Mahometanism in its Relation to Prophecy/Conclusion

by Ambrose Lisle Phillipps

CONCLUSION.

WE have thus far endeavoured to investigate the prophecies of Holy Scripture, which relate to that dreadful incarnation of evil, that the same Sacred Book designates under the name of Antichrist, or of those other symbolical descriptions and personages, which, by the common consent of Christian interpreters, are referred to Antichrist. We have examined, first, what prophecy in general would lead us to expect concerning this being ; when he was to appear ; where he was to fix the principal seat of his dominion; what was to be the period or the duration of that dominion ; and what were to be the characteristics of it. We then inquired whether any personage had arisen in past history answering to these prophetic marks and descriptions, and we found that there was a personage, who, in our opinion at least, exactly fulfilled them all, and that this personage was the great Arabian impostor, Mahomet : while the religious system he fabricated, in alliance with the mighty political empire he also founded along with it, had exercised in relation to Christianity all that prophecy foretold would be perpetrated by Antichrist in opposition to the kingdom of Christ ; and so we have passed on to conjecture from the same prophecies of Holy Writ, what is the future destiny, and when the probable end of this great delusion.

At the moment that I am now writing, it is affirmed by several authors, that the followers of the false Prophet, Mahomet, amount to not less than two hundred millions of the human race. And it is probable, that at many other periods of Mahometan history, their number has been greater still. Now, let the reader weigh well the moral importance of such a fact as this, let him count up the successive generations of so many hundred millions of the human race, who, during the long lapse of twelve centuries, have been swept away to everlasting perdition in the flames of hell by the operation of the lying revelations of Mahomet let him estimate all the persecutions of Christians, all the murders of the followers of Jesus, all the desecrations and destructions of churches and monasteries, all the desolating wars, all the hideous cruelties, and all the other unnatural crimes committed by the disciples of Mahomet during the same period, and let him remember that all this sprung from the very system itself, and was enjoined by it. And then let him say, what more he could possibly expect from any ideal Antichrist of his own theory.

Jesus Christ was the son of Isaac, that is, of the legitimate son of Abraham.

Mahomet was the son of Ishmael, that is, of the illegitimate son of Abraham ; and the latter, that is, Mahomet, has assuredly held to the former, that is, to Jesus Christ, precisely that relation which all analogy would have led us to expect between Christ and Antichrist. The first, the Saviour of mankind ; the latter, their destroyer. The first, the legitimate King of all the earth; the latter, the usurper of that dominion, the arch-rebel, who would fain have robbed Christ of His glory as a Prophet, of His empire as a King, and of His everlasting Priesthood, by the denial of His atonement, and the abolition of the daily sacrifice of the altar.

If Mahomet be not Antichrist, may humanity be spared the revelation of something worse, of something still more horrible ! But if the imagination of my reader would be satisfied with something less horrible than Mahomet, let me, at least, congratulate humanity that it has already seen the worst phase of evil, while I leave it to the contradictor to adjust the balance between the statements of prophecy, and the phantoms of his own brain.

But while, on the other hand, we may feel convinced who and what is the great Anti-christ so often foretold in Divine Scripture, let us never forget those remarkable words with which St. John ushers him into our consideration : " Little children, there are many Anti-christs." The inspired Apostle tells us who these Antichrists were, they were seducing spirits, that had gone forth from the apostolic communion. And so, though Mahomet be the great and crowning Antichrist, all heresies are Antichrist, and Mahomet is the Antichrist above all others, because his heresy is the greatest and the worst that has ever desolated the Church.

We have shown the absurdity of those interpreters who would refer to the pope and the religion of the pope, that is, to the Catholic religion, the Divine prophecies relating to Antichrist, but we have also shown that all such interpreters of prophecy are themselves emis- saries and disciples of Antichrist. What re- mains but that all who adhere to Catholicity in these perilous times should look well to themselves, and earnestly pray for grace to live worthy of their holy vocation, so that they be found fit to partake of that great triumph which the Word of God assures us is in store for that blessed and holy Church of which they have the privilege to be the children and the upholders.

Exurgat Deus y et dissipentur omnes inimiciejus ! Amen.