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 ecstacy, not like rational men, but like men in a frenzy. Chrysostom,*[1] having described the furious, violent motions of the pretenders to prophecy, adds, "Ὀ δε Προφητὴς ȣ̉χ ̓ȣ́τως—A true prophet does not do so, Sed mente sobriâ, & constanti animi statu, & intelligens quæ profert, omnia pronunciat—He understands what he utters, and utters it soberly and calmly. And Jerom, in his preface to his Commentaries upon Nahum, observes, that it is called the book of the vision of Nahum; Non enim loquitur ἐν ἐκστάσει, sed est liber intelligentis omnia quæ loquitur—For he speaks not in an ecstacy, but as one who understands every thing he says. And again,†[2] Non ut amens loquitur propheta, nec in morem insanientium fæminarum dat sine mente sonum—The prophet speaks not as an insane person, nor, like women wrought into a 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's messengers were sent, to beat down sin, and to revive and advance serious piety; the burthen of every song was, Turn ye 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 bare witness to Jesus Christ, and had an eye to him. God's raising up the horn of salvation for us, in the house of his servant David, was consonant to, and in pursuance of, what he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which 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 Huetius‡[3] observes it as really admirable, that so many persons in different ages, should conspire with one consent, as it were, to foretell, 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 Οἰκονομία praemonstranda consenserunt—From the earliest period of time for 4000 years, a great number of men have predicted the advent of Christ, and presented an 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 of the messengers of the Lord, killing of the prophets, and stoning of them 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 spake 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 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 conduct and direction of the Spirit of truth. But, after all, there 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 un-
