2 Any thing may be found in the Bible, if it be read with the imagination of Saint Augustine, who pretended to see all the New Testament in the Old. According to him, the death of Abel is a type of that of Christ; the two wives of Abraham are the synagogue and the church; a piece of red cloth held up by an harlot, who betrayed Jericho, signifies the blood of Christ; the lamb, goat, and lion, are figures of Jesus Christ; the brazen serpent represents the sacrifice on the cross. Even the mysteries of the Christian religion are announced in the Old Testament. Manna represents the Eucharist, &c. See S. Aug. Serm. 78. and Ep. 156. How can a man, in his senses, see, in the Immanuel announced by Isaiah, the Messiah, whose name is Jesus? Isaiah c. vii. v. 14. How discover, in an obscure and crucified Jew, a leader who shall govern Israel? How see a royal deliverer and restorer of the Jews, in one, who, far from delivering his nation, came only to destroy their laws; and after whose coming their land was desolated by the Romans? A man must be sharp-sighted indeed to find the Messiah in their predictions. Jesus himself does not seem to have been more clear, or happy, in his prophecies. In the Gospel of Luke, chap. xxi. he speaks of the last judgment: he mentions angels, who, at the sound of the trumpet, assemble mankind together before him. He adds, "Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away, until these things are accomplished." The world, however, still stands, and Christians have been expecting the last judgment for eighteen hundred years. Men are not scrupulous respecting things which accord with their desires. When we examine, without prejudice, the prophecies of the Hebrews, we find them to be a mis-shapen mass of rhapsodies, the offspring of fanaticism and delirium. We find them obscure and enigmatical, like the oracles of the Pagans. In fine, it is evident that these pretended divine oracles are the vagaries and impostures of men, who imposed on the credulity of a superstitious nation which believes in dreams, visions, apparitions, and sorceries, and received with avidity any deception, provided it were sufficiently decorated with the marvellous. Wherever mankind are ignorant, there will be found prophets and workers of miracles, and these two branches of commerce will always decay in the same proportion as mankind become enlightened.