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/263

 Our readers are well aware that Protestant commentators are accustomed to interpret this Apocalyptic Babylon to signify Rome, and the Catholic Church ruled over by the pope of Rome. But to any one who reads attentively St. John's words, the absurdity of such an interpretation must be manifest. In the eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, the angel speaking of Babylon, whose utter destruction he is proclaiming, uses this remarkable expression: "because all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication: and the kings of the earth," that is, all the kings of the earth, "have committed fornication with her: and the merchants of the earth have been made rich," that is, all the merchants of the earth, "by the power of her delicacies." Now let the reader dwell upon these words, and he will at once see the absurdity of applying them to the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has never yet brought all nations within her pale: and as for the kings of the earth, very few of them have ever yet admitted her authority, or embraced her doctrine. At the moment that I am now writing, there are in Europe alone a majority of nations and kings who do not profess the Catholic faith. England, Holland, Wirtemberg, Prussia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Greece, Russia, are all of them either