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/177

 the arid sands of Arabia. But this beast springs from the earth, that is, literally from the great continent, of which Europe, Asia, and Africa are but conventional and nominal divisions, constituting, as they do, that one only portion of habitable earth which, in the days of the Evangelist, was known to exist, and which was called by the great civilized nation, that ruled mankind in his day, the "Orbis terrarum," or, as the Apostle emphatically phrases it, "the earth;" and it sprang mystically from the earth, inasmuch as it represented all that evil and enmity to God of which this fallen and unregenerate earth has ever been the mother; that earth, of which God declared to our first parent Adam, after his fall, "Cursed is the earth in thy work." True religion is from above, descending from the Father of Lights, but it is from the earth that all false religion springs. From the earth came paganism; and when God by His only Son had once more enlightened mankind, and brought many nations to the belief of His Divine truth, Satan raised up in the person of Mahomet, and by his agency, a new system of error to combat God's truth; a system compounded of fragments of revelation, so as to deceive the unwary, and of the grossest impiety, so as to lead men to per-