Hence she is called the well-favored harlot, the lady of
kingdoms.
But because the chaste matron, the spouse of Christ, would not allow
this harlot to run away with this name therefore she gets upon the
back of her beast, and by him pushes this woman into the dirt; but
because her faith and love to her husband remain, she turns again
and pleads by her titles, her features, and ornaments, that she and
she only is she whose square answereth to the characters which her
Lord had given of his own; and so the strife began. For so soon as
this mistress became a dame in the world, and found that she had her
stout abettors, she attempts to turn all things topsy-turvy, and to
set them and to make of them what she lists.
CORRUPTION OF THE CHURCH BY ANTICHRIST.
Mischief must needs follow this ugly deed of the man of sin. If a
house be on fire, though it is not burnt down, the smell of the
flame may long remain there: also we count it no wonder to see some
of the effects upon rafters, beams, and some of the principal posts
thereof. The calf that was set up at Dan defiled that people until
the captivity of the land.
For by antichristian darkness, though they might call it light, the
true light was darkened, and so the eye made dim, even the eye of
the truly godly.
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