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A76490 A discourse upon the powers of the world to come, or, The miraculous powers of the Gospel, and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and their certain return at the kingdom of Christ in its succession / by T. Beverley. Beverley, Thomas. 1694 (1694) Wing B2138; ESTC R205346 146,914 191

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to that last making known which is therefore great Proof the Power of Miracles is not so ceas'd but that it shall Return Argum. 5. Another Argument I would give for the return of Miracles is that Prayer Acts 4. 29 30. Lord grant unto thy Servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word and that Signs and Wonders may be done by the Name of thy Holy Child Jesus I desire to know what words of Limitation are to be found in this Prayer or where any place of Scripture can be found where the Servants of God are Discharg'd from expecting Miracl●s any more Where is it said Hitherto shall Miracles go and no further Where is it said they shall cease here or here They are ceased here are the Bounds I have given Leave They shall reach unto this Point but no further There was a Sealing up Scripture from the Day of Malachy the Prophet until John the Baptist his Times With him Scripture began again by the Evangelists There is a sealing up Scripture again by the Apostle John in the end of his Gospel c. 20. 39. c. 21. 25. These things are written that ye might Beleive and if All things were written the World could not contain them It seems order'd by Peculiar Disposes of Providence that the Books of Scripture should be clasp'd up with that End of the Revelation c. 22. 18 19. But there is no bound set to Miracles or Miraculous Power It is true it hath ceased but by no Act cutting off as I may say the Entail tho there is a suspension This Prayer therefore altho it hath had a long Interruption in its effect yet it hath no cessation put upon it but It shall prevail unto the Kingdom of Christ from the Promise of which Psal 2. it was taken The Hand of God we know is not shortned that it should work no more Miracles but the Apostasy fallen upon the Profession of Christianity hath brought forth this long Interval yet the Lords Hand shall be again stretched out and shall not be called back till he hath accomplished the thoughts of his Heart and whatever he hath spoken concerning the Glory and Kingdom of Christ and of that World to Come whereof saith the Apostle we speak when we speak of the various Miracles and Gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his own will there being so close a Connexion between the one and the other CHAP. VIII Of that Power of Miracles that always Accompanies the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and hath Rested upon the Witnesses and yet Rests upon them During the whole Time past and to the end of the Twelve Hundred and Sixty Days of the Woman in the Wilderness and the Witnesses in Sackcloath and the Forty two Months of the Antichristian Apostasy IT may seem that by giving such Accounts of the Cessation of Miracles and such Arguments for the Return of Miracles that it is the Intention of this Discourse to deny all Miraculous Presence of our Lord Jesus Christ now with his Gospel I shall therefore to clear that Part spend this Chapter in the Stating and Vindicating so weighty a point in these following Particulars shewing the Constancy of Spiritual Miracles 1. Those Mighty Miraculous Spiritual Powers of the Gospel never remove from it wherever the Gospel comes they come wherever the Gospel-Styl'd the Kingdom of God Removes being taken from any they Remove also And tho these are not accounted Miracles because they do not assure themselves to sense yet the Intrinsick Inward excellency of them is such that they are indeed the true Miraculous Nature if I may so speak both as they are Effects and Emanations of Immediate Power from Heaven and as they are so many essential Parts and peices of the World to come And First The Gospel is its own Miracle so rich a Manifestation of Truth that had been Hid from Ages and Generations and now manifested in these last Times But besides It is Truly Miraculous in its Effects 2. The Acceptance of Believers in Jesus Christ to Righteousness before and with God through Free Pardon and Justification by the Blood and Obedience of Jesus Christ. 