promised Land and others those when they were re-established by visible Miracles To convince the incredulity of a People who were wholly devoted to their Senses God took a long extent of Ages in which he distributed his Miracles and his Prophets that so he might often renew the sensible Testimonies by which he attested his holy Truths In the New Testament he tooks another conduct He would no more reveal any thing anew to his Church after Jesus Christ In him was perfection and fulness and all the Divine Books that have been composed in the New Testament were made in the times of the Apostles That is to say that the Testimony of Jesus Christ and of those whom Jesus Christ hath been pleased to choose for the Witnesses of his Resurrection hath been sufficient for the Christian Church All that has come since has edified it but it has not been looked upon as purely inspired by God but what the Apostles have written or what they have confirmed by their Authority But in that difference which is found between the Books of the two Testaments God hath always observed that admirable order of making things to be written just at the times when they happened or at least when the memory of them was very fresh And so those that knew them wrote them those that knew them received the Books which bore witness of them and both the one and the other have left them to their Posterity as a most precious and invaluable Inheritance and they most carefully and piously have preserved them And thus was formed the Body of the Holy Scriptures as well the Old as the New Testament Scriptures which from their Original have been regarded as true in the whole as given by God himself and which have been also kept with that great Religion that it was thought none could dare to alter the least Letter of it without a strange Impiety And thus it was that they came down to us always holy always sacred always inviolable the one kept by the constant Tradition of the Jews and the other by the Tradition of the Christians so much the more certain as it was confirmed by the Blood and Martyrdom as well of those who wrote those Divine Books as of them that received ' em St. Austin and the other Fathers demand upon whose Faith we attribute the profane Books to certain Times and Authors Aug. cont Faust 11. 2. 32. 21. 33. 6. Every one readily answers that the Books are distinguished by the different Relations they have to the Laws Customs and Histories of a certain Time by the Stile it self which bears impressed the Character of particular Ages and Authors and more than all that Iren. 1.2.17 Tertul. adv Marc. 4. l. 4 5. Aug. de utilit ced 3. 17. cont Faust Manich. 22. 79. 28. 4. 32. 33. Cont. adv leg Porph. 1. 20. c. by the publick Faith and by a constant Tradition All these things concur to the establishment of the Divine Books to distinguish the Times and to mark out the Authors of them and the more Religion there was in preserving them entire the more indisputable is the Tradition which preserved them for us Thus hat it been always acknowledged not only by the Orthodox but also by Hereticks and even by Infidels Moses has ever passed in all the East and afterwards in all the World for the Legislator of the Jews and for being the Author of those Books that are attributed to him The Samaritans who had received them from the ten separated Tribes have as religiously kept them as the Jews You have seen their Tradition and their History Two People so opposite took them not one from the other but both received them from their Common Original in the Times of Solomon and David The ancient Hebrew Characters which the Samaritans still retain do sufficiently shew that they have not followed Esdras who changed them Thus the Pentateuch of the Samaritans and that of the Jews are two compleat Originals independant one on the other The perfect conformity that is seen in the substance of the Texts justifies the Sincerity of both those People They are faithful Witnesses that agree without understanding one another or to speak better who agree together notwithstanding all their Enmities V. sup 1. part p. 24 25 34 49 59 63 80 86 87. and which only Immemorial Tradition of both Parties hath united in the same mind Those therefore who say tho' without any reason that those Books being lost or having never been were set up or composed a new or altered by Esdras besides their being contradicted by Esdras himself as may very well be observed in the course of his History are likewise so by the Pentateuch which is even now at this day to be seen in the hands of the Samaritans so as it had been read in the first Agas by Eusebius of Cesaria St. Jerome and the other Ecclesiastical Author so as those People had kept it in their Original and a Sect so weak as that seems not to continue so long but to bear this Testimony to the Antiquity of Moses The Authors that wrote the four Evangelists received no less assured Testimony from the unanimous consent of the Faithful the Heathens and the Hereticks That great Number of various People who received and translated those Divine Books as soon as they were made agree in their date and in their Authors The Heathens have not contradicted this Tradition Nor Colsus who attacked those Sacred Books even in the first beginning of Christianity nor Julian the Apostate tho' he was neither ignorant of any thing nor omitted any thing that might descredit them nor has any other Heathen ever suspected them to be supposititious but on the contrary they have all given them the same Authors as the Christians The Hereticks