hrist, because he
would have been their salvation, but not since.

The Jewish people scorned by the Gentiles; the Christian people
persecuted.

704

_Proof._--Prophecies with their fulfilment; what has preceded and what
has followed Jesus Christ.

705

The prophecies are the strongest proof of Jesus Christ. It is for them
also that God has made most provision; for the event which has fulfilled
them is a miracle existing since the birth of the Church to the end. So
God has raised up prophets during sixteen hundred years, and, during
four hundred years afterwards, He has scattered all these prophecies
among all the Jews, who carried them into all parts of the world. Such
was the preparation for the birth of Jesus Christ, and, as His Gospel
was to be believed by all the world, it was not only necessary that
there should be prophecies to make it believed, but that these
prophecies should exist throughout the whole world, in order to make it
embraced by the whole world.

706

But it was not enough that the prophecies should exist. It was necessary
that they should be distributed throughout all places, and preserved
throughout all times. And in order that this agreement might not be
taken for an effect of chance, it was necessary that this should be
foretold.

It is far more glorious for the Messiah that the Jews should be the
spectators, and even the instruments of His glory, besides that God had
reserved them.

707

_Prophecies._--The time foretold by the state of the Jewish people, by
the state of the heathen, by the state of the temple, by the number of
years.

708

One must be bold to predict the same thing in so many ways. It was
necessary that the four idolatrous or pagan monarchies, the end of the
kingdom of Judah, and the seventy weeks, should happen at the same time,
and all this before the second temple was destroyed.

709

_Prophecies._--If one man alone had made a book of predictions about
Jesus Christ, as to the time and the manner, and Jesus Christ had come
in conformity to these prophecies, this fact would have infinite weight.

But there is much more here. Here is a succession of men during four
thousand years, who, consequently and without variation, come, one after
another, to foretell this same event. Here is a whole people who
announce it, and who have existed for four thousand years, in order to
give corporate testimony of the assurances which they have, and from
which