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It is contained in Isaiah (ch. xli.), where almighty God, foretelling many great events, particularly the raising up of Cyrus to destroy the Babylonian monarchy, and to deliver the Jews from captivity, declares that he alone can discover such things; and appeals to these predictions as to proofs of his divinity, and evident arguments that there is no god besides him. Produce your cause, saith the Lord, bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen: let them show the former things what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed and behold it together. Behold ye are of nothing,' &c. And again : I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I showed them, I did them suddenly, and they came to pass. Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass: I have even from the beginning declared it to thee: before it came to pass I showed it thee; lest thou shouldst say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image hath commanded them,' &c. xlvii. And more to the same purpose.

Hence it has been concluded, that there never was such a thing as fore-knowledge in the Pagan world: a conclusion too large and absolute to be inferred from the premises.

Hinc possunt egregie confutari, qui putant frequentissime apud Ethnicos futura a cacodæmonibus prænunciata; quod hic a nemine, nisi a se, fieri posse statuat Deus. Pleraque omnia illa oracula, quæ leguntur apud veteres Græcos, aut numquam sunt edita, aut ab hominibus pronunciata, ut viri docti satis ostenderunt, et præsertim vir eruditus Antonius Van Dale. Sæpius hic repetitur provocatio Dei, ne leviter res prætereat, sed altius in animum descendat, præsertim idololatrarum Judæorum.-Imo vero, dixissent Græci, multa habemus oracula-Sed propheta reposuisset meras fraudes fuisse hominum, qui aut ambiguis responsis consultores eludebant, vel conjecturâ de rebus futuris temere judicabant, quam postea arguebat eventus. Si certe credidisset cacodæmones ipsos fudisse oracula, aliter

plane locutus esset, cum sciret homines ab ejusmodi malis spiritibus non difficulter potuisse falli, nec plebeculam eorum responsa a responsis ipsius Dei satis posse secernere.-Non ita loquerentur qui fidem habent historiis Ethnicorum de ostentis et prodigiis, quæ potentiâ cacodæmonum vere contigisse volunt; ex eorum enim sententiâ magna et memorabilia fuissent malorum spirituum per totum terrarum orbem opera. Sed prophetæ longe malumus credere, quam ejusmodi hominibus.'-Clericus ad Isaiam. To whose remarks we might add, that the scriptures, though they seem in many places to allow that evil spirits may work miracles, yet no where suppose or intimate that they can predict the future actions of men, except perhaps in Acts xvi. 16. and there it is not necessary that such prophecy should be meant. In Deut. xiii. it is said: If there arise amongst you a prophet, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,--saying, Let us go after other gods,-that prophet shall be put to death.' But this seems not so much intended to declare that such false prophets should be able to show signs and work miracles, as to secure the people against idolatry; and therefore God says, If a man endeavour to seduce you to idolatry, put him to death, even though he should give you signs and wonders. Besides, the sign, whether real or pretended, might be rather of the miraculous than of the prophetic kind; and it could not be the prediction of a remote event, because that would not serve an impostor's purpose. The same remark may be applied to the false prophets' in Matt. xxiv. payou and yónres, who should show signs and wonders, but whose predictions and promises should be confuted by the event.

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Prophecies, in one respect, seem to carry with them surer marks of proceeding from God than miracles: for spirits, good or evil, may by their own natural strength, and with out God's immediate assistance, perform things surpassing human abilities (which to men are miracles), unless God restrain them but it seems altogether beyond the power a created, finite, limited being to look into futurity, and to foresee the actions and behaviour of free agents, who as yet are unborn; this is an act, which probably implies a power equal to creation and preservation, and to upholding the universal system, and therefore prophecy must be the gift of God; and an angel or an evil dæmon, if he foretel such

remote events, must be inspired himself, or must get his knowledge from divine prophecies; or else what he delivers must be by a conjectural skill, in which he may perhaps sometimes, in some general things, aim right, and be able to form a better guess and judgment than mortal men, having larger views and longer experience. If he should have skill to foretell inclement seasons, droughts, tempests, inundations, pestilences, earthquakes, famines, fertility of the earth, plentiful harvests, &c. ; yet to know what good and evil shall befall the unborn grandchildren of Caius and Titius, how they shall behave themselves, and how they shall spend their days, lies in all probability far beyond the sagacity of any creature.

In the book of Tobit, the angel Raphael says to Tobias, Fear not, for she [Sarah] is appointed unto thee from the beginning, and thou shalt preserve her, and she shall go with thee: moreover I suppose that she shall bear thee children." vi. 17. Here is an angel's conjecture, which was fulfilled, as the writer takes care to inform us, xiv. 12.