although they were confounded by the Authority of those Books yet durst not say that they were not of the Disciples of our Lord. Nay some of those Hereticks saw the beginnings of the Church and before whose eyes were written the Books of the Gospel So that fraud if there could possibly be any would have appeared too near to have been successâ—ul 'T is true after the time of the Apostles and when the Church was already spread over the face of the Earth Marcion and Mannes always the most rash and the most ignorant of all the Hereticks notwithstanding the Tradition coming from the Apostles coâ—tinued by their Disciples and by the Bishops to whom they had left their Chair and the Conduct of the People and unanimously received by all the Christian Church were so bold as to say that there Evangelists were supposititious and that that of St. Luke which they preferred to all the others they knew not why since it came by no other way had been falsified But what proofs gave they of this nothing but meer Visions no positive Matters of Fact All the reason they gave was that what was contrary to their
perswade a whole Nation even the old Men who had seen that Prophet and had always looked for that miraculous Deliverance which he had foretold them of Esdras and Nehemiah could not have written the History of their Time some other must have done it in their Name and those who have made all the other Books of the old Testament would have been so esteemed by Posterity that the other Falsifyers would have gained little Credit to their Imposture No doubt but they would have been ashamed of so many Extravagancies and instead of saying that Esdras had of a sudden brought to light so many Books so different one from the other by the Characters both of Stile and Time one must affirm that he might have inserted into them the Miracles and Predictions which made them to pass for Divine An Error more gross still than the former since that those Miracles and those Predictions are so interspersed in all those Books so often inculcated and repeated with such different turns and so great a variety of powerful Figures in a word they have so constituted the whole Body of them that if we have ever but so much as opened those holy Books we must see that it was a great deal more easy perfectly to make a new Model of them than to insert in them those things which the Incredulous are so much puzled to find there And tho' it should be granted them whatsoever they ask yet the miraculous and divine Parts are so much the Foundation of those Books that they must be yet acknowledged whatsoever Aversion any may have to them And admit that Esdras might have added afterwards the Predictions of those things that had already happened in his time yet those which were fulfilled since which you have seen in so great a number who should superadd them God it is possible might have bestowed on Esdras the gift of Prophecy that so the Imposture of Esdras might seem the more probable and they might rather have a false one to be a Prophet than Isaiah or Jeremiah or Daniel Or else every Age might have had a prosperous Counterfeit who might impose upon the Faith of a whole Nation and that new Impostors thro' an admirable Zeal of Religion might have continually been adding to the divine Books after that the Canon might have been closed that they might be spread abroad with the Jews over all the Earth and translated into so many strange Languages Would not this have been out of eagerness of Desire to establish the Religion the way utterly to destroy it Would a whole Nation so easily suffer a Change of what they verily believed to be Divine whether thro' Conviction of Reason or thro' the power of Error Could any one hope to persuade Christians nay or Turks to add but one single Chapter either to the Gospel or to the Alcoran But perhaps the Jews might be more docile than other People or not so Religious as to preserve their holy Books What Monsters of Opinions must come into their Minds to make then willing to shake off the Yoke of divine Authority and not to regulate their Sentiments no more than their Manners but by their distorted Reason Let none say that the discussion of these Matters is perplexing and troublesom For if it should be so they must either lay the Charge of it on the Authority of the Church and the Tradition of so many Ages or else push on the Examination to the utmost Extremity and never believe they can be rid of it but say they require still more time than will be given to their Salvation But certainly not to turn over the Books of both the Testaments with an endless Labour we need only read the Book of Psalms where are collected so many antient Songs of Gods People to see there in the most divine Poetry that ever was the immortal Monuments of the History of Moses of that of the Judges and Kings imprinted by Song and Measure in Men's Minds And for the new Testament The bare Epistles of St. Paul so Lively and Original so strong as to time both of the Affairs and Motions which then were and in short of so pointing a Character those Epistles I say received by the Churches to which they were addressed and from thence communicated to other Churches will be sufficient to convince all honest Minds that every thing in the Scriptures which the Apostles have left us is according to the Original So likewise do they support one another with an invincible Force The Acts of the Apostles are but a continuation of the Gospel their Epistles suppose it necessary but that all may agree together both the Acts and the Epistles