All men have more or less of the intuitive faculty, but some have much more than others.  Those who have the most are called, by way of eminence, inspired men.  But among these there is a difference as regards the objects which are presented by God, in the order of his providence, to their intuitive faculty.  Some he places inwardly among visions of beauty, and they are inspired poets and artists.  Others he places inwardly amid visions of temporal and human life, and they become inspired discoverers and inventors.  And others he places amid visions of religious truth, and they are inspired prophets, lawgivers, and evangelists.  But these again differ in their own spiritual culture and growth.  Moses and the Apostle Paul were both inspired men, but the Apostle Paul saw truths which Moses did not see, because the Apostle Paul had reached a higher degree of spiritual culture.  Christ alone possessed the fulness of spiritual inspiration, because he alone had attained the fulness of spiritual life.

Now the inspired man may look inwardly either at the past, the present, or the future.  If he look at the past he is an inspired historian; if at the present, an inspired lawgiver, or religious teacher; if at the future, an inspired prophet.  The inspired faculty may be the same, and the difference may be in the object inwardly present to its contemplation.  The seer may look from things past to things present, from things present to things to come, and his inspiration be the same.  He fixes his mind on the past, and it grows clear before him, and he sees how events were and what they mean.  He looks at the present, and sees how things ought to be.  He looks at the future, and sees how things shall be.

The Prophets of the Old Testament were not, as is commonly supposed, men who only uttered predictions of the future.  They were men of action more than of contemplation.  Strange as it may seem to us, who are accustomed to consider their office as confined to religious prediction, their chief duty was that of active politicians.  They mixed religion and politics.  They interfered with public measures, rebuked the despotism of the kings and the political errors of the people.  Moreover, they were the constitutional lawyers and publicists of the Hebrews, inspired to look backward and explain the meaning of the Mosaic law as well as to look forward to its spiritual development in the reign of the Messiah.  Prediction, therefore, of future events, was a very small part of the work of the Prophets.  Their main duty was to warn, rebuke, teach, exhort, and encourage.

The Hebrew prophets were under the law.  They were loyal to Moses and to his institutions.  But it was to the spirit rather than to the letter, the idea rather than the form.  They differed from the priests in preferring the moral part of the law to the ceremonial.  They were great reformers in bringing back the people from external formalism to vital obedience.  They constantly made the