Henry Edward Manning

This is a photographic reprint of the original to insure faithfulness to the original. Lecture 1: The Revolt of the Intellect Against God But yet the Son of Man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, faith on earth? By this question our Divine Lord intends us to understand that, when He comes, He shall find many who do not believe, many who have fallen from the faith. It foretells that there shall be apostasies; and if apostasies, therefore that He shall still find the truth; .but He will find also those that have fallen from it. And this is what the Holy Ghost, speaking by the Apostle, has distinctly prophesied. St. Paul says, ' Now the Spirit manifestly saith that, in the last times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error, and doctrines of devils.' Lecture 2: The Revolt of the Will Against God The wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be.' ON looking back at what I have hitherto said, I feel more than ever the difficulty under which I have been, in laying before you a subject which, if it had been treated in detail, with the exactness which a philosophical or a theological argument would require, must have become entirely impossible in such a popular form. But the treating it in a popular form may perhaps lay my statement open to question and to cavil. Between t.hese two difficulties I can only attempt to give a correct outline. I will therefore remind you briefly of what I have said. Lecture 2: The Revolt of Society Against God The nation and the kingdom that will not serve Thee shall perish.' THESE, vords are the promise of God to His Incarnate Son, the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth, which He has redeemed with His precious blood. It, vas to Him also that the words were spoken: 'Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thy enemies Thy footstool.' The Son of God declares of Himself: 'I am appointed King by Him over Sion His holy mountain.' Before He ascended into heaven, our Lord said to His. Disciples, 'All power in heaven and on earth is given unto Me;' and He promised them, s ying, 'I dispose' that is, I give- 'unto you a kingdom, as My Father has disposed unto Me.' Lecture 4: The Spirit of Antichrist If the world hate you, know ye that it hath hated ]fe before you. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.' Mask it as we may, there is an irreconcilable enmity between God and the world. The Christian world may put on the vestments and bear the name of Christianity, but it is the world, after all. Not that t.here is enmity on God's part against the -world; for 'God so loved the world as to give His only - begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.' But 'the friendship of this world is an enemy against God, ' as we have already seen, because it is not subject to the law of God, nor can be.