ones præcinerent; but from hence we clearly see what CHAP. the great employment was in these schools of the pro- IV. phets, which, as the same author expresseth, it was statis horis de rebus divinis disserere, et divinis laudibus vacare; and thereby we understand what reference this institution had in order to the prophetical office, because the Spirit of God did much appear among them, and all their exercises tended to piety, and so did remove all prejudices from their persons, when God did send them abroad afterwards.

And so it is evident he frequently did, not to say always, for that were to put too great a restraint upon the boundless Spirit of God: for sometimes, as will appear afterwards, God sent the prophets upon extraordinary messages, and then furnished them with sufficient evidence of their Divine commission, without being beholden to the testimonials of the schools of the prophets. But besides these, God had a kind of lieger-prophets among his people: such were the most of those whom we read of in Scripture, which were no penmen of the sacred Scripture: such in David's time we may conceive Gad and Nathan; and afterwards we read of many other prophets and seers among them, to whom the people made their resort. Now these in probability were such as had been trained up in the prophetic schools, wherein the Spirit of God did appear, but in a more fixed and settled way than in the extraordinary prophets, whom God did call out on some more signal occasions; such as Isaiah and Jeremiah were. We have a clear foundation for such a distinction of prophets in those words of Amos to Amaziah, Amos vii. 14, 15. I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was a herdsman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruits: and the Lord took me as I followed the flock; and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy to my people Israel. Some understand the first words, I was not a prophet, that he was not born a prophet, as Jeremiah was, not designed and set apart to it from his mother's womb; but I rather think by his not being a prophet, he means he was none of those resident prophets in the colleges or schools of them, not any of those who had led a prophetic life, and withdrawn themselves from converse with the world: nor was I, saith he, the son of a prophet, i. e. not brought up in discipleship under those prophets, and thereby trained up in order to the prophetic function. Non didici inter discipulos prophetarum, as Pellican renders it; nec institutione qua filii prophetarum quasi ad donum

VIII.

BOOK prophetiæ a parentibus præparabantur, saith Estius. Non II. a puero educatus in scholis propheticis: so Calvin and most other modern interpreters understand it, as well as Abarbinel and the Jewish writers. Whereby it is evident that God's ordinary way for the prophets, was to take such as had been trained up and educated in order to that end; although God did not tie up himself to this method, but sometimes called one from the court, as he did Isaiah; sometimes one from the herds, as here he did Amos, and bid them go prophesy to the house of Israel. There was then a kind of a standing college of prophets among the Israelites, who shined as fixed stars in the firmament; and there were others who had a more planetary motion, and withal a more lively and resplendent illumination from the fountain of prophetic light. And further, it seems that the spirit of prophecy did not ordinarily seize on any, but such whose institution was in order to that end, by the great admiration which was caused among the people at Saul's so sudden prophesying, that it became 1 Sam. x. a proverb, Is Saul also among the prophets? which had 12, 19, 24. not given the least foundation for an adage for a strange and unwonted thing, unless the most common appearances of the spirit of prophecy had been among those who were trained up in order to it. Thus I suppose we have fully cleared the first reason why there was no necessity for the ordinary prophets, whose chief office was instruction of the people, to prove their commission by miracles, because God had promised a succession of prophets by Moses, and these were brought up ordinarily to that end among them; so that all prejudices were sufficiently removed from their persons, without any such extraordinary power as that of miracles.

CHAP. V.

The Trial of the Prophetical Doctrine.

I. Rules of trying Prophets established in the Law of Moses. II. The Punishment of Pretenders. The several Sorts of false Prophets. The Case of the Prophet at Bethel discussed. III. The Trial of false Prophets belonging to the great Sanhedrin. IV. The particular Rules whereby the Doctrine of Prophets was judged. The proper Notion of a Prophet not foretelling future Contingencies, but having immediate Divine Revelation. V. Several Principles laid down for clearing the Doctrine of the Prophets. 1. That immediate Dictates of natural Light are not to be the Measure of Divine Revelation. Several Grounds for Divine Revelation from natural Light. VI. 2. Whatever is directly repugnant to the Dictates of Nature, cannot be of Divine Revelation. VII. 3. No Divine Revelation doth contradict a Divine positive Law, without sufficient Evidence of God's Intention to repeal that Law. VIII. 4. Divine Revelation in the Prophets was not to be measured by the Words of the Law, but by the Intention and Reason of it. The prophetical Office a Kind of Chancery to the Law of Moses.

V.

I.

