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The Epistle to the Reader.
Gentle Reader,
THe veile of the Sanctuary was supported by foure Pillars,* 1.1 and wrought with great variety of workes and colours: So is the Story of the veile of Christs flesh by the foure Evangelists, and the Texture of it of like variety. For one relateth what another hath omitted, one more largely, what another more briefe, one more plaine, what another lesse, one before what another after, one after one manner, and another after another: And so they bring their severall peeces of Imbroidery, differing in colours, but not in substance, various in workmanship, but not in the ground-work, to constitute and make up a perfect and sacred Tapestry and Fur∣niture in the House of the Lord: And carrying severall faces in the manner of their writing and composall, like those living Creatures in Ezekiel and the Revelation, yet they sweetly and Harmoniously meet together in the one body and compacture of a perfect Story.
To sew these parcels together into one piece, and so to dispose and place them in their proper order, as the continuance and Chronicall method of the History doth require, is, hic labor hoc opus, a thing of no small paines and difficulty, and yet a thing that with paines and industry may bee brought to passe: For in many passages and dislocations the Text hath shewed the proper place of such dislocated parcels, and the proper way and manner to joine them where they should bee joyned, so plainely; and in all places it hath hinted this so surely, though sometimes more ob∣scurely, that serious study and mature deliberation, may cer∣tainly