Of prophets, that were so by a perpetual calling in the Old Testament, some were supreme, and some subordinate: supreme were first Moses; and after him the high-priests, every one for his time, as long as the priesthood was royal; and after the people of the Jews had rejected God, that he should no more reign over them, those kings which submitted themselves to God’s government, were also his chief prophets; and the high-priest’s office became ministerial. And when God was to be consulted, they put on the holy vestments, and enquired of the Lord, as the king commanded them, and were deprived of their office, when the king thought fit. For king Saul (1 Sam. xiii. 9) commanded the burnt offering to be brought, and (1 Sam. xiv. 18) he commands the priests to bring the ark near him; and (v. 19) again to let it alone, because he saw an advantage upon his enemies. And in the same chapter (v. 37) Saul asketh counsel of God. In like manner king David, after his being anointed, though before he had possession of the kingdom, is said to enquire of the Lord (1 Sam. xxiii. 2) whether he should fight against the Philistines at Keilah; and (verse 9) David commandeth the priest to bring him the ephod, to enquire whether he should stay in Keilah, or not. And king Solomon (1 Kings ii. 27) took the priesthood from Abiathar, and gave it (verse 35) to Zadok. Therefore Moses, and the high-priests, and the pious kings, who enquired of God on all extraordinary occasions, how they were to carry themselves, or what event they were to have, were all sovereign prophets. But in what manner God spake unto them is not manifest. To say that when Moses went up to God in Mount Sinai, it was a dream or vision, such as other prophets had, is contrary to that distinction which God made between Moses and other prophets (Numb. xii. 6, 7, 8). To say God spake or appeared as he is in his own nature, is to deny his infiniteness, invisibility, incomprehensibility. To say he spake by inspiration, or infusion of the Holy Spirit, as the Holy Spirit signifieth the Deity, is to make Moses equal with Christ, in whom only the Godhead (as St. Paul speaketh, Col. ii. 9) dwelleth bodily. And lastly, to say he spake by the Holy Spirit, as it signifieth the graces or gifts of the Holy Spirit, is to attribute nothing to him supernatural. For God disposeth men to piety, justice, mercy, truth, faith, and all manner of virtue, both moral and intellectual, by doctrine, example, and by several occasions, natural and ordinary.
And as these ways cannot be applied to God in his speaking to Moses, at Mount Sinai; so also, they cannot be applied to him, in his speaking to the high-priests, from the mercy-seat. Therefore in what manner God spake to those sovereign prophets of the Old Testament, whose office it was to enquire of him, is not intelligible. In the time of the New Testament, there was no sovereign prophet, but our Saviour; who was both God that spake, and the prophet to whom he spake.
To prophets of perpetual calling, but subordinate, God spake by the spirit.
To subordinate prophets of perpetual calling, I find not any place that proveth God spake to them supernaturally; but only in such manner, as naturally he inclineth men to piety, to belief, to righteousness, and to other virtues all other Christian men. Which way, though it consist in constitution, instruction, education, and the occasions and invitements men have to Christian virtues; yet it is truly attributed to the operation of the Spirit of God, or Holy Spirit, which we in our language call the Holy Ghost: for there is no good inclination, that is not of the operation of God. But these operations are not always supernatural. When therefore a prophet is said to speak in the spirit, or by the spirit of God, we are to understand no more, but that he speaks according to God’s will, declared by the supreme prophet. For the most common acceptation of the word spirit, is in the signification of a man’s intention, mind, or disposition.
