Breathtakingly bad exegesis which ignores the clear words of Scripture in favor of a polemical position. As an example, Revelation 17 clearly talks about a "city," not a church or an "institution," and elsewhere in Rev, the city itself is identified (hint: it's not Rome; it's not even in Europe).
John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, George Whitefield, John Newton, Charles Spurgeon, Martyn-Lloyd Jones and yes, Ian Paisley
Bandwagon fallacy, and setting the words of fallible men over and above Scripture, something that Protestants endlessly accuse Catholics of doing.
I’m not surprised you don’t agree. You saying it’s poor exegesis doesn’t make it so. I know what I believe and I know why. I’m not arguing over it. I didn’t always believe it. For years I was influenced by Chuck Colson. I naively considered Rome a Christian church. Interestingly enough, it was a former RCC priest who convinced me I was wrong about Rome.
As for my list of luminaries, I didn’t put that list there for Catholics. I put that list there for slumbering Protestants. I put them there so those who think they know something because they read Hal Lindsey or went to a prophecy conference might compare and contrast the weight of the men they’ve been influenced by and those giants who held a different view. We know truth is not derived from men. If we believed that we would be Romanists. However, when a group of godly men like those I listed speak with one voice on Rome, it seems wise for Protestants today to stop and carefully consider what they had to say. Moreover, I could name dozens more Protestant luminaries who held the same view.