Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	baronet_n	knight_n	sir_n	27,306	5	7.3237	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66409	The possibility, expediency, and necessity of divine revelation a sermon preached at St. Martins in the Fields, Jan. 7. 1694/5 : at the beginning of the lecture for the ensuing year, founded by the honourable Robert Boyle, Esquire / by John Williams ...	Williams, John, 1636?-1709.; Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.	1695 (1695)	Wing W2718; ESTC R2129	12,841	37

D r. WILLIAMS's FIRST SERMON AT M r. BOYLE'S Lecture 1695. IMPRIMATUR Jan. 26. 1694 5 Guil. Lancaster THE remaining Sermons for this Year will be Preach'd at St. Martins the First Mondays of February March April May September October and November The Possibility Expediency and Necessity of Divine Revelation A SERMON Preached at St. Martins in the Fields Jan. 7. 1694 5. AT THE Beginning of the LECTURE For the Ensuing YEAR Founded by the Honourable ROBERT BOYLE Esquire By JOHN WILLIAMS D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty LONDON Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard And Tho. Cockerill at the Three Legs in the Poultrey M DC XC V. TO THE Most Reverend Father in God THOMAS Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Sir HENRY ASHHURST Knight and Baronet Sir JOHN ROTHERAM Serjeant at Law JOHN EVELYN Senior Esquire TRUSTEES by the Appointment of the Honourable Robert Boyle Esquire MOST HONOURED HAving by your Generous Election entred this Year upon the Lecture founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle the Great Encourager of Piety and Learning it becomes me in Obedience to your Order and according to the Intent of the Deceased to Present You with the First-fruits of my Labour The Subject I treat of is of Vniversal Concernment to the Christian World and is to be handled with Reverence and Care The former I shall all along keep in my eye and the latter I shall not neglect as far as in me lies But whatever Defects your Better Judgments shall espy throughout these Composures I hope the same Goodness that disposed you to place me in this Sphere will incline you to overlook and to accept of the Sincere Endeavours of MOST HONOURED Your most Faithful and Humble Servant JOHN WILLIAMS HEB. I. 1 2. God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son THERE are Two ways by which Mankind may attain to the Knowledge of Divine Things namely Natural or Supernatural Natural is what we have springing up with our Faculties or what we attain by Natural means by Sight Observation and Experience by Tradition which is the History of others Knowledge and Experience and lastly by Reason and Argument deducing Effects from their proper Causes or finding out the Cause by its Effects As for instance Thus we come to the Knowledge of God by observing the Frame of the World by the Series Order and Course of Things which could never be without some Cause to produce them and that Cause no less than One Infinitely Powerful and Wise Thus we Argue That there is a Soul in Man distinct from the Body and surviving a Separation from it forasmuch as there are such Operations as are not Competent to Matter and that there is such a desire of Immortality placed in Mankind as would make the Flower and Choicest part of the Visible Creation the most Miserable if there was no Capacity in the Soul for such a State or no such State for a Soul capable of it Such Inferences as these are as Natural to a Reasonable Mind as those Observations are which we make from the reports of Sense and are therefore deservedly accounted Branches of Natural Religion Now this kind of Knowledge is more or less evident is stronger or weaker according to the capacities and dispositions of Mankind and according to the opportunities and means they have of Information And therefore a Philosopher that sets himself to enquire into the Mysteries of Nature and to observe the Curiosity Order and Beauty of its Fabrick may in Reason be supposed to be more confirmed in the Belief of a God and more disposed to Serve and Adore him than he that is ignorant as he that understands Painting or Carving can more observe and applaud the Ingenuity and Skill of the Artist than he that is unacquainted with it But after all so much is the Subject above our reach and so dark and intricate are all our Reasonings upon it that the Sagest Philosopher in the conclusion is left as unsatisfied as the meanest Peasant and perhaps more unsatisfied with his Knowledge and the deep and unfathomable Abyss he sees before him than the other is with his Ignorance so far making good what Solomon observes He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow Eccles 1. 18. So that there needs some brighter Light than that of Nature to conduct us to Happiness and bring us to a compleat and entire Satisfaction and that is a Supernatural Knowledge a Knowledge that is not to be obtained by the ways aforesaid by Enquiry and Observation but by inspiration and Revelation from Almighty God And this is the Subject of the Text. God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son In which Words we have 1. A Description given of Revelation it 's God's speaking to the Fathers c. that is it is God's delivering his Mind to Mankind by Persons chosen for that purpose and peculiarly fitted for it by Inspiration Such were the Prophets in time past and the Son in the last days 2. The certainty of it it is by way of Declaration God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake c. The Apostle takes this for granted as having been sufficiently proved and so needs no farther confirmation So it was in times past when God spake by the Prophets and so it was in the last days in the Revelation of the Gospel which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was saith our Apostle confirmed unto us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost Chap. 2. 3 4. And therefore as Moses did not think himself obliged at the entrance into his Divine Work to prove there is a God and that God made the World when there is such an inbred knowledge of a Deity implanted in human Nature and such clear and undoubted evidences of it throughout the Universe but supposes and asserts it In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth c. So after such manifest proofs of the Divine Authority of both the Prophetical and Evangelical Revelation the Apostle would not so much as suppose any doubt in the minds of those he wrote to but begins his Epistle with a certain Majesty becoming an Inspired Author God who at sundry times c. 3. The Order observed in delivering that Revelation it was at sundry times and in divers manners At sundry times 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or in several parts which may refer either to the several Ages and Periods viz. The Patriarchal Mosaical and Prophetical or to the several Manifestations of Divine Revelation through those Ages and Periods from the first Embryo of it in Adam to the close of it in John the Baptist in