God spake also many times by the event of lots; which were ordered by such as he had put in authority over his people. So we read that God manifested by the lots which Saul caused to be drawn (_1 Sam._ xiv. 43) the fault that Jonathan had committed, in eating a honey-comb, contrary to the oath taken by the people. And (_Josh._ xviii. 10) God divided the land of Canaan amongst the Israelites, by the _lots that Joshua did cast before the Lord in Shiloh_. In the same manner it seemeth to be, that God discovered (_Joshua_ vii. 16, &c.) the crime of Achan. And these are the ways whereby God declared his will in the Old Testament. All which ways he used also in the New Testament. To the Virgin Mary, by a vision of an angel: to Joseph in a dream: again, to Paul, in the way to Damascus, in a vision of our Saviour: and to Peter in the vision of a sheet let down from heaven, with divers sorts of flesh; of clean, and unclean beasts; and in prison, by vision of an angel: and to all the apostles, and writers of the New Testament, by the graces of his spirit; and to the apostles again, at the choosing of Matthias in the place of Judas Iscariot, by lot. [Sidenote: Every man ought to examine the probability of a pretended prophet’s calling.] Seeing then, all prophecy supposeth vision, or dream, (which two, when they be natural, are the same), or some especial gift of God so rarely observed in mankind as to be admired where observed; and seeing as well such gifts, as the most extraordinary dreams and visions, may proceed from God, not only by his supernatural, and immediate, but also by his natural operation, and by mediation of second causes; there is need of reason and judgment to discern between natural, and supernatural gifts, and between natural, and supernatural visions or dreams. And consequently men had need to be very circumspect and wary, in obeying the voice of man, that pretending himself to be a prophet, requires us to obey God in that way, which he in God’s name telleth us to be the way to happiness. For he that pretends to teach men the way of so great felicity, pretends to govern them; that is to say, to rule and reign over them; which is a thing, that all men naturally desire, and is therefore worthy to be suspected of ambition and imposture; and consequently, ought to be examined and tried by every man, before he yield them obedience; unless he have yielded it them already, in the institution of a commonwealth; as when the prophet is the civil sovereign, or by the civil sovereign authorized. And if this examination of prophets and spirits, were not allowed to every one of the people, it had been to no purpose to set out the marks, by which every man might be able to distinguish between those, whom they ought, and those whom they ought not to follow. Seeing therefore such marks are set out (_Deut._ xiii. 1, &c.) to know a prophet by; and (_1 John_ iv. 1, &c.) to know a