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
the Father understood in that profound Sence which made him to be conceived from all Eternity the Father of a Son equal to himself and that the Name of his Son is the name of the Word the Word which he begot eternally in the Contemplation of himself which is the perfect expression of his Truth his Image his only Son being the brightness of his Glory Heb. 1.3 and the express Image of his Person With the Father and the Son we know also the Holy Ghost the Love of both and their eternal Union 'T was that Spirit which made the Prophets and which was in them to discover to them the Councils of God and the Secrets of Futurity the Spirit of whom it is written Isai 48.16 The Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me which is distinguished from the Lord and which is also the Lord himself since that he sent the Prophets and discovered to them things to come That Spirit which spake to the Prophets and which spake by the Prophets was united to the Father and the Son and interposed with them in the Consecration of the new Man Thus the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost one single God in three Persons shewn more darkly to our Fathers was clearly revealed in the new Covenant Being instructed in so high a Mystery and astonished at its incomprehensible Depth we cover our Faces before God with the Cherubims whom Isaiah saw and with them we adore him who is Holy holy holy the Lord of Hosts Isai 6.3 whose Glory is the fulness of the whole Earth It belonged to the only Son John 1.18 who was in the Bosom of his Father and who without ever coming from thence came down to us to him I say it belonged fully to discover to us those admirable Secrets of the Divine Nature which Moses and the Prophets had but lightly touched upon It belonged to him to make us understand how it was that the Messiah promised as a Man who was to save all men was at the same time shewn as God in the singular Number and absolutely after the same manner as the Creator himself was shewn to us and this is also that which he hath done in teaching us that though he was the Son of Abraham John 8.58 yet he was before ever Abraham was born and that he came down from Heaven and that he always is in Heaven Id. 3.13 that he was God the Son of God and yet he was Man the Son of Man the true Emanuel God with us in a word the Word made Flesh uniting in his Person Humane Nature with the Divine that so he might reconcile all things unto himself Thus are revealed to us the two great and principal Mysteries that of the Trinity and that of the Incarnation But he who hath revealed them to us makes us to find the Image thereof in our selves that so they might be always present to us and that we might acknowledge the Dignity of our Nature In short if we would impose Silence on our Senses and would for a little while look into our selves into the bottom of our Souls that is to say into that part where the truth comes to be understood we should find there some Image of the Trinity we adore The thought which we feel to spring up as the Bud of our Mind as the Son of our Understanding gives us some Idea of the Son of God eternally conceived in the mind of the heavenly Father Wherefore that Son of God assumes the name of Word to make us understand that he sprang up in the Bosome of the Father Greg. Naz. Orat 26. Aug. de Trin. 9.4 c. in Johan Evang Tr. 1. c. de Civ 11.26 27 28. not as Bodies do but as that inward Word arises in our Mind which we feel in it when we contemplate on the Truth But the fruitfulness of our Mind is not terminated on that inward Word that intellectual Thought that image of Truth which is formed in us We love both that inward Word and the Mind in which it arises and in that love we feel somewhat in us which we value as highly as our very mind and thought which is the Fruit of both which unites them anâ— is united to them and which makes up but one Life with us So far as there can be found any relation between God and Man so far I say is produced in God the eternal Love which comes from the Fatâ—er who thinks and from the Son who is his Thought to make up with him and his Thought one and the same nature equally happy and perfect In a word God is perfect and his Word the living Image of an infinite Truth is no less perfect than him and his Love which proceeding from the inexhaustible Fountain of Good hath all the fulness of it cannot but have an infinite Perfection And since that we have no other Idea of God but that of Perfection each of those three things considered apart deserves to be called God But beause those three things do necessarily agree with one and the same Nature those three things therefore make up but one God We ought then to have no unequal nor separate Conceptions of this Adorable Trinity and how incomprehensible soever the Equality be our Soul if we will but hearken to it will tell us something of it It is and when it knows perfectly what it is its Intelligence corresponds to the truth of its being Aug. loc citat And when it loves its being with its understanding as much as it deserves to be belov'd its Love equals the perfection of both Those three