P R E F
A C E
Those books of
scripture are all prophetical of which here, in weakness, and in fear, and
in much trembling, we have endeavoured a methodical explication and a
practical improvement. I call them prophetical because so they are for
the main, though we have some histories (here and there brought in for the
illustration of the prophecies) and a book of Lamentations. Our Saviour often
puts the Law and the Prophets for all the Old Testament. The prophets,
by waiving the ceremonial precepts, and not insisting on them, but only on the
weightier matters of the law, plainly intimated the abolishing of that part of
the law of Moses by the gospel; and by their many predictions of Christ, and
the kingdom of his grace, they intimated the accomplishing the perfecting of
that part of the law of Moses in the gospel. Thus the prophets were the nexus--the
connecting bond between the law and the gospel, and are therefore fitly
placed between them.
These books, being prophetical, are, as such, divine, and of heavenly origin
and extraction. We have human laws, human histories, and human poems, as well
as divine ones, but we can have no human prophecies. Wise and good men may
make prudent conjectures concerning future events (moral prognostications
we call them); but it is essential to true prophecy that it be of God. The
learned Huetius1 lays this down for one of his axioms, Omnis
prophetica facultas à Deo est--The prophetic talent is entirely from God;
and he proves it to be the sense both of Jews and heathen that it is God's
prerogative to foresee things to come, and that whoever had such a power had
it from God. And therefore the Jews reckon all prophecy to be given by the
highest degree of inspiration, except that which was peculiar to Moses. When
our Saviour asked the chief priests whether John's baptism were from heaven or
of men, they durst not say Of men, because the people counted him a
prophet, and, if so, then not of men. The Hebrew name for a prophet is nby'--a
speaker, preacher, or orator, a messenger, or interpreter,
that delivers God's messages to the children of men, as a herald to proclaim
war or an ambassador to treat of peace. But then it must be remembered that he
was formerly called r'h or hsh, that is, a seer
(1 Sam. ix. 9); for prophets, with the eyes of their minds, first saw what
they were to speak and then spoke what they had seen.
Prophecy, taken strictly, is the foretelling of things to come; and there were
those to whom God gave this power, not only that it might be a sign for the
confirming of the faith of the church concerning the doctrine preached when
the things foretold should be fulfilled, but for warning, instruction, and
comfort, in prospect of what they themselves might not live to see
accomplished, but which should be fulfilled in its season: so predictions of
things to come long after might be of present use.
The learned Dr. Grew2 describes prophecy in this sense to be,
"A declaration of the divine prescience, looking at any distance through
a train of infinite causes, known and unknown to us, upon a sure and certain
effect." Hence he infers, "That the being of prophecies supposes the
non-being of contingents; for, though there are many things which seem to us
to be contingents, yet, were they so indeed, there could have been no
prophecy; and there can be no contingent seemingly so loose and independent
but it is a link of some chain." And Huetius gives this reason why none
but God can foretel things to come, Because every effect depends upon an
infinite number of preceding causes, all which, in their order, must be known
to him that foretels the effect, and therefore to God only, for he alone is
omniscient. So Tully argues: Qui teneat causas rerum futurarum, idem
necesse est omnia teneat quæ futura sint; quod facere nemo nisi Deus potest--He
who knows the causes of future events must necessarily know the events
themselves; this is the prerogative of God alone.3 And
therefore we find that by this the God of Israel proves himself to be
God, that by his prophets he foretold things to come, which came to pass
according to the prediction, Isa. xlvi. 9, 10. And by this he disproves
the pretensions of the Pagan deities, that they could not show the things
that were to come to pass hereafter, Isa. xli. 23. Tertullian proves the
divine authority of the scripture from the fulfilling of scripture-prophecies:
Idoneum, opinor, testimonium divinitatis, veritas divinationis--I conceive
the accomplishment of prophecy to be a satisfactory attestation from God.4
And, besides the foretelling of things to come, the discovering of things
secret by revelation from God is a branch of prophecy, as Ahijah's discovering
Jeroboam's wife in disguise, and Elisha's telling Gehazi what passed between
him and Naaman. But5 prophecy, in scripture language, is taken more
largely for a declaration of such things to the children of men, either by
word or writing, as God has revealed to those that speak or write it, by
vision, dream, or inspiration, guiding their minds, their tongues, and pens,
by his Holy Spirit, and giving them not only ability, but authority, to
declare such things in his name, and to preface what they say with, Thus
saith the Lord. In this sense it is said, The prophecy of scripture came
not in old time by the will of man, as other pious moral discourses might,
but holy men spoke and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,
2 Pet. i. 20, 21. The same Holy Spirit that moved upon the face of the waters
to produce the world moved upon the minds of the prophets to produce the
Bible.
Now I think it is worthy to be observed that all nations, having had some
sense of God and religion, have likewise had a notion of prophets and
prophecy, have had a veneration for them, and a desire and expectation of
acquaintance and communion with the gods they worshipped in that way. Witness
their oracles, their augurs, and the many arts of divination they had in use
among them in all the ages ad all the countries of the world.
