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Our apostle having asserted in the former verse, that Christ will at the great day convince and judge all the ungodly; in this verse he declares that these seducers were of the number of the ungodly, whom Christ will certainly judge, because they were murmurers, complainers, discontented with, and always complaining of, their lot and present condition; because they had not as much as they desired, they murmured against God, as if they had nothing; walking after their own lusts, contrary to the restraint of nature, and the laws of God: their mouth speaking great swelling words.
It has been the constant course of heretics to speak high, and talk big, like mountebanks, hoping thereby to set off and put off the better their counterfeited and false wares; he is no wise man, whom great swelling words will seduce from the ways of wisdom. Not the words of the speaker, but the weight of what is spoken, is to be minded; yet though they talked these swelling words to their inferiors, at the same time they could flatteringly admire the passions and actions of others, from whom they expected any benefit or advantage: having men's persons in admiration because of advantage.
Now from the whole of this large character, which St. Jude here gives of these heretical seducers and false teachers, we learn that miserable and most deplorable is the condition of the misled followers of seducing teachers; the seducer follows his lust, and the follower is led by the seducer. Here the blind leads the blind; God pity them both; When teachers offer themselves to us, we should consider who leads them who are so officious to lead us, and follow them only as they follow Christ; no wise man will set his watch by the clock, but by the sun.