But that vision which validates prophecy can become ob-
VISION
1. THE NATURE OF PROPHECY G: PUT a great deal of honour upon the prophets. However men mocked and misused them, they were the favourites and intimates of heaven. God made Himself known to them (Num. xit. 6), either by dreams when they were asleep, or by visions when they were awake, and by them made
Himself known to others. Those are happy, those are great, truly great, truly happy, to whom God makes Himself known.
Now He does it, not by dreams and visions as of old, but by the spirit of wisdom and revelation. He makes known to babes those things which prophets and kings desired to see and might not. Hence in the last days, the days of the Messiah, the sons and daughters are said to prophesy (Joel ii. 28) because they shall be better acquainted with the mysteries of the kingdom of grace than even the prophets themselves were (see Heb. i. 1).
2. PROPHECY AND VISION
But that vision which validates prophecy can become obscured. Then prophecy is scarce, as in the days of Eli (1 Sam. itt. 1). ''The word of the Lord was precious in those days." Now and then a man of God was employed as a messenger upon an extraordinary occasion, as in 1 Samuel ii. 27. But there were no settled prophets to whom the people might have recourse for counsel, nor from whom they might expect the discoveries of the divine will. The variety of prophecy made it the more precious to all those who knew how to put a right value upon it.
It was precious, for what there was, it seems, was private. 'There was no open vision."' That is, there were no people who were publicly known to have visions. Perhaps the iniquity and impurity that prevailed in the tabernacle, and no doubt corrupted the whole nation, had provoked God, as a token of His displeasure, to withdraw the spirit of prophecy, till the decree had gone forth for the raising up of a more faithful priest. Then, as an earnest of that, this faithful prophet, Samuel, was raised up.
There is no more unhappy state than that occasioned by the absence of vision. "'Where there is no vision"' (Prov. xxix. 18), no prophets to expound the law, no priests or Levites to teach the good knowledge of the Lord, no means of grace, the word of the Lord is scarce, there is no open vision—where it is so, "the people perish''.
The word has many significations, any of which will suit well enough : (a) The people are made naked, stripped of their ornaments, and so exposed to shame; stripped of their armour, and so exposed to danger. How bare a place looks without Bibles and ministers! And what an easy prey it is to the enemy of souls!
(b) The people rebel not only against God but against their prince. Good preaching would make people good subjects. But for want of it they are turbulent and factious, and despise dominion, because they know no better.
(c) The people are idle. Or, they play, as the scholars are apt to do when the master is absent. They do nothing to any good purpose, but stand all the day idle and sporting in the marketplace, for want of instruction what to do and how to do it.
(d) The people are scattered as sheep having no shepherd, for want of the masters of assemblies to call them together (Mark vi. 34). They are scattered from God and their duty by apostasies; from one another by divisions. God is provoked to scatter them by His judgments (2 Chron. xv. 3, 5).
(e) The people perish. They are "destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hos. iv. 6).
See what reasons we have to be thankful to God for the plenty of open vision we enjoy.
3. ""SEEING-MEN"'
Of the nature of prophecy in relation to vision we learn something from Isaiah 7. 1. The nature of Isaiah's prophecy is that it is a vision. It was revealed to him when he was awake. He "heard the words of God, and saw the vision of the Almighty''. The prophets were called seers, or seeing-men, and therefore the prophecies are rightly called visions. It was what he saw with the eye of his mind, and foresaw, as clearly by divine