things are never divided the one is confined by other and the third by both We understand that we are and that we love and we love to be and to understand Who can deny it if he understand himself and not only is not one of those better than another but three altogether are not better than is one of them by it self since that each of them do bind the whole do conclude the whole and that in those three consists the Felicity and Dignity of the reasonable Nature Thus is the Trinity which we worship and to which we are consecrated by our Baptism thus I say and infinitely more is it perfect unseparable one in its Essence and in short equal in every sence But we our selves who are the Image of the Trinity we in another respect are also the Image of the Incarnation A Soul of a spiritual and incorruptible Nature hath a corruptible Body which is united to it Aug. Ep. 3. ad Volusc c. 3. de Civ 10.29 Cyr. Ep. ad Valerian p. 3. Conâ— Eph. c. Symb. Ath. c. And from the Union of them both results a Whole which is Man Mind and Body together incorruptible intelligent and purely brutish These Attributes agree with the whole by relation to each of its two parts So the divine Word whose Virtue sustains
the whole by relation to each of its two parts so the divine Word whose Virtue sustains the whole is united in a particular manner or rather it becomes himself by a perfect Union that Jesus Christ the Son of Mary that which makes him to be the Son of God and Man both together begotten from all Eternity and yet begotten in time always living in the Bosom of his Father and yet dead upon the Cross for our Salvation But where God finds himself mixed Comparisons drawn from humane things are never but imperfect Our Soul is not before our Body and something fails it when ever it is separated from it The Word perfect in it self from all Eternity is only united to our Nature for its Honour That Soul which presides over the Body and makes several Changes in it it self suffers from it in its turn If the Body be moved at the command and according to the Will of the Soul the Soul is troubled the Soul is afflicted and influenced a thousand ways either tormenting or pleasing according to the Dispositions of the Body so that as the Soul raises up the Body to it self in the governing part so it is cast down below it by what it suffers from the Body But in Jesus Christ the word presides over all it keeps all under its Dominion So Man is raised and the Word is not cast down by any thing Immutable and unalterable it rules and governs Nature which is united to it in all things throughout From thence it comes that in Jesus Christ Man absolutely submissive to the inward direction of the Word which raises it up to it self has only divine Thoughts and Motions All that he thinks all that he wills all that he says all that he conceals within all that he shews outwardly is animated and inspired by the Word led by the Word worthy of Word that is to say worthy of Reason it self of Wisdom it self and of Truth it self Wherefore every thing is Light in Jesus Christ His Conduct is a Rule his Miracles are Instructions his Words are Spirit and Life It is not given to all to understand these sublime Truths nor perfectly to see in himself that marvellous Image of divine things which St. Austin and the other Fathers have thought so certain Our Senses govern us too much and our Imagination which will be concerned in all our Thoughts does not suffer us always to stay upon so pure a Light We do not know our selves we are ignorant what vast Riches we constantly carry about with us because we search not to the bottom of our Natures and only the most inwardly discerning Eyes can perceive them But as little as we do pry into that Secret and observe in our selves the Image of the two Mysteries which make up the Foundation of our Faith that is sufficient to raise us up above all and nothing of Mortality can affect us any more Also Jesus Christ calls us to an immortal Glory and it is the Fruit of the Faith we have for the Mysteries That God-Man that incarnate Truth and Wisdom which makes us to believe such great things upon its single Authority promises to us the clear and happy Vision of it in Eternity as the certain Recompence of our Faith In this way is the Mission of Jesus Christ infinitely advanced above that of Moses Moses was sent to rouse up sensual and brutish Men by temporal Rewards Since that they were become all Body and all Flesh it was necessary for him at first to captivate them by their Senses and by that means to inculcate into them the Knowledg of God and the horror of Idolatry to which Mankind had so prodigious an Inclination That was the Ministry of Moses But to inspire Man with more exalted Thoughts and by a full Evidence to convince him of the Dignity Immortality and eternal Happiness of his Soul this was reserv'd to be the Work of Jesus Christ In the times of Ignorance that is to say those which were before our blessed Saviours days what the Soul knew of its Dignity and Immortality led it for the most part to Error The worshipping of dead Men did almost make up all their Idolatry Almost all Men sacrificed to the Manes that is to the Souls of