It appears that Micaiah in his first prophecy, viz: "Go up to Ramoth Gilead and prosper, and they shall be delivered into your hand," acted in concert with the lying spirit which stood before the Lord, but afterwards acted the treacherous part by prophecying the truth, which, if we may credit his account, was in direct opposition to the scheme of Heaven. SECTON II. THE CONTENTIONS WHICH SUBSISTED BETWEEN THE PROPHETS... RESPECTING THEIR VERACITY, AND THEIR INCONSISTENCIES WITH ONE ANOTHER, AND WITH THE NATURE OF THINGS, AND THEIR OMISSION IN TEACHING THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY, PRECLUDES THE DIVINITY OF THEIR PROPHECIES. Whoever examines the writings of the prophets will discover a spirit of strife and contention among them; they would charge each other with fallacy and deception; disputations of this kind are plentifully interspersed through the writings of the prophets; we will transcribe a few of those passages out of many: "Thus saith the Lord to the foolish prophets that follow their own spirit, and have found nothing, they have seen vanity and lying divination, saying the Lord saith, and the Lord hath, not sent them, and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word." And in another place, "I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran; I have not spoken unto them, yet they prophecy." Again, "I have heard what the prophets said, that prophecy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed, yet they are the prophets of the deceit of their own hearts." And again, "Yea, they are greedy dogs, which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand; they all look to their own way, every one for his gain from his quarter." It being the case that there was such a strife among the prophets to recommend themselves to the people, and every art and dissimulation having been practised by them to gain power and superiority, all which artifice was to be judged of by the great vulgar, or in some instances by the political views of the Jewish Sanhedrim, how could those who were cotemporaries with the several prophets, distinguish the premised true prophets from the false? Much less, how can we, who live more than seventeen hundred years since the last of them, be able to distinguish them apart? And yet, without the knowledge of this distinction, we cannot with propriety give credit to any of them, even admitting there were some true prophets among them. Nor is it possible for us to know but that their very institution was merely a reach of policy of the Israelitish and Judaic governments, the more easily, implicitly and effectually to keep their people in subordination, by inculcating a belief that they were ruled with special directions from heaven, which in fact originated from the Sanhedrim. Many other nations have made use of much the same kind of policy.