3. The Renovation and change of the Whole man and of the Action and Conversation by the Spirit of Jesus Christ mortifying the corrupt Lusts Inordinate Affections and filling the Soul with every Grace to Newness of Life and Obedience 4. Dying or Sleeping in and by Jesus Christ when Saints Spirits call'd out of the Body go up to God and Christ 5. When any one is Assured in his own mind hath full Evidence when he Finds all he ever did is brought under Conviction and Confession as in the Woman of Samaria and that the Heart and Life are chang'd why should Miracles be narrowed so much to sense while thus there is surmounting Evidence to the whole man Now altho the Working and Actings hereof are Invisible and Indiscernible by Sense yet they are as Spiritual greatest Realities every way above the Power of Nature or its Comprehension Asserted in all Scripture to be the mighty Power of God and giving a Rich or abundant Entrance into the Kingdom of our Lord und Savi●ur Jesus Christ and therefore wanting only the Externe Appearance and Assurance but giving greatest Inward Assurance For they are Acknowledged and Comprehended by All Saints even this Heighth Depth Breadth and Length of which the Apostle speaks Ephes 3. 18. As if he hereby intended Mathematical Assurance They are Inwardly Seen Heard Tasted and Felt and they have the Odours the Flavours of the Kingdom of Christ causing the Triumphs of his Servants the certain Observation of all by standers who cannot but acknowledg their good Conversation the Holy Lives and Comfortable Dying of the Saints of Christ and many have been wrought upon hereby to Faith in Jesus Christ the acknowledged Principal End of Miracles But besides these which are always Inseparable from the Gospel There are those the Spirit of God hath told us are proper to the very Time of the Apostasy as a Counterpoison to it manifested in and by the Witnesses of that Time I would therefore open as I have before shewn Miracles are to be Divided into Miracles of Mercy and of Judgment How far Miracles continue even all the Time of the Antichristian Apostasy in each way or manner of Exercise But it is Heedfully to be Remembred They were not Represented and Counterparted with those open and sensible Miracles which are indeed the Miracles that more properly we are now in Discourse of such as force the Sense and call upon men Universally to say Here is the Finger of God For the Witnesses and their Miracles were under the Seal of the Living God as I have already Reason'd and so were not seen and acknowledged but by comparing Spiritual Things with Spiritual and therefore not by Natural Men even Men of Sense great Reasoners as they are Reputed without the help of the Divine Spirit 1. It was truly a Miracle to
indeed a Bringing down Fire from Heaven Now what was this but a denouncing the Judgments of God upon Antichristianism that shall so surely be Fullfill'd in their Season And of this there are many great Witnesses and Monuments In the Darkest Times there were those that let Fly as we speak against the Papacy who spared not to call the Pope Antichrist to his Face to Affirm Christianity was Turn'd into Paganism among them Fire went out of their mouths to this very purpose to Threaten that Antichristian Monarch and his so call'd Catholick Church with all the Vials of the Revelation the Plagues and the Curses of it to say God abhorr'd it and would Bring it into Judgment And tho the Witnesses were Slain before men as Witnesses of Lyes only by the Anathemas Excommunications Brands of Heresy Pour'd out upon them yet that Antichristian State These Witnesses of Christ had Power to Kill Ten Thousand Times more For all that they have spoken shall certainly and everlastingly be Fullfi●l'd upon it and it is condemn'd already by the Mouths of so many Servants of Christ of which each Particular Soul of that Antichristian Union going out of this World hath Found the dreadful effects of which the Reformation hath been the effect and stands a Monument of which many severe Judgments by Mahometans and others Many strokes from Heaven have been the Evidences and in Regard of which Threatned and Executed The Witnesses a●e and were accounted by the Antichristian World their Tormentors But the Illustrious Fullfilling is yet to come when that wicked one shall be Consum'd or carried off by the Breath of Christs Mouth in the Preaching the Everlasting Gosp●l and utterly Abolished by the Brightness of his coming 2. The Second Thing in which the Spirit of God sets out the judiciary Miraculous Power of the Witnesses is They had Power to shut Heaven that it should not Rain in the Days of their Prophecy Now what was this It is taken from Elijah's swearing in the Name of the Living God There should be no Rain no Dew for three years and an half 1 Kings 17. A Symbol of these Three years and an Half of years or 1260 years For so I understand them Yet with Relation to a de●per Time like that of our Lord 's Lying in the Grave a part of Three Days For which Reason they are call'd Days and signify the Three Times and an Half as Days in all Languages Import Seasons Now the Doctrine of the Gospel and indeed all Instruction is Compar'd to Rain and Dew in Scripture My Doctrine shall drop as the Rain and Distil a● the Dew The Doctrine of the Gospel after the Ascention of Christ is expressed by Gods sending a plentiful Rain whereby he Confirm'd Strengthen'd or Refresh'd his Inheritance when It was weary Psal 68. 