It is commonly urged as an argument against the atheists, to prove that there
is a God, That all nations of the world acknowledged some god or other, some
Being above them, to be worshipped and prayed to, to be trusted in and
praised; the most ignorant and barbarous nations could not avoid the knowledge
of it; the most learned and polite nations could not avoid the belief of it.
And this is a sufficient proof of the general and unanimous consent of mankind
to this truth, though far the greatest part of men made to themselves gods
which yet were no gods. Now I think it may be urged with equal force against
the Deists, for the proof of a divine revelation, that all nations of the
world had, and had veneration for, that which they at least took to e a divine
revelation, and could not live without it, though in this also they became vain
in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. But, if there
were not a true deity and a true prophecy, there would never have been
pretended deities and counterfeit prophecies.
Lycurgus and Numa, those two great lawgivers of the Spartan and Roman
commonwealths, brought their people to an observance of their laws by
possessing them with a notion that they had them by divine revelation, and so
making it a point of religion to observe them. And those that have been ever
so little conversant with the Greek and Roman histories, as well as with the
more ancient ones of Chaldea and Egypt cannot but remember what a profound
deference their princes and great commanders, and not their unthinking
commonalty only, paid to the oracles and prophets, and the prognostications of
their soothsayers, which, in all cases of importance, were consulted with
abundance of gravity and solemnity, and how often the resolutions of councils
and the motions of mighty armies turned upon them, though they appeared ever
so groundless and farfetched.
There is a full account given by that learned philosopher and physician Caspar
Peucer6 of the many kinds of divination and prediction used among
the Gentiles, by which they took on them to tell the fortune both of states
and particular persons. They were all, he says, reduced by Plato to two heads:
Divinatio Mantikh,
which was a kind of inspiration, or was though to be so, the prophet or
prophetess foretelling things to come by an internal flatus or fury;
such was the oracle of Apollo at Delphos, and that of Jupiter Trophonius,
which, with others like them, were famous for many ages, during the prevalency
of the kingdom of darkness, but (as appears by some of the Pagan writers
themselves) they were all silenced and struck dumb, when the gospel (that
truly divine oracle) began to be preached to the nations. The other kind of
divination was that which he calls Oiwnistikh,
which was a prognostication by signs, according to rules of art, as by the
flight of birds, the entrails of beasts, by stars or meteors, and abundance of
ominous accidents, with which a foolish world was miserably imposed upon. A
large account of this matter we have also in the late learned dissertations of
Anton. Van Dale, to which I refer the reader.7 But nothing of this
kind made a greater noise in the Gentile world than the oracles of the Sibyls
and their prophecies. Their name signifies a divine counsel: Sibyllæ,
qu. Siobulæ, Sios, in the Æolic dialect, being put for Theos.
Peucer says, "Almost every nation had its Sibyls, but those of
Greece
were most celebrated." They lived in
several ages; the most ancient is said to be the Sibylla Delphica, who
lived before the Trojan war, or about that time. The Sibylla Erythrea
was the most noted; she lived about the time of Alexander the Great. But it
the Sibylla Cumana of whom the story goes that she presented herself,
and nine books of oracles, to Tarquinius Superbus, which she offered to sell
him at so vast a rate that he refused to purchase them, upon which she burnt
three, and, upon his second refusal, three more, but made him give the same
rate for the remaining three, which were deposited with great care in the
Capitol. But, those being afterwards burnt accidentally with the Capitol, a
collection was made of other Sibylline oracles, and those are they which
Virgil refers to in his fourth Eclogue.8 All the oracles of the
Sibyls that are extant were put together, and published, in
Holland
, not many years ago, by Seryatius Gallæus,
in Greek and Latin, with large and learned notes, together with all that could
be met with of the metrical oracles that go under the names of Jupiter,
Apollo, Serapis, and others, by Joannes Opsopæus.
