THE EPISTLE OF JUDE
GENERAL OBSERVATION
Jude is particularly spoken of as the brother of James, perhaps to distinguish him from Judas the Traitor. For otherwise, it was more the custom to speak of the Jews by descent. Jude lived the last of all the Apostles, except John. And it could not be well less than thirty years after Christ's ascension, that he wrote this Epistle. He hath evidently followed the Apostle Peter, in his Second Epistle, and thereby confirmed the words of God, that, in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word shall be established. (Deuteronomy 17:6; 2 Corinthians 12:1)
The design of God the Holy Ghost, in sending this Epistle generally to the Church, seems very evident from its contents. Heresies had at this time sprung up, and the Church was infested with them. It is our mercy, that Jude as well as John, lived to see them. For under God the Holy Ghost, we owe our possession of those blessed Epistles to this cause. And both the origin and support of heresies, we are expressly told, is, that the truth of God may be thereby manifested among us.
I have only to request the reader, that here, as in all the former books of Divine Inspiration, we may enter upon the study of it with prayer, that we may end it in praise!