Bible prophecies
are far more than mere predictions. They would rather endow every human
being on earth with the power of predicting the future than allow the
God of heaven that power of ruling the present which these prophecies
assert. Hence the attempt to admit their predictive truth, and yet deny
their divine authority, by ascribing them to human sagacity.

Transatlantic steam navigation has produced a remarkable change in the
tone of Infidel writers and speakers in regard to the prophecies of the
Bible. You could not converse long with an Infidel on this subject, a
few years ago, until he would assure you, with all confidence, that the
prophecies were all written after their fulfillment, and so were not
prophecies at all. But now that travelers of all classes, scoffers,
sailors, and doctors in divinity, scientific expeditions, and
correspondents of daily papers, have flooded the world with undeniable
attestations that many of them are receiving their fulfillment at this
day, none but the most grossly ignorant and stupid attempt to deny that
the prophecies of the Bible were written thousands of years since, and
that many of them have since been accomplished; and that so many have
been fulfilled that their accomplishment can not be ascribed to chance.
But the force of the argument for the divine inspiration of the prophets
is met by the assertion, that there is nothing supernatural in prophecy,
and that it is only one form of the inspiration of genius applying the
general laws of nature.

Calculating securely on that profound ignorance of the Bible which
characterizes their followers, modern writers inform them that "none of
the prophets ever uttered any distinct, definite, unambiguous prediction
of any future event which has since taken place, which a man without a
miracle could not equally well predict." It is alleged that the
prophecies, in predicting the overthrow of the nations of antiquity,
predicted nothing beyond the ken of human sagacity, enlightened by a
careful study of the experience of the past, and the invariable laws of
nature; that it requires no inspiration to foretell the decay of
perishing things; that the invariable progress of all things, empires as
well as individuals, is first upward, through a period of youthful vigor
and energy, then onward through a period of ripe maturity, and then
downward, through a gradual decay, and final dissolution, to the
inevitable grave. The world's history is but