24:22) “no flesh could be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened,” made fewer. But that tribulation is not yet come; for it is to be followed immediately (verse 29) by a darkening of the sun and moon, a falling of the stars, a concussion of the heavens, and the glorious coming again of our Saviour in the clouds. And therefore “the Antichrist” is not yet come; whereas, many Popes are both come and gone. It is true, the Pope, in taking upon him to give laws to all Christian kings and nations, usurpeth a kingdom in this world, which Christ took not on Him; but he doth it not “as Christ,” but as “for Christ,” wherein there is nothing of “the Antichrist.”

In the fourth book, to prove the Pope to be the supreme judge in all questions of faith and manners, “which is as much as to be the absolute monarch of all Christians in the world,” he bringeth three propositions: the first, that his judgments are infallible: the second, that he can make very laws, and punish those that observe them not: the third, that our Saviour conferred all jurisdiction ecclesiastical on the Pope of Rome.