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inconsistent. If they had, with this their master, denied the Scriptures which wo now have, as well as the Trinity and the divinity of our Saviour, which are so evidently proved by them, and forged others in their stead, they might have made their impious hypothesis look much more plausable, than now it can possibly appear to be.
Mahomet pretended to have all his revelations from the angel Gabriel, and that he was sent from God on purpose to deliver them unto him. And whereas he was subjeet to the falling-sickness, whenever the fit was upon him, he pretended it was a trance, and that then the angel Gabriel came from GOD, with some new revelations unto him, tho splendour of whose appearance he not being able to bear, this caused him to fall into these trances, in which the angel conversed with him, and delivered to him those messages from GOD, which he was sent to reveal unto him.
His pretended revelations he put into several chapters, the collection of which make up his Alcoran, which is the Bible of the Mahometans. The original of this book he taught them, was laid up in the archives of heaven, and that the angel Gabriel brought him the copy of it chapter by chapter, according as occasion required they should be published to the people. Part of these ho published at Mecca, before his flight from thence, and the other part at Medina; which he did after this manner:—When he had forged a new chapter, which he intended to publish, he first dictated it to his Secretary, and then delivered the written paper to be read to his followers, till they had learned it by heart; which being done, he had the paper brought to him again, which he laid up in a chest, which he called the Chest of his Apostleship.
