Head of the state to those who directly represented him, was consequently supreme. The highest as

the children of the prophets, (as 2 Kings ii. 3. 5. 7, 15, 16; iv. 1. 38; vi. 1.) or the mention of particular individuals of that number (as 1 Kings xx. 35: 2 Kings ix. 1. 4:) must be understood of the children of members of such societies. There is proof of the existence of such schools, societies, or establishments, at Bethel, 2 Kings ii. 3. and Jericho, 2 Kings ii. 5. 7. in the time of Elijah; and at the same places, and probably Samaria, 2 Kings ii. 18. 23. 25: and again at Carmel, 2 Kings iv. 25 at Gilgal, 2 Kings iv. 38: at Mount Ephraim, 2 Kings v. 22: and some where by the Jordan, 2 Kings vi. 2. 4: in the time of Elisha. Perhaps, the college too, at Jerusalem, mentioned in the reign of Josiah, as the place where Huldah the prophetess was dwelling, 2 Kings xxii. 14. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 22. was a similar establishment, in that city. Bethel was probably another, 1 Kings xiii. 11: and Shiloh, 1 Kings xiv. 2. at still earlier periods.

It is probable, too, that how many such prophets soever there might be, contemporary with each other, at a given time, they were all subject to some one of superior rank and dignity, as chief. Such was Elijah in his time, and Elisha after him. And if we may draw any general inference from what is recorded, 1 Kings xix. 16. of the particular provision made in that instance, for the succession of Elisha to Elijah, something like a formal appointment would be necessary to invest one prophet in particular, with this superior rank and dignity; and some ceremony analogous to that of an unction or consecration of him, by a competent authority-(his predecessor as it would seem, in the same rank and station,) must first be gone through, before he could be considered and acknowledged the head of the establishments of the prophets. That this consecration should be made by pouring oil upon him, would be no necessary consequence; for the anointing prescribed in the case of Elisha, was made by Elijah's casting his mantle upon him; 1 Kings xix. 19; the same mantle, which afterwards fell from his person, in the act of his being taken up into heaven, and remained with Elisha, 2 Kings ii. 13, 14. It is said to have been anciently one method of a person's adopting another in the East,

well as the lowest were equally subject to it; and in repeated instances its jurisdiction is seen to have been exercised over the kings, as much as over the people.

The final end of the coming of the servants even in this capacity, was to remind the husbandmen of the terms of their covenant, and to receive the dues of the lord of the vineyard, to which he was entitled by virtue of it. The mission of the prophets, regard being had to the time when they appeared, and to the manner in which they discharged their office-will appear to have had an end in view analogous to this, both with respect to God and to the people. The name of prophet in its usual acceptation, denotes a foreteller of things to come; but it is certain that even in the original language, from which the word was derived into English, it has a much more extensive meaning than this"; and were we left to collect our idea to make him pass through his shirt; and if so, this act of Elijah's might be understood to imply that he had adopted Elisha, and therefore destined him to be his successor in the same prophetical office, which he was holding himself at the time.

For the dates of the respective reigns of the kings of Judah or Israel, referred to in the above considerations, the reader may consult my Diss. vol. iii. App. iii. iv. 230-308. and Supplem. 546-552.

Diss. page

u Пpopnτns in Greek properly denotes one who speaks for or in behalf of another. In this sense it is used, Exodus vii. 1: "And the LORD said unto Moses, See I have made thee a god to "Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet." In this sense also, Eschylus applies it to Phœbus as the prophet of Jupiter:

Διὸς προφήτης δ ̓ ἐστὶ Λοξίας πατρός.

Eumenides, 19.

And Virgil, by the mouth of Celano, the harpy, says virtually

the same thing,

of the office, from the part actually sustained by those who bore the name of prophets, in the discharge of their commission-we should soon have reason to perceive that to confine the design of the prophetical office to this one purpose of serving as the organ of inspiration, with respect to revelations of the future, would be to narrow its limits too much, and to overlook perhaps the most proper, and certainly the most important of its functions.

