The Text
The Mystery of Iniquity
The mystery of iniquity was already at work in the apostolic age. It did not spring fully formed upon the world. Its method is a mystery — that is, it operates by concealment, by gradual encroachment, by clothing itself in the language and outward forms of Christianity while destroying its substance. Antichrist does not announce himself as the enemy of Christ. He announces himself as the supreme servant of Christ, the guardian of the faith, the Vicar of the Son of God. This is precisely the mystery — that the most thorough denial of Christ in history has come from a system that bears his name.
Popery is a religion supported by lies, as Manton plainly states. False doctrines are called lies in Scripture as opposite to truth. Consider the legends of the saints — miraculous stories so ridiculous and scandalous to true religion that a man would wonder any should have the face to impose them on the world. Consider the calumnies against those whom God employed in the witness of his truth: that Calvin was a sodomite, that Luther was an incarnate devil begotten by an incubus. This is the spirit of antichrist at work — lying against the truth and against those who bear it.
The Marks by Which Antichrist Is Known
Manton sets out the marks by which Antichrist may be identified, drawn from the text and from the whole of Scripture’s prophetic testimony. These marks are not speculative. They are given to us precisely so that the church may recognise what it confronts.
First, the claim to universal spiritual authority. Christ is the only head of the church. Any man who claims that office — who says that the government of the whole visible church on earth belongs to him by divine right, that all other churches are schismatic that do not submit to him, that his word is infallible in matters of faith and morals — is making precisely the claim that the apostle here ascribes to the man of sin.
Second, a corrupted gospel. The essence of Antichrist’s work is to destroy the gospel of Christ by adding to it the works and merits of men. Wherever a system teaches that man’s works cooperate with God’s grace in justification, that the sinner must make satisfaction for his own sins beyond what Christ has done, that masses said for the dead can shorten their suffering in purgatory — that system is antichristian in its core, because it denies the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement and the freeness of God’s grace.
Third, the worship of creatures. The mass of invented devotion directed to Mary, to the saints, to relics, and to images is a departure from the exclusive worship of God that the whole of Scripture requires. God will not share his glory. He has commanded: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. He has forbidden: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. Every knee bent before a statue of Mary, every prayer addressed to a departed saint, every lamp burning before a relic, is a violation of the first and second commandments — not a pious supplement to the worship of God but a direct contradiction of it.
The Duty of Christians
What then is the duty of Christians with respect to this system? Manton answers plainly: detestation of what is antichristian, and separation from it. The use of this doctrine, he writes, is to persuade us to a detestation of what is antichristian. Not a moderate distancing, not a polite ecumenical dialogue, not a suspension of judgment in the hope that things may not be quite so bad as they appear — but detestation. The word is strong, and it is deliberate.
Richard Baxter, who wrote the preface to these sermons after Manton’s death, commended them as most seasonable precisely because of the revived attempts of Popery in England in the years following the Restoration. The same word is seasonable now. The ceremonies surrounding the election of a new Pope are an occasion not for warm congratulations from Protestant and evangelical quarters, but for a renewed acquaintance with what Scripture teaches about the system over which he presides.
The Destruction of Antichrist
The apostle gives comfort in the end. The Lord shall consume this wicked with the spirit of his mouth — that is, by the preaching of the gospel, the proclaimed Word of God, which has already stripped much of the papal power that once dominated the Western world — and shall destroy him with the brightness of his coming. The final destruction of antichristian power is certain, because God has appointed it. It is the work of Christ himself, accomplished in the final revelation of his glory.
Until that day, the duty of the people of God is to hear and obey the voice that says: Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues (Revelation 18:4). The 1.36 billion souls currently under the dominion of Rome are not our enemies. They are mission fields. But the system that holds them — the man of sin who sits in the temple of God — is the enemy of Christ, and must be named as such.