and Gospels do every where own the antient Books of the Jews St. Paul and the other Apostles are continually alledging what Moses hath said Act. 3.22.7.31 32 c. Rom. 10.5.19 what the Prophets have said and writ after Moses Jesus Christ calls to witness the Law of Moses the Prophets and the Psalms as Witnesses who all depose the same Truth When he hath a mind to explain his Mysteries Ibid. 27. John 5.46 47. he begins at Moses and all the Prophets and when he tells the Jews that Moses wrote of him he lays down for a Foundation what was most certainly believed among them and brings them back to the very Spring Head of their own Traditions But however we will see what can be opposed to this so acknowledged an Authority and to the Consent of so many Ages For since in our days Men have been so presumptuous and daring as to print in all sort of Languages Books against the Scriptures we ought not to dissemble or conceal what they alledge for the decrying its Antiquities Therefore what say they to justify the Pentateuch's being supposititious and what can be objected to a Tradition of three thousand Years standing upheld by its own Power and by the course of things Nothing of Consequence nothing that is positive nothing that is of weight and substance Some little Chicaneries and Quarrels they have at Numbers Places and Names and such Observations that in all other matters are reckoned at most but as vain Curiosities uncapable of reaching the stress of the Case are here alledge to us by way of Decision of an Affair the most serious that ever was There are say they Difficulties in the History of the Scripture No Question to be made on 't which yet there would not be weâ—e the Books less antient or had they been supposititious and made as they are so bold to say by a cunning and industrious Man If they had not been so Religious as to give it us as they found it but had taken the liberty to correct it where it did not please them There are Difficulties which arise by length of time when places have changed their Name or Condition when Dates are forgot when Genealogies are no further known when there is no remedy for the Faults which a Copy
Constantinople and continued at Nice The Pope sent his Legates thither The Council of the Iconoclasts was condemned They are detested a Persons who led by the Example of the Saracens accused the Christians of Idolatry It was decreed that Images should be worshipped in Remembrance and for the Love of those whom they represented which is called in the Council a relative Worship and an honorary Adoration and Salutation opposed to the supreme worship and Adoration of Latria or entire Subjection which the Council reserved to God alone Besides the Legates of the Holy See and the presence of the Patriarch of Constantinople there appeared there the Legates of other Patriarchal Sees which were then oppressed by the Infidels Some disputed their Mission with them but that which was not at all contested was that far from disavowing them all the Sees accepted of the Council without shewing any Contradiction and it was received by all the Church The French encompassed with Idolaters or new Christians whose Ideas they were afraid to meddle with and on the other hand being harrassed with the equivocal Term of Adoration hesitated a long while Amongst all the Images they would only pay an Honour to that of the Cross absolutely different from the Figures which the Heathen believed were full of the Divinity They kept however in an honourable place and also in their Churches the other Images and hated the Iconoclasts What other Difference there was it made no Schism The French owned at last that the Nicene Fathers required to Images but the same kind of Worship all Proportions observed as they themselves paid to Relicks to the Book of the Gospel and to the Cross and that Council was honoured by all professing Christianity under the Name of the seventh general Council Thus have we seen the seven general Councils which the East and the West the Greek and the Latin Churches received with an equal Reverence The Emperors convoked those great Assemblies by the Soveraign Authority they had over all the Bishops or at least over the Chief on whom the rest depended and who were then Subject of the Empire The publick Carriages were provided by the Order of the Princes They assembled the Councils in the East where they made their Residence and they commonly sent thither their Commissaries to keep the Peace The Bishops so assembled brought with them the Authority of the Holy Ghost and the Tradition of the Churches From the beginning of Christianity there were three principal Sees which had the precedency of all others that of Rome that of Alexandria and that of Antioch Conc. Nic. Can. 7. Conc. C. P. 1. Can. 3. Conc. Chalced. Can. 21. The Nicene Council allowed the Bishop of the Holy City to have the first place The second and the fourth Council raised the See of Constantinople and would have that the second So that there were five Sees which afterwards were called Patriarchal The Precedency was given to them in the Council Among those Sees the See of Rome was always look'd on as the first and the Council of Nice regulated the others upon that Conc. Nic. Can. 6. There were also Metropolitan Bishops who were the Chiefs of the Provinces and who went before the other Bishops It was very late ere they began to be called Archbishops but their Authority was never the less When the Council was formed the Holy Scriptures were propounded the Passages of the antient Fathers Witnesses