The oracles of the Sibyls were appealed to by many of the fathers for the
confirmation of the Christian religion. Justin Martyr9 appeals with
a great deal of assurance, persuading the Greeks to give credit to that
ancient Sibyl, whose works were extant all the world over; and to their
testimony, and that of Hydaspis, he appeals concerning the general
conflagration and the torments of hell. Clemens Alexandrinus10
often quotes the Sibyls' verses with great respect; so does Lactantius;11
St. Austin,12 De Civitate Dei, has the famous acrostic at
large, said to be one of the oracles of the Sibylla Erythrea, the first
letters of the verses making IhsouV CristoV Qeou
uioV Swthr--Jesus Christ the Son of
God the Saviour. Divers passages they produce out of those oracles which
expressly foretel the coming of the Messiah, his being born of a virgin, his
miracles, his sufferings, particularly his being buffeted, spit upon, crowned
with thorns, having vinegar and gall given him to drink, &c. Whether these
oracles were genuine and authentic or no has been much controverted among the
learned. Baronius and the popish writers generally admit and applaud them, and
build much upon them; so do some protestant writers; Isaac Vossius has written
a great deal to support the reputation of them, and (as I find him quoted by
Van Dale) will needs have it that they were formerly a part of the canon of
scripture; and a learned prelate of our own nation, Bishop Montague, pleads
largely, and with great assurance, for their authority, and is of opinion that
some of them were divinely inspired. But many learned men look upon it to be a
pious fraud, as they call it, concluding that those verses of the Sibyls which
speak so very expressly of Christ and the future state were forged by some
Christians and imposed upon the over-credulous. Huetius,13 though
of the Romish church, condemns both the ancient and more modern compositions
of the Sibyls, and refers his reader, for the proof of their vanity, to the
learned Blondel. Van Dale and Gallæus look upon them to be a forgery. And the
truth is they speak so much more particularly and plainly concerning our
Saviour and the future state than any of the prophets of the Old Testament do,
that we must conclude St. Paul, who was the apostle of the Gentiles, guilty
not only of a very great omission (that in all his preaching of the gospel to
the Gentiles, and in all his epistles to the Gentile churches, he never so
much as mentions the prophecies of the Sibyls, nor vouches their authority, as
he does that of the Old-Testament prophets, in his preaching and writing to
the Jews), but likewise of a very great mistake, in making it the particular
advantage which the Jews had above the Gentiles that to them were committed
the oracles of God (Rom. iii. 1, 2), and that they were the children of
the prophets, while he speaks of the Gentiles as sitting in darkness and being
afar off. We cannot conceive that heathen women, and those actuated by dæmons,
should speak more clearly and fully of the Messiah than those holy men did
who, we are sure, were moved by the Holy Ghost, nor that the Gentiles should
be entrusted with larger and earlier discoveries of the great salvation than
that people of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ was to come. But enough,
if not more than enough, of the pretenders to prophecy. It is a good remark
which the learned Gallæus makes upon the great veneration which the Romans
had for the oracles of the Sibyls, for which he quotes Dionysius Halicarnassæus,
Ouden oute Rwmaioi
fulattousin, oute osion kthma oute ieron, oV
ta Sibulleia qesfata--The Romans
preserve nothing with such sacred care, nor do they hold any thing in such
high estimation, as the Sibylline oracles. Hi si pro vitreis suis thesauris
adeò decertarunt, quid nos pro genuinis nostris, à Deo inspiratis?--If they
had such a value for these counterfeits, how precious should the true treasure
of the divine oracles be to us! Of these we come next to speak.
Prophecy, we are sure, was of equal date with the church; for faith comes,
not by thinking and seeing, as philosophy does, but by hearing, by hearing
the word of
God
,
Rom.
x. 17. In the antediluvian period Adam received divine revelation in the
promise of the Seed of the woman, and no doubt communicated it in the name of
the Lord, to his seed, and was prophet, as well as priest, to his numerous
family. Enoch was a prophet, and foretold perhaps the deluge, certainly the
last judgment, that of the great day. Behold the Lord comes, Jude 14.
When men began, as a church, to call upon the name of the Lord (Gen.
iv. 26), or to call themselves by his name, they were blessed with prophets,
for the prophecy came in old time (2 Pet. i. 21); it is venerable for
its antiquity. When God renewed his covenant of providence (and that a figure
of the covenant of grace) with Noah and his sons, we soon after find Noah, as
a prophet, foretelling, not only the servitude of Canaan, but God's enlarging
Japhet by Christ, and his dwelling in the tents of Shem, Gen. ix. 26, 27. And
when, upon the general revolt of mankind to idolatry (as, in the former
period, upon the apostasy of Cain), God distinguished a church for himself by
the call of Abraham, and by his covenant with him and his seed, he conferred
upon him and the other patriarchs the spirit of prophecy; for, when he
reproved kings for their sakes, he said, Touch not my anointed, who
have received that unction from the Holy One, and do my prophets no harm,
Ps. cv. 14, 15. And of Abraham he said expressly, He is a prophet (Gen.
xx. 7); and it was with a prophetic eye, as a seer, that Abraham saw
Christ's day (John viii. 56), saw it as so great a distance, and yet with
so great an assurance triumphed in it. And Stephen seems to speak of the first
settling of a correspondence between him and God, by which he was established
to be a prophet, when he says, The God of glory appeared to him (Acts
vii. 2), appeared in glory. Jacob, upon his death-bed, as a prophet, told his
sons what should befal them in the last days (Gen. xlix. 1), and spoke
very particularly concerning the Messiah.
Hitherto was the infancy of the church, and with it of prophecy; it was the
dawning of that day; and that morning-light owed its rise to the Sun of
righteousness, though he rose not till long after, but it shone more and more.
During the bondage of Israel in Egypt, this, as other glories of the church,
was eclipsed; but, as the church made a considerable and memorable advance in
the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt and the forming of them into a people,
so did the Spirit of prophecy in Moses, the illustrious instrument employed in
that great service; and it was by that Spirit that he performed that service;
so it is said, Hos. xii. 13, By a prophet the Lord brought
Israel
out of
Egypt
, and by a prophet was he preserved
through the wilderness to
Canaan
, that is, by Moses as a prophet. It appears, by what God said to Aaron,
that there were then other prophets among them, to whom God made known himself
and his will in dreams and visions (Num. xii. 6), but to Moses he spoke in a
peculiar manner, mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches,
Num. xii. 8. Nay, such a plentiful effusion was there of the Spirit of
prophecy at that time (because Moses was such a prophet as was to be a type of
Christ the great prophet) that some of his Spirit was put upon seventy elders
of Israel at once, and they prophesied, Num. xi. 25. What they said was
extraordinary, and not only under the direction of a prophetic inspiration,
but under the constraint of a prophetic impulse, as appears by the case of
Eldad and Meded.
