Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/272

Rh in the night and attack the foe. The Lord set his enemies to fight amongst themselves. He teaches Bezaleel and Aholiab. They, and all the ingenious mechanics, are filled with “the spirit of God.” The same “spirit of the Lord” enables Samson to kill a lion, and many men. These instances show with what latitude the phrase is used, and how loose were the notions of inspiration. The Greeks also referred their works to the aid of Phœbus, Pallas, Vulcan, or Olympian Jove, in the same way.

It has never been rendered probable that the phrase, Thus saith the Lord, and its kindred terms, were understood by the prophets or their hearers to denote any miraculous agency in the case. They employ language with the greatest freedom. Thus a writer says, “I saw Jehovah sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple; above it stood the seraphim.” No thinking man would suppose the prophet designed to assert a fact, or that his countrymen understood him to do so. Certainly it is insulting to suppose a philosophic man would believe God sat on a throne, with a troop of courtiers around him, like a Persian king. When a prophet says Jehovah appeared to him in a dream, he can only mean, either he dreamed Jehovah appeared, which is somewhat different, or that he chose this symbolical way of stating his opinion. Thus a Grecian prophet might say, “The muse came down from high Olympus' shaggy top, and whispered unto me, her favourite son.” Not stating a fact, he would give an outness to what passed in his mind. However, if these writers claimed miraculous inspiration ever so strongly, we are not to grant it unless they abide the test mentioned above.

If they utter predictions—which they rarely attempt—we are not to assume their fulfilment, and then conclude the prophet was miraculously inspired, common as the method is. But what is the value of the claim made for them? Has any one of them ever uttered a distinct, definite, and unambiguous prediction of any future event that has since taken place, which a man without a miracle