Lord shall he behold." And (Exod. xxxiii. 11), "The Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend." And yet this speaking of God to Moses, was by mediation of an angel, or angels, as appears expressly, Acts vii. 35 and 53, and Gal. iii. 19; and was therefore a vision, though a more clear vision than was given to other prophets. And conformable hereunto, where God saith (Deut. xiii. 1), "If there arise amongst you a prophet, or dreamer of dreams," the latter word is but the interpretation of the former. And (Joel ii. 28), "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions;" where again the word "prophesy is expounded by "dream" and "vision." And in the same manner it was that God spake to Solomon, promising him wisdom, riches, and honour; for the text saith (1 Kings iii. 15), "And Solomon awoke, and behold it was a dream;' so that generally the prophets extraordinary in the Old Testament took notice of the word of God no otherwise than from their dreams or visions; that is to say, from the imaginations which they had in their sleep, or in an extasy: which imaginations in every true prophet were supernatural; but in false prophets were either natural or feigned.

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The same prophets were nevertheless said to speak by the spirit; as (Zech. vii. 12); where the prophet speaking of the Jews, saith, "They made their hearts hard as adamant, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in His Spirit by the former prophets." By which it is manifest, that speaking by the "spirit," or inspiration," was not a particular manner of God's speaking, different from vision, when they that were said to speak by the Spirit were extraordinary prophets, such as for every new message were to have a peculiar commission, or which is all one, a new dream or vision.

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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 inquired 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 (verse 19) again to let it alone, because he saw an advantage upon his enemies. And in the same chapter (verse 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 "inquire 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 inquire 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. There fore Moses, and the high priests, and the pious kings, who inquired 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 inquire 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.

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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 "prophesied " 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 prophesied and did not cease." By which it is manifest, first, that their prophesying to the people was subservient and subordinate to the prophesying of Moses; for that God took of the spirit of Moses, to put upon them; so that they prophesied as Moses would have them otherwise they had not been suffered to prophesy 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 co-operate 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 upom 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 hím He rejected. So that by the spirit is meant inclination to God's service; and not any supernatural revelation. God spake also many times by the event of lots; which were ordered by such as Ile 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. 15, &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.

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 prophesying in the Old Testament, and so much preaching in the New Testament, against prophets; and so much greater a number ordinarily of false phophets, 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, chap. xiv. 14) prophesy lies in my name. I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, nor spake unto them; they prophesy 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 (chap. xxiii. 16) not to obey them: "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, hearken not unto the words of the prophets, that prophesy to

you. They make you vain, they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord."