When Moses, that great prophet, was laying down his office, he promised
Israel
that the Lord God would raise them up a
prophet of their brethren like unto him, Deut. xviii. 15, 18. In these
words, says the learned Bishop Stillingfleet14 though, in their
full and complete sense, they relate to Christ, and to him they are more than
once applied in the New Testament), there is included a promise of an order of
prophets, which should succeed Moses in the Jewish church, and be the logia
zwnta--the living oracles among
them (Acts vii. 38), by which they might know the mind of God; for, in the
next words, he lays down rules for the trial of prophets, whether what they
said was of God or no, and it is observable that that promise comes in
immediately upon an express prohibition of the Pagan rites of divination and
the consulting of wizards and familiar spirits: "You shall not need to do
that" (said Moses), "for, to your much better satisfaction, you
shall have prophets divinely inspired, by whom you may know from God himself
both what to do and what to expect." But as Jacob's dying prophecy
concerning the sceptre in Judah, and the lawgiver between his feet, did not
begin to be remarkably fulfilled till David's time, most of the Judges being
of other tribes, so Moses's promise of a succession of prophets began not to
receive its accomplishment till Samuel's time, a little before the other
promise began to emerge and operate; and it was an introduction to the other,
for it was by Samuel, as a prophet, that David was anointed king, which was an
intimation that the prophetical office of our Redeemer should make way, both
in the world and in the heart, for his kingly office; and therefore when he
was asked, Art thou a king? (John xviii. 37) he answered, not
evasively, but very pertinently, I came to bear witness to the truth,
and so to rule as a king purely by the power of truth.
During the government of the Judges there was a pouring out of the Spirit, but
more as a Spirit of skill and courage for war than as a Spirit of prophecy.
Deborah is indeed called prophetess, because of her extraordinary
qualifications for judging
Israel
; but that is the only mention of prophecy,
that I remember, in all the book of Judges. Extraordinary messages were
sent by angels, as to Gideon and Manoah; and it is expressly said that before
the word of the Lord came to Samuel (1 Sam. iii. 1) it was precious, it
was very scarce, there was no open vision. And it was therefore with
more than ordinary solemnity that the word of the Lord came first to Samuel;
and by degrees notice and assurance were given to all
Israel
that Samuel was established to be a
prophet of the Lord, 1 Sam. iii. 20. In Samuel's time, and by him, the
schools of the prophets were erected, by which prophecy was dignified and
provision made for a succession of prophets; for it should seem that in those
colleges, hopeful young men were bred up in devotion, in a constant attendance
upon the instruction the prophets gave from God, and under a strict
discipline, as candidates, or probationers, for prophecy, who were called the
sons of the prophets; and their religious exercises of prayer, conference,
and psalmody especially, are called prophesyings; and their præfect, or
president, is called their father, 1 Sam. x. 12. Out of these God
ordinarily chose the prophets he sent; and yet not always: Amos was no prophet
nor prophet's son (Amos vii. 14), had not his education in the schools of the
prophets, and yet was commissioned to go on God's errands, and (which is
observable) though he had not academical education himself, yet he seems to
speak of it with great respect when he reckons it among the favours God had
bestowed upon Israel that he raised up of their sons for prophets and of
their young men for Nazarites, Amos ii. 11.
It is worth noting that when the glory of the priesthood was eclipsed by the
iniquity of the house of Eli, the desolations of Shiloh, and the obscurity of
the ark, there was then a more plentiful effusion of the Spirit of prophecy
than had been before; a standing ministry of another kind was thereby erected,
and a succession of it kept up. And thus afterwards, in the kingdom of the ten
tribes, where there was no legal priesthood at all, yet there were prophets
and prophets; sons; in Ahab's time we meet with a hundred of them, whom
Obadiah his by fifty in a cave, 1 Kings xviii. 4. When the people of
God, who desired to know his mind, were deprived of one way of instruction,
God furnished them with another, and a less ceremonious one; for he left not
himself without witness, nor them without a guide. And when they had no temple
or altar that they could attend upon with any safety or satisfaction then had
private meetings at the prophets' houses, to which the devout faithful
worshippers of God resorted (as we find the good Shunamite did, 2 Kings iv.
23), and where they kept their new-moons and their sabbaths, comfortably, and
to their edification.
David was himself a prophet; so St. Peter calls him (Acts ii. 30); and, though
we read not of God's speaking to him by dreams and visions, yet we are sure
that the Spirit of the Lord spoke by him, and his word was in his tongue
(2 Sam. xxiii. 2), and he had those about him that were seers, that were his
seers, as Gad and Iddo, that brought him messages from God, and wrote the
history of his times. And now the productions of the Spirit of prophecy were
translated into the service of the temple, not only in the model of the house
which the Lord made David understand in writing by his hand upon him (1
Chron. xxviii. 19), but in the worship performed there; for there we find
Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, prophesying with harps and other musical
instruments, according to the order of the king, not to foretel things to
come, but to give thanks and to praise the Lord (1 Chron. xxv.
