congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is amongst them, why lift you up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord?” God caused the earth to swallow Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, with their wives and children, alive, and consumed those two hundred and fifty princes with fire. Therefore neither Aaron, nor the people, nor any aristocracy of the chief princes of the people, but Moses alone had next under God the sovereignty over the Israelites: and that not only in causes of civil policy, but also of religion: for Moses only spake with God, and therefore only could tell the people what it was that God required at their hands. No man upon pain of death might be so presumptuous as to approach the mountain where God talked with Moses. “Thou shalt set bounds” (saith the Lord, Exod. 19:12) “to the people round about, and say, Take heed to yourselves that you go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it; whosoever toucheth the mount shall surely be put to death.” And again (verse 21), “Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze.” Out of which we may conclude that whosoever in a Christian commonwealth holdeth the place of Moses, is the sole messenger of God, and interpreter of His commandments. And according hereunto, no man ought in the interpretation of the Scripture to proceed further than the bounds which are set by their several sovereigns. For the Scriptures, since God now speaketh in them, are the Mount Sinai; the bounds whereof are the laws of them that represent God’s person on earth. To look upon them, and therein to behold the wondrous works of God and learn to fear Him, is allowed; but to interpret them, that is, to pry into what God saith to him whom he appointeth to govern under him, and make themselves judges whether he govern as God commandeth him or not, is to transgress the bounds God hath set us, and to gaze upon God irreverently.
There was no prophet in the time of Moses, nor pretender to the spirit of God, but such as Moses had approved and authorized. For there were in his time but seventy men that are said to prophesy by the spirit of God, and these were all of Moses his election; concerning whom God said to