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 under-
stood, 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 be told could not tell whether the man
prophesied or lied, or whether it had been revealed to him,
or whether he conceited it; and if the thing that he prophe-
sied, or pretended to prophesy, should happen, or some thing
like it, among the multitude of things that are daily hap-
pening, nobody could again know whether he foreknew it,
or guessed at it, or whether it was accidental. A prophet,
therefore, is a character useless and unnecessary; and the
safe side of the case is to guard against being imposed upon,
by not giving credit to such relations.

Upon the whole, Mystery, Miracle, and Prophecy, are
appendages that belong to fabulous and not to true religion.
They are the means by which so many Lo heres! and Lo
theres ! have been spread about the world, and religion been
made into a trade. The success of one impostor gave en-
couragement to another, and the quieting salvo of doing
some good by keeping up a pious fraud protected them from
remorse.

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