1-3); yet, in their psalms, they spoke much of Christ and his kingdom, and the
glory to be revealed.
In the succeeding reigns, both of
Judah
and
Israel
, we frequently meet with prophets sent on
particular errands to Rehoboam, Jeroboam, Asa, and other kings, who, it is
probable, instructed the people in the things of God at other times, though it
is not recorded. But, prophecy growing into contempt with many, God revived
the honour of it, and put a new lustre upon it, in the power given to Elijah
and Elisha to work miracles, and the great things that God did by them for the
confirming of the people's faith in it, and the awakening of their regard to
it, 2 Kings ii. 3; iv. 1, 38; v. 22; vi. 1. In their time, and by their
agency, it should seem, the schools of the prophets were revived, and we find
sons of the prophets, fellows of those sacred colleges, employed in carrying
messages to the great men, as to Ahab (1 Kings xx. 35), and to Jehu, 2 Kings
ix. 1.
Hitherto, the prophets of the Lord delivered their messages by word of mouth,
only we read of one writing which came from Elijah the prophet to Jehoram king
of
Israel
, 2 Chron. xxi. 12. The histories of those times which are left us were
compiled by prophets, under a divine direction; and, when the Old Testament is
divided into the law and the Prophets, the historical books are, for that
reason, reckoned among the prophets. But, in the later times of the kingdoms
of Judah and Israel, some of the prophets were divinely inspired to write
their prophecies, or abstracts of them, and to leave them upon record, for the
benefit of after-ages, that the children who should be born might praise the
Lord for them, and, by comparing the event with the prediction, might have
their faith confirmed. And, probably, those later prophets spoke more fully
and plainly of the Messiah and his kingdom than their predecessors had done,
and for that reason their prophecies were put in writing, not only for the
encouragement of the pious Jews that looked for the consolation of Israel, but
for the use of us Christians, upon whom the ends of the world have come, as
David's psalms had been for the same reason, that the Old Testament and the
New might mutually give light and lustre to each other. Many other faithful
prophets there were at the same time, who spoke in God's name, who did not
commit their prophecies to writing, but were of those whom God sent, rising up
betimes and sending them, the contempt of whom, and of their messages, brought
ruin without remedy upon that sottish people, that knew not the day of their
visitation. In their captivity they had some prophets, some to show them
how long; and though it was not by a prophet, like Moses, that they were
brought out of Babylon, as they had been out of Egypt, but by Joshua the high
priest first, and afterwards by Ezra the scribe, to show that God can do his
work by ordinary means when he pleases, yet, soon after their return, the
Spirit of prophecy was poured out plentifully, and continued (according to the
Jews' computation) forty years in the second temple, but ceased in Malachi.
Then (say the rabbin) the Holy Spirit was taken from Israel, and they
had the benefit only of the Bathkol--the daughter of a voice, that is,
a voice from heaven, which they look upon to be the lowest degree of divine
revelation. Now herein they are witnesses against themselves for rejecting the
true Messiah, for our Lord Jesus, and he only was spoken to by a voice from
heaven at his baptism, his transfiguration, and his entrance on his
sufferings.
In John the Baptist prophecy revived, and therefore in him the gospel is said
to begin, when the church had had no prophets for above 300 years. We have not
only the vox populi--the voice of the people to prove John a prophet,
for all the people counted him so, but vox Dei--the voice of God too;
for Christ calls him a prophet, Matt. xi. 9, 10. He had an extraordinary
commission from God to call people to repentance, was filled with the Holy
Ghost from his mother's womb, and was therefore called the prophet
of the Highest, because he went before the face of the Lord, to prepare
his way (Luke i. 15, 16); and though he did no miracle, nor gave any sign
or wonder, yet this proved him a true prophet, that all he said of Christ
was true, John x. 41. Nay, and this proved him more than a prophet,
than any of the other prophets, that whereas by other prophets Christ was
discovered as at a great distance, by him he was discovered as already come,
and he was enabled to say, Behold the Lamb of God. But after the
ascension of our Lord Jesus there was a more plentiful effusion of the Spirit
of prophecy than ever before; then was the promise fulfilled that God would pour
out his Spirit upon all flesh (and not as hitherto upon the Jews only),
and their sons and their daughters should prophesy, Acts ii. 16,
&c. The gift of tongues was one new product of the Spirit of prophecy, and
given for a particular reason, that, the Jewish pale being taken down, all
nations might be brought into the church. These and other gifts of prophecy,
being for a sign, have long since ceased and laid aside, and we have no
encouragement to expect the revival of them; but, on the contrary, are
directed to call the scriptures the more sure word of prophecy, more
sure than voices from heaven; and to them we are directed to take heed,
to search them, and to hold them fast, 2 Pet. i. 19. All God's spiritual
Israel know that they are established to be the oracles of God (1 Sam.
iii. 20), and if any add to, or take from, the book of that prophecy, they may
read their doom in the close of it; God shall take blessings from them, and
add curses to them, Rev. xxii. 18, 19).
