The Grounds of the Christian Faith, Book 2 · Chapter 5
CHAP. V. The tryal of Prophetical Doctrine.
Rules of trying Prophets established in the Law of Moses. The punishment of pretenders. The several sorts of false Prophets. The case of the Prophet at Bethel discussed. The try…l of false Prophets belonging to the great Sanhedrin. The particular rules whereby the Doctrine of Prophets was judged. The proper notion of a Prophet, not for…telling future contingencies, but having immediate Divine revelation. Several principles laid down for clearing the doctrine of the Prophets. 1. That immediate dictates of natural light are not to be the measure of Divine revelation. Several grounds for Divine revelation from natural light. 2. What ever is directly repugnant to the dictates of nature, cannot be of Divine revelation. 3. No Divine revelation doth contradict a Divine positive Law without sufficient evidence of Gods intention to repeal that Law. 4. Divine revelation in the Prophets was not to be measured by the words of the Law, but by the intention and reason of it. The Prophetical office a kind of Chancery to the Law of Moses.
THE second reason why those Prophets whose main office was instruction of the people, or meerly foretelling future Sect. 1.events, needed not to confirm their doctrine by mirales, is, because they had certain rules of tryal by their Law whereby to discern the false Prophets from the true. So that if they were deceived by them, it was their own oscitancy and inadvertency which was the cause of it. God in that Law which was confirmed by miracles undoubtedly Divine, had established a Court of tryal for Prophetick Spirits, and given such certain rules of procedure in it, that no men needed to be deceived unless they would themselves. And there was a greater necessity of such a certain way of tryal among them, because it could not otherwise be expected but in a Nation where a Prophetick Spirit was so common, there would be very many pretenders to it, who might much endanger the faith of the people unless there were some certain way to find them out. And the more effectually to deterre men either from counterfeiting a Prophetick Spirit, or from heark…ning to such as did, God appointed a severe punishment for every such pretender, viz. upon legal conviction that he be punished with death. Deut. 18. 20. But the Prophet which shall presume to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other Gods, shall surely dye. The Iews generally understand this of strangling, as they do alwayes in the Law, when the particular manner of death is not expressed. And therein a salse Prophet and a seducer were distinguished each from other, that a meer seducer was to be stoned to death under sufficient testimony, Deut. 13. 6, 10. But the false Prophet is there said in general only to be put to death, V. Maimon. de Idol. c. 5. s. 1. et ibi V…ssium.Deut. 13. 1, 5. The main difference between the seducer and false Prophet was, that the seducer sought by cunning perswasions and plausible arguments to draw them off from the worship of the true God; but the false Prophet alwayes pretended Divine revelation for what he perswaded them to, whether he gave out that he had that revelation from the true God, or from Idols and false Gods. So that the meer pretence to Divine revelation was that which God would have punished with so great severity.
The Iews tell us of three sorts of Prophets who were to be punished with death by men, and three other sorts who Sect. 2.were reserved to divine punishment: Of the first rank were these. 1. He that prophecyed that which he had not heard, V. Except. Gem. Sanbed. c. 10. s. 3.and for this they instance in Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah, who made him horns of iron and said, Thus saith the Lord, this was the lying Prophet. 2. He that speaks that which was revealed not to him but to another, and for this they 1 K…ng. 22. 11. Ie…. 28. 11.instance in Hananiah the son of Azur, (but how truly I shall not determine) this was the Plagiary Prophet. 3. He that prophesied in the name of an Idol, as the Prophets of Baal did, this was the Idol Prophet. These three when once fully convicted, were to be put to death. The other rank of those which were left to Gods hand consisted of these. 1. He that stisles and smothers his own prophecy as; Jonas did, by which it may seem that when the Divine Spirit did overshadow the understanding of the Prophets, yet it offered no violence to their faculties, but left them to the free determination of their own wills in the execution of their office; but this must be understood of a lower degree of prophecy; for at sometimes their prophecyes were as fire in their bones, that they Jer. 20. 