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| Chapter VII
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Chapter VII.
In regard to the prophets among the Jews, some of
them were wise men before they became divinely inspired prophets, while
others became wise by the illumination which their minds received when
divinely inspired. They were selected by Divine Providence to
receive the Divine Spirit, and to be the depositaries of His holy
oracles, on the ground of their leading a life of almost unapproachable
excellence, intrepid, noble, unmoved by danger or death. For
reason teaches that such ought to be the character of the prophets of
the Most High, in comparison with which the firmness of Antisthenes,
Crates, and Diogenes will seem but as child’s play. It was
therefore for their firm adherence to truth, and their faithfulness in
the reproof of the wicked, that “they were stoned; they were sawn
asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about
in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
they wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the
earth, of whom the world was not worthy:”4688
for they looked always to God and to
His blessings, which, being invisible, and not to be perceived by the
senses, are eternal. We have the history of the life of each of
the prophets; but it will be enough at present to direct attention to
the life of Moses, whose prophecies are contained in the law; to that
of Jeremiah, as it is given in the book which bears his name; to that
of Isaiah, who with unexampled austerity walked naked and barefooted
for the space of three years.4689
Read and
consider the severe life of those children, Daniel and his companions,
how they abstained from flesh, and lived on water and pulse.4690
Or if you will go back to more remote
times, think of the life of Noah, who prophesied;4691
and of Isaac, who gave his son a prophetic
blessing; or of Jacob, who addressed each of his twelve sons, beginning
with “Come, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last
days.”4692
These, and a
multitude of others, prophesying on behalf of God, foretold events
relating to Jesus Christ. We therefore for this reason set at
nought the oracles of the Pythian priestess, or those delivered at
Dodona, at Clarus, at Branchidæ, at the temple of Jupiter Ammon,
or by a multitude of other so-called prophets; whilst we regard with reverent awe the Jewish
prophets: for we see that the noble, earnest, and devout lives of
these men were worthy of the inspiration of the Divine Spirit, whose
wonderful effects were widely different from the divination of
demons.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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