Praediction Of Future Contingents, Not Alwaies Prophecy When by Prophecy is meant Praediction, or foretelling of future Contingents; not only they were Prophets, who were Gods Spokesmen, and foretold those things to others, which God had foretold to them; but also all those Imposters, that pretend by the helpe of familiar spirits, or by superstitious divination of events past, from false causes, to foretell the like events in time to come:  of which (as I have declared already in the 12. 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 casuall event that may bee 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 Praediction) 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 Phantasme of Samuel, and foretold Saul his death, was not therefore a Prophetesse; for neither had she any science, whereby she could raise such a Phantasme; nor does it appear that God commanded the raising of it; but onely guided that Imposture to be a means of Sauls 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 mad-men; 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 the Scripture I find it also so taken (1 Sam. 18. 10.) in these words, “And the Evill spirit came upon Saul, and he Prophecyed in the midst of the house.”

The Manner How God Hath Spoken To The Prophets 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, “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 signifie Gods nature, but to signifie our intention to honor him.  For to See, and Hear, are Honorable 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 parts of mans body, that he had also the same use of them which