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/145

 one can deny that the Roman eagle is another phrase to express "the Roman power." And the flight of the Roman eagle is used even by profane writers to symbolize the conquests of the Roman armies. When, therefore, the Prophet tells us that the wings of a great eagle were given to the Church for the very period of the little horn's dominion, and history tells us that the temporal sovereignty of Rome was at that very time given to the popes, we are surely justified in appealing to this great fact as the fulfilment of the prophecy. And as this temporal sovereignty was given to the popes, as the Prophet assures us, "for a time, and times, and half a time," to guard Holy Church "from the face of the serpent," that is, from the great efforts which the devil was to make against her during that remarkable period, and which we find from history to have been chiefly wrought by the instrumentality of Mahomet, and his religious and political empire, so the same text prepares us to expect, what history records, that, in proportion to the growth and decline of Mahometanism, the temporal power of the popes would wax and wane along with it. So that, as in the thirteenth century the Papal power was at its greatest height, that was precisely the period when Mahometanism was most formidable. It is admitted by all