False Teachers Compared to Clouds Without Rain

    FALSE TEACHERS COMPARED TO CLOUDS WITHOUT RAIN

    "These are wells without water, Clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever, 2Pe 2:17.

    "Clouds they are without Rain, carried about of winds" &c., Jude 1:12.

    As False Teachers are compared to "Wells without Water," so likewise they are to "Clouds without Rain, carried with a tempest," &c.

    PARALLELS.

    I. Some Clouds seem as if they had much Water or Rain in them, though empty: so some False Teachers do seem very like the true and faithful servants and ministers of Christ; they in outward show appear devout, and talk like saints, pretending to much humility and godliness, as if they were the very men that God had appointed to dispense his word, and heavenly truth; but alas! they are but mere empty Clouds, being only filled with airy and unprofitable notions. Some Clouds, as Pliny observes, are nothing else but mere empty vapours, and these are often carried very swiftly with the wind: so False Teachers are carried away as empty vapours, with the wind of delusion or false doctrine.

    II. Clouds prevent or hinder mortals from beholding the glorious shining of the sun, and tend greatly to darken the heavens, so False Teachers obstruct, in a great measure, the glorious Gospel in its light and splendour, from shining upon the souls of men, and tend to darken the blessed light of divine truths, in a nation where they abound, and are countenanced.