e
remarkable, if we consider the frequent Apostacies of this People, when
they lived under their Kings, in the Land of _Promise_, and within sight
of their Temple.

If in the next place we examine, what may be the Natural Reasons for
these three Particulars which we find in the _Jews_, and which are not
to be found in any other Religion or People, I can, in the first place,
attribute their Numbers to nothing but their constant Employment, their
Abstinence, their Exemption from Wars, and above all, their frequent
Marriages; for they look on Celibacy as an accursed State, and generally
are married before Twenty, as hoping the _Messiah_ may descend from them.

The Dispersion of the _Jews_ into all the Nations of the Earth, is the
second remarkable Particular of that People, though not so hard to be
accounted for. They were always in Rebellions and Tumults while they had
the Temple and Holy City in View, for which reason they have often been
driven out of their old Habitations in the Land of _Promise_. They have
as often been banished out of most other Places where they have settled,
which must very much disperse and scatter a People, and oblige them to
seek a Livelihood where they can find it. Besides, the whole People is
now a Race of such Merchants as are Wanderers by Profession, and at the
same time, are in most if not all Places incapable of either Lands or
Offices, that might engage them to make any Part of the World their
Home.

This Dispersion would probably have lost their Religion, had it not been
secured by the Strength of its Constitution: For they are to live all in
a Body, and generally within the same Enclosure; to marry among
themselves, and to eat no Meats that are not killed or prepared their
own way. This shuts them out from all Table Conversation, and the most
agreeable Intercourses of Life; and, by consequence, excludes them from
the most probable Means of Conversion.

If, in the last place, we consider what Providential Reason may be
assigned for these three Particulars, we shall find that their Numbers,
Dispersion, and Adherence to their Religion, have furnished every Age,
and every Nation of the World, with the strongest Arguments for the
Christian Faith, not only as these very Particulars are foretold of
them, but as they themselves are the Depositaries of these and all the
other Prophecies, which tend to their own Confusion. Their Number
furnishes us with a sufficient Cloud of Witnesses that at