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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

whom the time past ended and the last days began In divers manners 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the manifold ways the Divine Spirit thought fit to communicate it self whether by Illapses on the Persons Inspired or by Raptures Visions Voices c. 4. The Perfection and Completion of Divine Revelation God hath in these last days spoken by his Son So that what was gradually and at sundry times delivered in time past to the Prophets was at once intirely and perfectly Revealed by the Son of God whom he hath appointed heir of all things Under the First of these I shall shew 1. What we mean by Revelation 2. The possibility of God's Revealing himself so to the Creature that the Creature shall certainly and evidently know that it is God that speaketh 3. The Expediency Usefulness and Necessity of a Revelation with respect to the Circumstances Mankind are in Under the Second I shall shew 1. That as it 's possible for God to Reveal himself and Expedient and Necessary for man that there should be a Revelation so God has actually thus Revealed himself at sundry times and in divers manners by the Prophets through the several Periods before spoken of and in the last days by his Son 2. I shall consider the difference between a real and pretended Revelation and how we may distinguish the true from the false 3. I shall shew that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament contain the matter of Divine Revelation and have upon them the Characters belonging to it Under the Third 1. I shall consider the several ways by which God did Reveal himself in times past by the Prophets as by Illapses Inspirations Visions c. 2. I shall endeavour to shew the difference between Divine Inspirations and Diabolical Illusions Natural Impressions and Delusory Imaginations 3. I shall consider the several Periods before the Law under the Law and under the Gospel and the gradual progress of Revelation from first to last from the lower to the higher degree and the perpetual respect one had to the other 4. I shall consider why God did thus gradually and at sundry times proceed in Revealing his Will to Mankind and why he did not at the first Communicate his Will to them as fully and perfectly as he did in the last days by his Son Under the Fourth I shall shew the Perfection of the Gospel-Revelation and that there is not to be any other Revelation till the End cometh when our Lord shall be revealed from heaven and shall deliver up the kingdom to the Father I have chosen thus at once to lay in Order the Scheme of what I intend God granting Life and Assistance to pursue that so the dependance of one upon another and the assistance each Point gives to the other throughout the whole might be the better observed I. I am to begin with Revelation 1. Where I am to consider What we mean by Revelation which is nothing else in the first Notion but the making known that which before was a secret so things revealed and secret are opposed Deut. 29. 29. And when it 's applied to a Religious use it 's God's making known Himself or his Will to Mankind over and above what he has made known by the Light of Nature and Reason Here we may observe that there are Three Classes into which whatever is the Object of our Knowledge may be reduced 1. There are things of pure and simple Nature and knowable by the Light of it without Revelation of this kind is the Knowledge of God by the Effects of a Divine Power and Wisdom in the world as has been shewed of which the Apostle treats Rom. 1. 20. The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal Power and Godhead 2. There are things of pure and simple Revelation that are not knowable by the Light of Nature but only by Revelation and if not Revealed are never in this state at least to be known or found out by Mankind of this sort is the Salvation of the World by Jesus Christ which was not discoverable by Men or Angels so the Apostle describes the Mystery of it Ephes 3. 9 10. Which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold Wisdom of God So 1 Pet. 1. 12. 3. There are things partly of Nature and partly of Revelation discoverable by the Light of Nature but imperfectly which we see as it were through a glass darkly and so they need Revelation to give them farther Proof and Evidence of this the Apostle gives an instance 2 Tim. 1. 10. when he saith our Saviour brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 making it as evident as the Light whereas before it was rather wished for than certain as was the case of the Heathens or much involv'd in Types as among the Jews Heb. 4. 3 c. So that Revelation of which sort soever it is is Supernatural and is only from God 2. I shall shew the Possibility of a Revelation and that Almighty God if he so pleases can so Reveal himself to the Creature that the Creature shall certainly and evidently know that the Revelation comes from God This one would reasonably think should need no proof and I shall therefore briefly touch upon it tha● I may proceed to the Third which I principally intend to make the Subject of this present Discourse I say it 's possible for God to Reveal himself to his Creatures 1. Why should this be questioned when we every day see men mutually discover their Minds each to other and by the use and direction of certain Organical Powers signify their Intentions Desires and Commands And why may not the Creator Reveal his Will to the Creature when one Creature thus can do it to another 2. Why should this be questioned when we may be certain Evidences know that a person is sent from God And then certainly the person that produces such Evidences as are to the satisfaction of others may himself be satisfied of the truth of his own Commission and the certainty of a Divine Revelation The former that others may be satisfied concerning a Mission from God is evident from such things declared which none but God could Reveal as Prophecies and such things done which none but God in man could do as Miracles Where these are they are as evident Proofs of a Revelation and Mission from God as the works of Creation are a Proof a Divine Agent The works of Creation prove a God because they are worthy of such an Infinite Cause and what none but such a Cause could produce And when such things are discovered which none but an Omniscient Being could discover and such things done which none but an Almighty Power could do we are by