y were Liars; not that St. Paul held
their Poets for Prophets, but acknowledgeth that the word Prophet was
commonly used to signifie them that celebrated the honour of God in
Verse

Praediction Of Future Contingents, Not Alwaies Prophecy

When by Prophecy is meant Praediction, or foretelling of future
Contingents; not only they were Prophets, who were Gods Spokesmen, and
foretold those things to others, which God had foretold to them; but
also all those Imposters, that pretend by the helpe of familiar spirits,
or by superstitious divination of events past, from false causes, to
foretell the like events in time to come: of which (as I have declared
already in the 12. chapter of this Discourse) there be many kinds, who
gain in the opinion of the common sort of men, a greater reputation
of Prophecy, by one casuall event that may bee but wrested to their
purpose, than can be lost again by never so many failings. Prophecy is
not an art, nor (when it is taken for Praediction) a constant Vocation;
but an extraordinary, and temporary Employment from God, most often of
Good men, but sometimes also of the Wicked. The woman of Endor, who
is said to have had a familiar spirit, and thereby to have raised a
Phantasme of Samuel, and foretold Saul his death, was not therefore a
Prophetesse; for neither had she any science, whereby she could raise
such a Phantasme; nor does it appear that God commanded the raising of
it; but onely guided that Imposture to be a means of Sauls terror and
discouragement; and by consequent, of the discomfiture, by which he
fell. And for Incoherent Speech, it was amongst the Gentiles taken for
one sort of Prophecy, because the Prophets of their Oracles, intoxicated
with a spirit, or vapour from the cave of the Pythian Oracle at Delphi,
were for the time really mad, and spake like mad-men; of whose loose
words a sense might be made to fit any event, in such sort, as all
bodies are said to be made of Materia prima. In the Scripture I find
it also so taken (1 Sam. 18. 10.) in these words, "And the Evill spirit
came upon Saul, and he Prophecyed in the midst of the house."

The Manner How God Hath Spoken To The Prophets

And although there be so many significations in Scripture of the word
Prophet; yet is that the most frequent, in which it is taken for him,
to whom God speaketh immediately, that which the Prophet is to say from
him, to some other man, or to the people. And hereupon a question may