Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	heart_n	law_n	write_v	15,886	5	7.0259	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66386	The certainty of divine revelation A sermon preached at St. Martins in the Fields, Feb. 4. 1694/5. Being the second 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.	Williams, John, 1636?-1709.; Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.	1696 (1696)	Wing W2695A; ESTC R220000	17,645	44

shews if true of shutting up Two Children in separate Caves where they never heard one Articulate Word and so could use none So that now Man must be taught and as he is taught so he speaks But we will put the case in which there was no Human Instructor and yet the Person spoke as articulately and had the free use of Words and knew as well how to express his mind by them from the very first as if he had had the best Helps for it in the world and had been never so long a time versed and practised in it and that Person was Adam who was created in a full Age and had none before him and yet must as soon have Words for use and Skill how to use them as he had to give Names to the Creatures according to their several kinds For without this what Conversation could he have with Eve or what Comfort could he take in her presence for it was not to be call'd Society and what a Dejection must there be in each of them when all other Creatures had their Notes for understanding each other according to the Species they were of but they themselves alone were mute So that though 't is not expresly said That Adam and Eve had any Discourse yet 't is as certain from the reason of the thing as it is that God spake to them or the Serpent and Eve spake together But 't is certain Adam must then be self-instructed or be instructed by God He must then invent a Language of himself or he must be taught by him that made him If he was to teach himself how could he know that he was able to speak or how can we think he would begin his Conversation by an attempt that way For 't is highly probable that they would first have began with dumb signs or some external motions as we see those ordinarily do that have no Words which others can understand or if they should at length have found out such an Expedient and formed some Articulate Sounds yet what a tedious course would this have been and how long before it could be wrought into a Language that they could first Think of Words and then Remember them and then Use them and then fall into Discourse Don't we find how difficult it is to learn to speak a Foreign Language when we have all Advantages for it by Instruction and Discourse with those that speak it But suppose Two Persons wholly strangers to one another and of a Language as different as Chinese and English should meet together and be constrained by Circumstances being without other Society to converse with each other though each had a Language of their own and knew how to speak and form Words for Pronunciation yet how long would it be before they could fix the Words for it and to have a Term for every thing they were to discourse about to invent and agree upon it and then to remember them and then to use them And then much more will the difficulties increase were these Two in the case of Adam and Eve and to beat out the Track which never any walked in before to invent Speech it self and Words to be spoken and sufficient to express the Thoughts of each other so as to make Company and that Company agreeable acceptable and useful This must have been the work of Time if it had been practicable and the Difficulty of it would have made each others Company a Burden rather than a Pleasure till such time as they could come to a mutual understanding of one anothers minds and inclinations And therefore to make them meet helps for each other it was of Necessity that they should have an extraordinary Power communicated from Heaven and be enabled by that Instinct as soon to speak as the other Creatures are in a course of Nature to utter such Voices as are suitable to their kind or as Mankind are to express their Passions of Joy or Sorrow by Laughter or Tears So that 't is not without reason I rank the Gift of Speech among those things that are of a Divine Infusion and so equivalent to Revelation 2. Another Instance of this kind is what is usually called Common Notions or Natural Impressions Common Notions because they are common to all Mankind and Natural Impressions because they are conceiv'd not to be acquired by any Human Means such as Education and Instruction Observation and Experience but are imprinted on our Nature by an Immediate and Supernatural Power That there are such Notions as all Mankind do agree in is undeniable such as the Belief of a God an Adoration to be given to him and that there is an essential difference between Good and Evil so that Good cannot by any art or endeavour be made or esteemed to be Evil nor Evil Good For as the Natures of the things themselves cannot be altered so neither can our Conceptions of them It is as undeniable That these Notions or Impressions are so early to be discovered and do so grow up with our Reason that they seem not to be the Effects of our Reason but rather to be antecedent to it and that it is rather what we Find than what we Chuse what belongs to our Nature than what we add to it And accordingly as we have a Notion so a Sense of those things antecedent to all Reasoning and Instruction which we call Conscience excusing or else accusing according to the nature of the things whether good or evil Now as the Nature of the things must be before our Conception of them so both must be before we pass this practical Judgment upon them And if we do exercise this Faculty antecedent to all Instruction then so must the Sense of the things be about which it is exercised So the Apostle Rom. 2. 14. When the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law these having not the law are a law unto themselves Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts their conscience also bearing witness c. Which is exactly agreeable to the Phrase of the Wisest among them So Aristotle calls it the Natural Common and Unwritten Law But above all Cicero who best knew the sense of the Philosophers and how to express it doth speak fully to this point both as to the Universality of these First Notions and the agreement in them by all Mankind both as to the nature and rise of them There is saith he a certain Law not written but native to us which we have not learned received nor read But we have taken and derived it from Nature it self to which we were not Taught to be conformed but Made it was not by Institution but Infusion This in another place he saith all men have by a certain Anticipation and calls them innate Cogitations and will allow it to come from no less a Power than what is Divine We have saith he received

