Lord by Urim and Thummim, but for the king, the
president of the sanhedrim, the general of the army, and other public
persons, and on affairs that regarded the general interest of the
nation. If the affair was to succeed, the stones of the ephod emitted a
sparkling light, or the high-priest inspired predicted the success.
Josephus, who was born thirty-nine years after Christ, says that it was
then two hundred years since the stones of the ephod had given an answer
to consultations by their extraordinary lustre.

The Scriptures only inform us, that Urim and Thummim were something that
Moses had put in the high-priest's breast-plate. Some Rabbins by rash
conjectures, have believed that they were two small statues hidden
within the breast-plate; others, the ineffable name of God, graved in a
mysterious-manner. Without designing to discern what has not been
explained to us, we should understand by _Urim_ and _Thummim_, the
divine inspiration annexed to the consecrated breast-plate.

Several passages of Scripture leave room to believe, that an articulate
voice came forth from the propitiatory, or holy of holies, beyond the
veil of the tabernacle, and that this voice was heard by the
high-priest. If the Urim and Thummim did not make answer, it was a sign
of God's anger. Saul abandoned by the spirit of the Lord, consulted it
in vain, and obtained no sort of answer. It appears by some passages of
St. John's Gospel, that in the time of Christ, the exercise of the
chief-priesthood, was still attended with the gift of prophecy.

REPUTATION OF ORACLES, HOW LOST.

When men began to be better instructed by the lights philosophy had
introduced into the world, the false oracles insensibly lost their
credit. Chrysippus filled an entire volume with false or doubtful
oracles. Oenomanus,[18] to be revenged of some oracle that had deceived
him, made a compilation of oracles, to shew their absurdity and vanity.
But Oenomanus is still more out of humour with the oracle for the answer
which Apollo gave the Athenians, when Xerxes was about to attack Greece
with all the strength of Asia. The Pythian declared, that Minerva, the
protectress of Athens, had endeavoured in vain to appease the wrath of
Jupiter; yet that Jupiter, in complaisance with his daughter, was
willing the Athenians should secure themselves within wooden walls; and
that Salamis should behold the loss of a great many children, dead to
their mothers, either when Ceres was sp