Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 5.djvu/11

TRACTS FOR TIMES.

ADVENT SERMONS ON ANTICHRIST.

SERMON I.
THE TIMES OF ANTICHRIST.

2 Thess. ii. 3.

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that Day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.”

The Thessalonian Christians had supposed that the coming of Christ was near at hand. St. Paul writes to warn them against such an expectation. Not that he discountenances their looking out for Christ’s coming, the contrary ; but he tells them that a certain event must come before it, and till that was arrived, the end would not be. “That Day shall not come,” he says, “except there come a falling away first.”

As long as the world lasts, this passage of Scripture will be full of reverent interest to Christians. It is their duty ever to be watching for the advent of their Lord, to search for the signs of it in all that happens around them ; and above all to keep in mind this great and awful sign which the text speaks of. At this season of the year, then, when we turn our thoughts to the coming of Christ, it is not out of place to review the intimations given us in Scripture concerning His precursor: this I shall now do in several Sermons ; and, in doing so, I shall follow the exclusive guidance of the ancient Fathers of the Church.

I follow the ancient Fathers, not as thinking that on such a subject they have the weight they possess in the instance of doctrines or ordinances. When they speak of doctrines, they speak of them