Seeing then there was in the time of the Old Testament such quarrels amongst the visionary prophets, one contesting with another, and asking, When departed the Spirit from me to go to thee?" as between Micaiah and the rest of the four hundred; and such giving of the lie to one another (as in Jerem. xiv. 14), and such controversies in the New Testament at this day, amongst the spiritual prophets; every man then was and now is bound to make use of his natural reason, to apply to all prophecy those rules which God hath given us to discern the true from false. Of which rules, in the Old Testament, one was, conformable doctrine to that which Moses the sovereign prophet had taught them; and the other, the miraculous power of foretelling what God would bring to pass, as I have already showed out of Deut. xiii. 1, &c. And in the New Testament there was but one only mark; and that was the preaching of this doctrine, "that Jesus is the Christ," that is, king of the Jews, promised in the Old Testament. Whosoever denied that article, he was a false prophet, whatsoever miracles he might seem to work; and he that taught it was a true prophet. For St. John (1 Epist. iv. 2, &c.), speaking expressly of the means to examine spirits, whether they be of God, or not; after he had told them that there would arise false prophets, saith thus: " Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God;" that is, is approved and allowed as a prophet of God: not that he is a godly man, or one of the elect, for this, that he confesseth, professeth, or preacheth Jesus to be the Christ; but for that he is a prophet avowed. For God sometimes speaketh by prophets, whose persons He hath not accepted; as He did by Balaam; and as He foretold Saul of his death, by the Witch of Endor. Again in the next verse, "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, not of Christ; and this is the spirit of Antichrist." So that the rule is perfect on both sides; that he is a true prophet, which preacheth the Messiah already come, in the person of Jesus; and he a false one that denieth Him come, and looketh for Him in some future impostor, that shall take upon him that honour falsely, whom the apostle there properly calleth Antichrist. Every man therefore ought to consider who is the sovereign prophet; that is to say, who it is that is God's vicegerent on earth; and hath next under God, the authority of governing Christian men; and to observe for a rule that doctrine, which in the name of God, He hath commanded to be taught; and thereby to examine and try out the truth of those doctrines which pretended prophets, with miracle, or without, shall at any time advance: and if they find it contrary to that rule, to do as they did that came to Moses and complained that there were some that prophesied in the camp, whose authority so to do they doubted of; and leave to the sovereign, as they did to Moses, to uphold or to forbid them, as he should see cause; and if he disavow them, then no more to obey their voice; or if he approve them, then to obey them, as men to whom God hath given a part of the spirit of their sovereign. For when Christian men take not their Christian sovereign for God's prophet, they must either take their own dreams for the prophecy they mean to be governed by, and the tumour of their own hearts for the Spirit of God, or they must suffer themselves to be led by some strange prince; or by some of their fellow-subjects, that can bewitch them, by slander of the government, into rebellion, without other miracle to confirm their calling than sometimes an extraordinary success and impunity; and by this means destroying all laws, both divine and human, reduce all order, government, and society to the first chaos of violence and civil war.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Of Miracles, and their Use.

By "miracles are signified the admirable works of God: and therefore they are also called "wonders." And because they are for the most part done for a signification of His commandment, in such occasions, as without them, men are apt to doubt, (following their private natural reasoning,) what He hath commanded, and what not, they are commonly, in Holy Scripture, called "signs," in the same sense as they are called by the Latins ostenta and portenta, from showing and fore-signifying that which the Almighty is about to bring to pass.

To understand therefore what is a miracle, we must first understand what works they are which men wonder at and call admirable. And there be but two things which make men wonder at any event: the one is, if it be strange, that is to say, such as the like of it hath never, or very rarely, been produced: the other is, if when it is produced, we cannot imagine it to have been done by natural means, but only by the immediate hand of God. But when we see some possible, natural cause of it, how rarely soever the like has been done, or if the like have been often done, how impossible soever it be to imagine a natural means thereof, we no more wonder nor esteem it for a miracle.

Therefore, if a horse or cow should speak, it were a miracle; because both the thing is strange, and the natural cause difficult to imagine. So also were it to see a strange deviation of Nature, in the production of some new shape of a living creature. But when a man, or other animal, engenders his like, though we know no more how this is done than the other; yet because it is usual, it is no miracle. In like manner, if a man be metamorphosed into a stone, or into a pillar, it is a miracle; because strange: but if a piece of wood be so changed; because we see it often, it is no miracle; and yet we know no more by what operation of God the one is brought to pass than the other.

The first rainbow that was seen in the world was a miracle, because the first; and consequently strange; and served for a sign from God, placed in heaven, to assure His people there should be no more any universal destruction of the world by water. But at this day, because they are frequent, they are not miracles, neither to them that know their natural causes, nor to them who know them not. Again, there be many rare works produced by the art of man: yet when we know they are done, because thereby we know also the means how they are done, we count them not for miracles, because not wrought by the immediate hand of God, but of human industry.

Furthermore, seeing admiration and wonder are consequent to the knowledge and experience wherewith men are endued, some more, some less; it followeth that the same thing may be a miracle to one and not to another. And thence it is that ignorant and superstitious men make great wonders of those works which other men, knowing to proceed from Nature (which is not the immediate, but the ordinary work of God), admire not at all: as when eclipses of the sun and moon have been taken for supernatural works by the common people; when nevertheless there were others who could from their natural causes have foretold the very hour they should arrive: or as when a man, by confederacy and secret intelligence, getting knowledge of the private actions of an ignorant, unwary man, thereby tells him what he has done in former times; it seems to him a miraculous thing;