Now concerning the prophets of the Old Testament, whose writings are before
us, observe,
I. That they were all holy men. We are assured by the apostle that the
prophecy came in old time by holy men of God (and men of God they
were commonly called, because they were devoted to him), who spoke as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost. They were men, subject to like passions
as we are (so Elijah, one of the greatest of them, is said to have been,
Jam. v. 17); but they were holy men, men that in the temper of their minds,
and the tenour of their lives, were examples of serious piety. Though there
were many pretenders, that, without warrant, said Thus saith the Lord,
when he sent them not, and some that prophesied in Christ's name, but he never
knew them, and they indeed were workers of iniquity (Matt. vii. 22, 23), and
though the cursing blaspheming lips of Balaam and Caiaphas, even when they
actually designed mischief, were over-ruled to speak oracles, yet none were
employed and commissioned to speak as prophets but those that had received the
Spirit of grace and sanctification; for holiness becomes God's house. The
Jewish doctors universally agree in this rule, That the Spirit of prophecy
never rests upon any but a holy and wise man, and one whose passions are
allayed,15 or, as others express it, a humble man and a man of
fortitude, that is, one that has power to keep his sensual animal part in due
subjection to religion and right reason. And some of them16 give
this rule, That the Spirit of prophecy does not reside where there are either,
on the one hand, grief and melancholy, or, on the other hand, laughter and
lightness of behaviour, and impertinent idle talk: and it is commonly observed
by them, both from the musical instruments used in the schools of the prophets
in Samuel's time and from the instance of Elisha's calling for a minstrel (2
Kings iii. 15), that the divine presence does not reside with sadness, but
with cheerfulness, and Elisha, they say, had not yet recovered himself from
the sorrow he conceived at parting with Elijah. They have also a tradition
(but I know no ground for it) that all the while Jacob mourned for Joseph, the
Shechinah, or Holy Spirit, withdrew from him. Yet I believe that when David
intimates that by his sin in the matter of Uriah he had lost the right Spirit,
and the free Spirit, Ps. li. 10, 12 (which therefore he begs might be renewed
in him and restored to him), it was not because he was under grief, but
because he was under guilt. And therefore, in order to the return of that
right and free Spirit, he prays that God would create in him a clean heart.
II. That they had all a full assurance in themselves of their divine mission;
and (though they could not always prevail to satisfy others) they were
abundantly satisfied themselves that what they delivered as from God, and in
his name, was indeed from him; and with the same assurance did the apostles
speak of the word of life, as that which they had heard, and seen, and looked
on, and which their hands had handled, 1 John i. 1. Nathan spoke from himself
when he encouraged David to build the temple, but afterwards knew he spoke
from God when, in his name, he forbade him to do it. God had various ways of
making known to his prophets the messages they were to deliver to his people;
it should seem, ordinarily, to have been by the ministry of angels. In the
Apocalypse Christ is expressly said to have signified by his angel to his
servant John, Rev. i. 1. It was sometimes done in a vision when the
prophet was awake, sometimes in a dream when the prophet was asleep, and
sometimes by a secret but strong impression upon the mind of the prophet. But
Maimonides has laid down, as a maxim, That all prophecy makes itself known to
the prophet that it is prophecy indeed; that is, says another of the rabbin,
By the vigour and liveliness of the perception whereby he apprehends the thing
propounded (which Jeremiah intimates when he says, The word of the Lord was
as a fire in my bones, Jer. xx. 9), and therefore they always spoke with
great assurance, knowing they should be justified, Isa. i. 7.
III. That in their prophesying, both in receiving their message from God and
in delivering it to the people, they always kept possession of their own
souls. Dan. x. 8. Though sometimes their bodily strength was overpowered by
the abundance of the revelations, and their eyes were dazzled with the
visionary light, as in the instances of Daniel and John (Rev. i. 17), yet
still their understanding remained with them, and the free exercise of their
reason. This is excellently well expressed by a learned writer of our own:17
"The prophetical Spirit, seating itself in the rational powers as well as
in the imagination, did never alienate the mind, but inform and enlighten it;
and those that were actuated by it always maintained a clearness and
consistency of reason, with strength and solidity of judgment. "For"
(says he afterwards18) "God did not make use of idiots or
fools to reveal his will by, but such whose intellects were entire and
perfect; and he imprinted such a clear copy of his truth upon them as that it
became their own sense, being digested fully into their understandings, so
that they were able to deliver and represent it to others as truly as any can
paint forth his own thoughts." God's messengers were speaking men, not
speaking trumpets. The Fathers frequently took notice of this difference
between the prophets of the Lord and the false prophets--that the pretenders
to prophecy (who either were actuated by an evil spirit or were under the
force of a heated imagination) underwent alienations of mind, and delivered
what they had to say in the utmost agitation and disorder, as the Pythian
prophetess, who delivered her infernal oracles with many antic gestures,
tearing her hair and foaming at the mouth. And by this rule they condemned the
Montanists, who pretended to prophecy, in the second century, that what they
said was in a way of ecstasy, not like rational men, but like men in a frenzy.
