ssary to the
full and upright character of truth that it rejects the crutch; and it
is consistent with the character of fable to seek the aid that truth
rejects. Thus much for Mystery and Miracle.

As Mystery and Miracle took charge of the past and the present, Prophecy
took charge of the future, and rounded the tenses of faith. It was
not sufficient to know what had been done, but what would be done. The
supposed prophet was the supposed historian of times to come; and if
he happened, in shooting with a long bow of a thousand years, to strike
within a thousand miles of a mark, the ingenuity of posterity could make
it point-blank; and if he happened to be directly wrong, it was only
to suppose, as in the case of Jonah and Nineveh, that God had repented
himself and changed his mind. What a fool do fabulous systems make of
man!

It has been shewn, in a former part of this work, that the original
meaning of the words prophet and prophesying has been changed, and that
a prophet, in the sense of the word as now used, is a creature of modern
invention; and it is owing to this change in the meaning of the words,
that the flights and metaphors of the Jewish poets, and phrases and
expressions now rendered obscure by our not being acquainted with the
local circumstances to which they applied at the time they were used,
have been erected into prophecies, and made to bend to explanations
at the will and whimsical conceits of sectaries, expounders, and
commentators. Every thing unintelligible was prophetical, and every
thing insignificant was typical. A blunder would have served for a
prophecy; and a dish-clout for a type.

If by a prophet we are to suppose a man to whom the Almighty
communicated some event that would take place in future, either there
were such men, or there were not. If there were, it is consistent to
believe that the event so communicated would be told in terms that could
be understood, and not related in such a loose and obscure manner as to
be out of the comprehension of those that heard it, and so equivocal
as to fit almost any circumstance that might happen afterwards. It is
conceiving very irreverently of the Almighty, to suppose he would
deal in this jesting manner with mankind; yet all the things called
prophecies in the book called the Bible come under this description.

But it is with Prophecy as it is with Miracle. It could not answer the
purpose even if it were real. Those to whom a prophecy should