of Tradition were read It was Tradition which interpreted Scripture They believed its true Sence was that which the past Ages had owned it to be and none thought they ought to explain it otherwise Those who refused to submit to the Decisions of the Council were cursed with the Anathema After they had explained the Faith they regulated the Ecclesiastical Discipline and made Canons that is to say the Rules of the Church They thought the Faith did never change and tho' the Discipline might receive several Changes according to difference of Times and Places yet as much as possibly we can we ought to labour after a perfect imitation of Antiquity But the Popes were only there by their Legates in the first general Councils but they did however expresly approve of the Doctrine and there was but one Faith in the Church Constantine and Irene religiously executed Years of J. C. 787 the Decrees of the VII Council but the rest of their Conduct was intolerable The young Prince whom his Mother had persuaded to marry a Lady he could by no means love gave up himself to reproachful Applications and being weary of paying any longer a blind Obedience to the Imperiousness of his Mother he indeavoured to remove her from the Affairs which hitherto she had managed in spight of him Alphonso Years of J. C. 793 the Chaste reigned in Spain The perpetual Continence of that Prince deservedly conferred on him that famous Sirname and rend'red him worthy to release Spain from that infamous Tax of a hundred Maids which his Uncle Mauregate had granted to the Moores Seventy thousand of those Infidels slain in a Battle with Mugait their General signalized the Valor of Alphonsus Constantine did also indeavour to make himself famous against the Bulgari but the Success did by no means answer his Expectations He at last brought down all Irene's Power and being unable to govern himself as much as to suffer the Empire of another he repudiated his Wife Maria to marry Theodote who Years of J. C. 795 was one of her Maids of Honour His Years of J. C. 796 incensed Mother heightened the Troubles Years of J. C. 797 which were caused by so great a Scandal Constantine fell by her Artifices She gained the People again to her by lessening their Taxes and brought the Monks and the Clergy into her Interest by a shew of a visible Piety At length she was proclaimed sole Empress The Romans scorned her Government and so went over to Charlemagne who subdued the Saxons repressed the Saracens destroyed the Heresies protected the Popes drew over the Infidel Nations to Christianity re-established the Sciences and Ecclesiastical Discipline assembled famous Councils wherein his profound Learning was admired and the effects of his Piety and Justice was not only felt in France and Italy but it extended it self into Spain England and Germany and indeed where not To conclude in the DCCC XII Epoeha Charlemagne Or the re-establishment of the new Empire Year of our Lord that great Protector of Rome and of Italy or to speak more properly of all the Church and of all Christendome was chosen Emperor by the Romans without his ever dreaming of it and Crowned by Pope Leo III. who had engaged the People of Rome to that Choice became the Founder of the New Empire and of the temporal Greatness of the Holy See The End of the first Part. TO THE Dauphin YOVR Highness sees the twelve Epocha's which I have followed in this Abridgment I have chained to each of them the
Sentiments must necessarily have been invented by others than by the Apostles and for all their proof they alledged the very Opinions which were in Controversie Opinions otherwise so extravagant and so manifestly mad that it is not to be imagined how they could ever enter into the mind of man to conceive But certainly to accuse the Sincerity of the Church one must have in ones hands Originals quite different from those of hers or some demonstrative proof But they and their Disciples being called upon to produce some they are struck dumb and have left by their Silence an undoubted proof that in the second Age of Christianity in which they wrote there was not only an Index and manifest signification of Falsity in them Iren. Tertul. Aug. loc cit but there was not the least Conjecture that could be opposed to the Tradition of the Church What shall I say of the Consent and Harmony that is to be found in the Books of the Scripture and of that admirable Testimony which all the Times of the People of God gave one to the other The Times of the Second Temple presuppose those of the First and carry us back to Solomon Peace was only established by Combats and Fightings and the Conquests of God's People return us to the Times of the Judges to Joshuah and to the Children of Israel's coming out of Egypt In reflecting upon an entire People's coming out of a Kingdom where they were Strangers we shall remember how they got in thither The twelve Patriarchs appeared immediately and a People that were never look'd upon but as one single Family leads us naturally up to Abraham who was the Main-stock of it Were those People more wise and less addicted to Idolatry after their return out of Babylon It was the natural effect of a severe Chastisement which their own past Offences had drawn upon them If that People boasted that they had several Ages seen Miracles which never other People had seen they might also boast that they had had the knowledge of God which no other People had What would any have Circumcision the Feast of Tabernacles the Passover and the other celebrated Feasts in the Nation Time out of