Roman Catholic Counter Reformation, Antichrist, Dispensationalism, Jesuits, Islam ...

"I deny that See to be Apostolical, wherein nought is seen but a shocking apostasy -- I deny him to be the Vicar of Christ, who, in furiously persecuting the gospel, demonstrates by his conduct that he is Antichrist..."

• John Calvin, "The Necessity of Reforming the Church," 1544, free online at http://www.swrb.com/newslett/freebook/jcalvin.htm

"There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition that exalteth himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God."

• Westminster Confession of Faith 25:6 (original edition, the words about Antichrist have been removed from modern editions of the WCF by backsliding editors who have fallen away from the biblical, Reformation eschatology called Historicism).

The Counter Reformation is generally considered to have three aspects: the Jesuits, the Inquisition, and the Council of Trent. In view of the significance of the Protestant apocalyptic interpretation of history which prophetically pinpointed step by step the events covering the whole Christian era from the beginning to the end, it seems justifiable to suggest a fourth aspect, namely the preteristic and futuristic interpretations launched by Catholic expositors as a counterattack (p. 47).

• John Foxe and the Elizabethan Church by V. Norskov Olsen (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973)

All the major Reformers and all the major Reformation creeds and confessions adopted the Historicist position.

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