Chrysostom,19 having described the furious violent motions of the
pretenders to prophecy, adds, O de ProfhthV ouc
outoV--A true prophet does not do
so. Sed mente sobriâ, et constanti animi staut, et intelligens quæ profert,
omnia pronunciat--He understands what he utters, and utters it soberly and
calmly. And Jerome, in his preface to his Commentaries upon Nahum,
observes that it is called the book of the vision of Nahum. Non enim
loquitur en ekstasei,
sed est liber intelligentis omnia quæ loquitur--For he speaks not in an
ecstasy, but as one who understands every thing he says. And again,20
Non ut amens loquitur propheta, nec in morem insanientium foeminarum dat
sine mente sonum--The prophet speaks not as an insane person, nor like women
wrought into fury, does he utter sound without sense.
IV. That they all aimed at one and the same thing, which was to bring people
to repent of their sins and to return to God and to do their duty to him. This
was the errand on which all God messengers were sent, to beat down sin, and to
revive and advance serious piety. The burden of every son was, Turn you now
every one from his evil way; amend your ways and your doings, and execute
judgment between a man and his neighbour, Jer. vii. 3, 5. See Zech. vii.
8, 9; viii. 16. The scope and design of all their prophecies were to enforce
the precepts and sanctions of the law of Moses, the moral law, which is of
universal and perpetual obligation. Here is nothing of the ceremonial
institutes, of the carnal ordinances that were imposed only till the times
of reformation, Heb. ix. 10. Those were now waxing old and ready to vanish
away; but they make it their business to press the great and weighty
matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and truth.
V. That they all bore witness to Jesus Christ and had an eye to him. God
raising up the horn of salvation for us, in the house of his servant David,
was consonant to, and in pursuance of, what he spoke by the mouth of his
holy prophets who have been since the world began, Luke i. 69, 70. They
prophesied of the grace that should come to us, and it was the Spirit of
Christ in them, one and the same Spirit, that testified beforehand the sufferings
of Christ, and the glory that should follow, 1 Pet. i. 10, 11. Christ was
then made known, and yet comparatively hid, in the predictions of the
prophets, as before in the types of the ceremonial law. And the learned
Huetius21 observes it as really admirable that so many persons, in
different ages, should conspire with one consent, as it were, to foretel, some
one particular and others another, concerning Christ, all which had, at
length, their full accomplishment in him. Ab ipsis mundi incunabulis, per
quatuor annorum millia, uno ore venturum Christum prædixerunt viri complures,
in ejusque ortu, vitâ, virtutibus, rebus gestis, morte, ac totâ denique Oikonomia
præmonstranda consenserunt--From the earliest period of time, for 4000
years, a great number of men have predicted the advent of Christ, and
presented a harmonious statement of his birth, life, character, actions, and
death, and of that economy which he came to establish.
VI. That these prophets were generally hated and abused in their several
generations by those that lived with them. Stephen challenges his judges to
produce an instance to the contrary: Which of the prophets have not your
fathers persecuted? Yea, and, as it should seem, for this reason, because they
showed before of the coming of the Just One, Acts vii. 52. Some there were
that trembled at the word of God in their mouths, but by the most they were
ridiculed and despised, and (as ministers are now by profane people) made a
jest of (Hos. ix. 7); the prophet was the fool in the play. Wherefore came
this mad fellow unto thee? (2 Kings ix. 11) said one of the captains
concerning one of the sons of the prophets! The Gentiles never treated their
false prophets so ill as the Jews did their true prophets, but, on the
contrary, had them always in veneration. The Jews' mocking the messengers of
the Lord, killing the prophets, and stoning those that were sent unto them,
was as amazing unaccountable an instance of the enmity that is in the carnal
mind against God as any that can be produced. And this makes their rejection
of Christ's gospel the less strange, that the Spirit of prophecy, which, for
many ages, was so much the glory of
Israel
, in every age met with so much opposition,
and there were those that always resisted the Holy Ghost in the
prophets, and turned that glory into shame, Acts vii. 51. But this was
it that was the measure-filling sin of
Israel
, that brought upon them both their first
destruction by the Chaldeans and their final ruin by the Romans, 2 Chron.
xxxvi. 16.
VII. That though men slighted these prophets, God owned them and put honour
upon them. As they were men of God, his immediate servants and his messengers,
so he always showed himself the Lord God of the holy prophets (Rev.
xxii. 6), stood by them and strengthened them, and by his Spirit they were
full of power; and those that slighted them, when they had lost them, were
made to know, to their confusion, that a prophet had been among them.
What was said of one of the primitive fathers of the prophets was true of them
all, The Lord was with them, and did let none of their words fall to the
ground, 1 Sam. iii. 19. What they said by way of warning and
encouragement, for the enforcing of their calls to repentance and reformation,
was to be understood conditionally. When God spoke by them either, on the one
hand, to build and to plant, or, on the other hand, to pluck up and pull down,
the change of the people's way might produce a change of God's way (Jer. xviii.
7-10); such was Jonah's prophecy of Nineveh's ruin within forty days; or God
might sometimes be better than his word in granting a reprieve. But what they
said by way of prediction of a particular matter, and as a sign, did always
come to pass exactly as it was foretold; yea, and the general predictions,
sooner or later, took hold even of those that would fain have got clear of
them (Zech. i. 6); for this is that which God glories in, that he confirms
the word of his servants and performs the counsel of his messengers,
Isa. xliv. 26.