mind to signifie if not the things we find taken notice of in the Books of Moses that a People distinguished from all others by a Religion and by a Carriage so very peculiar who had kept from its Original upon the Foundation of Creation and upon the Faith of Providence a Doctrine so followed and elevated a so lively Remembrance of a long Succession of Facts so necessarily chained together Ceremonies so regulated and Customs so universal should be without a History to recount their Origine and without a Law to prescribe Customs to them for a thousand years whilst it continued in that Estate and that Esdras should all on the sudden begin to give them under the Name of Moses with a History of their Antiquities the Law that should form their Manners when that People who were then made Captives beheld their antient Monarchie utterly thrown down what more incredible Romance could any one ever invent And is it possible for any one to give Credit to it with joyning at the same time Ignorance to Blasphemy To lose such a Law after one has received it either a People ought to be quite exterminated or else through divers Changes be brought to such a pass that they have nothing but a confused Idea of their Original Religion and Customs If that Misery happened to the Jews and that the Law so well known under Zedekiah should be totally lost sixty Years after notwithstanding all the industrious Care of Ezekiel Jeremiah Baruch and Daniel without reckoning up the rest and in the time too when this Law had its Martyrs as the Persecution of Danâ—el and the three Children do plainly demonstrate If I say that holy Law was lost in so short a time and was so profoundly forgot till Esdras was permitted to re-establish it according to his own Fancy that was not the only Book which ought to be made them For he ought at the same time to compose all the Prophets both old and new that is to say those who had written both before and during the Captivity those that the People had seen write as well as those which they very well remembred not only the Prophets but also the Books of Solomon and the Psalms of Davâ—d and all the Books of History since in that whole History there can scarce be found one single considerable matter of Fact and in all those other Books so much as one Chapter which being taken out of the Books of Moses such as we have 'em can subsist one Moment Everything there speaks of Moses every thing there is sounded upon Moses and indeed every thing ought to be so for that Moses and his Law and the History which he wrote was effectually in the Jews all the Foundation both of their publick and private Conduct Indeed it was a very marvellous Enterprise in Esdras and very novel in the World to make at the same time so many Men to speak with Moses of a different Character and Stile and yet every one in a manner uniform and always like to it self And on a sudden to make so great and entire a People as they were to believe that those were the antient Books which they had always had in Reverence and the new which they had seen made as if they had never heard any thing spoke of and that the Knowledg of the present time as well as that of the time past was utterly defaced Such are the Prodigies we must believe if we will disbelieve the Miracles of the Almighty and refuse to receive the Testimony by which it was evident that they had told so great a People they had seen them with their Eyes But if that People were returned from Babylon unto the Land of their Fathers so new and so ignorant that they could scarce remember they had ever been so that without the least Examination they had received all that Esdras was pleased to give them How then is it that we see in the Book which Esdras wrote 1 Esdr 3.7.9 2 Esdr 5.8.9.12 13. and in that of Nehemiah his Contemporary whatsoever was there said of the divine Books With what Front durst Esdras and Nehemiah speak of the Law of Moses in so many places and that publickly as of a thing known to all the World and which all the World had in their Hands How were all the People seen to act naturally in Obedience to that Law as having had it always present with them But how was it said at the same time and at the Peoples Return that all that People admired the Accomplishment of the Oracle of Jeremiah concerning the seventy Weeks Captivity That Jeremiah which Esdras had been forging with all the other Prophets how had he on a sudden found Credit By what new Artifice were they able to
Sacrifice to Libertinism Now can you believe that impiety did not lead them without any necessity in the World into all these Absurdities you have seen if against the testimony of Mankind and against all the Rules of good Sence it strives to take away from the Pentateuch and the Prophecies their constantly avowed Authors to dispute their dates with them For the dates are all in all as to this matter for two reasons First because Books that were full of so many miraculous deeds which are seen in them attended with the most particular Circumstances and advanced not only as publick but as present if they had been capable of being false would have carried their own Condemnation with them and instead of keeping themselves up by their own weight they wouâ—d long ago have fell of themselves Secondly because their dates being once fixed we can no more efface the Infallible mark of divine Inspiration which they bear impressed in the great number and the long course of memorable Predictions which we find them filled withal 'T is to shift off these Miracles and these Predictions that the