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Page 13
(109) Returning, then, to the main object of our discussion, we find that
the Scriptural phrases, "The Spirit of the Lord was upon a prophet," "The
Lord breathed His Spirit into men," "Men were filled with the Spirit of God,
with the Holy Spirit," &c., are quite clear to us, and mean that prophets
were endowed with a peculiar and extraordinary power, and devoted themselves
to piety with especial constancy(3); that thus they perceived the mind or
the thought of God, for we have shown that God's Spirit signifies in Hebrew
God's mind or thought, and that the law which shows His mind and thought is
called His Spirit; hence that the imagination of the prophets, inasmuch as
through it were revealed the decrees of God, may equally be called the mind
of God, and the prophets be said to have possessed the mind of God. (110) On
our minds also the mind of God and His eternal thoughts are impressed; but
this being the same for all men is less taken into account, especially by
the Hebrews, who claimed a pre-eminence, and despised other men and other
men's knowledge.
(111) Lastly, the prophets were said to possess the Spirit of God because
men knew not the cause of prophetic knowledge, and in their wonder referred
it with other marvels directly to the Deity, styling it Divine knowledge.
(111) We need no longer scruple to affirm that the prophets only
perceived God's revelation by the aid of imagination, that is, by words and
figures either real or imaginary. (112) We find no other means mentioned in
Scripture, and therefore must not invent any. (113) As to the particular law
of Nature by which the communications took place, I confess my ignorance.
(114) I might, indeed, say as others do, that they took place by the power
of God; but this would be mere trifling, and no better than explaining some
unique specimen by a transcendental term. (115) Everything takes place by
the power of God. (116) Nature herself is the power of God under another
name, and our ignorance of the power of God is co-extensive with our
ignorance of Nature. (117) It is absolute folly, therefore, to ascribe an
event to the power of God when we know not its natural cause, which is the
power of God.
(118) However, we are not now inquiring into the causes of prophetic
knowledge. (119) We are only attempting, as I have said, to examine the
Scriptural documents, and to draw our conclusions from them as from ultimate
natural facts; the causes of the documents do not concern us.
(120) As the prophets perceived the revelations of God by the aid of
imagination, they could indisputably perceive much that is beyond the
boundary of the intellect, for many more ideas can be constructed from words
and figures than from the principles and notions on which the whole fabric
of reasoned knowledge is reared.
(121) Thus we have a clue to the fact that the prophets perceived nearly
everything in parables and allegories, and clothed spiritual truths in
bodily forms, for such is the usual method of imagination. (122) We need no
longer wonder that Scripture and the prophets speak so strangely and
obscurely of God's Spirit or Mind (cf. Numbers xi:17, 1 Kings xxii:21, &c.),
that the Lord was seen by Micah as sitting, by Daniel as an old man clothed
in white, by Ezekiel as a fire, that the Holy Spirit appeared to those with
Christ as a descending dove, to the apostles as fiery tongues, to Paul on
his conversion as a great light. (123) All these expressions are plainly in
harmony with the current ideas of God and spirits.
(124) Inasmuch as imagination is fleeting and inconstant, we find that the
power of prophecy did not remain with a prophet for long, nor manifest
itself frequently, but was very rare; manifesting itself only in a few men,
and in them not often.
(125)We must necessarily inquire how the prophets became assured of the
truth of what they perceived by imagination, and not by sure mental laws;
but our investigation must be confined to Scripture, for the subject is one
on which we cannot acquire certain knowledge, and which we cannot explain by
the immediate causes. (126) Scripture teaching about the assurance of
prophets I will treat of in the next chapter.
CHAPTER II. - OF PROPHETS.
(1) It follows from the last chapter that, as I have said, the prophets were
endowed with unusually vivid imaginations, and not with unusually, perfect
minds. (2) This conclusion is amply sustained by Scripture, for we are told
that Solomon was the wisest of men, but had no special faculty of prophecy.
(3) Heman, Calcol, and Dara, though men of great talent, were not prophets,
whereas uneducated countrymen, nay, even women, such as Hagar, Abraham's
handmaid, were thus gifted. (4) Nor is this contrary to ordinary experience
and reason. (5) Men of great imaginative power are less fitted for abstract
reasoning, whereas those who excel in intellect and its use keep their
imagination more restrained and controlled, holding it in subjection, so to
speak, lest it should usurp the place of reason.
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