Selected quad for the lemma: hand_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
hand_n	body_n	lord_n	soul_n	6,297	5	4.9889	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66426	The several ways of revelation a sermon preached at St. Martins in the Fields, Octob. 7, 1695 : being the seventh of the lecture for the said year, founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esquire / by John Williams ...	Williams, John, 1636?-1709.	1696 (1696)	Wing W2733; ESTC R7609	14,474	36

Chald●ea had the state of Jerusalem as it was then in fact set before him whither he was brought in the visions of God and as evidently saw all things that were at that time transacted in the Temple as if he had been actually there And even the secret practices of the Elders and Priests in the most retired corners were at that distance exactly represented to him so that if he had been personally with them they had not been more visible to him There he beheld the Idols pourtrayed on the wall and the Seventy Men or Sanhedrim and Jaazaniah their Head in the midst of them with every Man his Censer in his hand and all the particulars as there described 3. In Vision things future are as evidently represented as if they were present Thus Saul when deprived of his Sight saw in a Vision Ananias coming in and by Imposition of hands restoring him to it and by which means as described to him before-hand he as perfectly knew Ananias when he came to see as if he had afore time been conversant with him From whence we may observe 1. That Vision is Supernatural so in the Old Testament Ezekiel saith The hand of the Lord was upon me And in the New St. John saith He was in the Spirit 2. That it is Internal when the Soul tho' in the Body yet for the present is as out of it as to corporeal Sensations and sees perceives and understands nothing by the external organs Thus it was with St. Paul in his wonderful Rapture when his Soul was in such an abstracted and elevated state that he himself could not tell whether he was in the body or out of the body So that when the Name of Vision is given in Scripture to this way of Divine Communication it is not from any use made of corporeal sight or that it is entertain'd with any external objects but because of the clearness and evidence of it and a conformity it therein bears to outward and corporeal Sense By which it is distinguished from external Representations which were also very frequent in those times of Revelation of which there were two sorts more especially viz. 1. That which the Jews call the Shechinah which was God's manifestation of himself in a visible Glory and Majesty without any form as he did to the Patriarchs and afterwards it was the token of his special residence among his people the Jews called therefore his dwelling between the cherubins 2. Another way of appearance was by Angels when they took upon them a humane form by way of condescension to mankind and for a freer conversation with them and from which form and umbrage the Scripture terms them Men but besides what the Sequel of Scripture and common Sense shews the Apostle hath taught us that they were Divine Messengers sent immediately from God upon especial occasions and emergencies But the Schechinah called The Glory of the Lord was a Manifestation of the Divine Presence and not a Revelation and the Angels were only Messengers of a Revelation And so neither of them belong properly to this place 3. Another way of Revelation was by Dreams There is so far an agreement between Vision and Dreams that in both the external Senses were bound up so that a Vision may be called a supernatural Dream and a Dream may be said to be a natural Vision and so in Job they seem to be taken for one and the same God speaketh in a dream in a vision of the night when deep sleep falleth upon men in slumbrings upon the bed But the Scripture otherwise usually speaks of them as two distinct ways of Revelation So Num. 12.6 If there be a prophet among you I the Lord will make my self known to him in a vision and will speak unto him in a dream So Joel 2.28 And the difference between them seems to be 1. That Vision properly speaking was generally if not always when the Visionary was awake whether by night or day but Dreams as the nature of the thing shews were when the external Senses were asleep and Reason as to its present operation was bound up with them 2. In a Vision the whole was supernatural without any humane predisposition or concurrence as the Scripture-phrase doth shew as St. John was said to be carried in the spirit into the wilderness and a Trance is said to fall upon St. Peter But to dream is a natural Motion of the Spirits and Disposition of Body which the Spirit of God or an Angel the usual Minister employ'd in such conveyances made use of both as the Mind was then in a state of repose and by the rest of the Body relaxed from the business of the day and also as what was suggested in that way made a stronger impression upon the Mind when not diverted by outward objects and occasions and that there was a cessation from all external and sensible operations For it seemed necessary naturally speaking that in all Revelations there should be a sedate disposition of Mind and an abstraction from all other Conceptions and therefore it was either sound so as in Dreams or made so by some Angelical and Divine Operation as in a Vision or Trance In both the Senses were therefore bound up but in a Vision by a supernatural Agency in Sleep or Dreams by the meer effect of Nature And if it be asked How then is there a Revelation by Dream when Revelation is supernatural and a Dream natural I answer Though it be as natural to dream as to sleep and a Dream is a Consequent if not a constant Concomitant of Sleep yet in this case which we are speaking of the Revelation or Dream was supernatural As to think or speak is natural to man but so to think or speak as is above the capacity of the Agent and what he of himself could never have thought or spoken shews that he is not so much an Agent as a Recipient and the Instrument made use of in the conveyance Thus it was no more natural for Balaam several Ages before to foretel what the children of Israel should do to the Moabites in the latter days than it was for his Ass to speak So to dream is natural but to dream of such things then in doing or of such things to come as are altogether independent on the Body nor by any methods of Nature or presumptive Art to be known or foreseen is supernatural Thus to dream was natural to Pharaoh as to others and his Dream of the Seven fat and lean Kine might have pass'd for the fruit of a nocturnal Imagination but by a Dream to be made understand that there should be successively Seven years of great Plenty and then Seven years of Famine could proceed only from a Divine Revelation And this will further appear in the process of this Discourse when I am to consider the difference between what is Natural and what is Divine c. 4. 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