Of the great chief antichrist, that in a special manner bringeth forth false laws against Jesus Christ, and pretendeth himself to be most holy, the Lord God thus teacheth by the prophet Isaiah 9:15 A man of great age, and worshipful, holden of the world, he is head and chief antichrist. A prophet or a preacher teaching leasing, he is the tail of this antichrist. Of this tail speaketh St. Peter more plainly, and saith, these are spiritual merchants that shall chaffer with the people in feigned words, and with their sugar-likerous speech, they beguile the hearts of innocents. For Jude saith, They shall worship the persons of men because of winning. This tail of antichrist shall not preach freely.
[Various passages are then quoted, Revelation 8:16, 17. 14:9-11. Zechariah 11:15, 17. Romans 8:9. Revelation 16:10, 11. with an application of them to the Romish prelates of that day. Then follows,]
Lincoln (Robert Grosthead, Bishop of Lincoln) saith, “I quake, I dread, I am in horror, I am afraid, but I dare not be still, lest peradventure that sentence fall on me which the prophet saith, (Isaiah 6) Wo to me, for I have stilled. The well, the beginning, and the cause of all ruin and mischief, is THE COURT OF ROME.” Now, by the one authority of God, and one accordance of his holy saints, follows an open conclusion firmly grounded in true belief, that in the court of Rome is the head of antichrist, and in prelates is the body of antichrist, but in these clouted sects, as monks, canons, and friars, is the venomous tail of antichrist.
How this antichrist shall be destroyed, God himself teacheth by the prophet Daniel, and saith, This antichrist shall be destroyed without hands, that is, without power of man. For Paul saith, (2 Thessalonians 2). Christ shall slay Antichrist with the spirit of his mouth, that is, with the holy word of his law. And the Lord shall destroy him with the shining of his coming, that is, with turning of men’s hearts by his grace, to his law, a little before the doom.