9.were never at any rest till they had discharged their office. But withall by the example of Ionas, we see, that though the Spirit of prophecy like the fire on the Altar could only be kindled from heaven, yet it might be destroyed when it was not maintained with something to feed upon; or when it met not with suitable entertainment from the spirits of those it fell upon, it might retreat back again to heaven, or at least lie hid in the embers till a new blast from the Spirit of God doth foreign, retrieve it into its former heat and activity. Thus it was with Ionas. 2. The other was, he that despised the words of a true Prophet; of such God saith Deut. 18. 19. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall not hearken to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. Which Maimonides explains by foreign death by the hands of God, which he thus distinguisheth from the Cereth, that he makes the death per Maim. desundam, legis c. 9. s 4. V. Abarbinel, de Cereth. apud Buxtorf. de spons. & divort. p. 182. 1 Kings 13. 9. Ver. 18.manus coeli to be less then the Cereth, because this latter continued in the soul after death, but the other was expiated by death; but generally they interpret it of a sudden death which falls upon the person. 3. The last is, he who hearkens not to the words of his own Prophecy; of which we have a most remarkable instance in Scripture, concerning the Prophet whom God sent to Bethel (whom Tertullian calls Sameas, the Iews Hedua) whom God destroyed in an unusual manner for not observing the command which God had given him, not to eat bread nor drink water at Bethel, nor turn again by the way he came. Neither was it any excuse to this Prophet that the old Prophet at Bethel told him that an Angel spake unto him by the word of the Lord that he should turn back. For, 1. Those whom God reveals his will unto, he gives them full assurance of it, in that they have a clear and distinct perception of God upon their own minds; and so they have no doubt but it is the word of the Lord which comes unto them; but this Prophet could have no such certainty of the Divine revelation which was made to another, especially when it came immediately to contradict that which was so specially enjoyned him. 2. Where God commands a Prophet to do any thing in the pursuit of his message, there he can have no ground to question whether God should countermand it or no by another Prophet; because that was in effect to thwart the whole design of his message. So it was in this action of the Prophets; for God intended his not eating and drinking in Bethel to testifie how much he loathed and abominated that place since its being polluted with Idolatry. 3. He might have just cause to question the integrity of the old Prophet, both because of his living in Bethel, and not openly, according to his office, reproving their Idolatry, and that God should send him out of Iudea upon that very errand, which would not have seemed so probable, if there had been true Prophets resident upon the place. 4. The thing he desired him to do was not an act of that weight and importance on which God useth to send his Word to any Prophets, much less by one Prophet to contradict what he had said by another, and therefore Tertullian saith of him, poenam deserti jejunii luit, God punished him for breaking his De jejuniis, cap. 16.fast at Bethel; and therefore that message of this Prophet seemed to gratifie more mans carnal appetite, then usually the actions of Prophets did, which were most times matters of hardship and uneasiness to the flesh. 5. However all these were, yet he yeilded too soon, especially having so much reason on his side as he had, being well assured that God had commanded him, he had reason to see some clear evidence of a countermand, before he altered his mind: if he had seen any thing upon tryal which might have staggerd his faith, he ought to have made his immediate recourse to God by prayer for the settlement of his mind and removal of this great temptation. But so easily to hearken to the words of a lying Prophet, which contradicted his own message, argued either great unbelief as to his own commission, or too great easiness and inadvertency in being drawn aside by the old Prophet. And therefore God made that old Prophet himself in the midst of his entertainment, as with a hand writing against the wall to tell him he was weighed in the ballance and found too light, and therefore his life should be taken from him. Thus we see how dangerous a thing it was either to counterfeit a Spirit of Prophecy, or to hearken to those who did.