the Dead Those antient Errors do discover to us indeed how great was the antient Belief of the Souls Immortality and shows us that we ought to place it among the first Traditions of Mankind But Man who spoil'd all things had strangely abused it since the Soul carried him out to sacrifice to the Dead Nay they went at last to that excess as to sacrifice living Men to them they killed their Slaves and even their Women to make them go and serve them in the other World The Gauls did so with many other People And the Indians observed by the Heathen Authors among the first Defenders of the Souls Immortality Cas de hell Gall. 6. have also been the first Introducers of those abominable Murders in the World under the pretence of Religion The same Indians used to kill themselves to forward the Happiness of the future Life and that deplorable Blindness continues still to this day among those People so dangerous is it to teach the Truth in any other way or manner than what God hath instituted and clearly to explain to Man all that he is before he knew God perfectly 'T was the want of knowing God which made most of the Philosophers not to believe the Immortality of the Soul without believing it at the same time a Portion of the Divinity nay a Divinity it self an eternal Being uncreated as well as incorruptible and which had neither beginning not end What shall I say of those who believed the Transmigration of Souls who made them skip from Heaven to Earth and then from Earth to Heaven again from Beasts into Men and from Men into Beasts from Happiness to Misery and from Misery to Happiness and those Revolutions never to have any end nor any certain order How sadly was the Divine Justice Providence and Goodness darkened amidst so many fuliginous Errors And how necessary was it to know God and the Rules of his Wisdom before he knows the Soul and its immortal Nature Wherefore the Law of Moses gave only to Man the first Notion of the nature of the Soul and its Felicity We saw the Soul at first made by the Power of God as well as the rest of the Creatures but with this particular Character and Distinction that it was made after his Image and by his Breath that it might understand to whom it was obliged by its being and also that it might never fancy it self to be of the same nature with the Body not formed by its order and concurrence But the Consequences of this Doctrine and the Marvels of the future Life were not then universally unfolded This great Light and Discovery was not to be till the coming of the Messiah God had scattered some few
paid what he never owed and acquits the Sinners of their debt for what could better cover our Sins than his Righteousness What better way could the Rebellion of Servants be expiated than by the obedience of the Son The iniquity of many is hid in one just One and the justice of One alone makes it that many are justified What then are we not to pretend to God commendeth has love towards us Rom. 5.8 9. in that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us Much more then being now justified by his Blood we shall be saved from wrath through him All was for us by Jesus Christ Grace holiness life glory blessedness the Kingdom of the Son of God is our Inheritance there is nothing above us provided only that we do not degenerate and make our selves vile Whilst Jesus Christ was filling up our desires and surpassing our hopes he finished the work of God which was begun under the Patriarchs and in the Law of Moses Then God resolved to make himself known by sensible Experiences he shewed himself very magnificent in Temporal Promises good in heaping upon his Children such Blessings as flattered the Senses powerful in delivering them from the hands of their Enemies faithful in leading them into the Land of Promise to their Fathers just by the Rewards and Punishments which he openly sent them according to their works All his marvellous Works prepared the way for the Truths which Jesus Christ came to teach If God be so good as to bestow on us what is agreeable to our Senses how much rather shall he give unto us what is agreeable to our Souls which were made after his own Image If he be so tender and beneficent towards his Children shall he shut up his love and his bounty in those few years which make up our life Will he give to those whom he loves only a shadow of Felicity a fertile Land in Corn and Oyl Will there not be a heavenly Country wherein he will abundantly recompence us with true and everlasting good things There will be one without all peradventure and Jesus Christ will come to shew it us For indeed the Almighty would do works very unworthy of himself if all his magnificence should terminate in Grandeurs that were only exposed to our weak and infirm Senses Whatsoever is not eternal is neither correspondent to the Majesty of an Eternal God nor does it answer the hopes of man to whom he hath made known his eternity and that unchangeable fidelity which he bears to his Servants will never have an Object proportionable to it until it be extended to something that is immortally permanent Therefore will Jesus Christ at last come and open the Heavens to us to disocover there to our Faith that abiding City Heb. 11.8.9 10 13 14 15 16. which hath Foundations whose Builder and Maker is God where we are to be gathered together after this life He shews us that if God make Eternal to be one of his Titles the Name of the God of Abraham of Isaac and of Jacob it is because those holy men are always living before him Matth. 