In colonial America, many Protestants associated Islam and Catholicism with the Antichrist. … Indeed, Prideaux related the rise of Muhammad and the bishop of Rome's claim to reign over all churches. Hence, the “Antichrist seems at this time to have set both his Feet upon Christendom together, the one in the East, and the other in the West.” … How better to reconcile the triumphant truth of Christianity with its historical setbacks beginning in the seventh century than to portray the conquered churches as corrupted? Prideaux viewed Muslims as a tool used by god to punish the sinful eastern churches. God raised “the Saracens to be the Instruments of his Wrath, to punish them for it.” … Simultaneously such an explanation chastised contemporary dissenting Christians with the threat of god's possible punishment and explained the loss of Christendom's heartland while denigrating Islam.

Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon F…, loc. 108