It is the generally received opinion among the Iewish Sect. 3.Doctors, that the cognizance and tryal of false Prophets did peculiarly belong to the great Sanhedrin. And that this was one end of its institution. So Maimonides after he hath De Idololat. c. 5. s. 11.largely discoursed of the punishment of a seducer, and speaking of that of a false Prophet, he layes this down as a standing rule among them foreign No false Prophet was to be judged but in the Court of seventy one; which was the number of the great Sanhedrin. And there is some thing looks very like this in the proceedings of the people of Israel against the Prophet Ieremiah; for the people, the Priests and the Prophets, they laid hold on him; Ier. 26. ….and immediately after we read that the Princes of Iudah (by whom Grotius understands the Senators of the great Sanhedrin) they come up from the Kings house to the house of Ver. 10.the Lord, and sat down in the entry of the new gate of the Lords house: (which probably was the place where the great Sanhedrin V. Grol. in l. …t Selden. de Syn. l. 2. c. 15. s. 4. et l. 3. c. 6. s. 4 Ier. 26. 16. Ier. 38. 5.sat) where after a particular examination of Ieremiah, they acquit him as a person not worthy to dye upon a counterfeiting Prophecy, but declare that he spake unto them in the name of the Lord. And in this sense Grotius likewise understands what is said of Zedekiah concerning Ieremiah to the Princes of Iudah afterwards, behold he is in your hand; for the King is not he that can do ought against you, i. e. saith Grotius, in manibus Synedrii, cujus est judicare de Propheta vero aut falso. And to this many make those words of our Saviour, refer, that it is impossible a Prophet should perish out of Jerusalem, because the seat of the great Sanhedrin was in Luk 13. 33.Ierusalem; and so elsewhere our Saviour saith, O Ierusalem, Ierusalem, thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them Matth. 23. 37.which are sent unto thee; because there it was the true Prophets were destroyed as though they had been false ones, and Gods own messengers punished with the death of seducers, which was l…pidation. And on this very account many are of opinion that our Saviour was condemned by the Sanhedrin at Ierusalem; which is supposed to have been assembled in the house of Caiaphas the High Priest, when Christ was carried thither for examination; which some think to have been at his lodgings in the Temple, others at his Palace in the City. For we read that the chief Priests, and the Elders, and all the Council were met together at the High Priests Palace in order to our Saviours tryal. The next morning Matth. 26. 59.they were met early together again in order to the further scanning of this business; but they seem not to examine Christ concerning a true spirit of Prophecy, but concerning his being the Messias, and calling himself the Son of God, and so they would seem rather to proceed upon the Law against blasphemy, Matth. 26. 63.then that against false Prophets.
But that which was the greatest security of the people Sect 4.against the imposture of false Prophets, was the certain rules of judging them which were laid down in the Law of Moses. Which may be comprehended under these two heads, such as concern their doctrine, or such as concern their predictions. First, such as concerned the Prophets doctrine, which should especially be looked after because the main office of a Prophet was to be interpres & internuncius divinae voluntatis, to be a revealer of Gods will to men. For the primary notion of a Prophet doth not lie in foretelling future events, but in declaring and interpreting to the world the mind of God which he receives by immediate revelation from himself. So that the receiving what he makes known by immediate revelation, is that which formally constitutes a Prophet, but it is wholly extrinsecal and accidental what time his Prophecy respects, whether past, present, or to come; but because future contingencies are the furthest out of the reach of humane understanding, therefore the predictions of such have been chiefly looked on as the chief note and character of a Prophet, as being apprehended to be the strongest evidence of Divine revelation. And from hence it is in Scripture that the Patriarchs as Abraham and others are called Prophets, not because of any predictions uttered by them, but because of the frequency Psal. 105. 15. Gen. 20. 7.of immediate Divine revelation; among them. And hence likewise those in the New Testament who expounded the Scriptures, by immediate inspiration, are called Prophets, and this was the foreign spoken of by the Apostle, the 1 Cor. 14. 26.exposition of the hidden mysteries of the Old Testament by an immediate inspiration. And there is no word in the Hebrew for a Prophet, which may not equally respect all differences of time, but every one doth import immediate inspiration, for foreign properly is one qui revelat abscondita foreign a Seer chiefly respects the clear representation of the intellectual species, by the lumen propheticum to the understanding, Vid. Alstedii Trisol. proph. p. 53.and foreign carries an equal indifferency to all circumstances of times.
This being then the chief notion of a Prophet, whatever he Sect. 5.declared as the mind and will of God, must be searched and examined to see what consonancy it hath thereto. For the question which Moses supposeth, is founded upon clear and evident reason, And if thou shalt say in thine heart, How shall Deut. 18. 21.we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? For it being plain that there may be false Prophets as well as true, we had need of some certain rules to judge of what is delivered for divine revelation. For the clearing of which important question, I lay down these principles.
