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out of his presence (38, 39.): which words, we find, were oftentimes made use of by Isaiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zechariah, and Malachi, when uttering their denunciations against any city or country, such as Egypt, Tyre, Babylon, &c.

Besides, God himself not only deceived the prophets35 and made the people to err, but he actually instructed them in the art and mystery of lying. Do we not read that when the Lord commanded Samuel to go and anoint David King of Israel, in the stead of Saul, Samuel was fearful, and said, how can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me?36 But the Lord, whose judginents are unsearchable, and his ways past finding out!37 could soon find out a way to remove these fears, by bidding him take an heifer, and say, "I am come to sacrifice to the Lord." Oh! what a blessed thing is religion! it covereth a multitude of sins!

And how is it that there are no prophets in the present day? Is the art and mystery of prophesying lost? Or is mankind arrived at that degree of perfection, that they stand in no need of it? We find that there are many persons who lay claim to the spirit of God, and are even admitted into his privy council; yet, I suppose, you will allow that they know no more of futurity, nor even the truth of things which are past, than I do. And if what we read of prophets be true, I think we have not much cause to regret their non-existence. For we find that they being men subject to like passions as we are, were capable of doing a great deal more mischief with their divine powers, than we poor creatures are! For instance; we are told that Elijah destroyed one hundred and two men for obeying the orders of their King; although they delivered their message in the most respectful and submissive manner,3 yet did this man of God destroy them with his divine power. At another time we read of his slaying eight hundred and fifty men, because they differed from him in opinion. 40 In like manner would the "gangs" do in the present day, if they had but the power: for we see them (like Elijah,) instead of endeavouring to

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convince those who differ from them, that their opinions are erroneous, inclosing them within stone walls, bound with iron; where they leave them to linger out their useful days, unregarded and unconverted! If you say that Elijah was only an instrument in the hand of God to punish evil doers, read where he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth for the space of three years and six months;41 whence it is evident that the just must suffer with the unjust, if it rained not upon all the earth during that time; for even in Israel, Jesus said, there were many widows beside the one at Sarepta, unto whom Elias was sent.** But what mighty evil could there be in a company of little children, who upon seeing a queer-looking baldpated old man go past them, cried out, there goes baldhead, that should cause this bald-pated blessed man of God to curse them? which curse caused two she-bears to come out of the woods, (close by the city) and tear forty and two children of them !43 It is well for little children, that there are no Elishas in the present day; though we do not find little children assembling together in such multitudes, nor she bears lurking so near a city in this age.

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We moreover find that many of those prophecies, by their own confession, were never fulfilled. For instance; God bade Jacob go down into Egypt, promising him at the same time, that he would surely bring him up again; yet we never read that he returned again alive; unless you call bringing his dead bones back 45 fulfilling the promise; which I think, would be but a poor consolation to a living man, when ordered to go to a foreign nation, to be told that his bones shall be brought back again! Another time, God promised, if this book is to be believed, that Josiah should die in peace ;46 but we are told, he died sore wounded in the war And when God sent word to Hezekiah, saying "set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live; we find that through Hezekiah boasting of his own righteousness, by telling the Lord how good he had been, and shedding a few tears, the Lord changed his mind, and

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added fifteen years to his days. 48

If this be the case, how can future events be foretold? or what confidence can be placed in prophecies, if this God repent, or changes his mind in this manner?

We read, also, that this God said that he would bring a sword upon Egypt, and give the land to Nebuchadnezzar; and that he would cut off man and beast, so that the land of Egypt should be laid waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene, unto the border of Ethiopia, for the space of forty years; during which time neither man nor beast should pass through it.49 Yet when did this happen? History does not inform us that Nebuchadnezzar ever conquered Egypt within its own rivers; although Isaiah said, that their waters should fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up the fishers also shall mourn-and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish.” If God meant what he said, when did all this happen? If he did not, what did he mean? and if we cannot tell his meaning, of what use is the prophecy to us?*

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In another part we find him speaking more explicitly to Jeremiah;51 for after having bade him take great stones, and hide them in a certain place, near the King of Egypt's Palace, he says that Nebuchadnezzar shall set his throne upon these very stones which were hid in the sight of the men of Judah. When did Nebuchadnezzar ever fulfil this prediction? And if he never did, it is evident that he never will, seeing that he has long since gone to that place,

"From whose bourn no traveller returas."

