CHAPTER VII.
SECTION I. THE VAGUENESS AND UNINTELLIGIBLENESS OF THE PROPHECIES...
RENDER THEM INCAPABLE OF PROVING REVELATION.
Prophecy is by some thought to be miraculous, and by others to be supernatural, and there are others, who indulge themselves in an opinion, that they amount to no more than mere political conjectures. Some nations have feigned an intercourse with good spirits by the art of divination; and others with evil ones by the art of magic; and most nations have pretended to an intercourse with the world of spirits both ways.
The Romans trusted much to their sibylline oracles and soothsayers; the Babylonians to their magicians and astrologers; the Egyptians and Persians to their magicians; and the Jews to their seers or prophets; and all nations and individuals, discover an anxiety for an intercourse with the world of spirits; which lays a foundation for artful and designing men, to impose upon them. But if the foregoing arguments in chapter sixth, respecting the natural impossibility of an intercourse of any unbodied or imperceptible mental beings with mankind, are true, then the foretelling of future events can amount to nothing more. than political illusion. For prophecy as well as all other sorts of prognostication must be super-naturally inspired, or it could be no more than judging of future events from mere probability or guess-work, as the astronomers ingenuously confess in their calculations, by saying: "Judgment of the weather," &c. So also respecting astrology, provided there is any such thing as futurity to be learned from it, it would be altogether a natural discovery; for neither astronomy nor astrology claim anything of a miraculous or supernatural kind, but their calculations are meant to be predicated on the order and course of nature, with which our senses are conversant, and with which inspiration or the mere cooperation of spirits is not intended to act as part. So also concerning prophecy, if it be considered to be merely natural, (we will not at present dispute whether it is true or false) upon this position it stands on the footing of probability or mere conjecture and uncertainty. But as to the doctrine of any supernatural agency of the divine mind on ours, which is commonly called inspiration, it has been sufficiently confuted in chapter sixth; which arguments need not be repeated, nor does it concern my system to settle the question, whether prophecy should be denominated miraculous or supernatural, inasmuch as both these doctrines have been confuted; though it is my opinion, that were we to trace the notion of supernatural to its source, it would finally terminate in that which is denominated miraculous; for that which is above or beyond nature, if it has any positive existence, must be miraculous.
The writings of the prophets are most generally so loose, vague and indeterminate in their meaning, or in the grammar of their present translation, that the prophecies will as well answer to events in one period of time, as in another; and are equally applicable to a variety of events, which have and are still taking place in the world, and are liable to so many different interpretations, that they are incapable of being understood or explained, except upon arbitrary principles, and therefore cannot be admitted as a proof of revelation; as for instance, "it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God." Who can understand the accomplishment of the prophecies, that are expressed after this sort? for every day in its turn has been, and will in its succession be the last day; and if we advert to the express words of the prophecy, to wit, "the last days," there will be an uncertain plurality "of last days," which must be understood to be short of a month, or a year; or it should have been expressed thus, and it shall come to pass in the last months or years, instead of days: and if it had mentioned last years, it would be a just construction to suppose, that it included a less number of years than a century; but as the prophecy mentions "last days" we are at a loss, which among the plurality of them to assign for the fulfilling of the prophecy.
Furthermore, we cannot learn from the prophecy, in what month, year, or any other part of duration those last days belong; so that we can never tell when such vague prophecies are to take place, they therefore remain the arbitrary prerogative of fanatics to prescribe their events in any age or period of time, when their distempered fancies may think most eligible: there are other prophecies still more abstruse; to wit, "And one said unto the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, how long shall it be to the end of these wonders? and I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto Heaven, and sware by him that liveth forever, that it should be for an time, times and an half." The question, in the prophecy is asked "how long shall it be to the end of these wonders?" and the answer is given with the solemnity of an oath, "it shall be for a time, times and a half." A time is an indefinite part of duration, and so are times, and the third description of time is as indefinite as either of the former descriptions of it; to wit, "and an half;" that is to say, half a time. There is no certain term given in any or either of the three descriptions of the end of the wonders alluded to, whereby any or all of them together are capable of computation, as there is no certain period marked out to begin or end a calculation. To compute an indefinite time in the single number or quantity of duration is impossible, and to compute an uncertain plurality of such indefinite times is equally perplexing and impracticable; and lastly, to define half a time by any possible succession of its parts, is a contradiction, for half a time includes no time at all; inasmuch as the smallest conception or possible moment or criterion of duration, is a time, or otherwise, by the addition of ever so many of those parts together, they would not prolong a period; so that there is not, and cannot be such a part of time, as half a time, for be it supposed to be ever so momentous, yet if includes any part of duration, it is a time, and not half a time. Had the prophet said half a year, half a day, or half a minute, he would have spoken intelligibly; but half a time has no existence at all, and consequently no period could ever possibly arrive in the succession or order of time, when there could be an end to the wonders alluded to; and in this sense only, the prophecy is intelligible; to wit, that it will never come to pass.
The revelation of St. John the divine, involves the subject of time, if possible, in still greater inconsistencies, viz: "And to the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place: Where she is nourished for a time, and times and half a time." "And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hands to heaven, and sware by him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that therein are, and the earth and the things that therein are, and the sea and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer." Had this tremendous oath been verified there could have been no farther disputations on the calculation of "time and times and half a time," (or about any thing else) for its succession would have reached its last and final period at that important crisis when time should have been "no longer." The solar system must have ceased its motions, from which we compute the succession of time, and the race of man would have been extinct; for as long as they may be supposed to exist, time must of necessary consequence have existed also; and since the course of nature, including the generations of mankind, has been continued from the time of the positive denunciation of the angel to this day, we may safely conclude, that his interference in the system of nature, was perfectly romantic.