The immediate dictates of natural light, are no sufficient standard to judge of divine revelation by. I mean not in reference 1.to consonancy or repugnancy to natural light, but in reference to the extent and latitude of divine revelation, i. e. that natural light doth not contain in it whatever may be known of God or of his will; and that upon these reasons. 1. It implyes no repugnancy to any dictate of nature, that God should reveal any thing more of his mind and will, then is contained in the light of nature. 2. Nature reacheth, as to matters concerning religion, no further then the obligation to duty, but leaves the particular determination of the manner of obedience to divine positive Laws, as is clear in reference to the time, place, and particular duties of worship. 3. Nature owning an universal obligation to the will of God in whatever he shall command, doth suppose a power in God to command what he pleaseth. 4. Nature is sensible of its own decayes, and the imperfection of its own light, and therefore seems rather to require further illumination, then to put any bar against it. 5. Mans happiness being a free gift of God, it stands to the highest reason that he should have the prescribing of the conditions which are in order to it; now these conditions being the results, not of Gods naeture, but of his arbitrarious will, it is impossible that natural light could ever reach to the full discovery of them. 6. It hath been the general sense of all Nations in the world, that God may reveal more of his will then nature can reach unto; which sense discovers its self in two things. 1. Praying to their several gods for direction. 2. Heark…ing after pretended Oracles, which the Devil could never have had that advantage of deceiving the world by, had it not been for this general sense of mankind, that there wanted some particular revelation from God to make men happy. So then this may be assumed as a principle, that God may reveal more of his mind and will to mankind, then he hath done by the dictates of meer natural light and reason.
Whatever speaks a direct repugnancy to any of the fundamental dictates of nature, cannot be of divine revelation. 2. Sect. 6.For those being sounded, not upon any positive or arbitrary will, but upon those inward impressions which are derived from the divine nature its self, it cannot in reason be supposed that God should commission any to enervate his own fundamental Law; and so by one will to contradict another. Placitum Regis must never stand against the Placita Coronae; Those things which depend upon fundamental and established Laws, hold good against any positive sentence or declaration of a Princes will; Because he is supposed to have bound up himself by the established Laws; and therefore any thing else which comes from him, contrary to them, is supposed not to be the Will of the Prince, but of the persons perswading him to it. But this now cannot be supposed in God, that he should be any wayes drawn to cassate the obligation of what is imprinted upon the souls of men as his own Law. But yet we must distinguish between nulling the general obligation, and altering the particular nature of any thing which depends upon that general Law; the first in any case is impossible, that any divine revelation should make it not to be mans duty to obey his maker, or not to be a sin to commit murder, to lye, or to steal from another; but there may come a particular revelation from God to alter the respects and nature of such things as do immediately depend upon his own dominion; as the lives of persons and the properties of things are, and thus God did reveal to Abraham that he should go and sacrifice his son, which had been no murder when done upon Gods immediate command, and for a sacrifice to himself; and therefore would have been acceptable as a testimony of entire obedience (which God did accept without the act) and so the Israelites taking the Aegyptians Iewels, and dispossessing the Canaanites, did depend upon Gods immediate disposal of these things to them; which otherwise had been a sin in them; and no doubt was so to any that were unsatisfied whether God had immediately commanded it or no. Or from hence to infer any general rule, is no doubt a breach of divine commands, and contrary to his nature and will.
Where God hath established a positive Law, prescribing a form and manner wherein he will be worshipped, it is sufficient 3. Sect. 7.evidence of a false Prophet, to go about to null the obligation of that Law; unless there be as great evidences given, that God did intend the establishing a new Law by that person, as he did at first the institution of the old by the hand of Moses. This latter clause is inserted, to shew that the succeeding of the doctrine of Christ into the place of the Law of Moses, doth not bear any repugnancy to the Hypothesis laid down, there being greater evidences of Gods intending the abolishing the ceremonial Law by the Gospel of Christ, then there were of the establishment of it by Moses. But of those afterwards. I now only speak of such as upon the meer pretence of divine revelation, should destroy any precept of an established positive Law; and this, as far as we can find, was the great rule the Iews went by, if any thing were spoken by any Prophet, contrary to the Law of Moses, or tending to the alteration of the worship of God established thereby, he was accounted a false Prophet. The modern Iews to justifie themselves in their own unbelief, as to the doctrine of Christ, extends this further then the Law doth; for they inlarge it to all the precepts of the ceremonial Law; whereas God in the Law seems to limit it to the Moral Law, and chiefly insists on the three first precepts of the Decalogue; and therefore condemns such a one as spake in the name of the Lord, when he had not commanded them, Deut. 18. 20. and such as endeavoured to bring in idolatry, Deut. 13. 1, 2, 3. where though the false Prophet should offer to do signs and wonders before them, yet if his intention were to draw them to worship false gods, they were not to hearken unto him. And therefore Maimonides, where he largely disputes about the truth of prophesies, layes this down as a certain rule: Si Propheta surrexerit, De fandam. leg. cap. 8. sect. 7.at que magna miracula aut prodigiafecerit & ad laboraverit falsitatis convincere Proph…tiam Mosis M. N. istum non audimus, quia certo novimus prodigium praestigiis aut incant ationibus productum esse, as Vorstius renders him. If a Prophet do never so great miracles, and seeks to convince Moses of falshood, we are not to hearken to him, for we know that they are not done by the power of God, but by the illusions of the Devil. And elsewhere he tells us, that if any one pretends De Idololat. cap 5. sect. 9.to prophecy foreign in the name of Idols they must not so much as dispute with him, nor answer him, nor desire any signs or miracles from him; and if of himself he shews any, we are not to regard or mind them; for, saith he, whoever doth but doubt in his mind concerning them, he breaks that command, and thou shalt not hearken to the words of that Prophet. So Deut. 13. 3that the doctrine once established, ought to be our most certain rule, according to which we must judge of all pretenders to miracles; if their design be to draw men off from Gods Word, we are not to hearken to what they either say or do.
