Page:Mahometanism in its relation to prophecy - or, an inquiry into the prophecies concerning antichrist, with some reference to their bearing on the events of the present day (IA mahometanisminit00philrich).pdf/137

 temporal dominion to the popes at Rome, in other words, why He ordained that the Church should be fed, in a place prepared for her, for twelve hundred and sixty days.

Mahometanism decreed the extirpation of the Church by fire and sword, and it was to meet this armed heresy that God gave a temporal dominion to His Church. And we shall see in the sequel how this temporal dominion of the popes was the only thing that saved Christendom from being overrun by the Mahometan armies: so that, humanly speaking, unless God had given temporal dominion to the popes, Christianity would have been rooted out, and Antichrist would have extended his empire not only over the three great provinces of the Macedonian he-goat, but over the universe itself.

The Prophet then goes on to describe the conflict between St. Michael and the good angels with the dragon, or Satan, and his evil angels; and he describes this in order to explain the causes which in the invisible world prepare and bring about the results which we witness here below in this visible world; that conflict of good and evil, which has continually been at work ever since the fall of our first forefather Adam. He carries us back in this description to the remote period when Lucifer and his