Prophecy is not an art,nor,when it is taken for prediction,a constant vocation,but an extraordinary and temporary employment from God,most often of good men,but sometimes also of the wicked.
The woman of Endor,who is said to have had a familiar spirit,and thereby to have raised a phantasm of Samuel,and foretold Saul his death,was not therefore a prophetess;for neither had she any science whereby she could raise such a phantasm,nor does it appear that God commanded the raising of it,but only guided that imposture to be a means of Saul's terror and discouragement,and by consequent,of the discomfiture by which he fell.And for incoherent speech,it was amongst the Gentiles taken for one sort of prophecy,because the prophets of their oracles,intoxicated with a spirit or vapor from the cave of the Pythian Oracle at Delphi,were for the time really mad,and spake like madmen;of whose loose words a sense might be made to fit any event,in such sort as all bodies are said to be made of materia prima.In the Scripture I find it also so taken in these words,"And the evil spirit came upon Saul,and he prophesied in the midst of the house."
And although there be so many significations in Scripture of the word prophet;yet is that the most frequent in which it is taken for him to whom God speaketh immediately that which the prophet is to say from Him to some other man,or to the people.And hereupon a question may be asked,in what manner God speaketh to such a prophet.Can it,may some say,be properly said that God hath voice and language,when it cannot be properly said He hath a tongue or other organs as a man?The Prophet David argueth thus,"Shall He that made the eye,not see?or He that made the ear,not hear?"But this may be spoken,not,as usually,to signify God's nature,but to signify our intention to honour Him.For to see and hear are honourable attributes,and may be given to God to declare as far as capacity can conceive His almighty power.But if it were to be taken in the strict and proper sense,one might argue from his making of all other parts of man's body that he had also the same use of them which we have;which would be many of them so uncomely as it would be the greatest contumely in the world to ascribe them to Him.
Therefore we are to interpret God's speaking to men immediately for that way,whatsoever it be,by which God makes them understand His will:and the ways whereby He doth this are many,and to be sought only in the Holy Scripture;where though many times it be said that God spake to this and that person,without declaring in what manner,yet there be again many places that deliver also the signs by which they were to acknowledge His presence and commandment;and by these may be understood how He spake to many of the rest.
In what manner God spake to Adam,and Eve,and Cain,and Noah is not expressed;nor how he spake to Abraham,till such time as he came out of his own country to Sichem in the land of Canaan,and then God is said to have appeared to him.So there is one way whereby God made His presence manifest;that is,by an apparition,or vision.And again,the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision";that is to say,somewhat,as a sign of God's presence,appeared as God's messenger to speak to him.Again,the Lord appeared to Abraham by an apparition of three angels;and to Abimelech in a dream;to Lot by an apparition of two angels;and to Hagar by the apparition of one angel;and to Abraham again by the apparition of a voice from heaven;and to Isaac in the night(that is,in his sleep,or by dream);and to Jacob in a dream;that is to say (as are the words of the text),"Jacob dreamed that he saw a ladder,"etc.And in a vision of angels;and to Moses in the apparition of a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush;and after the time of Moses,where the manner how God spake immediately to man in the Old Testament is expressed,He spake always by a vision,or by a dream;as to Gideon,Samuel,Eliah,Elisha,Isaiah,Ezekiel,and the rest of the prophets;and often in the New Testament,as to Joseph,to St.
Peter,to St.Paul,and to St.John the Evangelist in the Apocalypse.
Only to Moses He spake in a more extraordinary manner in Mount Sinai,and in the Tabernacle;and to the high priest in the Tabernacle,and in the sanctum sanctorum of the Temple.But Moses,and after him the high priests,were prophets of a more eminent place and degree in God's favour;and God Himself in express words declareth that to other prophets He spake in dreams and visions,but to His servant Moses in such manner as a man speaketh to his friend.The words are these:"If there be a prophet among you,I the Lord will make Myself known to him in a vision,and will speak unto him in a dream.My servant Moses is not so,who is faithful in all my house;with him I will speak mouth to mouth,even apparently,not in dark speeches;and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold."And,"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 7.35and 53,and Galatians,3.19,and was therefore a vision,though a more clear vision than was given to other prophets.And conformable hereunto,where God saith,"If there arise amongst you a prophet,or dreamer of dreams,"the latter word is but the interpretation of the former.And,"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,"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 ecstasy:which imaginations in every true prophet were supernatural,but in false prophets were either natural or feigned.