Secondly, for the effect of his word; that is to say, for the thing itself, which by his word is affirmed, commanded, threatened, or promised; as (Psalm cv. 19) 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 (Gen. xl. 13) concerning his being restored to his office: for there, by his word was come, is meant, the thing itself was come to pass. So also (1 Kings xviii. 36) 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 (Jer. xvii. 15) Where is the word of the Lord, is put for, Where is the evil he threatened. And (Ezek. xii. 28) 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 (Matth. xxiv. 35) 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 Saviour himself as in the flesh the word of God, as (John i. 14) 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 term 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, verse 1) called the word of life; and (verse 2) 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 (Apocalypse xix. 13) 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 (Acts i. 4; Luke xxiv. 49) the promise.
There are also places of the Scripture, where, by 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 Charchemish, are said to have proceeded from the mouth of God; and that Josiah, not hearkening to them, was slain in the battle; as is to be read (2 Chron. xxxv. 21, 22, 23.) 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; as Psalm xxxvii. 31; Jer. xxxi. 33; Deut. xxx. 11, 14, and many other like places.
The name of PROPHET signifieth in Scripture, sometimes prolocutor; that is, he that speaketh from God to man, or from man to God: and sometimes predictor, or a foreteller of things to come: and sometimes one that speaketh incoherently, as men that are distracted. It is most frequently used in the sense of 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 enquire of God; and was to declare his answer to the people. And therefore when Caiphas said, it was expedient that one man should die for the people, St. John saith (chapter xi. 51) that He spake not this of himself, but being high-priest that year, he prophesied that one man should die for the nation. Also they that in Christian congregations taught the people, (1 Cor. xiv. 3) are said to prophecy. In the like sense it is, that God saith to Moses (Exod. iv. 16) 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 (Exod. vii. 1) interpreted prophet; See, saith God, I have made thee a God to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. In the sense of speaking from man to God, Abraham is called a prophet (Gen. xx. 7) 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 tabret, and a pipe, and a harp (1 Sam. x. 5, 6, and 10), Saul amongst them, are said to prophecy, in that they praised God in that manner publicly. In the like sense, is Miriam (Exod. xv. 20) called a prophetess. So is it also to be taken (1 Cor. xi. 4, 5), where St. Paul saith, Every man that prayeth or prophecieth with his head covered, &c., and every woman that prayeth or prophecieth 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 (Tit. i. 12), where St. Paul saith of the Cretians, 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 God’s spokesmen, and foretold those things to others, which God had foretold to them; but also all those impostors, that pretend, by help of familiar spirits, or by superstitious divination of events past, from false causes, to foretel 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 wrested 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 temporary 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 had she 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 Saul’s 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 spirit or vapour 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 prima. In Scripture I find it also so taken (1 Sam. xviii. 10) in these words, And the evil spirit came upon Saul, and he prophecied 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 that 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, may some 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, (Psalm xciv. 9) 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 God’s 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 our 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 man’s 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 Holy 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 may be understood, 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 Sichem in the land of Canaan; and then (Gen. xii. 7) 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, (Gen. xv. 1) 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 (Gen. xviii. 1) by an apparition of three angels; and to Abimelech (Gen. xx. 3) in a dream: to Lot (Gen. xix. 1) by an apparition of two angels: and to Agar (Gen. xxi. 17) by the apparition of one angel: and to Abraham again (Gen. xxii. 11) by the apparition of a voice from heaven: and (Gen. xxvi. 24) to Isaac in the night, that is, in his sleep, or by dream: and to Jacob (Gen. xxviii. 12) in a dream; that is to say, as are the words of the text, Jacob dreamed that he saw a ladder, &c.: and (Gen. xxxii. 1) in a vision of angels: and to Moses (Exod. iii. 2) 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, Eliah, Elisha, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and the rest of the prophets; and often in the New Testament, as to Joseph, to St. Peter, to St. Paul, and to St. John the Evangelist in the Apocalypse.
