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/77

 to supersede Christianity, and his empire was to be universal, so he said, and so he promised his deluded followers. He admitted that Christ was a Prophet, but he denied that He was God, and he spurned at the doctrine of the atonement, and he proclaimed himself to be the last and the greatest of the Prophets, consequently greater than Christ: and as Christ had founded a religion and a spiritual empire, to embrace one day within its sacred bounds the whole extent of the world, so did this "Father and Son denying" Antichrist found a carnal and sensual religion, connecting it with a brutalizing and carnal empire; and as Christ had connected the establishment of His empire with that of every virtue, especially with the Divine gift of continence and virginity, so did this beastly Antichrist associate his empire with the reign of promiscuous concubinage, and of every sensual gratification. What he adopted and retained of revealed Divine Truth was but the mask and the cloak for his impious blasphemies, to deceive the unwary, and if possible to lead captive even the elect. And how many millions and hundreds of millions of men has he not led captive from the first dawning of his career up to this very hour, in which we see England and France ranging themselves in battle array to uphold his old, now worn out, cursed