22.32 Luke 20.38 For God is not the God of the dead but of the living It is below him to do only as men accompany his friends to the Grave without giving them any hope beyond and it would be if I may speak with reverence reproachable for him to call himself with so much of force and energy the God of Abraham if he had not founded in the Heavens an Eternal City wherein Abraham and his Children may be happy throughout all Generations 'T is thus therefore that these Truths of a Futurity were unfolded to us by Jesus Christ Heb. 11.14 15 16. He shewed them to us even under the Law the true Land of Promise was the heavenly Kingdom 'T was that blessed Country that Abraham Isaac and Jacob desired Palestine did not deserve to be the Boundary of their fervent Vows nor to be the sole object of so long an expectation of our Fathers Egypt from whence we were to come out the Wilderness through which we were to pass Babylon whose Prison-walls we were to break to enter or to return into our Country that was this World with all its delights and vanities for here it was that we were truly Captives and Pilgrims led astray by Sin and Concupiscence we were to shake off this Yoke to find in Jerusalem and in the City of our God true liberty and an House or Sanctuary not made with hands 2 Cor. 5.1 eternal in the Heavens where the Glory of the God of Israel should be manifested to us By this Doctrine of Jesus Christ the Mystery of God was laid open to us the Law was all Spiritual its Promises were introductive of those of the Gospel and served as a Foundation to them One and the same light was visible throughout it arose under the Patriarchs under Moses and the Prophets it increased Jesus Christ who was greater than the Patriarchs who came with more Authority than Moses and who was more illuminated than all the Prophets discovered this unto us in his fulness To this Christ to this God-Man to this Man who held upon Earth as St. Austin speaks the place of The Truth and discovers it to be personally resident amongst us to him I say it was reserved to shew us all Truth that is to say so much of the Mysteries of the Vertues and of the Rewards as God had designed for those whom he really loved These were the Grandeurs which the Jews ought to have look'd for in their Messiah There is nothing so great and glorious as to carry in it self and to discover unto men Truth in its fulness and perfection which seeds them and directs them and clears up their eyes so as to make 'em capable of seeing God Now in this time when the Truth was to be discovered to men with that fulness it was also commanded to be promulged throughout all the Earth and at all times God gave to Moses but one single People and one determined time but all Ages and all the People of the World were given to Jesus Christ he hath his Elect every where and his Church extensive as the Universe shall never leave off her bringing them forth Go saith he therefore and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father Matth. 28.19 20. and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo I am with you alway even unto the end of the World Amen VII The Descent of the Holy Ghost the Establishment of the Church The Judgements of God on the Jews and on the Gentiles To disperse into all Places and in all Ages such eminent Truths and to put such pure and admirable Practices in force amidst such Corruption there was need of a Vertue more than Humane Wherefore Jesus Christ promised to send the Holy
the event and you will find how God confounded the proud Princes The holy Fathers and the Ecclesiastical Historians do with one common consent report it and justify it by Monuments which remain still from their time But the matter ought to be attested by Heathens themselves Amm. Marcel l. 23. init Ammianus Marcellinus a Gentile in his Religion and a zealous defender of Julian hath recorded it in these Terms Whilst Alipius being assisted by the Governor of the Province was advancing the Work with all the Might he could terrible Globes of Fire broke forth from the very Foundations which they before had shaken by violent Assaults the Workmen who several times essayed to begin the Work anew were many times burnt the place became inaccessible and so the undertaking fell The Ecclesiastical Authors who are more exact in representing so memorable an Event do joyn with that of the Earth the Fire of Heaven too But after all the Word of Jesus Christ abides firm and sure St. John Chrysostome cryes out Orat. in Judaeos He hath built his Church on the Rock nothing shall be able to overthrow it the Temple nothing shall be able to build up again None can pull down what God erects nor can any build up again what God pulls down Let us now make an end of our Discourse on Jerusalem and the Temple and cast our Eyes a little on the People themselves heretofore the