Your pious belief in the inspired prophecies of Isaiah, is natural to a superstitious and credulous mind. The philosopher who doubts before he gazes, sees in what you call prophecies nothing else but scraps of history or legend. He receives with diffidence all predictions. He is aware of the great ease with which forgeries may be passed among the vulgar for prophecies. When pretended predictions are made, they are altogether overlooked; even the ignorant think not of them till they are said to be accomplished; the learned despise them in both instances; and it is not till after their authenticity has gained a sort of general belief, that the philosopher thinks of enquiring when and how they were made. At this period he can find no evidence of their history, but from the credulous who have been imposed upon by them. Besides, no prophecy is ever direct, it always has an equivocal meaning, and is explained to suit the events which have happened. Religious enthusiasts write in such a mystic language upon the sins of mankind, and the judgements that are to come upon them, and in so general and ambiguous terms, that it is easy for a subtle interpreter, or a visionary fanatic, to explain them according to his own system. Have not the bears of the Apocalypse been made to signify by turns, the Pope and the Devil? Has not the New Jerusalem been sometimes taken for a real flying town, seen in the air by the first fathers of the church, as Tertullean informs us? Do not other divines tell us that it means the kingdom of heaven? Have not scripture divines, even in the first ages of the church, pretended that the verses of Virgil, _Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Sa-tumia regna, jam nova progenies ccelo demittitur alto;--natte mets vires, mea magna potentia solus, and talia perstabat memorans, fixusque manebat_, were clear prophecies of the Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ? It might be worth enquiring at this time, whether the Roman Bard was inspired by the Holy Ghost? Lastly, I may ask, does your Lordship believe in the many prophecies that have of late appeared of the French revolution?
But we have more reasons to declare the pretended clear prophecies of the Bible to be fables. In many instances they are so accurate, and so unlike these passages which we know to have been written previous to the events to which they are applied, or those which are not yet fulfilled, that no philosopher can pronounce them to have been written historically. Thus, we find Jacob announce to his twelve sons, the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel, the fate of their posterity; the situation of the district to be occupied by the Israelites in the land of Canaan, two hundred years before Joshua parcelled out this land in lots to the Israelites; the kind of life the different tribes would lead; the small number of the posterity of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, as well as the power of Judah; all which are related as exactly as if the patriarch had seen the throne of David and Solomon with his own eyes. Some of the supposed predictions of Isaiah and Daniel, are even more minutely correct. You have treated the question of the genuineness and date of works very lightly; you think it is of no great consequence to ascertain the genuineness of the different books of the Bible. Let us for a moment suppose, that by some accident, the age of Virgil had been forgotten, or the sixth book of his Æneid been ascribed to a writer of the age of Æneas; would not the Romans be entitled to regard, as a most wonderful prophecy, the lively representation given by Anchises of the future heroes of the republic, the two Cæsars, and the young Marcellus?