Only to Moses he spake in a more extraordinary 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 God’s 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 (Numb. xii. 6, 7, 8) 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 (Exod. xxxiii. 11) 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, Acts vii. 35 and 53, and Gal. iii. 19; and was therefore a vision, though a more clear vision than was given to other prophets. And conformable hereunto, where God saith (Deut. xiii. 1) If there arise amongst you a prophet, or dreamer of dreams, the latter word is but the interpretation of the former. And (Joel, ii. 28) Your sons and your daughters shall prophecy; 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, (1 Kings iii. 15) 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 an extasy: which imaginations in every true prophet were supernatural; but in false prophets were either natural or feigned.
The same prophets were nevertheless said to speak by the spirit; as (Zech. vii. 12); 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’s 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 peculiar 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 God’s government, were also his chief prophets; and the high-priest’s office became ministerial. And when God was to be consulted, they put on the holy vestments, and enquired of the Lord, as the king commanded them, and were deprived of their office, when the king thought fit. For king Saul (1 Sam. xiii. 9) commanded the burnt offering to be brought, and (1 Sam. xiv. 18) he commands the priests to bring the ark near him; and (v. 19) again to let it alone, because he saw an advantage upon his enemies. And in the same chapter (v. 37) 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 enquire of the Lord (1 Sam. xxiii. 2) whether he should fight against the Philistines at Keilah; and (verse 9) David commandeth the priest to bring him the ephod, to enquire whether he should stay in Keilah, or not. And king Solomon (1 Kings ii. 27) took the priesthood from Abiathar, and gave it (verse 35) to Zadok. Therefore Moses, and the high-priests, and the pious kings, who enquired of God on all extraordinary occasions, how they were to carry themselves, or what event they were to have, were all sovereign 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 (Numb. xii. 6, 7, 8). 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, Col. ii. 9) 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 supernatural. For God disposeth men to piety, justice, mercy, truth, faith, and all manner of virtue, both moral and intellectual, by doctrine, example, and by several 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 enquire 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 spake 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 God’s will, declared by the supreme prophet. For the most common acceptation of the word spirit, is in the signification of a man’s intention, mind, or disposition.
In the time of Moses, there were seventy men besides himself, that prophecied in the camp of the Israelites. In what manner God spake to them, is declared in Numbers, chap. xi. verse 25. 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 prophecied and did not cease. By which it is manifest, first, that their prophecying to the people was subservient and subordinate to the prophecying of Moses; for that God took of the spirit of Moses, to put upon them; so that they prophecied as Moses would have them: otherwise they had not been suffered to prophecy at all. For there was (verse 27) 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 cooperate with Moses; from whom their spirit was derived. And it appeareth (Numb. xi. 16) 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 hast appointed to be such. For we are told before (Exod. xviii. 24) 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 (1 Sam. xvi. 13, 14) 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’s service; and not any supernatural 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 (1 Sam. xiv. 43) the fault that Jonathan had committed, in eating a honey-comb, contrary to the oath taken by the people. And (Josh. xviii. 10) God divided the land of Canaan amongst 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 (Joshua vii. 16, &c.) 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 supposeth vision, or dream, (which two, 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 God’s 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, to 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 to be examined and tried by every man, before he yield them obedience; unless he have yielded it them already, in the institution of a commonwealth; as when the prophet is the civil sovereign, or by the civil sovereign authorized. 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 (Deut. xiii. 1, &c.) to know a prophet by; and (1 John iv. 1, &c.) to know a spirit by: and seeing there is so much prophecying 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 (1 Kings xxii.) consulted four hundred prophets, they were all false impostors, but only one Micaiah. And a little before the time of the captivity, the prophets were generally liars. The prophets, (saith the Lord, by Jeremiah, chapter xiv. 14) prophecy lies in my name. I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, nor spake unto them; they prophecy to you a false vision, a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart. Insomuch as God commanded the people by the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah (chapter xxiii. 16) not to obey them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts, hearken not unto the words of the prophets, that prophecy 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, (as in Jerem. xiv. 14) and such controversies in the New Testament at 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 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, as I have already showed out of Deut. xiii. 1, &c. 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, 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 (1 Epist. iv. 2, &c.) 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 Balaam; 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 calleth Anti-Christ. Every man therefore ought to consider who is the sovereign prophet; that is to say, who it is, that is God’s vicegerent 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 prophecied in the camp, whose authority so to do they doubted of; and leave to the sovereign, 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 sovereign. For when Christian men, take not their Christian sovereign, for God’s prophet; they must either take their own dreams, for the prophecy they mean to be governed by, and the tumor 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.
