‘If the world hate you, know ye that it hath hated Me 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.’ St. John xv . 18 , 19 .

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 there 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 .

This then is the meaning of our Lord’s words when He said to the Apostles, who were becoming daily conscious of the hatred of men against them: If the world hate you, know ye that it hath hated Me before you. “If you had been of the world – servants, friends, flatterers of the world – the world would have loved its own, it would have recognised its own reflection, its own mind, its own livery; but because you are not of the world, but I, by grace and special election, have chosen you out of the world, therefore, for that very reason, because you have My mark, because you bear My name, because, in some degree, you share My likeness; therefore the world hateth you. This enmity is perpetual: it exists at this day, it will exist to the end. Between God and the world there may be an apparent truce; there never can be peace. God is immutable; His perfections cannot change. The world is malicious, and from its malice it will not change; and therefore, as the Apostle says, ‘What participation hath justice with injustice? what concord hath Christ with Belial?’ God, then, when manifest in the flesh, in the person of the eternal Son, was the object of the world’s chief hatred; and the world, after wreaking upon Him all that scorn, derision, insults could effect, nailed Him upon the cross. The shame and the passion of the Incarnate Son of God has been the inheritance of His Church. For what is the Church of Christ but the body of Christ? Or, in other words, it is Christ mystical, the mystical person made up, as St. Augustine says, of the divine Head in heaven and of the body spread throughout the world; ‘one man , one collective person.’ The enmity and the hatred which the world bore to Him has descended from generation to generation, as the heirloom of His body. This, then, is Christ. Now what is Antichrist?

In the beginning I disclaimed all intention of entering into the exposition of unfulfilled prophecies. I am speaking of patent facts under our eyes. They are sufficient, because they give us principles and warnings to govern our conduct. Nevertheless, I must say, in passing, that if there be anything evident in the plain words of Holy Scripture, if there be anything explicitly declared by the Christian Fathers, and anything distinctly taught by the theologians of the Church, it is this; that Antichrist, though taken to express a diffused spirit which pervades systems and incorporates itself in various forms in all ages, nevertheless will be, towards the latter days, impersonated in one who shall be the head and the chief of that Antichristian spirit and system, and shall use all his power against the Name and the Church of Jesus Christ. This I now set aside, as being beyond my purpose. I am speaking of the Antichristian spirit which manifests itself either in individuals or in whole systems, sometimes in whole nations. Just as the electricity which is suspended in the air is breathed unconsciously, so the Antichristian spirit exists in what is called the Christian world in its present fragmentary and divided state. And this is the subject with which tonight I must conclude that which I have endeavoured, but very imperfectly, to say.

I have already drawn out before you the distinction between the world as it was before it had faith in Christ, and as it became when the Christian Faith was received by the nations which were federated in what we call Christendom; and lastly, as it is now, since the world, having once been Christian, has for the last three hundred years been ceasing to be so.

Now, the Apostle has given us three marks of this final and Anti-Christian apostasy from the Faith. The first mark is given by St. John, where he says that ‘they went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us;’ that is to say, separation or schism, actual and visible departure from the unity of the Church. The second mark is a denial of the Incarnation of the Son of God. St. John says in his second epistle: ‘Many seducers are gone out into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a seducer and an antichrist.” The third mark is given by St. Jude: ‘These are they who separate themselves, sensual men,’ which word signifies, in the original, men of natural intellect and natural reason; it does not necessarily mean sensual in the grosser sense, though it leads to it. These are they who separate themselves, sensual, not having the Spirit, “that is, they reject the Holy Ghost, and the work of the Spirit of God in the world. This third mark is the rejection of the revelation of the day of Pentecost, with all those truths, laws, and authorities, which took their rise from the coming of the Spirit of Truth. These then are the three marks of the world de-parting from Christianity.

