Note 216 — SERMON XI. PROPHETIC CHARACTERS OF ANTICHRIST. Luke xii. 56.

Not held of the civil power, or acknowledged to be so held, but usurped upon it, and insolently directed against it; as is well known from ecclesiastical history. The Pope is not Antichrist: God forbid! (says the good Abbé Fleury, with a zeal becoming a member of the Papal communion.) But neither is he impeccable, nor has he an absolute authority in the church over all things both temporal and spiritual—Le pape n’est pas l’Antichrist; à Dieu ne plaise; mais il n’est pas impeccable, ni monarque absolu dans l’eglise pour le temporel et pour le spirituel [4eme disc. sur l’hist. ecclesiastique, p. 173. Par. 1747, 12o.]

The Pope, he says, is not an absolute monarch in the church over all things temporal and spiritual: That is, he ought not to arrogate to himself the power of an absolute monarch; for that the pope assumes to be such a monarch, and, in fact, exercised this supreme monarchical power in the church, through many ages, the learned and candid writer had indisputably shewn, in the discourse, whence these words are quoted. But now this monarchical sovereignty in all things temporal, as well us spiritual, is certainly one prophetical note or character, by which the person or power, styled Antichristian, is distinguished. Let the Pope, then, be what he will, we are warranted by M. Fleury himself to conclude, that he hath, at least, this mark of Antichrist.