9. So in the Prophet the People are Call'd to to Break up their Fallow Ground Till God come and Rain Righteousness upon Them Hos 10. 12. The Shutting up of Heaven therefore in the Days of their Prophecy that It should not Rain shews 1. That there should be as is very well known was a very Dark and Barbarous Time as to all Learning and Knowledg in the Moons of the Apostasy that Chill Fruitless Planets of the Night from which the very Borrowed Beams of the Sun Fall Cold and Languid and without Vigor or Pregnancy 2. That there should be an exceeding Drought and Barrenness as to all Gospel Doctrines in their Life Purity Sweetness And how Remarkable this was all Protestants are I hope Sensible except they themselves Love still those Corrupted Pits and Cisternes of Popery or what hath the brackish Tast thereof 3. That there should be a very sad and woful Turning of the Earth or the Hearts of Men under the Name and Profession of Christianity into Iron and Brass as to all Gospel Softness and Fructification 3. And this will be yet clearer in the Third Particular They have Power to turn Water into Blood into the Blood of a Dead man as another Expression of the Revelation gives it us that is that hath no Motion Circulation Spirits Activity shewing the utter Ineptitude nay Impossibility of Popish D●ctrines as of Justification by Works Transubstantia●ion Pardons Indulgences Pennances Pilgrimages Worship of Saints Angels Virgin Mary Saints to be the Instruments of Conveying Life to Souls any more than the Stagnated Blood of a Dead Man to give Life or Motion to the Body in which it is so Arrested and Congeal'd But as Elijah said As the Lord Liveth there shall not be Rain nor Dew but at my word So the Witnesses may say but at our word at our Doctrine according to the Plainness Purity Sincerity of Gospel Preaching If they had stood in my Counsels They should have turned Sinners from their evil ways When men cull out the Morality of the Gospel only and our own Workings as many even of the Styled Reformed do little else Neglecting the Holding out of Christ in his Blood in the mighty Grace of his Spirit Hence the Doctrine of the Gospel becomes as the Blood of a Dead Man without Power of Conversion But it may be said would the Witnesses or should they ought they to shut Heaven or to turn VVaters into Blood I Answer The Preaching God hath given them to Preach the VVord he hath given them they must speak they must Preach If God hath given them to declare the rare and Seldom Conversions the Lowness and Penury of True Gospel Doctrine the Heavens shut during the days of the Apostasy they must Declare it their Declaring it done is the doing it what the Prophets Declare They Do as God says to Jeremy I have set thee to Build and to Plant to pull down and to Destroy So God Set these Witnesses to shut Heaven to turn Waters into Bood Again as Christ Taking to himself the Instruments of a good Shepherd condemned the Instruments of the Foolish Shepherd and so turn'd all the Preaching of the Scribes and Pharisees into Folly by Preaching himself with Authority and not as the Scribes So the Witnesses shut up Heaven and no Rain falls but at or by their Word and they turn waters into blood by Preaching Plainly and Powerfully and Sincerely the Truths of our Lord Jesus Christ And even many Souls perceive it of them as they did of Christs Preaching They find the Dullness and Deadness of other Preaching by that Thus God hath given Power to the Witnesses It is given to them to turn Waters into Blood and to shut Heaven that is to Preach sincerely themselves And to shew other Doctrines Poisonous Ruinous to the Souls of Men. Thus at this Day all the Doctrines that turn from Christ and Free Grace that is from the Spirit and Power of Christianity They are Discover'd by the Witnesses to be Destructive The Sheep that come up from the washing have Teeth white as Milk washed with the sincere Milk of the Word purified from this blood between their Teeth