The doctrine of those Prophets who seek not to introduce Idolatry, must not be measured by a strict conformity to the words 4. Sect. 8.of Moses his Law, but to the main reason and intention of it. The great reason of this is, because God did not intend the Iews should alwayes rest in the Paedagogy of the Ceremonial Law, but sent them Prophets to train them up by degrees, and to fit them for a state of greater perfection; and therefore it would be very unreasonable to judge whether they were true Prophets or no exactly by that, which they came gradually to wean them from; which were all one, as to try one whether he were grown a man or no, by the swadling clouts he wore when he was a child. God tempered the Ceremonial Law much according to the condition and capacity of the persons it was prescribed to, and therefore the sanctions of it did immediately respect their temporary concerns; but we are not to think the end of that dispensation was to be meerly a Covenant for the Land of Promise, but as the Cherubims in the Temple did alwayes look towards the Mercyseat, so did this whole Oeconomy look towards the coming of the Messias. But it was with the generality of the Iews, as it is with Ignorant people, who looking up to the heavens, cannot fancy the stars to be any bigger then they seem to them; but Astronomers by the help of their Optick tubes and Telescopes, do easily discern the just magnitude of them; so the Iews ordinarily thought there was no more in those types and shadows, then was visibly represented to them, but such as had the help of the Divine Spirit (the best Telescope to discern the day-star from on high with) could easily look through those prospectives, into the most glorious mysteries of the Gospel of Iesus Christ. These types being like triang…lar Prismes, that must be set in a due light and posture, before they can represent that great variety of spiritual mysteries which was contained in them. Now the great office of the Prophets was to administer this light to the people, and to direct them in those excellent pieces of Perspective, wherein by the help of a Prophetick glass they might see the Son of God fully represented to their view. Besides this, the Prophetical office was a kind of Chancery to the Mosaick Law, wherein the Prophets did interpret the Pandects of the Law ex aequo & bono, and frequently shewed in what cases God did dispence with the outward letter of it, to exalt the more the inward sense and reason of it. Hence the Prophets seem many times to speak contemptibly of the outward prescribed Psa. 50. 8. 51. 16. Isa. 1. 11, 13. 66. 3. Ierem. 7. 21, 22, 23.Cer…monies, when their intent is not to condemn the observation of them, but to tell the people there were greater things which God looked at, then the outward observation of some Ceremonial precepts, and that God would never accept of that by way of commutation, for real and internal goodness. Hence the Prophets by their own practice, did frequently shew that the Law of Moses did not so indispensably oblige men, but that God would accept of those actions, which were performed without the regularity required by the Law of Moses; and thus he did of sacrificing upon high places, not only before the building of the Temple, but sometimes after, as he accepted of the sacrifice of Elijah on Mount Carmel, 1 Kings 18. 38.even when high places were for bidden. Which the Iews are become so sensible of, that they grant that a true Prophet may sometimes command something to be done in violation of the Law of Moses, so he doth not draw people to Idolatry, Vid. Jarchi in Deut. 18. 21. Et Vorst. ad Maim. de sund. cap. 9. sect. 5, 6, 7.nor destroy the obligation of Moses his Law. But this they restrain to foreign something done in case of necessity, and that it should not pass into a precedent or a perpetual Law; and therefore their rule is foreign The Prophet was to be hearkened to in every thing he commanded in a case of necessity. But by this it is clear that the Prophets were not to be tryed by the letter of the Law of Moses, but by the end and the reason of it. Thus much I suppose will make it clear what rules the people had to try the Prophets doctrine by, without miracles.