But here is yet another proof of the falsity of these revelations of which we have spoken.  It is the lack of the fulfillment of the great and magnificent promises by which they were accompanied, for it is evident that these promises never have been fulfilled.

The proof of this consists in three principal points: 

Firstly.  Their posterity was to be more numerous than all the other nations of the world.

Secondly.  The people who should spring from their race were to be the happiest, the holiest, and the most victorious of all the people of the earth.

Thirdly.  His covenant was to be everlasting, and they should possess forever the country He should give them.  Now it is plain that these promises-never were fulfilled.

Firstly.  It is certain that the Jewish people, or the people of Israel—­which is the only one that can be regarded as having descended from the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the only ones to whom these promises should have been fulfilled—­have never been so numerous that it could be compared with the other nations of the earth, much less with the sands of the sea, etc., for we see that in the very time when it was the most numerous and the most flourishing, it never occupied more than the little sterile provinces of Palestine and its environs, which are almost nothing in comparison with the vast extent of a multitude of flourishing kingdoms which are on all sides of the earth.

Secondly.  They have never been fulfilled concerning the great blessings with which they were to be favored; for, although they won a few small victories over some poor nations whom they plundered, this did not prevent them from being conquered and reduced to servitude; their kingdom destroyed as well as their nation, by the Roman army; and even now the remainder of this unfortunate nation is looked upon as the vilest and most contemptible of all the earth, having no country, no dominion, no superiority.

Finally, these promises have not been fulfilled in respect to this everlasting covenant, which God ought to have fulfilled to them; because we do not see now, and we have never seen, any evidence of this covenant; and, on the contrary, they have been for many centuries excluded from the possession of the small country they pretended God had promised that they should enjoy forever.  Thus, since these pretended promises were never fulfilled, it is certain evidence of their falsity; which proves, plainly, that these pretended Holy Books which contain them were not of Divine inspiration.  Therefore it is useless for our Christ-worshipers to pretend to make use of them as infallible testimony to prove the truth of their religion.

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

V.—­(1) OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Our Christ-worshipers add to their reasons for credulity and to the proofs of the truth of their testimony, the prophecies which are, as they pretend, sure evidences of the truth of the revelations or inspirations of God, there being no one but God who could predict future events so long before they came to pass, as those which have been predicted by the prophets.