DREAMS. Of all the subjects upon which the mind of man has speculated, there is parhaps none which has more perplexed than that of dreaming ; but whatever may be the difficulties attending the subject, we know that it has formed a channel through which Jehovah ;was pleased in former times to reveal His character and dispensations to His people. Under the three successive dispensa tions we find this channel of communication with man adopted. It was doubtless in this way that God appeared to the father of the faithful, ordering him to forsake country, kindred, and his father's house, and to go into the land that he would shew him. To this divine command Abraham paid a ready obedience. It was by a similar prompt obedience to the admonition conveyed to him in a dream that Abimelech (Gen. xx. 3), himself, and Abraham, too, were saved from the evil conse quences of his meditated act.
When Jacob was, as it were, banished from his father's house, in order to avoid the effects of his brother's implacable rage, he came to a place called Luz (Gen. xxviii. to), and, whilst there, sleeping under the canopy of heaven, he had communication by dream, not only with angels, but with God also. In Gen. xxxi. to, Jacob informs his wives that it was God who saw how Laban oppressed him— who had directed him to take the speckled, etc., cattle for his wages, and had ordered him to return home. He obeyed ; and when Laban, designing to do Jacob some harm (Gen. xxxi. 24), pursued, and after seven days overtook him, God, by a dream, prevented the meditated evil.
Joseph, whilst yet a child, had dreams predic tive of his future advancement (Gen. xxxvii. 6-1 1). These dreams are one, and were repeated under different forms, in order, it would seem, to express the Certainty of the thing they predicted. how they formed the first link in an extended chain of God's providential dealings the sacred record fully informs us. In the course of time, by being able to give an accurate interpretation of three predictive dreams, Joseph was raised from the prison to a par ticipation with King Pharaoh in the government of Egypt ! That the same divine mode of communi cating with man was continued under the Mosaic dispensation is evident from an express word of pro mise (Num. xii. 6), If there be a prophet amongyou, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak to him in a dream.' When Gideon warred with the Amalekites, and was alarmed at their vast multitudes, he was encouraged to do God's will by overhearing one of them relate his dream, and another giving the interpretation ( Judg. vii.) When the spirit of Samuel (whom the witch pretended to raise up) asked Saul, `Why bast thou disquieted me to bring me up ?' Saul answered, ' I am sore distressed ; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answers me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams : therefore I have called thee that thou mayest make known to me what I shall do.'
Again, it was in a dream that God was pleased to grant Solomon a promise of wisdom and under standing (1 Kings iii. 5, etc.) Job says (xxxiii. 14) God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceived) it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumbering upon the bed, then he openeth the ears of men and sealed) their instruction.' In order to guard against imposition, Moses pronounced a penalty against dreams which were invented and wickedly made use of, for the promotion of idolatry (Deut. xiii. I-5). Thus Zachariah (x. 2) complains, 'The idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have spoken a lie, and have told false dreams; they com fort in vain.' And so Jeremiah (xxiii. 25), I have heard what the prophets said that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed,' etc. Yet this abuse did not alter God's plan in the right use of them, for in the 2Sth verse of the same chapter it is said, 'The prophet that bath a dream, and he that bath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat ? saith the Lord.' The knowledge of visions and dreams is reckon ed amongst the principal gifts and graces sometimes bestowed by God upon them that fear him (Dan. i. 17 ; v. 11-14).
In the N. T. we read that when Joseph designed to put Mary away because he perceived her to be with child, Ile was turned from his purpose by a dream, in which an angel made the truth of the matter known to him (Matt. i. 20). And in the following chapter it is stated that God in a dream warned the wise men not to return to Herod. Moreover, in verses 13 and to, Joseph is instructed to flee into and return from Egypt with the child Jesus. Whether the dream of Pilate's wife was a divine intimation we cannot tell.
That divine dreams, which actually were im parted to God's servants, should be imitated in fictitious representation by ancient and modern writers, was consistent no less with the general ob jects of superstition and imposture than with those of literature. Hence divine dreams became the constant appendages of the heathen mythology, and accounts, real and fictitious, of communications in vision were interwoven in every production. Information which was superior to the vulgar phi losophy of the time intimated its discoveries as suggestions imparted by inspiration. If a warning was to be conveyed, what so affecting as the ad monition of a departed friend ! Such machinery was particularly adapted to works of imagination, and the poems of antiquity, as well as those of modern times, were frequently decorated with its ornaments.
We inquire not how far God may have revealed himself to man beyond what Holy Scripture records. Some of the dreams, both of ancient and modern times, which lay claim to a divine character, are certainly striking, and may, for aught we know, have had, and may still have, a collateral bearing on the development of God's purposes. [DiviNA TtoN.]—J. W. D.