menu_book Chapter 5

when there is mention of the word of god or of man it doth not signify a part of speech such as grammarians call a noun or a verb or any simple voice without a contexture with other words to make it but a perfect speech or discourse whereby the speaker affirmeth denieth commandeth promiseth threatneth wisheth or interrogateth in which sense it is not vocabulum that signifies a word but sermon in greek logos that is some speech discourse or saying again if we say the word of god or of man it may be understood sometimes of the speaker as the words that god hath spoken or that a man hath spoken in which sense when we say of the gospel of st matthew we understand st matthew to be the writer of it and sometimes of the subject in which sense when we read in the bible the words of the days of the kings of israel or judah it is meant the acts that were done in those days were the subject of those words and in the greek which in the scripture retaineth many hebraisms by the word of god is often times meant

not that which is spoken by god but concerning god and his government that is to say the doctrine of religion in so much as it is all one to say logos theo and theologia which is that doctrine which we usually call divinity and is manifest by the places following paul and barnabas waxed bold and said it was necessary that the word of god should first have been spoken to you but seeing you put it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life lo we turn to the gentiles that which is here called the word of god was the doctrine of christian religion as it appears evidently by that which goes before and where it is said to the apostles by an angel go stand and speak in the temple all the words of this life by the words of this life is meant the doctrine of the gospel as is evident by that which they did in the temple and is expressed in the last verse of the same chapter daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach christ jesus in which place it is manifest that jesus christ was the subject of this word of life or which is all one the subject of the words of this life eternal that our saviour offered them

so the word of god is called the word of the gospel because it containeth the doctrine of the kingdom of christ and the same word is called the word of faith that is as is there exprest the doctrine of christ come and raised from the dead also when any one heareth the word of the kingdom that is the doctrine of the kingdom taught by christ again the same word is said to grow and to be multiplied which to understand of the evangelical doctrine is easy but of the voice or speech of god hard and strange in the same sense the doctrine of devils signifieth not the words of any devil but the doctrine of heathen men concerning demons and those phantasms which they worshipped as gods considering these two significations of the word of god as it is taken in scripture it is manifest in this latter sense where it is taken for the doctrine of christian religion that the whole scripture is the word of god but in the former sense not so for example though these words i am the lord thy god etc to the end of the ten commandments were spoken by god to moses yet the preface god spake these words and said is to be understood for the words of him that wrote the holy history

the word of god as it is taken for that which he hath spoken is understood sometimes properly sometimes metaphorically properly as the words he hath spoken to his prophets metaphorically for his wisdom power and eternal decree in making the world in which sense those fiats let there be light let there be firmament let us make man etc are the word of god and in the same sense it is said all things were made by it and without it was nothing made that was made and he upholdeth all things by the word of his power that is by the power of his word that is by his power and the worlds were framed by the word of god and many other places to the same sense as also amongst the latins the name of fate which signifieth properly the word spoken is taken in the same sense secondly for the effect of his word that is to say for the thing it self which by his word is affirmed commanded threatened or promised as where joseph is said to have been kept in prison till his word was come

that is till that was come to pass which he had foretold to pharaoh's butler concerning his being restored to his office for there by his word was come is meant the thing it self was come to pass so also elijah saith to god i have done all these thy words instead of i have done all these things at thy word or commandment and where is the word of the lord is put for where is the evil he threatened and there shall none of my words be prolonged any more by words are understood those things which god promised to his people and in the new testament heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away that is there is nothing that i have promised or foretold that shall not come to pass and in this sense it is that st john the evangelist and i think st john only calleth our savour himself as in the flesh the word of god and the word was made flesh that is to say the word or promise that christ should come into the world who in the beginning was with god that is to say it was in the purpose of god the father to send god the son into the world to enlighten men in the way of eternal life

but it was not till then put in execution and actually incarnate so that our saviour is there called the word not because he was the promise but the thing promised they that taking occasion from this place do commonly call him the verb of god do but render the text more obscure they might as well turn him the noun of god for as by noun so also by verb men understand nothing but a part of speech a voice a sound that neither affirms nor denies nor commands nor promiseth nor is any substance corporeal or spiritual and therefore it cannot be said to be either god or man whereas our saviour is both and this word which st john in his gospel saith was with god is in his first epistle called the word of life and the eternal life which was with the father so that he can be in no other sense called the word than in that wherein he is called eternal life that is he that hath procured us eternal life by his coming in the flesh so also the apostle speaking of christ clothed in a garment dipped in blood saith his name is the word of god which is to be understood as if he had said his name had been

he that was come according to the purpose of god from the beginning and according to his word and promises delivered by the prophets so that there is nothing here of the incarnation of a word but of the incarnation of god the son therefore called the word because his incarnation was the performance of the promise in like manner as the holy ghost is called the promise there are also places of the scripture where the word of god is signified such words as are consonant to reason and equity though spoken sometimes neither by prophet nor by a holy man for pharaoh necho was an idolater yet his words to the good king josiah in which he advised him by messengers not to oppose him in his march against carchemesh are said to have proceeded from the mouth of god and that josiah not hearkening to them was slain in the battle it is true that as the same history is related in the first book of esdras not pharaoh but jeremiah spake these words to josiah from the mouth of the lord but we are to give credit to the canonical scripture whatsoever be written in the apocrypha