By miracles are signified the admirable works of God: and therefore they are also called wonders. And because they are for the most part, done, for a signification of his commandment, in such occasions, as without them, men are apt to doubt, (following their private natural reasoning,) what he hath commanded, and what not, they are commonly, in holy Scripture, called signs, in the same sense, as they are called by the Latins, ostenta, and portenta, from showing and fore-signifying that, which the Almighty is about to bring to pass.
To understand therefore what is a miracle, we must first understand what works they are, which men wonder at, and call admirable. And there be but two things which make men wonder at any event: the one is, if it be strange, that is to say, such as the like of it hath never, or very rarely been produced: the other is, if when it is produced, we cannot imagine it to have been done by natural means, but only by the immediate hand of God. But when we see some possible, natural cause of it, how rarely soever the like has been done, or if the like have been often done, how impossible soever it be to imagine a natural means thereof, we no more wonder, nor esteem it for a miracle.
Therefore, if a horse or cow should speak, it were a miracle; because both the thing is strange, and the natural cause difficult to imagine. So also were it to see a strange deviation of nature, in the production of some new shape of a living creature. But when a man, or other animal, engenders his like, though we know no more how this is done, than the other; yet because it is usual, it is no miracle. In like manner, if a man be metamorphosed into a stone, or into a pillar, it is a miracle; because strange: but if a piece of wood be so changed; because we see it often, it is no miracle: and yet we know no more by what operation of God, the one is brought to pass, than the other.
The first rainbow that was seen in the world, was a miracle, because the first; and consequently strange; and served for a sign from God, placed in heaven, to assure his people, there should be no more any universal destruction of the world by water. But at this day, because they are frequent, they are not miracles, neither to them that know their natural causes, nor to them who know them not. Again, there be many rare works produced by the art of man: yet when we know they are done; because thereby we know also the means how they are done, we count them not for miracles, because not wrought by the immediate hand of God, but of human industry.
Furthermore, seeing admiration and wonder are consequent to the knowledge and experience, wherewith men are endued, some more, some less; it followeth, that the same thing may be a miracle to one, and not to another. And thence it is, that ignorant and superstitious men make great wonders of those works, which other men, knowing to proceed from nature, (which is not the immediate, but the ordinary work of God), admire not at all: as when eclipses of the sun and moon have been taken for supernatural works, by the common people; when nevertheless, there were others, who could from their natural causes have foretold the very hour they should arrive: or, as when a man, by confederacy and secret intelligence, getting knowledge of the private actions of an ignorant, unwary man, thereby tells him what he has done in former time; it seems to him a miraculous thing; but amongst wise, and cautelous men, such miracles as those, cannot easily be done.
Again, it belongeth to the nature of a miracle, that it be wrought for the procuring of credit to God’s messengers, ministers, and prophets, that thereby men may know, they are called, sent, and employed by God, and thereby be the better inclined to obey them. And therefore, though the creation of the world, and after that the destruction of all living creatures in the universal deluge, were admirable works; yet because they were not done to procure credit to any prophet, or other minister of God, they use not to be called miracles. For how admirable soever any work be, the admiration consisteth not in that it could be done; because men naturally believe the Almighty can do all things; but because he does it at the prayer or word of a man. But the works of God in Egypt, by the hand of Moses, were properly miracles; because they were done with intention to make the people of Israel believe, that Moses came unto them, not out of any design of his own interest, but as sent from God. Therefore, after God had commanded him to deliver the Israelites from the Egyptian bondage, when he said (Exod. iv. 1) They will not believe me, but will say, the Lord hath not appeared unto me, God gave him power, to turn the rod he had in his hand into a serpent, and again to return it into a rod; and by putting his hand into his bosom, to make it leprous; and again by putting it out, to make it whole; to make the children of Israel believe (as it is inis in verse 5) that the God of their fathers had appeared unto him: and if that were not enough, he gave him power to turn their waters into blood. And when he had done these miracles before the people, it is said (verse 31) that they believed him. Nevertheless, for fear of Pharaoh, they durst not yet obey him. Therefore the other works which were done