GOD raised up a succession of prophets among his people for many wise and gracious purposes. They were not only designed to retain the Jews in the worship of the one true God; but to spread the knowledge of him among the neighbouring nations, by the fame of their predictions and miracles. They were a barrier against those prevailing kinds of superstition which consisted in the supposed evocation of departed spirits, and in consulting imaginary local deities, for the purpose of gratifying the natural thirst which all mankind have for the knowledge of futurity. And though the answers which God occasionally vouchsafed to the Highpriest, by a voice from between the Cherubim, were greatly subservient to these ends; yet was it expedient that prophecy should peryade the whole body of the people, and that events should be foretold which from their nature could not be the object of enquiry by the sacred oracle, or at a time when idolatry was so general that these solemn applications to God were wholly neglected. It must also be observed that the attestations given by the prophets to the Mosaic law, their instructions and exhortations, their reproofs and threatenings, were powerful means of preserving the Jews in obedience, and eminent displays of the divine goodness and compassion. Another design. in sending the prophets was, that, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, they might record God's dealings with his people and with other adjoining nations and empires; and might thus transmit to after ages a most * See 1 Chron. xxix. 29: 2 Chron. ix. 29: compared with 1 Kings xi. 29: 2 Chron. xii. 15: xiii, 22: xx. 34, compared with 1 Kings xvi, 1, 7: 2 Chron. xxxii. 32: xxxiii. 19. |