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/258

 other; and though we have lived to see a partial revival of Catholicity in some countries, yet the encroachments of the secular power upon the Church's domain have continually gone on increasing, and if in any country any king or emperor has relaxed the usurpations of the state for a single instant, that has only been the signal for fresh violence on the part of the disciples of error. I say, when we look back upon all that has taken place during the last eighty or hundred years, and when we recollect that during that same period the sovereign pontiff has been thrice driven from Rome, and the Roman people in a great degree perverted from the simplicity and fervour of former times, we must surely apprehend that all this will issue in some most fearful persecution of the Catholic Church. Now, this is precisely what I gather from this chapter of the Apocalypse, and when it says "that the beast shall make war upon them, and overcome them, and kill them," I think it means, that the secular power, influenced by the devil, will use all its endeavours to crush the spiritual power of the clergy, that is, of the Church's pastors, and that, for a short time, "it will overcome them," that is, it will destroy their influence over the majority of men, and that "it will kill them;" it will even put very many of them to death, perhaps even