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.

707. 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
specators and even the instruments of His glory, besides that God had
reserved them.

708. 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.

709. 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.

710. 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 whi