Проповеди и лекции

dear bre- thren, were it in us to think, and very ignorant of God's purposes, were it m us to declare, that the Lord had not provided for the Pmt^-'^tiiut church ii some form of SaUn's uppusition against which sh^ might work and testify when slie had got ematfl cipated from the yoke of Rome. God suSereth If;} 7H£ TURKH UNCLGAK HPlKiTH, 875 not any such idleness : the sword of the Spirit would othcrwiiMs rust ?ind eat into itself, if it were not well uhcd i« the war against principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of tjiis worlds and epiritual wickednesses in high places. GiTC ear then, dearly beloved brethren, while I «nfold to you the nature, and growth^ and ma- tarity of that other spirit which hath fougfht ist us &nd Ji^atnst which wc have fought, and live yet a g(jod warfare to war. 3, Asthfj^poslles Fan) ami John were able todis* cera in their times the working of thatAntichristtan leavenwhichiook four ceoturiesto leaven the lump, and spake boldly out concerning that man of sin, who could not manifest himself uctii the power of itbe monarchical spirit was extinct; so did the elear-sightcd and prophetic Luther foresee from the rbeginning, Iiow soon the work of the Reformation was to be perverted, and with a wonderful sagacity foretold that in three hundred years he judf^ed the Lord would reveal himself against the abounding and Guperabounding wickedness and unbelief of Christendom- Andindeed it maybe laid downfora (:gfitieral rule, that, like as the Lord in the beginning of erery dispensation, as of the human race in paradise, of the rocation of Abraliam out of Canaan, the redemption of Israel out of Egypt, and the descent of the Spirit on the dny of Pentecost, doth set forth what the continuance of that dispensation woald be, if men would but abide faithful ; so Satan likewise, whether in mockery of God, or constrained of fJod for the warning of men, dotli also at the beginning of each dispensation, as in the murder of Abet by Cain his brother, arhd the selling of Joseph into 3 L ^ 670 THK TllRr.k UMCJUSAK SPIKITS. [ft-- E^ypt, and the idolatry of the camp arouod the roots of ^inai, and the budding of anti-Christ in the times of the Apoiftles, set fortli the conti- naancc and perfection of that contrary- mystery of iniiiuity wherBwith he is minded to counter* wurlt that (wrticiilar dbcperisatioii nf llie giKxIiieats of Gad, which bath begun to rati its cour&c. This general, and, I take it, universal maxim, was strikingly exemplified &t the Reformation* the milk of whose first