and cities, as the fittest and most commodious places for a studious contemplative life. But more clear is that place, 1 Sam. xix. 20. And Saul sent messengers to take David: and when they saw the company of the prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as appointed over them, &c. Here we have plainly a college, or society of prophets together, and Samuel appointed as president of the college.

Of the sons of the prophets, or those students that entered themselves in the colleges of the prophets, to be instructed by their several presidents, we have express mention 2 Kings ii. where, verse 3, we read of the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel coming to Elisha, and giving him warning that Elias should presently be taken from him. And verse 7 there is mention made of another college of prophets at Jericho, who afterwards, verse 15, are said to have done reverence to Elisha succeeding Elias.

So in 2 Kings iv. 38. we read, that Elisha being at Gilgal, the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, viz. in the posture of disciples and scholars, to learn and receive instruction from their master. And because the disciples sat in a lower form or seat, under their masters and teachers, they are said to sit at their feet. Hence the people of Israel's receiving the law from God is thus expressed, They sat down at thy feet; every one shall receive of thy words, Deut. xxxiii. 3. So St. Paul is said to have been brought up, or educated, at the feet of Gamaliel, Acts xxii. 3.

The business of these colleges of the prophets is by learned men described to be this: they were taught by their presidents the law of God; they

were instructed in the prophecies of those prophets that went before them; they were taught by what ways and means they might obtain the gift of prophecy, or the increase of it; they were informed what was the scope and signification of the sacrifices and ceremonial laws, by which the things that were to come to pass in the time of the Messias were pre figured; and, in a word, they were in those colleges taught the whole mystery of the Jewish religion, according to the time and age, and their several capacities. So that even prophecy was a science among the ancient Jews, and men were trained up to it by discipline and education.

I shall only add, that Daniel, the most excellent of prophets, (though the latter Jews out of prejudice will scarce allow him a room or place in that sacred order,) is not ashamed to confess, that he had learned something by reading the writings of the prophet Jeremiah that was before him, Dan. ix. 2. I Daniel understood by books the number of years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet. Which also may serve to confirm what was said before, that the sons of the prophets in their colleges were instructed in the prophecies of those prophets who were before them. For if so accomplished a prophet as Daniel made use of the books of the preceding prophets, we may be sure that those young novices in the study of prophecy were taught by their masters diligently to peruse them.

And this may suffice for the proof of my latter observation, viz. That even the divinely inspired persons and ministers of God did not so wholly depend upon divine inspiration, but that they made use also of the ordinary helps and means; such as reading of books, with study and meditation on them, for their assistance in the discharge of their office.

I now proceed to the use and improvement of this doctrine.

1. This serves to discover the folly of those who renounce all books and book-learning as needless, and of no use to them; and bid defiance to all study and reading, under pretence of a spirit or light within them, sufficiently able to direct and guide them in all things. Of which sort the sect called Quakers are especially to be noted. For you see the great apostle St. Paul read books, not only sacred, but human, and had his parchments, probably collections of notes gathered out of the books that he had read; and that the same St. Paul exhorts his beloved Timothy, an archbishop in the apostolic church, to the same diligence in reading and studying, that he might be the better enabled for the discharge of his duty; and lastly, that the prophets themselves under the Old Testament observed the same method. What an insufferable impudence then are they guilty of, who nowadays decry all reading, study, and learning, and rely only on enthusiasm and immediate inspiration! The apostles, the prophets, and other undoubtedly inspired persons, thought that necessary, which these men (that cannot give the least proof of any such inspiration in themselves) despise as wholly useless to them. Let me advise them to consider, that the Spirit of God, even in the times of the extraordinary dispensation of it, was never given to any but the diligent and industrious, and such as did their best to attain divine wisdom; not only by praying for it, but also by reading and studying the books and writings of the wise men that were before them. Let them consider, that the Spirit of God never dwelt with the slothful or lazy; or with those who, presuming on its inspiration, neglected the use of those ordinary means of getting knowledge, which Providence afforded them. The divine assistance and human industry always went together hand in hand, and an anathema is due to that doctrine that separates and divides them.

And yet, see the age we live in! enthusiasm and atheism divide the spoil, and the former makes way for the latter, till at length it be devoured by it. In the mean while enthusiasm fills the conventicle and empties the church: silly people dance after its pipe, and are lured by it from their lawful, orthodox teachers, to run they know not whither, to hear they know not whom, and to learn they know not what. And till the minds of men are better informed and possessed with righter notions of things, it is impossible they should ever be brought to any regular and sober religion. Nothing in religion will nowadays be acceptable to many, but what pretends to a more immediate inspiration from God; and the bare colour thereof, be it never so small and slender, will almost make any thing pass for current divinity. Let a man preach without authority, and without book, and make show as if he did it extempore, and by the sudden suggestion of the Spirit, and he shall be cried up by the vulgar, though he deliver the plainest nonsense. No discourse will please them, but that which is not only delivered without book, (for so to do is no fault, but rather commendable, when it is added as an ornament to a well studied and substantial discourse, and done without vanity, and occasions no expense of time, that might be spent to better purpose,) but also pretended to be made without book, that is, without consulting beforehand the books of the wise and learned. Thus the people are deceived, and love to be so, and who can help it?

And yet my charity prompts me to try a dilemma on these miserably deluded persons. They that tell you they preach without the help of any precedent reading or study, by a mere and immediate dependence on the assistance of the Spirit, either they say true or false: if what they say be true, they are guilty of a very great and intolerable presumption, in despising those helps which the divinely-inspired persons both under the Old and New Testament thought useful to them: if they tell you that which is false, and whilst they pretend to immediate inspiration, use the help of reading and study, you are to shun them as liars and cheats, and to have no more to do with them. The truth is, the men with whom we have to do are of two sorts, each of which must needs fall under the one or the other part of the dilemma. Some of them do indeed in their profession renounce, and in their practice too much neglect, reading and study, as sufficiently appears by the fulsome repetitions, impertinence, nonsense, and too often heresies and blasphemies in their discourses: others take some pains for what they do, and shew something of industry and diligence in their performances, easily to be discovered by a more careful observer of them, and thereby betray the fraud and falsehood of their pretences.

Intolerable is the consequence of the error I am now reproving; for it directly tends to the perfect phrensy and madness of those, who declaim against the nurseries of learning, the universities themselves,