at they might have no room to complain that their religion
did not furnish them with the means of discovering future events and
hidden things, God, with condescension worthy of reverential
admiration, granted them the _Urim and Thummim_, or the Doctrine and
the Truth, with which the high-priest was invested according to the
ritual in the principal ceremonies of religion, and by means of which
he rendered oracles, and discovered the will of the Most High. When
the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle were constructed, the Lord,
consulted by Moses,[186] gave out his replies from between the two
cherubim which were placed upon the mercy-seat above the ark. All
which seems to insinuate that, from the time of the patriarch Joseph,
there had been oracles and diviners in Egypt, and that the Hebrews
consulted them.

God promised his people to raise up a prophet[187] among them, who
should declare to them his will: in fact, we see in almost all ages
among them, prophets inspired by God; and the true prophets reproached
them vehemently for their impiety, when instead of coming to the
prophets of the Lord, they went to consult strange oracles,[188] and
divinities equally powerless and unreal.

We have spoken before of the teraphim of Laban, of the idols or
pretended oracles of Micah and Gideon. King Saul, who, apparently by
the advice of Samuel, had exterminated diviners and magicians from the
land of Israel, desired in the last war to consult the Lord, who would
not reply to him. He then afterwards addressed himself to a witch, who
promised him she would evoke Samuel for him. She did, or feigned to do
so, for the thing offers many difficulties, into which we shall not
enter here.

The same Saul having consulted the Lord on another occasion, to know
whether he must pursue the Philistines whom he had just defeated, God
refused also to reply to him,[189] because his son Jonathan had tasted
some honey, not knowing that the king had forbidden his army to taste
anything whatever before his enemies were entirely overthrown.

The silence of the Lord on certain occasions, and his refusal to
answer sometimes when He was consulted, are an evident proof that He
usually replied, and that they were certain of receiving instructions
from Him, unless they raised an obstacle to it by some action which
was displeasing to Him.

Footnotes:

[180] Plin. lib. viii. c. 48.

[181] Herodot. lib. ix.

[182] _Vide_ Joan. Marsham, Saec. iv. p