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/67

 body of the Church has been corrupted, that her doctrine has been perverted, her practice (as approved by her œcumenical councils) has become idolatrous, that from having once been the Church of the living God, authorized by Him :to teach all nations," she has become for many ages the very synagogue of Satan, a sink of corruption, and nothing less than "the great Babylonian Harlot," "the mother of all the abominations of the earth."—(Apocalypse xvii. 5.) If this be true, they must show not only how such a result is consistent with the commission given by Christ to this same Church "to teach all nations," but how it agrees with His glorious promise "that the gates of hell should never prevail against His Church," and that He would remain with the visible teaching Church "always even unto the end of the world."—(Matt. xxviii. 20.)

The commission given by our Lord to His visible Church, and the promises with which He consecrated and confirmed that commission, are utterly inconsistent with the Protestant theory of prophetic interpretation. It cannot be denied even by those who hold this theory, that the visible Catholic Church of the present day is the Church which Christ's apostles founded, and which is the offspring of our Lord’s command to them to teach all nations;