A Theologico-Political Treatise

MP3 Audio CD. A Theologico-Political Treatise

CHAPTER I. - Of Prophecy

(1) Prophecy, or revelation is sure knowledge revealed by God to man. (2) A
prophet is one who interprets the revelations of God [insights] to those who
are unable to attain to sure knowledge of the matters revealed, and
therefore can only apprehend them by simple faith.

(3) The Hebrew word for prophet is "naw-vee'", Strong:5030, [Endnote 1]
i.e. speaker or interpreter, but in Scripture its meaning is restricted to
interpreter of God, as we may learn from Exodus vii:1, where God says to
Moses, "See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall
be thy prophet;" implying that, since in interpreting Moses' words to
Pharaoh, Aaron acted the part of a prophet, Moses would be to Pharaoh as a
god, or in the attitude of a god.

(4) Prophets I will treat of in the next chapter, and at present consider
prophecy.

(5) Now it is evident, from the definition above given, that prophecy really
includes ordinary knowledge; for the knowledge which we acquire by our
natural faculties depends on knowledge of God and His eternal laws; but
ordinary knowledge is common to all men as men, and rests on foundations
which all share, whereas the multitude always strains after rarities
and exceptions, and thinks little of the gifts of nature; so that, when
prophecy is talked of, ordinary knowledge is not supposed to be included.
(6) Nevertheless it has as much right as any other to be called Divine, for
God's nature, in so far as we share therein, and God's laws, dictate it to
us; nor does it suffer from that to which we give the preeminence, except in
so far as the latter transcends its limits and cannot be accounted for by
natural laws taken in themselves. (7) In respect to the certainty it
involv