wicked have run themselves into all these Absurdities that have surprized you But let them not think they shall escape God He hath reserved for his Scriptures such a mark of Divinity as can never suffer any prejudice 'T is the relation there is between the two Testaments They do not dispute at least that all the old Testament was written before the new here there is no new Esdras which can perswade the Jews to invent or to falsify their Scripture in favour of the Christians whom they Persecuted There needs no more By the relation of the two Testaments we prove that both are Divine They have both the same design and the same Consequence The one prepares the way to that Perfection which the other shews openly to all the World the one lays the Foundation the other finishes the Building in a word the one foretells what the other shews us accomplished Thus all the times are united together and the eternal design of divine Providence is revealed to us The tradition of the Jews and that of the Christians make together but one and the same Progress of Religion and the Scriptures of both Testaments are but one and the same Body and one and the same Book And because the discussion of the particular Predictions tho' in it self it be full of Light depends on many Deeds which all the World cannot equally understand God hath therefore chosen some of them which he hath made plain to the most Ignorant Those illustrious those bright and conspicuous Facts of which all the World is a witness are those Facts which I have here endeavoured to make your Highness comprehend that is to say the desolation of the Jews and the Conversion of the Gentiles happening together and both precisely at the same time as the Gospel was Preached and Jesus Christ appeared These three things united in order of time were yet much more so in the order of God's Decrees You have seen them go together in the old Prophecies but Jesus Christ the faithful Interpreter of the Prophecies and of the Will of his Father hath still better explained unto us that Bond of Unity in his Gospel He does it in the Parable of the Vine-yard so familiar in the Prophets The Father of the Family had planted this Vine that is to say the true Religion founded upon his Covenant and had let it out to Husbandmen that is to say to the Jews Matt. 21.38 And that he might receive the fruits of it he sent several times his Servants who are the Prophets But these unfaithful Husbandmen cause some to be put to death his goodness leads him to send them his Son and yet him they treat worse than they did his Servants At last he takes away his Vineyard from them and gives it unto other Husbandmen he takes away from them the Grace of his Alliance to bestow it on the Gentiles These three things ought therefore to concur together the sending of the Son of God the Reprobation of the Jews and the Calling of the Gentiles There needs no further a Commentary upon the Parable which the event has it self interpreted You have seen the Jews confess that the Kingdom of Judah and the State of their Commonwealth began to fall in the time of Herod and when Jesus Christ came into the World But if the Alterations which they made to the Law of God have brought upon them so visible a Diminution of their Power their last Desolation which yet continues must be the Punishment of a fat greater Crime That Crime is plainly their Ingratitude against their Messiah who came to instruct them and to make them free And it is from that time too that an Iron yoke has been over their heads and they have been long ago crushed with it but that God keeps them to acknowledge one day and to serve that Messiah whom they have crucified You then already see one averr'd and publick Fact that is the total Ruine of the State of the Jews at the time of Jesus Christ The Conversion of the Gentiles which was to happen at the same time is no less averr'd neither At the same time when the ancient Worship was destroyed in Jerusalem with the Temple Idolatry was attacked on all sides and the People who for so many thousands of years had forgot their Creator were now wakened from so long a seeming death of sleep And that all things might accord the Spiritual Promises are displayed by the Preaching of the Gospel in the Time when the Jews who had only received the Temporal ones being openly reproved for their Incredulity and made Captives over all the face of the Earth had no longer any worldly Grandeur to expect Then was Heaven promised to those who suffered Persecution for Righteousness sake the Secrets of the Future Life were preached and the true Blessedness was shown for from that abode where Death reigns where Sin and all manner of Evils do abound If we do not discover here a design always kept up and always followed it we see not here one and the same order of the Counsels of God who prepared from the beginning of the World what he finished in the fulness of time and who under different Estates but with a Succession still constant perpetuated to the eyes of all the World that holy Society by whom he would be served we deserve to see nothing and to be delivered up to our own hardness as to the most just and rigorous of all Punishments And that this Course of God's People might be conspicuous to the most undiscerning God made it sensible and palpable by Matters of Fact which none could be ignorant of unless he purposely shut his eyes against the Truth The Messiah expected by the Hebrews he came and he called the Gentiles as it had been foretold The People that owned him as come were incorporated with