing of the Living Word as King of kings and Lord of lords. Therefore he finds encouragement in the very darkness of the scene to soon expect to behold the still shining-forth of the Morning Star, and later the rising in glory of the Sun of righteousness.

This is the value of prophecy, which is as a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in the heart (2 Peter i:19). Led on by this sure and steady gleam, the humble child of God will not be dazzled by the pretensions, nor disheartened by the influence for evil, of these haughty resisters of the truth, who set themselves apart as a select circle, who have attained to what the commonalty of Christians have not yet reached. There is a spiritual and a carnal separation. The former is separation from evil at the call of the word of God, when to longer continue in some particular association would be unfaithfulness to Christ. The latter is a walking apart in fancied superiority, led on by pride and vainglory. This is what marks out the class Jude is portraying, in the day of their power.

For it should be noted that the apostle evidently traces for us the growth of the apostasy. He begins with evil workers privily creeping in, under cover of a Christian profession. Ere he closes they are pictured as having cast off all fear, as though their very strength made the necessity for it to have ceased. In place of caution and covered tracks, we have superciliousness and hauteur of the superlative degree, even to the forming among themselves of a select separated coterie, who arrogate to themselves all spiritual light and privilege, as well as human learning and scholarship.* *Something of this is seen in the way in which critical rejecters of inspiration write and speak :"All scholars are now agreed that so-and-so is not true, or authoritative"; "No scholar now denies" this or that point for which they are contending. But the simple reader need not think such pretentious expressions have any real weight. Thousands of spiritually-minded scholars reject the so-called "results" of Higher Criticism in toto.*

But great swelling words, even when coupled with the most arrogant presumption, can never overthrow the truth of the Eternal, nor alter the word, "The Scriptures cannot be broken."

Of the word of God, as of the Son of God, it can be said, "Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder." God is silent now, while men blaspheme His name and stumble over His word. Soon He will speak from heaven, when all shall know with whom they have to do!

Then it will be manifested that those who opposed Him, in their pride, were but natural, or soulish, men, bereft of the Spirit. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God:for they are foolishness unto Him:neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned " (i Cor. 2:14). This explains the difficulty many have in regard to believing the great truths of Scripture. They are unregenerate, natural men, attempting to act as ministers of Christ. But their speech betrayeth them. H. A. I.

(To be continued.)