Nor are we without authority of high value in these views for the verbal style of inspired writers. In _The Annotated Bible_, published by the "Religious Tract Society," London, 1859, the following occurs in relation to the explanation of the words "prophet" and "prophecy:" That the prophets were more than foretellers of things future is apparent from their history as well as from their writings. It must also be remembered that, although prophecy contains many very circumstantial allusions to particular facts and individuals, yet these are referred to chiefly on account of their revelation of those great, general principles with which it has to do. Prophecy is God's voice, speaking to us respecting that great struggle which has been and is going on in this world between good and evil. The divine communications were made to the prophets in divers manners; God seems sometimes to have spoken to them in audible voice; occasionally appearing in human form. At other times he employed the ministry of angels, or made known his purposes by dreams. But he most frequently revealed his truth to the prophets by producing that supernatural state of the sentiment, intellectual, and moral faculties which the scriptures call "vision." Hence prophetic announcements are often called "visions," _i. e._ things seen; and the prophets themselves are called "seers." Although the visions which the prophet beheld and the predictions of the future which he announced were wholly announced by the divine Spirit, yet the form of the communication, the imagery in which it is clothed, the illustration by which it is cleared up and impressed, the symbols employed to bring it more graphically before the mind--in short, all that may be considered as its garb and dress, depends upon the education, habits, association, feelings and the whole mental intellectual and spiritual character of the prophet. Hence the style of some is purer, more sententious, more ornate, or more sublime than others. The author of _Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy_, Frederick Denison Maurice, sometime Professor of Casuistry and Modern Philosophy in the University of Cambridge, in discussing the philosophers of the last half of the seventeenth century, has an excellent passage on the views of Spinoza respecting the Hebrew prophets, and in what manner they and their work are to be regarded. The passage is so _apropos_ the matter here discussed that I quote the essential parts of it: "What do the sacred books impart when they affirm the Spirit of God to have been infused into the prophets--that the prophets spoke by the Spirit of God?" (Spinoza.)