15. Belief no proof of revelation.
If this internal light, or any proposition which under that title we take for
inspired, be conformable to the principles of reason, or to the word of God, which is attested revelation, reason
warrants it, and we may safely receive it for true, and be guided by it in our belief and actions: if it receive no
testimony nor evidence from either of these rules, we cannot take it for a revelation, or so much as for true, till we
have some other mark that it is a revelation, besides our believing that it is so. Thus we see the holy men of old,
who had revelations from God, had something else besides that internal light of assurance in their own minds, to
testify to them that it was from God. They were not left to their own persuasions alone, that those persuasions
were from God, but had outward signs to convince them of the Author of those revelations. And when they were
to convince others, they had a power given them to justify the truth of their commission from heaven, and by
visible signs to assert the divine authority of a message they were sent with. Moses saw the bush burn without
being consumed, and heard a voice out of it: this was something besides finding an impulse upon his mind to go
to Pharaoh, that he might bring his brethren out of Egypt: and yet he thought not this enough to authorize him to
go with that message, till God, by another miracle of his rod turned into a serpent, had assured him of a power to
testify his mission, by the same miracle repeated before them whom he was sent to. Gideon was sent by an angel
to deliver Israel from the Midianites, and yet he desired a sign to convince him that this commission was from
God. These, and several the like instances to be found among the prophets of old, are enough to show that they
thought not an inward seeing or persuasion of their own minds, without any other proof, a sufficient evidence that
it was from God; though the Scripture does not everywhere mention their demanding or having such proofs.
