A51839:157
XVIII sermons on the second chapter of the 2d Epistle to the Thessalonians containing…
XVIII sermons on the second chapter of the 2d Epistle to the Thessalonians containing the description, rise, growth, and fall of Antichrist : with divers cautions and arguments to establish Christians against the apostasy of the Church of Rome : very necessary for these times / by that late reverend and learned divine, Thomas Manton ...XVIII sermons on the second chapter of the 2d Epistle to the Thessalonians containing the description, rise, growth, and fall of Antichrist : with divers cautions and arguments to establish Christians against the apostacy of the Church of Rome : very necessary for these times / by that late reverend and learned divine, Thomas Manton ...
London: printed by J.D. for J. Robinson, 1679
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
6. This Apostasy is not only forbidden, but foretold as a thing that would certainly come to pass. This consideration is necessary for divers reasons.
1. Because the Papists ask how this can be consistent with Christs care of his Church, that there should be an Universal Apostasy, and decay of Christian Religion? who hath promised, The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. Answ. That promise is made chiefly to the invisible Church, or community of the Elect, not to all the visible Societies of the Christians, against whom the Devil can and hath prevailed, and doth daily, to the destruction of many Souls. And we say not that the whol• ⟨p. 64⟩visible Church did apostatize, though all are faulty.
2. Because some require the time when this Apostasy began to be particularly assigned, and noted to them, and by what persons these corruptions were first introduced, or else deny that any such thing hath been. But the Case is clear: it began to work betimes, only it wrought in a mystery: but cannot we prove a man to be old, unless we prove the first moment when his grey Hairs began to appear, or his natural force to be abated? Who can tell every step of the progress of the corruption of the Jewish Church, and why should the like be required of the Christian? This Dunghill of corruption was not raised in one Age: and suppose that in tract of time Authors be forgotten, matters of Faith are not to be contradicted because of the defect of History, and yet Histories are not altogether wanting in the Case, only in things that came in by degrees, they are not necessary. In the introducing of the general Apostasy, some erred in the simplicity of their hearts, as the people followed Absalom,