Newman and the God-willed religions
"Mahometanism […] is a far more subtle contrivance of the enemy than we are apt to consider. In the first place, it perplexes the evidence of Christianity just in that point in which it is most original and striking: I mean, it professes the propagation of a religion through the world, which I suppose was quite a new idea when Christianity appeared. […]
And next, it acted over again, as if in mockery, the part which Christianity had taken towards Judaism, viz., it professed to be an improvement on the Gospel, as the Gospel had been upon the law; and just as Christianity dealt with Judaism, so it pointed to the Christian prophecies themselves in evidence of its claims, which it affected to interpret better than Christians themselves. Moreover, it swept away a considerable portion of the Christian heritage; and there it remains to this day in the countries which it seized upon, lying over against us, and for this reason only not interfering with the arguments of our opponents for the divine origin of Christianity, that England lies north and Islamism is in the south" (Difficulties of Anglicans, II.3).