In the opening these prophecies I have endeavoured to give the genuine sense
of them, as far as I could reach it, by consulting the best expositors,
considering the scope and coherence, and comparing spiritual things with
spiritual, the spiritual things of the Old Testament with those of the New,
and especially by prayer to God for the guidance and direction of the Spirit
of truth. But, after all, thee are many things here dark and hard to be
understood, concerning the certain meaning of which though I could not
gain myself, much less expect to give my reader, full satisfaction, Yet I have
not, with the unlearned and unstable, wrested them to the
destruction of any, 2 Pet. iii. 16. It is the prerogative of the Lamb of
God to take this book and to open all its seals. I
have likewise endeavoured to accommodate these prophecies to the use and
service of those who desire to faith and holiness. And we shall find that
whatever is given by inspiration of God is profitable (2 Tim. iii. 16),
though not all alike profitable, not all alike easy or improvable; but, when
the mystery of God shall be finished, we shall see, what we are now bound to
believe, that there is not one idle word in all the prophecies of this book.
What God has said, as well as what he does, we know not now, but we shall
know hereafter.
The pleasure I have had in studying and meditating upon those parts of these
prophecies which are plain and practical, and especially those which are
evangelical, has been an abundant balance to, and recompence for, the harder
tasks we have met with in other parts that are more obscure. In many parts of
this field the treasure must be dug for, as that in the mines; but in other
parts the surface is covered with rich and precious products, with corn, and
flocks, of which we may say, as was said of Noah, These same have comforted us
greatly concerning our work and the toil of our hands, and have made it very
pleasant and delightful; God grant it may be no less so to the readers!
And now let me desire the assistance of my friends, in setting up my Eben-Ezer
here, in a thankful acknowledgment that hitherto the Lord has helped me. I
desire to praise God that he has spared my life to finish the Old Testament,
and has graciously given me some tokens of his presence with me in carrying
this work, though the more I reflect upon myself the more unworthy I see
myself of the honour of being thus employed, and the more need I see of Christ
and his merit and grace. Remember me, O my God! for good, and spare me
according to the multitude of thy mercies. The Lord forgive what is mine,
and accept what is his own!
I purpose, if God continue my life and health, according to the measure of the
grace given to me, and in a constant and entire dependence upon divine
strength, to go through the New Testament in two volumes more. I intimated in
my preface to the first volume that I had drawn up some expositions upon some
parts of the New Testament; namely, The gospels of St. Matthew and St. John;
but they are so large that, to make them bear some proportion to the rest, it
is necessary that they be much contracted, so that I shall be obliged to write
them all over again, and to make considerable alterations, and therefore I
cannot expect they should be published but as these hitherto have been, if God
permit, a volume every other year. I shall begin it now shortly, if the Lord
will, and apply myself to it as closely as I can; and I earnestly desire the
prayers of all that wish well to that undertaking that, if the Lord spare me
to go on with it, I may be enabled to do it well, and so as that by it some
may be led into the riches of the full assurance of understanding in the
mystery of God, even of the Father and of Christ, Col. ii. 2. And, if it
shall please God to remove me by death before it be finished, I trust I shall
be able to say not only, Welcome his blessed will, but, Welcome that blessed
world, in which, though now we know in part, and prophesy but in part, that
knowledge which is perfect will come, and that which is partial will be done
away (1 Cor. xiii. 8-10, 12), in which all our mistakes will be rectified,
all our doubts resolved, all our deficiencies made up, all our endeavours in
preaching, catechising, and expounding, superseded and rendered useless, and
all our prayers swallowed up in everlasting praises,--in which prophecy, now
so much admired, shall fail, and tongues shall cease, and the knowledge we
have now shall vanish away, as the light of the morning-star does when the sun
has risen,--in which we shall no longer see through a glass darkly, but face
to face. In a believing, comfortable, well-grounded, expectation of that true
and perfect light, I desire to continue, living and dying; in a humble and
diligent preparation for it let me spend my time, and in the full enjoyment of
it Oh that I may spend a glorious eternity!
1
Demonstrat. Evang. pag. 15.
2 Cosmol. sacra, lib.
4, cap. 6.
3 Cicero de Divin.
lib. 1.
4 (Apol. cap.
20).
5 Du Pin, Hist. of
the Canon. lib. 1, cap. 2.
6 De Præcipuis
Divinationum Generibus, A. 1591.
7 De Verâ ac Falsâ
Prophetiâ, A. 1696.
8 Vid. Virg. Æneid.
lib. 6.
9 Ad Græcos
Cohortat. juxta finem.
10 Apol. 2. p.
mihi. 66. l.
11 Quæst. et
Respons. p. 436.
12 (Aug. de Div.
Dei, lib. 18, cap. 23),
13 Demonstrat. p.
748.
14 Orig. Sacr. B.
2, c. 4.
15 See Mr. Smith
on Prophecy.
16 Gemara Schab.
c. 2.
17 Smith on
Prophecy, p. 190.
18 Pag. 266.
19 In 1 Co. 12.
1.
20 Prolog. in
Habac.
21 Demonstrat.
Evang. p. 737.
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