books of prophets departed, taking care the while not to reason from
metaphor or to ascribe anything to our authors which they do not themselves
distinctly state. (15) I must further premise that the Jews never make any
mention or account of secondary, or particular causes, but in a spirit of
religion, piety, and what is commonly called godliness, refer all things
directly to the Deity. (16) For instance if they make money by a
transaction, they say God gave it to them; if they desire anything, they say
God has disposed their hearts towards it; if they think anything, they say
God told them. (17) Hence we must not suppose that everything is prophecy or
revelation which is described in Scripture as told by God to anyone, but
only such things as are expressly announced as prophecy or revelation, or
are plainly pointed to as such by the context.

(18) A perusal of the sacred books will show us that all God's revelations
to the prophets were made through words or appearances, or a combination of
the two. (19) These words and appearances were of two kinds; 1.- real when
external to the mind of the prophet who heard or saw them, 2.- imaginary
when the imagination of the prophet was in a state which led him distinctly
to suppose that he heard or saw them.

(20) With a real voice God revealed to Moses the laws which He wished to be
transmitted to the Hebrews, as we may see from Exodus xxv:22, where God
says, "And there I will meet with thee and I will commune with thee from the
mercy seat which is between the Cherubim." (21) Some sort of real voice must
necessarily have been employed, for Moses found God ready to commune with
him at any time. This, as I shall shortly show, is the only instance of a
real voice.

(22) We might, perhaps, suppose that the voice with which God called Samuel
was real, for in 1 Sam. iii:21, we read, "And the Lord appeared again in