to plague Pharaoh and the Egyptians, tended all to make the Israelites believe in Moses, and were properly miracles. In like manner if we consider all the miracles done by the hand of Moses, and all the rest of the prophets, till the captivity; and those of our Saviour, and his apostles afterwards; we shall find, their end was always to beget or confirm belief, that they came not of their own motion, but were sent by God. We may farther observe in Scripture, that the end of miracles, was to beget belief, not universally in all men, elect and reprobate; but in the elect only; that is to say, in such as God had determined should become his subjects. For those miraculous plagues of Egypt, had not for their end, the conversion of Pharaoh; for God had told Moses before, that he would harden the heart of Pharoah, that he should not let the people go: and when he let them go at last, not the miracles persuaded him, but the plagues forced him to it. So also of our Saviour, it is written (Matth. xiii. 58), that he wrought not many miracles in his own country, because of their unbelief; and (in Mark vi. 5) instead of, He wrought not many, it is, He could work none. It was not because he wanted power; which to say, were blasphemy against God; nor that the end of miracles was not to convert incredulous men to Christ; for the end of all the miracles of Moses, of the prophets, of our Saviour, and of his apostles was to add men to the church: but it was, because the end of their miracles, was to add to the church, not all men, but such as should be saved; that is to say, such as God had elected. Seeing therefore our Saviour was sent from his Father, he could not use his power in the conversion of those, whom his Father had rejected. They that expounding this place of St. Mark, say, that this word, He could not, is put for, He would not, do it without example in the Greek tongue: where would not, is put sometimes for could not, in things inanimate, that have no will; but could not, for would not never: and thereby lay a stumbling block before weak Christians; as if Christ could do no miracles, but amongst the credulous.
From that which I have here set down, of the nature and use of a miracle, we may define it thus: A MIRACLE is a work of God, (besides his operation by the way of nature, ordained in the creation) done, for the making manifest to his elect, the mission of an extraordinary minister for their salvation.
And from this definition, we may infer; first, that in all miracles, the work done, is not the effect of any virtue in the prophet; because it is the effect of the immediate hand of God; that is to say God hath done it, without using the prophet therein, as a subordinate cause.
Secondly, that no devil, angel, or other created spirit, can do a miracle. For it must either be by virtue of some natural science, or by incantation, that is, by virtue of words. For if the enchanters do it by their own power independent, there is some power that proceedeth not from God; which all men deny: and if they do it by power given them, then is the work not from the immediate hand of God, but natural, and consequently no miracle.
There be some texts of Scripture, that seem to attribute the power of working wonders, equal to some of those immediate miracles wrought by God himself, to certain arts of magic and incantation. As for example, when we read that after the rod of Moses being cast on the ground became a serpent, (Exod. vii. 11) the magicians of Egypt did the like by their enchantments; and that after Moses had turned the waters of the Egyptian streams, rivers, ponds, and pools of water into blood, (Exod. vii. 22) the magicians did so likewise with their enchantments; and that after Moses had by the power of God brought frogs upon the land, (Exod. viii. 7) the magicians also did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt; will not a man be apt to attribute miracles to enchantments; that is to say, to the efficacy of the sound of words; and think the same very well proved out of this, and other such places? And yet there is no place of Scripture, that telleth us what an enchantment is. If therefore enchantment be not, as many think it, a working of strange effects by spells and words; but imposture and delusion, wrought by ordinary means; and so far from supernatural, as the impostors need not the study so much as of natural causes, but the ordinary ignorance, stupidity, and superstition of mankind, to do them; those texts that seem to countenance the power of magic, witchcraft, and enchantment, must needs have another sense, than at first sight they seem to bear.
For it is evident enough, that words have no effect, but on those that understand them; and then they have no other, but to signify the intentions or passions of them that speak; and thereby produce hope, fear, or other passions or conceptions in the hearer. Therefore when a rod seemeth a serpent, or the waters blood, or any other miracle seemeth done by enchantment; if it be not to the edification of God’s people, not the rod, nor the water, nor any other thing is enchanted; that is to say, wrought upon by the words, but the spectator. So that all the miracle consisteth in this, that the enchanter has deceived a man; which is no miracle, but a very easy matter to do.