In the time of Moses, there were seventy men besides himself, that prophecied in the camp of the Israelites. In what manner God spake to them, is declared in Numbers, chap. xi. verse 25. The Lord came down in a cloud, and spake unto Moses, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and gave it to the seventy elders. And it came to pass, when the spirit rested upon them, they prophecied and did not cease. By which it is manifest, first, that their prophecying to the people was subservient and subordinate to the prophecying of Moses; for that God took of the spirit of Moses, to put upon them; so that they prophecied as Moses would have them: otherwise they had not been suffered to prophecy at all. For there was (verse 27) a complaint made against them to Moses; and Joshua would have Moses to have forbidden them; which he did not, but said to Joshua, be not jealous in my behalf. Secondly, that the spirit of God in that place signifieth nothing but the mind and disposition to obey and assist Moses in the administration of the government. For if it were meant they had the substantial spirit of God; that is, the divine nature, inspired into them, then they had it in no less manner than Christ himself, in whom only the spirit of God dwelt bodily. It is meant therefore of the gift and grace of God, that guided them to cooperate with Moses; from whom their spirit was derived. And it appeareth (Numb. xi. 16) that they were such as Moses himself should appoint for elders and officers of the people: for the words are, Gather unto me seventy men, whom thou knowest to be elders and officers of the people: where, thou knowest, is the same with thou appointest, or hast appointed to be such. For we are told before (Exod. xviii. 24) that Moses following the counsel of Jethro, his father-in-law, did appoint judges and officers over the people, such as feared God; and of these were those seventy, whom God, by putting upon them Moses’ spirit, inclined to aid Moses in the administration of the kingdom: and in this sense the spirit of God is said (1 Sam. xvi. 13, 14) presently upon the anointing of David, to have come upon David, and left Saul; God giving his graces to him he chose to govern his people, and taking them away from him he rejected. So that by the spirit is meant inclination to God’s service; and not any supernatural revelation.
God sometimes also spake by lots.
God spake also many times by the event of lots; which were ordered by such as he had put in authority over his people. So we read that God manifested by the lots which Saul caused to be drawn (1 Sam. xiv. 43) the fault that Jonathan had committed, in eating a honey-comb, contrary to the oath taken by the people. And (Josh. xviii. 10) God divided the land of Canaan amongst the Israelites, by the lots that Joshua did cast before the Lord in Shiloh. In the same manner it seemeth to be, that God discovered (Joshua vii. 16, &c.) the crime of Achan. And these are the ways whereby God declared his will in the Old Testament.
All which ways he used also in the New Testament. To the Virgin Mary, by a vision of an angel: to Joseph in a dream: again, to Paul, in the way to Damascus, in a vision of our Saviour: and to Peter in the vision of a sheet let down from heaven, with divers sorts of flesh; of clean, and unclean beasts; and in prison, by vision of an angel: and to all the apostles, and writers of the New Testament, by the graces of his spirit; and to the apostles again, at the choosing of Matthias in the place of Judas Iscariot, by lot.
Every man ought to examine the probability of a pretended prophet’s calling.
Seeing then, all prophecy supposeth vision, or dream, (which two, when they be natural, are the same), or some especial gift of God so rarely observed in mankind as to be admired where observed; and seeing as well such gifts, as the most extraordinary dreams and visions, may proceed from God, not only by his supernatural, and immediate, but also by his natural operation, and by mediation of second causes; there is need of reason and judgment to discern between natural, and supernatural gifts, and between natural, and supernatural visions or dreams. And consequently men had need to be very circumspect and wary, in obeying the voice of man, that pretending himself to be a prophet, requires us to obey God in that way, which he in God’s name telleth us to be the way to happiness. For he that pretends to teach men the way of so great felicity, pretends to govern them; that is to say, to rule and reign over them; which is a thing, that all men naturally desire, and is therefore worthy to be suspected of ambition and imposture; and consequently, ought to be examined and tried by every man, before he yield them obedience; unless he have yielded it them already, in the institution of a commonwealth; as when the prophet is the civil sovereign, or by the civil sovereign authorized. And if this examination of prophets and spirits, were not allowed to every one of the people, it had been to no purpose to set out the marks, by which every man might be able to distinguish between those, whom they ought, and those whom they ought not to follow. Seeing therefore such marks are set out (Deut. xiii. 1, &c.) to know a prophet by; and (1 John iv. 1, &c.) to know a spirit by: and seeing there is so much prophecying in the Old Testament, and so much preaching in the New Testament, against prophets; and so much greater a number ordinarily of false prophets, than of true; every one is to beware of obeying their directions, at their own peril. And first, that there were many more false than true prophets, appears by this, that when Ahab (1 Kings xxii.) consulted four hundred prophets, they were all false impostors, but only one Micaiah. And a little before the time of the captivity, the prophets were generally liars. The prophets, (saith the Lord, by Jeremiah, chapter xiv. 14) prophecy lies in my name. I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, nor spake unto them; they prophecy to you a false vision, a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart. Insomuch as God commanded the people by the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah (chapter xxiii. 16) not to obey them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, hearken not unto the words of the prophets, that prophecy to you. They make you vain, they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord.