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/92

 heretics, and we may say all the earlier heretics, who lived before the coming of Mahomet, retained the daily sacrifice of the holy Eucharist; and though there could be no hope of salvation for the miserable heresiarchs themselves, still many of their followers might be invincibly ignorant (to use the phrase of Catholic theology} of their state of heresy or schism, and so by God's mercy, and the merits of Christ applied to them by the sacraments of baptism or of penance in articulo mortis, they might be saved. But Mahomet abolished Christianity root and branch; he took away the daily sacrifice, which the Prophet Daniel expressly foretold that Antichrist would do, and instead thereof he established vain repetitions of unmeaning prayers, in which there was no love expressed for God, nor any hope in the merits of a Redeemer. He utterly denied the passion of Christ, which he considered a disgraceful doctrine, and he abolished all the seven sacraments of grace, which our Lord had instituted as so many fountains, whereby he might apply and communicate to mankind the fruits of His passion and death. Could Antichrist establish a more appropriate work than this? or one which more completely could undo the work of Christ? Was not, then, the work of Mahomet precisely