spirit by: and seeing there is so much prophecying in the Old Testament, and so much preaching in the New Testament, against prophets; and so much greater a number ordinarily of false prophets, than of true; every one is to beware of obeying their directions, at their own peril. And first, that there were many more false than true prophets, appears by this, that when Ahab (_1 Kings_ xxii.) consulted four hundred prophets, they were all false impostors, but only one Micaiah. And a little before the time of the captivity, the prophets were generally liars. _The prophets_, (saith the Lord, by _Jeremiah_, chapter xiv. 14) _prophecy lies in my name. I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, nor spake unto them; they prophecy to you a false vision, a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart._ Insomuch as God commanded the people by the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah (chapter xxiii. 16) not to obey them: _Thus saith the Lord of hosts, hearken not unto the words of the prophets, that prophecy to you. They make you vain, they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord._ [Sidenote: All prophecy but of the sovereign prophet, is to be examined by every subject.] Seeing then there was in the time of the Old Testament, such quarrels amongst the visionary prophets, one contesting with another, and asking, _when departed the Spirit from me, to go to thee?_ as between Micaiah and the rest of the four hundred; and such giving of the lie to one another, (as in _Jerem._ xiv. 14) and such controversies in the New Testament at this day, amongst the spiritual prophets; every man then was, and now is bound to make use of his natural reason, to apply to all prophecy those rules which God hath given us, to discern the true from false. Of which rules, in the Old Testament, one was, conformable doctrine to that which Moses the sovereign prophet had taught them; and the other, the miraculous power of foretelling what God would bring to pass, as I have already showed out of _Deut._ xiii. 1, &c. And in the New Testament there was but one only mark; and that was the preaching of this doctrine, _that Jesus is the Christ_, that is, king of the Jews, promised in the Old Testament. Whosoever denied that article, he was a false prophet, whatsoever miracles he might seem to work; and he that taught it was a true prophet. For St. John (_1 Epist._ iv. 2, &c.) speaking expressly of the means to examine spirits, whether they be of God, or not; after he had told them that there would arise false prophets, saith thus, _Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God_; that is, is approved and allowed as a prophet of God: not that he is a godly man, or one of the elect, for this, that he confesseth, professeth, or preacheth Jesus to be the Christ; but for that he is a prophet avowed. For God sometimes speaketh by prophets, whose persons he hath not