For such is the ignorance and aptitude to error generally of all men, but especially of them that have not much knowledge of natural causes, and of the nature and interests of men; as by innumerable and easy tricks to be abused. What opinion of miraculous power, before it was known there was a science of the course of the stars, might a man have gained, that should have told the people, this hour or day the sun should be darkened? A juggler by the handling of his goblets and other trinkets, if it were not now ordinarily practised, would be thought to do his wonders by the power at least of the devil. A man that hath practised to speak by drawing in of his breath, (which kind of men in ancient time were called ventriloqui), and so make the weakness of his voice seem to proceed, not from the weak impulsion of the organs of speech, but from distance of place, is able to make very many men believe it is a voice from Heaven, whatsoever he please to tell them. And for a crafty man, that hath enquired into the secrets, and familiar confessions that one man ordinarily maketh to another of his actions and adventures past, to tell them him again is no hard matter; and yet there be many, that by such means as that obtain the reputation of being conjurers. But it is too long a business, to reckon up the several sorts of those men, which the Greeks called θαυματουργοι, that is to say, workers of things wonderful: and yet these do all they do, by their own single dexterity. But if we look upon the impostures wrought by confederacy, there is nothing how impossible soever to be done, that is impossible to be believed. For two men conspiring, one to seem lame, the other to cure him with a charm, will deceive many: but many conspiring, one to seem lame, another so to cure him, and all the rest to bear witness, will deceive many more.
In this aptitude of mankind, to give too hasty belief to pretended miracles, there can be no better, nor I think any other caution, than that which God hath prescribed, first by Moses, as I have said before in the precedent chapter, in the beginning of the xiiith and end of the xviiith of Deuteronomy; that we take not any for prophets, that teach any other religion, than that which God’s lieutenant, which at that time was Moses, hath established; nor any, though he teach the same religion, whose prediction we do not see come to pass. Moses therefore in his time, and Aaron and his successors in their times, and the sovereign governor of God’s people, next under God himself, that is to say, the head of the Church, in all times, are to be consulted, what doctrine he hath established, before we give credit to a pretended miracle or prophet. And when that is done, the thing they pretend to be a miracle, we must both see it done, and use all means possible to consider, whether it be really done; and not only so, but whether it be such, as no man can do the like by his natural power, but that it requires the immediate hand of God. And in this also we must have recourse to God’s lieutenant, to whom in all doubtful cases, we have submitted our private judgments. For example; if a man pretend, after certain words spoken over a piece of bread, that presently God hath made it not bread, but a god, or a man, or both, and nevertheless it looketh still as like bread as ever it did; there is no reason for any man to think it really done, nor consequently to fear him, till he enquire of God, by his vicar or lieutenant, whether it be done, or not. If he say, not, then followeth that which Moses saith (Deut. xviii. 22) he hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt not fear him. If he say, it is done, then he is not to contradict it. So also if we see not, but only hear tell of a miracle, we are to consult the lawful Church; that is to say, the lawful head thereof, how far we are to give credit to the relators of it. And this is chiefly the case of men, that in these days live under Christian sovereigns. For in these times, I do not know one man, that ever saw any such wonderous work, done by the charm, or at the word, or prayer of a man, that a man endued but with a mediocrity of reason would think supernatural: and the question is no more, whether what we see done, be a miracle; whether the miracle we hear, or read of, were a real work, and not the act of a tongue, or pen; but in plain terms, whether the report be true, or a lie. In which question we are not every one, to make our own private reason, or conscience, but the public reason, that is, the reason of God’s supreme lieutenant, judge; and indeed we have made him judge already, if we have given him a sovereign power, to do all that is necessary for our peace and defence. A private man has always the liberty, because thought is free, to believe or not believe in his heart those acts that have been given out for miracles, according as he shall see what benefit can accrue by men’s belief, to those that pretend or countenance them, and thereby conjecture whether they be miracles or lies. But when it comes to confession of that faith, the private reason must submit to the public; that is to say, to God’s lieutenant. But who is this lieutenant of God, and head of the Church, shall be considered in its proper place hereafter.