Ambrose Lisle Phillipps

“ He had indeed a kingdom, but it was not a kingdom of flesh and blood, but of holiness, of peace, and of love. But the kingdom of Mahomet was one of earthly power (in all power) : it was a kingdom of luxury and sensuality, in which it was permitted to men to indulge to the full in all the sins of the flesh, and in which he promised the same sensual enjoyments even in the life to come. Then the Man of Sin was to come, "in signs, and lying wonders." And could there be greater signs, than what God had given to His Church of the near coming of this Son of Perdition? ”

“ Myriads of Christians will shortly abandon our most holy religion; on all sides the barbarians will attack the territory of the faithful; there will be such bloodshed as hath not been seen before, with great destruction and seditions all over the earth. The churches will be abandoned, and the ruin of God's worship and of the empire approacheth. Know, moreover, that the coming of the Adversary is at hand. ”

“ But this is not all; we shall hereafter have occasion to show, from prophecy, what other things this great Antichrist was to do, and how completely all these predictions have been fulfilled in Mahomet, and his religion and empire. But St. John tells us that even in his day "there were many Antichrists," and it is remarkable how all the heresies that sprung up in the early Church tended to that great denial "of the Father and Son," which received its fullest development in the very words of the Mahometan creed, "God is one. God is eternal. He hath neither begotten, nor is begotten." ”

“ John the Evangelist, he to whom our Lord made his special Revelation of what was to 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." ”

“ Then the Manicheans, uniting in themselves all previous heresies, carried on the tradition of impious denial, till at last, when the Roman empire had been removed, and the world was once more plunged in barbarian anarchy; Mahomet came forth from his obscurity, to usher in a new religion, and to found a new empire. His religion was to supersede Christianity, and his empire was to be universal, so he said, and so he promised his deluded followers. ”

“ Now then, if Mahomet be Antichrist, and Antichrist be a diabolical counterpart of the Christ, the conquest of the Holy Land by the disciples and successors of Mahomet may rightly be looked upon as the act of Mahomet himself, and consequently as filling up the prophetic description of Antichrist. For assuredly every man is responsible for the consequences of his own acts, whether they be good or bad, and in proportion as they result more directly from his own contriving and designing. ”

“ On the other hand, Catholic writers, ever since the outbreak of the Protestant Revolution of the sixteenth century, have striven to show, and they have done it successfully, that the Protestant theory of Antichrist was contrary not only to the whole teaching of the Catholic Church in all ages, and the tradition both of East and West, but utterly at variance with the statements of prophecy itself, and that if true, it would do more than annihilate the claims of Catholicity, it would overthrow those of Christianity itself ”

“ They have laboured to show that the Catholic Church of Christ fell at a very early period into a fatal apostacy from her primitive faith, that she defiled the revelation of God with a demonolatrous worship of saints and angels, an idolatrous worship of images and the Eucharist, and with a general practice, that fully warranted both them and their forefathers in quitting her communion, and in denouncing her to mankind as the Babylon of prophecy doomed to destruction, and as the most impious foe both of God and man. ”

“ He was no sooner admitted to the presence of the Most High, than God, placing one hand on his breast, and the other on his shoulder, revealed to him all Truth, and declared to him that he was the most perfect of all creatures, and that he should be honoured and raised above all other men, and that he should be the Redeemer of all those that believed in him, that he should know all languages, and that the spoils of all he conquered in war should belong to him alone. ”

“ 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 dominion! ”

“ Thus, instead of developing the holy tendencies of Christianity, he threw men back, and as he impiously pretended, by the authority of God Himself, into all the degradations of human corruption, such as even enlightened pagans viewed with shame and disgust. ”

“ John the Evangelist, there were heretics, who, separating themselves from the Apostolic communion, and resisting the authoritative teaching of the Church, affirmed that Christ was not come in the flesh; that He only assumed a phantom of human nature, no real body. The effect of this heresy was to deny and overthrow the reality of the atonement: and when Mahomet came, one of his principal heresies was to deny that Christ had died upon a cross, or had redeemed mankind by his death. ”

“ All such spirits have a natural sympathy for one another, and they all are linked together by one common design: the spirit which actuates them is a spirit that "denieth the Father and the Son." It will not be difficult to explain, why it was quite reasonable for Antichrist, on his false principles, or rather for Satan who inspired him, to deny "the Father and the Son:" and why this denial of "the Father and the Son" should be the highest act of human impiety. ”

