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but of the so

phet, is to be

Jeremiah (chapter xxiii. 16) not to obey them: PART III. 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 All prophecy Testament, such quarrels amongst the visionary vereign proprophets, one contesting with another, and asking, examined by when departed the Spirit from me, to go to thee? every subject. 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

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but of the so

examined by

every subject. avowed.

PART III. that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God; that is, is approved and allowed as a prophet of God: All prophecy not that he is a godly man, or one of the elect, for vereign pro- this, that he confesseth, professeth, or preacheth phet, is to be Jesus to be the Christ; but for that he is a prophet 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 im postor, that shall take upon him that honour falsely, whom the apostle there properly calleth AntiChrist. 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

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their voice; or if he approve them, then to obey PART III. 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 fellowsubjects, 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 XXXVII.

OF MIRACLES, AND THEIR USE.

is a work that

By miracles are signified the admirable works of a miracle God and therefore they are also called wonders. causeth admiAnd because they are for the most part, done, for ration. 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

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And must therefore be rare, and

whereof there

is no natural

cause known.

PART III. 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

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not. Again, there be many rare works produced PART III. 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.

seemeth a

seem otherwise

Furthermore, seeing admiration and wonder are That which consequent to the knowledge and experience,where- miracle to with men are endued, some more, some less; it one man, may followeth, that the same thing may be a miracle to to another. 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.

of miracles.

Again, it belongeth to the nature of a miracle, The end 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,