and it became necessary to the inventors of the gospel to give it this latitude of meaning, in order to apply or to stretch what they call the prophecies of the Old Testament, to the times of the New; but according to the Old Testament, the prophesying of the seer, and afterwards of the prophet, so far as the meaning of the word seer was incorporated into that of prophet, had reference only to things of the time then passing, or very closely connected with it; such as the event of a battle they were going to engage in, or of a journey, or of any enterprise they were going to undertake, or of any circumstance then pending, or of any difficulty they were then in; all of which had immediate reference to themselves (as in the case already mentioned of Ahaz and Isaiah with respect to the expression, Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son) and not to any distant future time. It was that kind of prophesying that corresponds to what we call fortune-telling; such as casting nativities, predicting riches, fortunate or unfortunate marriages, conjuring for lost goods, &c.; and it is the fraud of the Christian church, not that of the Jews; and the ignorance and the superstition of modern, not that of ancient times, that elevated those poetical-musical-conjuring-dreaming-stroling gentry, into the rank they have since had. 66 But, besides this general character of all the prophets, they had also a particular character. They were in parties, and they prophesied for or against, according to the party they were with; as the poetical and political writers of the present day write in defence of the party they associate with against the other. "After the Jews were divided into two nations, that of Judah and that of Israel, each party had its prophets, who abused and accused each other of being false prophets, lying prophets, impostors, &c. "The prophets of the party of Judah prophesied against the prophets of the party of Israel; and those of the party of Israel against those of Judah. This party prophesying shewed itself immediately on the separation under the first two rival kings Rehoboam and Jeroboan. The prophet that cursed, or prophesied, against the altar that Jeroboam had built in Bethel, was of the party of Judah, where Rehoboam was king; and he was way-laid, on his return home, by a prophet of the party of Israel, who said unto him, (1 Kings, chap. x.) Art thou the man of God that came from Judah and he said I am.' Then the prophet of the party of Israel said to him, I am a prophet also, as thou art (signifying of Judah,) and an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee unto thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water: but (says the 18th verse,) he lied unto him.' The event, however, according to the story, is, that the pro phet of Judah never got back to Judah, for he was found dead on the road, by the contrivance of the prophet of Israel, who, no doubt, was \ called a true prophet by his own party, and the prophet of Judah a lying prophet. In the third chapter of the second of Kings, a story is related of prophesying or conjuring, that shews, in several particulars, the character of a prophet. Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and Joram, king of Israel, had for a while ceased their party animosity, and entered into an alliance; and these two, together with the king of Edom, engaged in a war against the king of Moab. After uniting, and marching their armies, the story says, they were in great distress for water, upon which Jehoshaphat said, 'Is there not here a prophet of the Lord, that we may enquire of the Lord by him? and one of the servants of the king of Israel said, here is Elisha. (Elisha was of the party of Judah.) And Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, said, the word of the Lord is with him. The story then says, that these three kings went down to Elisha; and when Elisha (who, as I have said, was a Judahmite prophet) saw the king of Israel, he said unto him, What have I to do with thee, get thee to the prophets of thy father and the prophets of thy mother. Nuy but, said the king of Israel, the Lord hath called these three kings together, to deliver them into the hand of the king of Moab,' (meaning because of the distress they were in for water); upon which Elisha said, As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, I would not look towards thee, nor see thee.' Here is all the venom and vulgarity of a party prophet. now to see the performance, or manner of prophesying. We have "Ver. 15. Bring me, said Elisha, a minstrel: and it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him.' Here is the farce of the conjuror. Now for the prophecy And Elisha said, (singing most probably to the tune he was playing) Thus saith the Lord, Make this valley full of ditches; which was just telling them what every countryman, could have told them, without either fiddle or farce, that the way to get water was to dig for it. "But as every conjuror is not famous alike for the same thing, so neither were those prophets; for though all of them, at least, those I have spoken of, were famous for lying, some of them excelled in cursing. Elisha, whom I have just mentioned, was a chief in this branch of prophesying; it was he that cursed the forty-two children in the name of the Lord, whom the two she-bears came and devoured. We are to suppose that those children were of the party of Israel; but as those who will curse will lie, there is just as much credit to be given to this story of Elisha's two she-bears as there is to that of the Dragon of Wantley, of whom it is said : Poor children three devoured he, "There was another description of men called prophets, that amused themselves with dreams and visions; but whether by night or by day, we know not. These, if they were not quite harmless, were but little mischievous. Of this class are "Ezekiel and Daniel; and the first question upon those hooks, as upon all the others, is, Are they genuine? that is, were they written by Ezekiel and Daniel? "Of this there is no proof; but so far as my own opinion goes, I am more inclined to believe they were, than that they were not. My reasons for this opinion are as follow: First, Because those books do not contain internal evidence to prove they were not written by Ezekiel and Daniel, as the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, Samuel, &c. &c. prove they were not written by Moses, Joshua, Samuel, &c. Secondly, Because they were not written till after the Babylonish captivity began; and there is good reason to believe, that not any book in the Bible was written before that period: at least, it is proveable, from the books themselves, as I have already shewn, that they were not written till after the commencement of the Jewish monarchy. Thirdly, Because the manner in which the books ascribed to Ezekiel and Daniel are written, agrees with the condition these men were in at the time of writing them. "Had the numerous commentators and priests, who have foolishly employed or wasted their time in pretending to expound and unriddle those books, been carried into captivity, as Ezekiel and Daniel were, it would have greatly improved their intellects, in comprehending the reason for this mode of writing, and have saved them the trou-ble of racking their invention, as they have