Whosoever he was who wrote the history of Tobit, his design seems to have been to draw the character of a pious and worthy man, who on account of his piety fell into great distress; and who, after having borne many calamities with resignation and constancy, was restored to prosperity, and led a long and happy life. He had a wife, pious and virtuous like himself, but once or twice a little too querulous; and a son, who was an amiable youth, and a dutiful child to his parents. Angelsa good and evil are introduced, with a sufficient quantity of the marvellous. The name itself of Tobit seems to be feigned; for Tob in Hebrew means bonus. There are also other feigned names in this drama, concerning which see Grotius. Lastly, both the heroes of the story are very long-lived; the father lived one hundred

The Jews believed seven principal angels. Zech. iv. 10. Revel. i. 4. v. 6. viii. 2. One may suppose, from the number, that they were thought to preside over the planets. Tobit xii. 15.

bLes Juifs ont debité un si grand nombre de fables, que leur histoire, depuis le tems des derniers des historiens sacrez, n'est guere plus raisonable que les plus fabuleuses histoires du Paganisme. Au moins il est certain qu'étant mieux instruits que les Payens, ils sont beaucoup plus blâmables d'avoir inventé tant de mensonges.' Le Clerc. Bibl.

Chois. iii. 166.

VOL. I.

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and fifty-eight and the son one hundred and twenty-seven All this has the air of a pious fiction, and the author seems to have proposed to himself to imitate the book of Job.

years.

Virgil makes the harpy say, Æn. iii. 251.

Quæ Phoebo Pater omnipotens, mihi Phoebus Apollo
Prædixit, vobis Furiarum ego maxima pando.'

Where Servius remarks, Notandum Apollinem, quæ dicit, ab Jove cognoscere.' Eschylus 'Ieg.

And:

ταῦτα γὰρ πατὴρ

Ζεὺς ἐγκαθίει Λοξία θεσπίσματα.

-hæc namque pater

Jupiter immittit Apollini oracula.

Πατρὸς προφήτης ἐστι Λοξίας Διὸς.

Apollo patris Jovis est propheta.

Apollo, says Suidas, is Jupiter's prophet, and delivers to men the oracles which he receives from him. 'Azów ὑποφήτης ἐστὶ τοῦ πατρὸς, καὶ παρ ̓ ἐκείνου λαμβάνει τὰς μαν τείας, καὶ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἐκφέρει.

In the Hymn to Apollo, the god says concerning himself,

132.

Χρήσω τ ̓ ἀνθρώποισι Διός νημερτέα βουλήν.

Oraculoque edam hominibus Jovis verum consilium. And in our learned Poet, the Almighty is introduced saying to the archangel Michael,

-reveal

To Adam what shall come in future days,
As I shall thee enlighten.

To prophecy is to be adjoined a knowledge of the secret intentions of men. It seems to be beyond the abilities of any created being to know the thoughts of a man, particularly of a man who is agitated by no passion, and gives no indications of his mind by any outward sign. This is ascribed

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to God, as his peculiar perfection, in many places of scripture; and it is said, that he is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts,' &c. This knowledge God often imparted to the prophets.

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Cicero has treated the subject of Divination' in two books in the first he alleges all that can be said for it, and in the second he argues against it. Whosoever will examine his reasons on both sides, may see, I think, that he has not overset all the proofs which he has offered for it. He observes, that all nations, civil and barbarous, always agreed in this, that there was such a thing as divination, or a foreknowledge of events, to be obtained by various indications; as by the stars, by portents and prodigies, by the entrails of victims, by omens, by lots, by forebodings, by consulting the dead, by oracles, by inspired persons, by dreams, &c.

If there be such a thing as divination, said the Pagans, there must be a Deity from whom it proceeds, because man by his own natural powers cannot discover things to come; and if there be a Deity, there is probably divination, since it is not a conduct unworthy of the Deity to take notice of mortal men and of their affairs, and on some occasions to advise and instruct them. Thus the Pagans argued; and accordingly, for the most part, they who believed a God and a Providence believed divination; they who were atheists denied it; and they who were sceptics decided nothing

about it.

Divination was a matter of fact, and to be proved, like other facts, by evidence, testimony, and experience; and some philosophers rejecting all other kinds of divination as dubious and fallacious, admitted two sorts, that by inspired persons, and that by dreams. In favour of the latter we have the authorities of Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle. Cicero de Divin. i. 25.

"Atque dormientium animi maxime declarant divinitatem suam. Multa enim, cum remissi et liberi sunt, futura prospiciunt,' &c. Cicero de Senect. 22. which is taken from

Xenophon.

When Socrates was in prison, Crito went to pay him an early visit, and told him, he was informed by persons come

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