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/71

 come to pass even to the end of the world, tells us, in his first Epistle and the second chapter and the eighteenth verse, "Little children, it is the last hour,"—that is to say, the last period of the world, or the last dispensation of God to men,—"and as you have heard that Antichrist cometh, even now there are many Antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last hour." "They went out from us; but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with is; but that they may be made manifest that they are not all of us." And again, in the twenty-second verse he continues, "This is Antichrist, who denieth the Father and the Son." St. John here gives us an unmistakeable clue to discover the great Antichrist. He tells us that the very basis of his teaching will be "to deny the Father and the Son." He says, and he says most truly, that even when he wrote his Epistle, there were already many Antichrists, and that they were heretics, who had left the Apostolic Communion: "They went out from US." Hence it is evident that any spirit that opposeth the authority of the one Catholic Church founded by the Apostles at the command of Christ, who said to them, "Go ye and teach all nations," is a spirit of Antichrist, whether such heretics were forerunners of the