If you look back over the last three hundred years, you will see that whole nations have departed from the visible unity of the Church. They have come to deny that any visible unity was ever instituted; they deny their separation by denying the law. ‘Where there is no law, there is no transgression,” the Apostle says; and it is necessary to deny the law of unity in order to justify the separation. Springing up from those bodies separated from the unity of the Church has come, first, Socinianism or Unitarianism, as it is commonly called – rejection of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, of the Godhead of the Incarnate Son, of the work of the Holy Spirit of God, first in His Divine authority, perpetually and infallibly guiding and speaking through the Church; next, in His operation through the Holy Sacraments; and thirdly, His workings of grace in the individual soul. How extensively, both in speculation and in practice, these truths are at this time rejected by many who retain the name of Christians, you well know. And once more, if you look at nations in which these departures from truth are to be found, you will find that the whole course of legislation for the last three hundred years has been, as I have already pointed out, a perpetual departure from the laws of Christianity. Forasmuch, then, as men are interminably and irreconcilably divided, it is impossible that the legislature can touch upon matters of Christianity or of religion without conflicting with the private convictions or the private opinions of some men or some bodies of men; and therefore the civil powers of the world in despair have taken refuge in the policy of eliminating and excluding altogether from the public laws of the land all reference to anything but those fundamental moral axioms which are to be found not only in Christianity, but, almost without exception, in the order of nature.

There is to be found in such individuals as I have been describing, in such nations and in such governments, a worldly character, which partakes of the Antichristian spirit. These may seem to be harsh and severe terms, but ‘he that is not with Me, is against Me.’ They are the words of Jesus Christ Himself. There is no neutrality in matters of faith; and the tendency of all peoples, nations, and governments that have ceased to legislate positively in a Christian sense, is to legislate at last in a sense that is, first beside, then contrary to, Christianity .

What I have now to do is to draw out the particular points in which the Antichristian spirit is to be found working in society, and therefore round about us.

1. The first illustration I will give is this: the impatience of all revealed authority, as entering in any degree into the control of the thoughts or the will of men, or into the action of government. There is a disposition in public opinion, and in public men, and in the masses, to say: ‘Politics have nothing to do with religion.’ This I have answered before; and I am going on to show one more application of this false maxim. It is commonly said, that what is called ‘dogma’ is a limitation of the liberty of the human reason; that it is degrading to a rational being to allow his intellect to be limited by dogmatic Christianity; that liberty of thought, liberty of discovery, the progress of advancing truth, apply equally to Christianity, if it be true, as to all other kinds of truth; and therefore a man, when he allows his intellect to be subjected by dogma, has allowed himself to be brought into an intellectual bondage. Well, now, let me test the accuracy and the value of this supposed axiom. The science of astronomy has been a traditional science for I know not how many generations of men. It has been perpetually advancing, expanding, testing, completing its discoveries, and demonstrating the truth of its theories and its inductions. Now, every single astronomical truth imposes a limit upon the intellect of man. When once the truth has been demonstrated there is no further question about it. The intellect of man is thenceforward limited in respect of that truth. He cannot any longer contradict it without losing his dignity as a man of science – I might say, as a rational creature. It appears, therefore, that the certainty of every scientific truth imposes a certain limitation upon the intellect; and yet scientific men tell us that, in proportion as science is expanded by new discoveries and new demonstrations, the field of knowledge is increased. Well, then, I ask, in the name of common justice and of common sense, why may I not apply this to revelation? If the possession of a scientific truth, with its complete scientific accuracy, be not a limitation, and is therefore no degradation of the hu- man intellect, but an elevation and an expansion of its range, why should the defined and precise doctrines of revelation be a bondage against which the intellect of man ought to rebel? On the contrary, I affirm that every revealed doctrine is a limitation imposed upon the field of error. The regions in which men may err become narrower, because the boundaries of truth are pushed farther, and the field of truth is enlarged. The liberty of the human intellect is therefore greater, because it is in possession of a greater inheritance of certainty. And yet, if there be one superstition which at the present day is undermining more than any other the faith of men, it is the notion that belief in the positive dogma of Christianity is a slavish limitation of the intellectual freedom of man.