Again, how can we in the present day, be assured that the prophet and the historian were not one and the same person? If so, it was very easy to prophecy and fulfil, as he could then accommodate facts to prophecies, and prophecies to facts! We discover that the 18th, 19th, and 20th chapters of the second book of Kings, are nearly word for word the same as the 36th, 37th, and 39th chapters of Isaiah. Therefore, we cannot

* Peter Annett,

tell that those prophecies which might have been fulfilled, were not written, until after those facts, said to have occurred, had taken place. For instance; the

dispersion of the Jews among all nations, was foretold, it is said, by Moses: 52 yet it is possible, that this prediction was not written until after they were so scattered for we read that in the days of Ahasuerus, they were scattered abroad, and dispersed among the people, who inhabited one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, from India, even unto Ethiopia. (Esther i. 1, and iii. 8.) Even Nehemiah, (i. 8.) seems to confess that they were then scattered abroad among the nations. And long before then, ten tribes out of the twelve, were dispersed by Shalmaneser, King of As. syria, and placed in different countries. (2 Kings xvii. 6.) But when they were subject to the Romans, we find that they were living in every nation under heaven. 53 Though I never heard that Julius Cæsar ever found any Jews among the ancient Britons when he came over; neither could I ever learn that the Spaniards found any among the Americans, when they discovered that land; though that was not until fifteen hundred years after they were said to be living in every nation under heaven!

As to any person foreseeing or judging that a numerous sect or description of persons should be scattered throughout all nations, it needed not the aid of divine inspiration. Experience shews that every sect soon finds its way to distant nations; witness the Methodists!

But there are men possessing such great political foresight-who anticipate events on the mere principle of cause and effect by which they often predict the general consequences of certain measures, long before they happen. And many singular coincidences have occurred which might be adduced as the result of a prophetic spirit. Such as the writings of Seneca, wherein he states that "in late years, ages shall arive, when the ocean shall relax the bounds of the universe, and a mighty land shall be laid open, and Typhys shall

unveil new worlds, and Thulè shall no longer be the utmost extremity of the earth."* This was written upwards of fourteen hundred years before America was discovered by Columbus. Yet Seneca did not lay claim to divine inspiration; he was an heathen poet. See how accurately his prediction was fulfilled! Here is the discovery of some mighty land, or a new continent, announced fourteen hundred years before it happened! a thing which must have been thought incredible in his days, as it was received only as an idle chimera of the brain, when Columbus first proposed the attempt. But Seneca, calculating on the progress which had been made by nautical inventions, considered that it would still advance to that degree of excellence, when men would boldly launch forth into the wide and hitherto impenetrable ocean, where it was probable there might be lands, which, to them, were then veiled and undiscovered.

Though this may be considered only as a single, solitary, and isolated prediction; whereas the prediction of Moses was an highly complicated prophecy, comprehending a very considerable number of distinct particulars: then I say that each of those particulars must be shewn to have been accurately fulfilled; otherwise the prophecy is rendered untenable, and stript of its divine authority. To prove which, let us examine the prophecy as it is written in the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy.

First: it is said in Verse 49, that "the Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand." Did Shalmaneser, the Assyrian, who took the ten tribes captive, come from far? or Nebuchadnezzar from the end of the earth? Were they not both neighbours, comparatively speaking? And was the Syrian tongue unknown to them, when they besought Rabshekah to speak to them in that language, because they understood it, they said? (2 Kings xviii. 26.) Or the Chaldeans from whom they were descended? (Genesis

* Senec. Med. ver. 375 380.

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