“ But there is one more Scriptural prediction concerning this great Antichrist which may well wind up and conclude our prophetic proofs that Mahomet is the great Antichrist. It is given in the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, and in the eighteenth verse: "Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding let him count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and the number of him is six hundred and sixty-six." Every student of prophecy is aware of the many and various interpretations that have been given to this mysterious number. ”

“ In a word Christ declares "the gates of hell shall never prevail against His Church:" the Protestant theory asserts, that the gates of hell have prevailed against it: for if idolatrous teaching be not a gate of hell, we know not what can deserve to be so called. Now all this has been triumphantly shown over and over again by Catholic writers. ”

“ It is well known to our readers, whether they be Catholic or Protestant, that almost all Protestant commentators on prophecy so far at least coincide with our view, as to admit the symbolical nature of the prophetic period of three years and a half or 1260 days, and that Antichrist is already come.
We need scarcely say that they do not agree with us as to whom prophecy points as the predicted Antichrist. Mr. Mede, a writer certainly of no mean repute whether for learning or ability, has left on record what were his views on this question. ”

“ Let no man deceive you by any means; for unless there come a revolt first, and the Man of Sin be revealed, the Son of Perdition, who opposeth and is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the Temple of God, showing himself as if he were God. ”

“ Paul, who also predicted many things concerning the great Antichrist, as all commentators unite in affirming, we shall find all that he foretold no less literally and strikingly fulfilled in the person of Mahomet.
St. Paul, in his second Epistle to the Thessalonians, and in the second chapter, writes as follows: "And we beseech you, Brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus, and of our gathering together unto him; that you be not easily moved from your mind, nor be frighted, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by epistle as sent from us, as if the day of the Lord were at hand. ”

“ Christ came meek and lowly, and when one of His disciples drew the sword, He rebuked him and said, "Put back thy sword into the scabbard, for all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword:" and having said this He healed the wound of His mortal enemy. ”

“ The Roman empire was no sooner overthrown, than it was subdivided into a number of comparatively small states, whereupon Mahomet arose in the Asiatic provinces of the old Roman empire, and founded upon its ruins another mighty empire, which was for ages the terror of the West, and the scourge of Christendom. The holy patriarch of Jerusalem St. Cyril also thus writes: "The devil will raise up a famous man, who will seize upon the domains of the Roman empire. That man Antichrist will appear, as soon as the Roman empire shall have come to its conclusion."— (Cyrilli, Cateches, 15.) ”

“ Still, however, it may be advisable for others to continue digging in the same inexhaustible mine, and it may be, that as time flows on, and events develop themselves, the true meaning of prophecy, and its connection with what is passing around us, may possibly receive some elucidation. ”

“ Now the Spirit manifestly saith, that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience seared, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful, and by them that have known the truth. ”

“ It has been sometimes urged by commentators, who did not admit that Mahomet was the Antichrist of prophecy, that whereas it was foretold in God's Word that Antichrist should perform great wonders, by which he was to deceive mankind, Mahomet did not pretend to the gift of miracles. ”

“ Jesus is called God because He is at once God and Man, and as such He is rightly worshipped: but Mahomet proclaimed himself greater than Jesus, he therefore "lifted himself above all that is called God and worshipped." Again, in Scripture, princes and kings are sometimes called Gods ”

“ Look at the morality which he practised, which he taught his disciples to practise, and it will not be difficult to understand what the Apostle means by "seduction of iniquity," when addressed to the corrupt nature of fallen man. The very paradise he promised to his deluded followers, is a place of debauchery, a sink of "iniguity." ”

“ And so it was; the ground was gradually prepared all over the provinces of the East for the advent of him who was destined to set up a new religion in the place of Jesus Christ's religion, that of His Apostolic Church; and this ground was prepared by the gradual and successive undermining of the Catholic faith in those countries by the erroneous teaching of the various heretics. ”

“ Shortly after this, the Persians, having declared war upon the empire, ravaged it in many of its richest provinces, took the city of Jerusalem, and carried away from the famous church of the holy sepulchre the true cross, which had been enshrined there by the blessed Empress St. Helena. This deplorable event took place in the year 615; and two years before this it was that Mahomet first published his famous Koran, thus fulfilling, as we shall soon see, the prediction of the blessed St. ”

“ This result is surely a remarkable fact; but another Catholic commentator gives another interpretation, which is also equally remarkable in its way, and may perhaps be equally correct, for it is not uncommon for a text of Scripture te have a double meaning. This writer says: "Ainsi puisque le nombre de la Bête est le nombre d'un homme, cela signifie d'un individu qui a commencé à se faire connaître au monde, soit par lui-même, soit par [les consequences de] ses actions à telle ou telle date ”