the word of god is then also to be taken for the dictates of reason and equity when the same is said in the scriptures to be written in man's heart the name of prophet signifieth in scripture sometimes prolocator that is he that speaketh from god to man or from man to god and sometimes predictor or foreteller of things to come and sometimes one that speaketh incoherently as men that are distracted it is most frequently used in the sense speaking from god to the people so moses samuel elijah isaiah jeremiah and others were prophets and in this sense the high priest was a prophet for he only went into the sanctum sanctorum to inquire of god and was to declare his answer to the people and therefore when caciphras said it was expedient that one man should die for the people st john saith that he spake not this of himself but being high priest that year he prophesied that one man should die for the nation so they that in christian congregations taught the people are said to prophesy in the like sense it is that god saith to moses concerning aaron he shall be thy spokesman to the people and he shall be to thee a mouth and thou shalt be to him instead of god

that which here is spokesman is interpreted prophet see saith god i have made thee a god to pharaoh and aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet in the same sense of speaking from man to god abraham is called a prophet where god in a dream speaketh to abimelech in this manner now therefore restore the man his wife for he is a prophet and shall pray for thee whereby may be also gathered that the name of prophet may be given not unproperly to them that in christian churches have a calling to say public prayers for the congregation in the same sense the prophets that came down from the high place or hill of god with a psaltery and a tabaret and a pipe and a harp saul amongst them are said to prophesy in that they praised god in that manner publicly in the like sense is miriam called a prophetess so is it also to be taken where saint paul saith every man that prayeth or prophesieth with his head covered c and every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered for prophecy in that place signifieth no more but praising god in psalms and holy songs which women might do in the church though it were not lawful for them to speak to the congregation

and in this signification it is that the poets of the heathen that composed hymns and other sorts of poems in the honour of their gods were called vates prophets as is well enough known by all that are versed in the books of the gentiles and as is evident where st paul saith of the cretans that a prophet of their own said they were liars not that st paul held their poets for prophets but acknowledgeth that the word prophet was commonly used to signify them that celebrated the honour of god in verse when by prophecy is meant prediction or foretelling of future contingents not only they were prophets who were gods spokesmen and foretold those things to others which god had foretold them but also all those impostors that pretend by the help of familiar spirits or by superstitious divination of events past from false causes to foretell the like events in time to come of which as i have declared already in the twelfth chapter of this discourse there be many kinds who gain in the opinion of the common sort of men a greater reputation of prophecy by one casual event that may be but rested to their purpose than can be lost again by never so many failings

prophecy is not an art nor when it is taken for prediction a constant vocation but an extraordinary and temporry 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 she had 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 sauls 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 spirital 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 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 and 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 some may 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 gods 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 mans 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 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 we may understand 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 Sikkim 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 elia elijah eziah ezekiel and the rest of the prophets and often in the new testament as to joseph to saint peter to saint paul and to saint john the evangelist in the apocalypse only to moses he spake in a more extraor dinary 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 gods 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 and was therefore a vision though a more clear vision than was given to other prophets

and conformable here unto where God saith if there arise amongst you a prophet or a 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 prophecy 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 anesthesi which imaginations in every true prophet were supernatural but in false prophets were either natural or fiend the same prophets were nevertheless said to speak by the spirit

as 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 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 particular commission or which is all one a new dream or vision 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 gods government were also his chief prophets and the high priests 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 commanded the burnt offering to be brought and he commands the priest to bring the ark near him and again to let it alone because he saw an advantage upon his enemies and in the same chapter 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 whether he should fight against the philistines at keilah and david commandeth the priest to bring him the ephod to inquire whether he should stay in keilah or not and king solomon took the priesthood from abithar and gave it to zadok therefore 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 sovran 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

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 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 for god dispotheth men to piety justice mercy truth faith and all manner of virtue both moral and intellectual by doctrine example and by severall 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

to subordinate prophets of perpetual calling i find not any place that proveth god spate 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 gods will declared by the supreme prophet for the most common acceptation of the word spirit is in the signification of a mans 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 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 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 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 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 hath appointed to be such for we are told before 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 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 service and not any supernaturall revelation 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 the fault that jonathan had committed in eating a honeycomb contrary to the oath taken by the people and god divided the land of canaan among 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 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 suppotheth vision or dream which too 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 gods 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 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 be examined and tried by every man before he yield them obedience unless he have yielded them already in the institution of a commonwealth as when the prophet is the civill soveraign or by the civill soveraign authorised 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 to know a prophet by and 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 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 consulted four hundred prophets they were all false impostors and only one and a little before the time of the captivity the prophets were generally liars the prophets 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 so much as god commanded the people by the mouth of the prophet jeremiah 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 and such controversies in the new testament 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 the 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 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 the 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 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 baal 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 is not of christ and this is the spirit of anti-christ 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 called anti-christ every man therefore ought to consider who is the soveraign prophet that is to say who it is that is gods vice-regent 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 soveraign 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 soveraign for when christian men take not their christian sovereign for gods 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 thirty six