THE PROPHECIES.

The clergy having ever claimed that the prophecies are Divine
revelations of events yet to occur, and having incessantly agitated
society by preaching their speedy fulfillment, we propose to expose the
fallacy of their teachings by showing that these scriptures are not the
records of future events, Divinely reavealed, but that they originated
with the founders of Astral worship, who predicated them upon
predetermined events of their own concoction, relative to the general
judgment, and setting up of the kingdom of heaven, which were to occur
as the finale of the plan of redemption and from which were derived the
doctrines of second adventism; and, in determining the exact time when
then were to occur, we have but to prove that it was coincident with
the conclusion of the last half of the grand cycle of 12,000 years,
which, as we have shown, was dedicated to man as the duration of his
race on earth.

As evidence that the founders of the Jewish or ancient Christianity
believed, like the votaries of other forms of Astral worship, that the
prophecies were soon to be fulfilled, we find that the New Testament,
of the original version of which they were the authors, is replete with
such texts as "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," Matt. iv.
17; "There be some standing here which shall not taste death till they
see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom," Matt. xxi. 28; "The time is
fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand," Mark i. 15. That the
original version of the New Testament was composed when the Vernal
Equinox was in the sign of Aries we are assured by reason of the fact
that it inculcates homage to the Lord under the symbol of the Lamb; and
that it was during the last, or 30th degree of that sign, can readily