Milner: Rev. Joseph Milner. An English authority on church history, and author of a comprehensive "History of the Church of Christ" (5 vols.) from which the excerpts in the text are taken.
5. Commentary on the Passage from Jude:—The passage quoted in the text—"For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men." etc. (Jude 4), has given rise to discussion, the question at issue being as to whether the principles of pre-appointment or fore-ordination is here involved. A hasty and casual reading of the passage may suggest the inference that the "ungodly men" referred to had been appointed or "ordained" in the providence of God to sow the seeds of discord and dissension in the Church. A careful study of this scripture shows that no such inference is warranted. The "ungodly men" "who were before of old ordained to this condemnation" were men who had already, i. e., previously, been denounced, proscribed and condemned for the very heresies which now they were endeavoring to perpetuate in the Church, they having crept in unawares, or in other words, they having become members of the Church by false pretenses and profession, and being able because of their membership, to spread their false teachings more effectively. Dr. Adam Clarke, in his Bible Commentary, thus treats the passage under consideration:
"For there are certain men crept in unawares." They have got into the church under specious pretenses, and when in, began to sow their bad seed.
"Before of old ordained: Such as were long ago proscribed and condemned in the most public manner; this is the import of the [original] word in this place, and there are many examples of this use of it in the Greek writers."
"To this condemnation: To a similar punishment to that about to be mentioned.
"In the sacred writings all such persons, false doctrines and impure practices have been most openly proscribed and condemned, and the apostle immediately produces several examples, viz., the disobedient Israelites, the unfaithful angels, and the impure inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. This is most obviously the apostle's meaning, and it is as ridiculous as it is absurd, to look into such words for a decree of reprobation, etc., such a doctrine being as far from the apostle's mind as from that of Him in whose name he wrote."—(Clarke, "Bible Commentary," Jude 4.)
In the Revised Version of the New Testament the passage is rendered thus: "I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in privily, even they who were of old set forth unto this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ."
CHAPTER IV.
**Causes of the Apostasy.—External Causes Considered**.
1. We are now to consider some of the principal causes contributing to apostasy from the Primitive Church and leading later to the apostasy of the Church as an earthly institution; and we are to study the manner in which those causes have operated.