done, to no purpose; for they would have found that themselves would be oblige to write whatever they had to write, respecting their own affairs, or those of their friends, or of their country, in a concealed manner, as these men have done. "These two books differ from all the rest; for it is only those that are filled with accounts of dreams and visions; and this difference arose from the situation the writers were in as prisoners of war, or prisoners of state, in a foreign country, which obliged them to convey even the most trifling information to each other, and all their political projects or opinions, in obscure and metaphorical terms. They pretend to have dreamed dreams, and seen visions, because it was unsafe for them to speak facts or plain language. We ought, however, to suppose, that the persons to whom they wrote understood what they meant, and that it was not intended any body else should. But these busy commentators and priests have been puzzling their wits to find out what it was not intended they should know, and with which they have nothing to do. Ezekiel and Daniel were carried prisoners to Babylon, under the first captivity, in the time of Jehoiakim, nine years before the second captivity in the time of Zedekiah, The Jews were then still numerous, and had considerable force at Jerusalem; and as it is natural to suppose that men, in the situation of Ezekiel and Daniel, would be meditating the recovery of their country, and their own deliverance, it is reasonable to suppose, that the accounts of dreams and visions, with which these books are filled, are no other than a disguised mode of correspondence, to facilitate those objects: it served them as a cypher, or secret alphabet. If they are not this, they are tales, reveries, and nonsense; or at least, a fanciful way of wearing off the wearisomeness of captivity; but the presumption is, they are the former. While Mr. Carlile was reading this paragraph, the Chief Justice ordered candles to be brought into the Court. While the candles were preparing, he addressed the Chief Justice as follows: My Lord, I wish your Lordship would relieve me by adjourning the Court until to-morrow morning, for I feel exhausted, and find I cannot proceed much further. Chief Justice.-I cannot yet adjourn the Court; but you can retire for a few minutes, and take some refreshment. Mr. Carlile then withdrew with a few friends. Candles were introduced at half past five; the law-officers of the Crown appeared in close conversation, and after an absence of about five minutes, Mr. Carlile returned, and was about to proceed, when The Chief Justice observed, that one of the Jury was absent from the box, although within hearing, and that the Defendant had better wait until he was in his place. On the return of this Juryman, he proceeded:- "Ezekiel begins his book by speaking of a vision of cherubims, and of a vision of a wheel within a wheel, which he says he saw by the river Chebar, in the land of his captivity. Is it not reasonable to suppose, that by the cherubims he meant the temple at Jerusalem, where they had figures of cherubims? and by a wheel within a wheel (which, as a figure, has always been understood to signify political contrivance) the project or means of recovering Jerusalem? the latter part of his book, he supposes himself transported to Jerusalem, and into the temple; and he refers back to the vision on the river Chebar, and says (chap. xliii. ver. 3,) that this last vision was like the vision on the river Chebar; which indicates, that those pretended dreams and visions had for their object the recovery of Jerusalem, and nothing further. "As to the romantic interpretations and applications, wild as the dreams and visions they undertake to explain, which commentators and priests have made of those books, that of converting them into things which they call prophecies, and making them bend to times. and circumstances, as far remote even as the present day, it shews the fraud or the extreme folly to which credulity or priestcraft can go. "Scarcely any thing can be more absurd, than to suppose that. men situated as Ezekiel and Daniel were, whose country was overrun, and in the possession of the enemy, all their friends and rela tions in captivity abroad, or in slavery at home, or massacred, or in continual danger of it; scarcely any thing, I say, can be more absurd, than to suppose that such men should find nothing to do but that of employing their time and their thoughts about what was to happen to other natious a thousand or two thousand years after they were dead; at the same time, nothing is more natural, than that they should meditate the recovery of Jerusalem, and their own deliverance; and that this was the sole object of all the obscure and apparently frantic writings contained in those bocks. "In this sense, the mode of writing used in those two books being forced by necessity, and not adopted by choice, is not irrational; but if we are to use the books as prophecies, they are false. In the 29th chapter of Ezekiel, speáking of Egypt, it is said, (ver. 11,) No foot of man should pass through it, nor foot of beast should pass through it; neither shall it be inhabited for forty years.' This is what never came to pass, and consequently it is false, as all the books I have already viewed are. I here close this part of the subject. In the former part of the Age of Reason, I have spoken of Jonah, and of the story of him and the whale. A fit story for ridicule, if it was written to be believed; or of laughter, if it was intended to try what credulity could swallow; for if it could swallow Jonah and the whale, it could swallow any thing. "But, as is already shewn in the observations on the book of Job, and of Proverbs, it is not always certain which of the books in the Bible are originally Hebrew, or only translations from books of the Gentiles into Hebrew; and as the book of Jonah, so far from treating of the affairs of the Jews, says nothing upon that subject, but treats altogether of the Gentiles, it is more probable that it is a book of the Gentiles than of the Jews; and that it has been written as a fable, to expose the nonsense and satirize the vicious and malignant character of a Bible prophet, or a predicting priest. "Jonah is represented, first, as a disobedient prophet, running away from his mission, and taking shelter aboard a vessel of the Gentiles, bound from Joppa to Tarshish; as if he ignorantly supposed, by such a paltry contrivance, he could hide himself where God could not find him. The vessel is overtaken by a storm at sea; and the mariners, all of whom are Gentiles, believing it to be a judgment, on account of some one on board who had committed a crime, agreed to cast lots, to discover the offender; and the lot fell upon Jonah. But, before this, they had cast all their wares and merchandize overboard, to lighten the vessel, while Jonah, like a stupid fellow, was fast asleep in the hold. "After the lot had designated Jonah to be the offender, they questioned him to know who and what he was? and he told them he was an Hebrew; and the story implies, that he confessed himself to be guilty. But these Gentiles, instead of sacrificing him at once, without pity or mercy, as a company of Bible prophets or priests would have done by a Gentile in the same case, and a tis related |