living Temple of the Lord of Hosts and now the Object of his â—â—arred The Jews are more levelled than their Temple and their City The Spirit of Truth is no longer among them Prophecy is quite at an end with them the Promises on which the stress of their Hopes depends are vanished all things are topsy turvy with that People and there is not one Stone left upon another And do but observe how far they are delivered up to Error Jesus Christ told it them I am come in my Fathers Name John 5.43 and ye receive me not if another shall come in his own Name him ye will receive From that time the Spirit of Seduction hath been so predominant among them that they are ready still at every moment to let themselves be carried away by it It was not enough that the false Prophets should deliver Jerusalem into the Hands of Titus the Jews were not as yet banished Judea and the Love they had for Jerusalem had obliged several of them to choose their Place of Abode among its Ruines Behold a false Christ arose up who was absolutely to compleat their Destruction Fifty Years after the taking of Jerusalem in the Age of the Death of our Lord the famous Barchochebas a Robber a wicked Wretch because his Name signified the Son of the Star impiously called himself the Star of Jacob foretold in the Book of Numbers and pretended he was the Christ Akibas Numb 24.17 Euseb Hist Eccles 4.6 8. a Man of greatest Authority among the Rabbi's after whose Example all those whom the Jews call their Sages came over to his Party tho' the Impostor gave than no other sign of his Mission but that Akibas told them the Christ could not be very far off The Jews revolted throughout all the Roman Empire under the Conduct of Barchochebas â—alm Hier. de jejuâ— â—5 in ver Comm. sup Lam. Jerem. Maimonid li. de jur Reg. c. 12. who promised them the Empire of the World Adrian killed six hundred thousand of them The Yoke of those miserable Wretches was very heavy and they were for ever banished Judea Who is there but sees that the Spirit of Seduction had seized their hearts Because they received not the love of the Truth that they might be saved 2 Thess 2.10 11 12. for that cause God sent them strong delusion that they should believe a lye that they all might be damned who believed not the Truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness There is no Imposture so gross but what deceives them In our days an Impostor called himself Christ in the East and all the Jews began to run in Flocks about him we have seen them in Italy in Holland in Germany and at Metz ready to leave all for the sake of following him They imagined already that they were becoming the Masters of the World when they learnt that their Christ was made a Turk and had forsook the Law of Moses We need not to wonder if they be fallen into such Dispersions X. The Progress of the Jewish Errours and the manner how they explain the Prophecies nor if the Tempest has scattered them after they had forsaken their own way That way was pointed out to them in their Prophecies especially in those which designated the time of our Saviour Christ But they let slip those precious Opportunities without any whit benefitting themselves by them wherefore we have seen them afterwards given up to believe a lye and they never knew since what course to take Give me leave a little to recount to you the course and progress of their Errors and all the Methods they have taken to sink themselves into this Abyss The ways by which we come to wander tend always to the broad Road and by considering where our wandring hath begun we may more securely go on in the right way Your Highness hath seen that two Prophecies have set forth to the Jews the time of Christ's coming that of Jacob and that of Daniel They both did foretell the ruine of the Kingdom of Judah at the time of our Saviour's Advent But Daniel revealed how that a total Destruction should come upon that Kingdom after the death of Christ and Jacob said plainly that in the Declension of the Kingdom of Judah that Christ which should then come should be the Expectation of the People that is to say that he should be the Deliverer of them and that he should erect to himself a new Kingdom not only framed out of one single People but out of all the People of the World The words of the Prophecy can admit of no other sense and it was the constant positive Tradition of the Jews that they were thus to understand it From thence that Opinion which was spread abroad by the ancient Rabbies and which is yet to be seen in their Talmud Gem. tr Sanhed c. 11. that at the time that Christ was to come there should be no more Magistracy so that there was nothing more necessary to make them know the time of their Messias than only to observe when they were falling into that woful Condition In fine they had begun well and if they had not had their minds prepossessed with the worldly Grandeurs which they hoped to find in their Messias and which they thought to have a share of under his Empire they could never have been mistaken in Jesus Christ The Foundation they had laid was certain for as soon as the Tyranny of the first Herod and the change of the Jewish Commonwealth which happened