gracious scheme was introduced indeed by divine dreams, which afforded an assurance of the miraculous conception of our Lord*, and the birth of his forerunner †, and it was afterwards supported by a frequent display of God's interference manifested in vision.

These were consistent with the intimations of prophecy: Joel speaking of the times of the Gospel, had thus predicted in God's name, "Behold it shall come to pass afterward, that ́ I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions, and also upon the servants and the hand maids, in those days will I pour out my Spirit §; and this appears to have been sufficiently fulfilled, as well by the instructions conveyed in dreams to St. Peter,

Matt. i. 20.

Matt. ii. 12. 19. xxvii. 19.

† Luke i. 11-22.

$ Joel ii. 28, 29. comp. with Acts ii. 16, 17.

St. Paul*, and others, as by the miraculous. descent and influence of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

It deserves to be remarked, that the dreams mentioned in Scripture, which were subservient to prophetic revelation, were of the most part composed of objects previously familiar to the minds of the favoured person, though so combined as to be representative of future events. As in the instance of the vision imparted to Peter, in which he beheld a vessel descending unto him, wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. Some, however, presented spiritual beings, of which the human apprehension could have no experimental knowledge but by divine revelation, and some, scenes of unspeakable glory, which though the mind might be permitted to

*Acts ix. 10. xi. 5. xvi. 10. xviii. 9. 2 Cor. xii. 1-3. See also Matt. xxvii. 19.

† Acts x. 10-16.

contemplate them in miraculous extasy, when doubtful whether in the body or out of the body, yet could not be described in human language, or made intelligible to human conceptions in the ordinary state of corporeal existence *.

* 2 Cor. xii. 1-4.

CHAPTER X.

ON DREAMS SUBSEQUENT TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY, WHICH HAVE NO TITLE TO BE CONSIDERED AS INSPIRED.

Meanwhile those prejudices which mingle themselves with true religion find, as we may say, the means of becoming confounded with it, and of drawing to themselves the respect due only to it. We dare not attack them, from the apprehension of attacking, at the same time, something sacred.-Cependant ces Préjugés, &c. Fontenelle Hist. de Oracles.

As there were some original dreams which contributed to the conveyance of divine instruction to mankind, the general notion of inspired dreams was built on experience; though it was afterwards enlarged to comprehend many fictitious accounts fabricated in later times, in imitation of those visions which were furnished in testimony of truth.

It is uncertain at what period preternatural visions ceased to be afforded: those who consider them as having constituted a part of the evidence of Christianity, will suppose them to have ceased with the other documents of a miraculous œconomy; and if they survived the apostolic age, to have terminated with the preternatural gifts of the Spirit, which probably finished when the gospel had been promulgated towards the third, or, at farthest, the fourth century.

Cyprian, who flourished in the third century, pretended to have had divine visions on extraordinary exigencies; as in his Letters to Cæcilius*, he professed thereby to have been instructed to mingle wine with water at the eucharist, in opposition to those who had only water. Tertullian also speaks of visions imparted to others.