The next was the gift of prophecy. Prophecy has several meanings in
Scripture; sometimes it means the power of predicting future events,
sometimes an entranced state accompanied with ravings, sometimes it
appears to mean only exposition; but prophecy, as the miraculous
spiritual gift granted to the early Church, seems to have been a state
of communion with the mind of God lower than that which was called the
gift of tongues, at least less ecstatic, less rapt into the world to
come, more under the guidance of the reason, more within the control
of calm consciousness--as we might say, less supernatural.

Upon these gifts we make two observations:

1. Even the highest were not accompanied with spiritual faultlessness.
Inspiration was one thing, infallibility another. The gifts of the
Spirit were, like the gifts of Nature, subordinated to the
will--capable of being used for good or evil, sometimes pure,
sometimes mixed with human infirmity. The supernaturally gifted man
was no mere machine, no automaton ruled in spite of himself by a
superior spirit. Disorder, vanity, over-weening self-estimation, might
accompany these gifts, and the prophetic utterance itself might be
degraded to a mere brawling in the Church; therefore St. Paul
established laws of control, declared the need of subjection and rule
over spiritual gifts: the spirits of the prophets were to be subject
to the prophets; if those in the ecstatic state were tempted to break
out into utterance and unable to interpret what it meant, those so
gifted were to hold their peace.

The prophet poured out the truths supernaturally imparted to his
highest spirit, in an inspired and impassioned eloquence which was
intelligible even to the unspiritual, and was one of the appointed