4 
« This prediction was made in the reign of Nero; and, for more 
than 1400 years, might only pass for one of those sallies of imagi- 
nation, in which poetry so much delights. But when at length, at 
the close of the fifteenth century, the discoveries of Columbus had 
realised this vision; when that enterprising navigator had forced 
the barriers of the vast Atlantic ocean ; had loosened what the poet 
calls ‘the chain of things ;’ and, in these latter ages, as was ex- 
pressly signified, had set at liberty an immense continent, shut up 
before in the surrounding seas from the commerce and acquaintance 
of our world ; when this event, I say, so important and so unexpected 
came to pass, it might almost surprise one into a belief that this 
prediction was something more than a poetical fancy; and that 
Heaven had indeed revealed to one favoured Spaniard what it had 
decreed in due time to accomplish by another.”—Bishop Hurp on 
Prophecy, Ser. 4. 
oe A pretended prediction, which, for the propriety of its 
images, and the exactness of its completion, hath been compared 
and set in competition with the propheciesof Holy Writ........6 Now 
give me,’ says the Infidel,* ‘a prophecy of your Bible which may 
be as clearly predictive of any event which you may choose to as- 
sign as the accomplishment, as these verses have by mere accident 
proved to be of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus; 
—give me such a prophecy from your Bible as I have produced 
from a Heathen poet, who yet was no prophet, nor claimed the 
character, and I will turn believer.’ We accept cheerfully this ar- 
rogant defiance. These verses predict nothing but what was evi- 
dently within the ken of human foresight, that men, being once 
* Anthony Collins 
