Excerpt from A Complete History of the Lives, Acts, and Martyrdoms of the Holy Apostles, and the Two Evangelists, St. Mark and Luke, Vol. 1: To Which Is Added, an Introductory Discourse, Concerning the Three Great Dispensations of the Church, Patriarchal, Mosaical, and Evangelical; Being a Continuation of Christian Antiquities The tradition of Elias. The three great periods of thie church. The patriarchal age. The laws then in force natura or posi tive. Natural Laws what; evinced from the testimony of na tural conscience. The seven precepts of the sons of Noah. Their respect to the law of nature. Positive laws under that Dispensation. Eating blood why prohibited. The mystery and signification of it. Circumcision when commanded and why. The laws concerning religion. Their public worship what. Sacrifices in what sense natural, and how far instituted. The manner of God's testifying his acceptance. What the place of their public worship. Altars and groves whence. Abraham's oak, its long continuance and destruction by Constantine. The original of the Druids. The times of their religious assem blies. In firocess oftz'mc, Genes. 4. What meant by it. The se venth day whether kept from the beginning. The ministers of religion who. The priesthood of the first-born. In what cases exercised by younger sons. The state of religion suc cessively under the several patriarchs. The condition of it in Adam's family. The sacrifices of Cain and Abel, and their dif ferent success, whence. Seth, his great learning and pietv. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.