heresies here intended are depicted too minutely to be mistaken. The
heresiarchs are described as immoral, vain and proud, pretending to
superior knowledge and penetration, despising law and government, and
trampling them under their feet.

Toward the close of his second epistle, the apostle remarks, that he
"wrote to stir up pure minds by way of remembrance; that they might be
mindful of the words spoken before, by the holy prophets"--that is, of
the predictions of inspired men, who had forewarned them of those
deceivers--"Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last
days, scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying where is the
promise of his coming?" And he refers them to St. Paul, who had
predicted their rise in the church--"Even as our beloved brother Paul
also, according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you: As
also in all his epistles, speaking in them _of these things_"--He adds
--"Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware,
lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from
your own stedfastness."

The short epistle of St. Jude is little other than a prophetic
description of the same apostasy and its leaders, whom he terms
"ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and
_denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ_--These are
murderers, complainers, walking after their own lusts, and their
mouths speaking great swelling words--But beloved, remember ye
the words which were _spoken before_ of the apostles of our Lord Jesus
Christ; how they told you there should be mockers in the last time,
who should walk after their own lusts."

The errors of Rome are not here intended. They are manifestly errors