In these equivocal oracles, whose meaning it is impossible to penetrate, we find nothing but the language of intoxication, fanaticism, and delirium. When we fancy we have found something intelligible, it is easy to perceive that the prophets intended to speak of events that took place in their own age, or of personages who had preceded them. It is thus that our doctors apply gratuitously to Christ prophecies or rather narratives of what happened respecting David, Solomon, Cyrus, &c. We imagine we see the chastisement of the Jewish people announced in recitals where it is evident the only matter in question was the Babylonish captivity. In this event, so long prior to Jesus Christ, they have imagined finding a prediction of the dispersion of the Jews, supposed to be a visible punishment for their _deicide_, and which they now wish to pass off as an indubitable proof of the truth of Christianity. It is not, then, astonishing that the ancient and modern Jews do not see in the prophets what our doctors teach us, and what they themselves imagine they have seen. Jesus himself has not been more happy in his predictions than his predecessors. In the gospel he announces to his disciples in the most formal manner the destruction of the world and the last judgment, as events that were at hand, and which must take place before the existing generation had passed away. Yet the world still endures, and appears in no danger of finishing. It is true, our doctors pretend that, in the prediction of Jesus Christ, he spoke of the ruin of Jerusalem by Vespasian and Titus; but none but those who have not read the gospel would submit to such a change, or satisfy themselves with such an evasion. Besides, in adopting it we must confess at least that the Son of God himself was unable to prophesy with greater precision than his obscure predecessors.