A51839:172
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.
1. Let me begin first with the falling away. There is a twofold falling away, either from the power and practice of Godliness, or from a true Religion to a false, particularly to Popery. 1. I begin with the falling away from the power and practice of Godliness, though the profession be not changed; and the rather partly, because this disposeth to the entertainment of error. When a people that are carried with great fervour and vigour of zeal for a while, lose their affections to good, and return to a worldly sensual life, then the bias of their hearts doth easily prevail against the light of their understandings: And so unsanctified men may the sooner be drawn to Apostasy; they never felt the quickening virtue of Faith, and were never wrought by it to the true love of God, or an holy and heavenly mind and life: And partly also, because if a lively Christianity had been kept up, Antichrist had never risen in the World: And it is the way to keep him 'out still. When the Servants slept, the Enemy sowed Tares, Matth. 13. A sleepy Religion, and corruption of manners, made way for corruption of doctrine, worship, and order: It was with the Church according to the Spouses complaint; I sleep but my heart waketh, Cant. 5.2. Some care ⟨p. 74⟩there was, but much drowsiness and deadness in Religion, and that produced the great Apostasy. Partly too, because there is such a compliance between the nature of Antichristianism, and the temper of a carnal heart: For superstition and profaneness, grow both upon the same Root: A loathness to displease the flesh; the sensual nature of man is such, that it is loth to be crossed, and that breedeth profaneness: For wherefore do men engulf themselves in all manner of sensualities, but because they are loth to deny their natural appetites and desires, and row against the stream of flesh and blood: but will walk in the way of their own heart, and in the sight of their own eyes, Eccles. 11.9. Again, if nature be to be crossed, it is only a little: It •hall only be in some external actions, and observances, and dead rudiments, which neve• kill our lusts, nor promote the divine life: And this pleasing superstition shall make up a Religion, which is a fit pillow for a carnal heart to sleep upon. Popery is the easiest Religion for the flesh that can be found out; for it never biteth nor disturbeth their lusts.