THE second reason why those prophets, whose main CHAP. office was instruction of the people, or merely foretelling future events, needed not to confirm their doctrine by miracles, is, because they had certain rules of trial by their law, whereby to discern the false prophets from the true; so that if they were deceived by them, it was their own oscitancy and inadvertency which was the cause of it. God, in that law which was confirmed by miracles undoubtedly divine, had established a court of trial for prophetic spirits, and given such certain rules of procedure in it, that no men needed to be deceived unless they would themselves. And there was a greater necessity of such a certain way of trial among them, because it could not otherwise be expected, but in a nation where a prophetic spirit was so common, there would be very many pretenders to it, who might much endanger the faith of the people, unless there were some certain way to find them out. And the more effectually to deter men either from counterfeiting a prophetic spirit, or from hearkening to such as did, God appointed a severe punishment for every such pretender, viz. upon legal conviction that he be punished with death. Deut. xviii. 20. But the prophet which shall prefume to speak a word in my name

BOOK which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall II. Speak in the name of other gods, fhall furely die. The Jews generally understand this of strangling, as they do always in the law, when the particular manner of death is not expressed. And therein a false prophet and a seducer were distinguished each from other, that a mere seducer was to be stoned to death under sufficient testimony, Deut. xiii. 6, 10. but the false prophet is there said in general V.Maimon. only to be put to death, Deut. xiii. 1, 5. The main difde Idol. c. 5. ference between the seducer and false prophet was, that the seducer sought by cunning persuasions and plausible arguments to draw them off from the worship of the true God; but the false prophet always pretended Divine revelation, for what he persuaded them to, whether he gave out that he had that revelation from the true God, or from idols and false gods. So that the mere pretence to Divine revelation, was that which God would have punished with so great severity.

s. 1. et ibi

Vossium.

II.

The Jews tell us of three sorts of prophets who were to be punished with death by men, and three other sorts who were reserved to Divine punishment. Of the first V. Except. rank were these: 1. He that prophesied that which he had Gem. San- not heard; and for this they instance in Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, who made him horns of iron, and said, Thus saith the Lord: this was the lying prophet. 2. He xxii. 11. that speaks that which was revealed not unto him, but to Jer. xxviii. another: and for this they instance in Hananiah, the son

hedr. c. 10.

S. 3.

1 Kings

II.

of Azur, (but how truly I shall not determine :) this was the plagiary prophet. 3. He that prophesied in the name of an idol, as the prophets of Balaal did: this was the idol prophet. These three, when once fully convicted, were to be put to death. The other rank of those which were left to God's hand consisted of these: 1. He that stifles and smothers his own prophecy, as Jonas did; by which it may seem, that when the Divine Spirit did overshadow the understanding of the prophets, yet it offered no violence to their faculties, but left them to the free determination of their own wills in the execution of their office: but this must be understood of a lower degree of prophecy; for at some times their prophecies Jer. xx. 9. were as fire in their bones, that they were never at any rest till they had discharged their office. But withal by the example of Jonas we see, that though the spirit of prophecy, like the fire on the altar, could only be kindled from Heaven, yet it might be destroyed when it was not maintained with something to feed upon; or when it met not with suitable entertainment from the spi

2.

V.

S. 4. V.

torf. de

I Kings

rits of those it fell upon, it might retreat back again to CHAP. heaven, or at least lie hid in the embers, till a new blast from the Spirit of God doth avalwπupeiv, retrieve it into its former heat and activity. Thus it was with Jonas. The other was, he that despised the words of a true prophet. Of such God saith, Deut. xviii. 19. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. Which Maimonides explains by on, death by Maim. de the hands of God, which he thus distinguisheth from the Fundam. Cereth, that he makes the death, per manus Caeli, to be; less than the Cereth; because this latter continued in the Abarbinel soul after death, but the other was expiated by death: de Cereth. but generally they interpret it of a sudden death which apud Buxfalls upon the person. 3. The last is he who hearkens not Spons, et to the words of his own prophecy; of which we have a Divort. most remarkable instance in Scripture, concerning the P. 182. prophet whom God sent to Bethel, (whom Tertullian calls xiii. 9. Sameas, the Jews Hedua,) whom God destroyed in an Ver. 18. unusual manner for not observing the command which God had given him, not to eat bread nor drink water at Bethel, nor turn again by the way he came. Neither was it any excuse to this prophet, that the old prophet at Bethel told him that an angel spake unto him by the word of the Lord, that he should turn back. For, 1. Those whom God reveals his will unto, he gives them full assurance of it, in that they have a clear and distinct perception of God upon their own minds; and so they have no doubt but it is the word of the Lord which comes unto them but this prophet could have no such certainty of the Divine revelation which was made to another, especially when it came immediately to contradict that which was so specially enjoined him. 2. Where God commands a prophet to do any thing in the pursuit of his message, there he can have no ground to question whether God should countermand it or no by another phet; because that was in effect to thwart the whole design of his message. So it was in this action of the prophet; for God intended his not eating and drinking in Bethel to testify how much he loathed and abominated that place since its being polluted with idolatry. 3. He might have just cause to question the integrity of the old prophet, both because of his living in Bethel, and not openly, according to his office, reproving their idolatry: and that God should send him out of Judæa upon that very errand, which would not have seemed so probable, if there had been true prophets resident upon the place.

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