a Conscience from the Immortal Gods which cannot be plucked away from us So that whatever Improvement these Notions and Impressions may receive from an after Instruction yet they seem to be implanted in us by the same Power that made us reasonable Creatures who no more could leave himself without Witness in our Minds than in the Works of Nature And being thus antecedent to our own Reasoning or other information can proceed from no other a Principle than Revelation doth and is therefore equivalent to it III. There is a Traditionary Proof of Revelation which is by Testimony or by such Instances as are a part of the Revelation and of which as I conceive no tolerable account can be given if they are not allowed to be of Divine Institution In order to which 1. I observe That the Want of a Revelation in any particular Nation or Age is not an Argument sufficient to prove that there never was any Revelation For Revelation being more especially of things not knowable by the mere Light of Nature may be lost while the Light of Nature remains It being in this case much as it is in Matters of History which may be derived from one Generation to another and especially by Registers and Memorials But if a former Generation be careless and slothful or the Records not faithfully wrote or kept the Matters of Fact in one Age are irrecoverably lost in the next or turned into Fables Of which the Earliest Times are too manifest an Instance and for which reason Varro did not divide them amiss into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obscure or unknown and fabulous Which lasted till the First Olympiad and that was at soonest Anno Mundi 3173 when the Historical Age according to him begins Now as the want of such Histories will not prove that there never were any such and much less that there were no Matters of Fact for the furnishing such Histories So though there be no Revelation or no Memorials of such a Revelation in some particular Nations or Ages it will not necessarily follow that there never was any such Revelation made to the World 2. When I propose the Proof of a Revelation I would not be understood so much as to suppose That there was from the beginning or before the Time of Moses a Pandect or Collection of Divine Revelations but only that there were Inspired Persons to whom God did as occasion served reveal himself in sundry times and divers manners such as Adam Enoch Noah c. 3. Where there has been or is no Revelation or pretence to it if any such Age or People ever were yet there are or have been in those Ages or Nations certain Footsteps of such a Revelation and which whereever they are found are as evident Marks of such a Revelation as Pillars or Crosses found in a Countrey at present uninhabited are that there have been some persons that have been there before and have erected those Monuments 4. I account such Usages Rites and Principles to proceed from Revelation that have no foundation in Reason and the nature of the thing but are correspondent to what we call Revelation and which can well have no reason at all assign'd for them if not the Reason given in that Revelation Such are Expiatory Sacrifices and other things relating to Divine Worship 5. This is the more confirmed if such Usages Rites and Principles have been observed practised and believed in Nations that have had no relation one to another no Commerce or Communication nor sometimes knowledge of one another for then they must arise from some common Head from whence they were ab-originally dispersed among the several Branches of the same Stock When one People has been mixed with another as the Jews and Egyptians or derived from another as the Colchi from the Egyptians or there have been Commerces and Confederacies Wars and Conquests 't is no wonder they intermingle in several Rites and Observances Of this we have a notorious Instance in Circumcision which by the abovesaid means came to be received by several Nations as the Ethiopians Egyptians and Colchi the Phoenicians and some of the Syrians as Herodotus shews But when the Usages Rites and Principles have been as well found where there has been no Communication as where there has 't is no less a sign they descend from one and the same Original than when the Waters of the Seven Branches of the River Nilus have one and the same Taste and Colour without any Communication that they do all descend from the Main Stream In like manner if we find suppose among the Seventy Nations into which 't is said Mankind was divided upon the Confusion at Babel several of the same Rites and Usages generally speaking concurring with those of what we call Revelation we must conclude That they were observed before that Dispersion and were wholly owing to as early an Institution Among the Instances that I shall make use of for the Proof of a Revelation I shall begin with those that relate to Divine Worship such as Time Sacrifices c. 1. Time That there is some particular Portion of Time to be set apart for the Publick Worship of God either by Divine Appointment or Humane Consent is absolutely necessary when it is to be the Act of a Society for Worship without some time for such Society to convene and assemble in must inevitably end in Confusion and Dissolution And therefore as God created the World as a Temple to exhibit and manifest himself in and created such Beings as should in their several Stations celebrate his Praise so when he had finished all his Work he established that Day which he rested upon to be from thenceforward devoted to that Service as we may see the Institution Gen. 2. 2. I call this an Institution for when could that be more seasonably instituted by Divine Authority than at the Close of the Creation when the Sanctification and the Reason of it were so immediately connected God blessed and sanctified it because in it he had rested from all his work It being not probable that there should be at that time no Institution when the Reason for it is expresly given or that there should be no present Obligation to observe it when there was an Institution If God had no sooner finished his Work but he sanctified the Day following 't is evident that the Obligation to observe it must begin with the Institution And if he sanctified it because on that Day he rested 't is as evident the Institution did begin with the Reason of it And then how improbable is it that God should bless and sanctify a Particular Day and yet for the space of Two thousand Years together should leave that Day in common with the other Days of the Week without any distinction How improbable again that it should be first instituted and made a Duty to the Jews only for a Reason that equally concerned all Mankind