Once more, it is said that the revealed morality of Christianity is a limitation of the freedom of the human will. I must ask your forbearance for speaking of such a topic to you; for I ought to suppose that there is no one here so darkened, I must say, in heart as well as in understanding as to think that Christian morality, by limiting the actions and even the thoughts, and regulating the freedom of the will, imposes upon them a bondage unworthy of men. Nevertheless, there are some who cry out against the laws of morality which are taught by the Church of Jesus Christ, as being an interference with human liberty. Now, what does the morality of the Christian law forbid? First, all things that are unjust. Surely no man will plead for a liberty to act unjustly. Secondly, all things that are hurtful to himself or to his neighbour. A man will not plead for liberty to do hurt to his neighbour. Will he plead for liberty to do hurt to himself? to commit suicide, for instance — that is, for the liberty of self – murder? Lastly, it forbids the commission of those things that are mortal before God, of acts that are deadly in their consequences. In the name of reason I would ask you, is there any limit imposed upon the liberty of men in taking from them the freedom to drink poison , and laying upon them the bondage of living on food? And yet the laws of the Church impose no other limitation on any man. Nevertheless, the spirit of insubordinate intellect and insubordinate will, fostered by schism and by unbelief, is spreading fast at this day; and men are crying out against the authority of revelation as a yoke and a bondage.

And it is further said, that revelation has nothing to do with the civil authority of the world. I hope that I have already given reason enough for affirming that the civil authority of the world, if it be not founded upon revelation, is, nevertheless, so guided, confirmed, and strengthened by it, that it cannot long subsist without it. If it lose the support and guidance of revelation, it soon falls into the natural order, with all the penalties of dissolution. Now , what limit does revelation impose upon the civil power? It limits authority, in those that bear it, to the execution of justice and mercy; it forbids tyranny and despotism. It limits the freedom of subjects by the law of conscience, to obedience and submission; and it teaches man to observe the equal rights of other men and the duties which he owes to his fellows. It teaches to all men the sacred law which lies at the base of all just legislation: “Do to others as you would have men do to you.” These are the primary laws of justice and of charity. I ask whether these are limitations hostile to the freedom or to the prosperity of States? In one word, the only conservative spirit, a phrase we hear even to weariness — that which alone upholds, confirms, and renders indissoluble the civil society of mankind — is Christianity,- or the revelation and the laws of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, if there be anything which the public opinion of most countries, separated from the unity of the Church — and, I am sorry to say, the public opinion of some countries which profess still to be within that unity — resents, it is the entrance of the laws of revelation into the sphere of their legislature. I shall not say too much by adding, that there exists a Widespread animosity against the one only Church which will not accept of royal or legislative supremacy. There is in the world one Church which has never accepted of royal supremacy in faith or morals. It has never accepted Acts of Parliament or legislative enactments as superior to its own canonical legislation and to its own spiritual executive. Now, I believe, that is the only Church against which public animosity and even private hostility is levelled in any marked degree. All other bodies are treated as national, domestic, and innocuous. They are not to be feared. If they have a will of their own, they have no power to exert it. But the Church which absolutely refuses the supremacy of all civil powers is looked upon at once as aggression, invasion, and a menace to the supreme authority of public opinion, and, it may be, of princes.

2. Why is this? In one word, because the enmity which assails revelation falls upon it chiefly as incorporated in the Church. It exists there as in a definite, visible, palpable form. In the sphere of intellect men cannot lay their hands on revelation. It is, like the light of day, impalpable. In the order and the sphere of ideas it is intangible altogether; but, embodied in the Church, it becomes a visible and palpable impersonation, standing in the place of its Divine Head, on whom men laid their hands while He was within arm’s length. But now, at the right hand of God, He is beyond their reach. His body, however, is here ; and therefore He cried out to Saul on the way to Damascus, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” — that is to say, His Church upon earth is Himself. The same spirit, therefore, which was directed against Him while He was within the reach of men is now directed against His Church, which is still palpable and within their grasp. It incorporates dogma, it enforces discipline, it wields authority, it legislates, it decrees, it inflicts censures, it sits in judgment upon the conduct of men, of private persons, of professors, of nations, of princes. Come what may, it will not be silent. Let men threaten as they will, it still speaks as the Prince of the Apostles, who said : “If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye.”

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The Four Great Evils of the Day
Cardinal Manning 1871