The most general, as well as exact, description which can be given of the peculiar ministry of the prophets, is that of the ministers of the Divine word, in all its communications; and more especially that of the teachers and preachers of righteousness*. They were not raised up until the people were far gone in the corruptions of false religion, and in consequent immorality of practice; and at no period of their subsequent history, was there not urgent reason to combat these prevalent evils, and to bring back the nation to the service of the true God, and to amendment of life and manners. The terms of

Quæ Phœbo pater omnipotens, mihi Phœbus Apollo
Prædixit, vobis Furiarum ego maxima pando.

Æneid. iii. 251. For this use of рò in composition, see supra, vol. ii. of this work, 527, 528.

x Thus we read 2 Kings xvii. 13 : "Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by "all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law "which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by 66 my servants the prophets :" which is a description of the common object of the mission and ministry of them all, in brief. Cf. 2 Chron. xxiv. 19; xxxiii. 10-18; xxxvi. 15: Jeremiah vii. 25; xxv. 4.

the original covenant between God and the people, which bound the Jews to the complete observance of their proper Law, were from time to time shamefully violated on their part; and it was the final end of the mission of the prophets-the object of their labours and ministry-to reinforce these obligations, and to bring back both kings and people to a better observance of them.

The most characteristic circumstance in their office was, consequently, one, which could ultimately be due to nothing but the necessity of making provision for repairing the breaches in the national compact between God and the people—and therefore would answer most appositely to the office discharged by the servants in the parable, and to the final end of their ministry, from the time of the denial of the dues of the owner; the circumstance of being in an eminent manner, the teachers of the efficacy of repentance, as a means of compensating for past offences, and upon condition of a more faithful obedience of the Divine Law for the future, of restoring the offenders to favour with God. The doctrine of the efficacy, and much more the necessity, of repentance for any such purpose as this, is not to be found in the Pentateuch, or only under peculiar circumstances". It is a doctrine, in fact, which from

y The mention of repentance is not altogether excluded from the Pentateuch—but the peculiarity of the circumstances under which it is mentioned, consists in this—that it is not, until the whole of the penalty denounced against the Jews, in case of their nonobservance of the Law, is supposed both to have been inflicted upon them, and undergone by them-that the efficacy of repentance begins to be alluded to, as a means of restoring them once more to favour with God: vide Levit. xxvi: Deuteron. iv. 25 -31; xxviii. xxx. 1-10: Cf. Nehem. i. 8, 9. Repentance,

the nature of the covenant of Horeb, (a covenant founded on the stipulation of performances, on the one side, and of rewards, as the due of such performances, on the other,) could have no place, at least no prominent place, assigned to it in the Pentateuch. To have brought forward such a doctrine there, would have been to recognise a supposition contrary to the first principles of the covenant itself; which were of course that it should be observed, according to the conditions, not broken and violated, in opposition to them; and therefore would have been to defeat its own purpose, by implying the ultimate inefficiency of such an engagement, and its consequent nullity from the first. When the covenant of Horeb was formed between God and the Jews, each of them deliberate actors in the part they respectively sustained in it, it must have been taken for granted that it would be observed as faithfully on the one side, as on the other; or it would never have been formed at all. It could be no provision of such a covenant, as at first concluded, that if the people failed to observe their part in it, all they would need to do, would be to repent, and so to make their peace with God, and be placed in the same situation as if they had never broken their covenant, nor done any thing to displease him. The time then when the evangelical doctrine of the duty and efficacy of repentance, as a means of atonement for past offences, and of restoration to favour with God for the future, in its application both nationally and individually, begins considered as the means of restoring offenders against a law of righteousness, to favour with the author of that law, without suffering the punishment denounced against transgression-is not brought forward and insisted upon in the writings of Moses, as it is in those of the prophets.