Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n
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A59942
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Prodromos, or, The fore-runner of the peaceable consideration of Christs peaceful kingdom upon earth also containing many necessary matters ... : unto which are annexed divers things most useful ... / by W. Sherwin ...
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Sherwin, William, 1607-1687?
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1674
(1674)
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Wing S3410; ESTC R34235
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38,476
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42
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holy Catholick Church upon earth that we are to believe or hope for and the excellent Communion of Saints that we are in this world to expect And likewise that we are now especially by our prayers to labour to promote as God of old directed his people when their time of deliverance from Babylon drew on Jer. 39. Then said he they shall call on me and I will answer c. And when Daniel by Books understood the mind of God therein he set himself by fasting and prayer to seek for and help forward if it might be the accomplishment of such revealed Grace So now also that new Babel is abundantly revealed to God's People to be shortly to be thrown down and the New-Jerusalem much more abundantly revealed in Scripture shortly thereupon to be set up The Faith and Prayer of God's People ought in their sphear to seek to promote it and I observe the Dutch Notes though by men of different Judgments yet in the Preface of the nine last Chapters of Ezakiels Prophecy apply what is there said to some wonderful Glory of a Jerusalem to come of which the former restoring of the Jews from old Babylon was but a Type Besides I observe many Psalms and many passages in many other Psalms more than I read in Mr. Archers Book to tend so this way that otherwise as such prophetical-Scriptures besides seem not to have any probable fulfilling but according to Revelation Interpretation as I may call it which I must acknowledge I never did nor ever was like rightly and groundedly to have understood but according to the tenour of that blessed book And as Israels coming out of Egypt tended to the actual giving of them after forty years space the possession of Canaan of old so God's Peoples coming out of the spiritual Egyptian Antichristian bondage now approaching tends to bring all God's true Israel into the New-Jerusalem that comes down from Heaven Rev. 20. and is it not a main drift of the most if not of all the petitions in the Lord's Prayer to this purpose for when hath Gods Name been so comperably hallowed in Earth as it is in Heaven as then it will be both by Men and Angels in all he is made known by to his People When will his Kingdom come with such power to any suitableness in Earth as it is and will be in Heaven but when the Kingdoms of this World are the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ Rev. 11.15 And likewise when at the same time Rev. 19. God's People shall so rejoyce when the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth because as it followeth in the next verse his Bride hath made her self ready And consequently when will the Will of God be done in Earth as it is by the blessed Aegels in Heaven but when his Subjects are of most obeddient hearts and loyal spirits as they will be under suh a prevalent reigning of Christ When my daily Bread this day any day be so comfortably and confidently prayed for and expected as when the particular promises of the greatest confluences of Temporal and Spiritual Blessings are to be fulfilled in their proper season to their best purposes c. When may we with such comfort and confidence pray for forgivieness of our Trespasses this day any day as when our hearts shall witness with us we least allow our sins When shall we be so assured of our own pardon as when our spirits are most free and clear in pardoning others in case they offend against us When can we so confidently pray to be delivered from the evil one and evil works with the consequents thereof this day any day as when Satan shall be known to be bound Rev. 20.3 and many great temptations removed and a very great measure of Grace attained and neer Communion with Christ enjoyed in this World Yea and will not the following enforcements of Prayer set down by our Saviour be then most clearly aplicable when the Kingdom is most manifestly Gods and the Power both to obtain it at his own time and pleasure and so likewise to retain it appears clearly his and consequently all Glory as his due shall be rendred unto him to all eternity Amen Amen And for the Martyrs and Saints to be raised at the entrance of Christ on this his Kingdom to have their part in the New Jerusalem I had the like thoughts before to what I find in other Authors That they should be in a state such as Christ was in after his own Resurection while he was not acssended to his Father but when I consider the many Prophesies of all those great things in the Old Testament so confirmed in the New and especially applyed in the Revelation to the New Jerusalem not only by allusion but by application of the Spirit of God and Christ himself in a special manner Rev. 10.7 as he declared to his Servants the Prophets And at that time reward is to be given to his Servanis the Prophets Rev. 11.18 and to his Saints and to them that fear his Name both great and small as it follows in the same Scripture And it is of main weight in this point that when the Chorus was set about the Throne Rev. 4.1 2 3. c. when Saint John was to receive the visions of that Book there is a Glorious appearance of God described and the Rainbow round about the throne as doing all to his Church through the Covenant of Grace through the Blood of Christ his only begotten Son and the seven Lamps burning before the Throne deciphering the seven Spirits or the Holy Ghost with his Gifts and Graces as Rev. 1.4 more clearly in Rev. 5. there is a Book in the hand of him that sat upon the Throne which none was found worthy to open but the Lamb that had been as it were slain having seven Horns and seven Eyes vers 6. which occasioned the four living Wights and twenty four Elders to sing a new Song and afterwards fall down and worship but the top of rejoyceing for all that was in the Book and after all that should be done and suffered by and for and in Christs Church which they represented in that vision it was this which was the great enforcement of their joy while the World was to continue And say they vers 10. we shall reign upon Earth And that Subject of such their reign there after all their labours and sufferings of the Saints as their time of refreshment Acts. 3.19 and Sabbatism or rest Heb. 4. is largely treated of in sundry Particulars in the 19 20 21 22. the four last Chapters of the Book of the Revelations and that those things therein contained must necessarily be understood of the state of God's Church upon earth according to the series and order of the Book in the last times and therefore were never yet accomplished take into serious consideration the brief abridgment of Reasons and Testimonies following to that purpose 1. The New Jerusalem is said to come down
in the little book chap. 10. begins again with the affairs of the Church more especially having set forth Gods dispensations in respect of the Empire both while it was Draconized and after it had been Christianized Which little Book when John had eaten up he is told by the mighty Angel of the Covenant that he must prophesie again before Peoples and Nations and Tongues and Kings so that they might have advantage to know these Prophecies had they enquired as he had so prophesied for as it was otherwise of them so it was before them and as he had done it in one respect before namely of the Empire wherein the Church had her being so he should do it again in another respect namely of the Church who had her being there but chiefly under Antichrist in his time where there was another 144000 followers of the Lamb to arise chap. 14. Therefore after the Table of the Times in part of chap. 11. to ver 15. wherein we may see ver 1. a description of the state of the Primitive Times in ver 2. her state in Antichrists forty two months and ver 3. the true Churches state in regard of the most eminent part of it namely of the two Witnesses her Pastors their thousand two hundred and sixty days of years who should feed the Woman in her Wilderness condition and stand on Christs part against Antichrist powerfully and successfully till about the time of finishing their Testimony to ver 7. and then what should befal the Beast upon his last War against the finishing Witnesses upon their Resurrection and Ascention after the Beast had killed them to ver 17. where is the ending of the second Wo and thereupon comes in a short Abridgment of the seventh Trumpet containing the great Changes of the affairs of the World and of the Church namely evil to the wicked World but happy to the true Church and this excellent Abridgment seemed needful in regard of the great concernment of all sorts to understand this as of main use to the whole Book Again the foresaid Author faileth in not distinguishing between the first War the Beast makes against the Saints and Servants of Christ wherein he kills and prevails whereupon all the World wonder after the Beast and the second War against the Witnesses which is dismal and fatal to himself as Mr. Mede well observes and hence the said Author reckons the Witnesses slain above an hundred years ago and so passeth without taking notice of the last finishing Witnesses as then counting the Beasts forty two months expired reckoning the Vials in the seventh Trumpet before the second Wo be past or almost any thing of the Beasts ruine begun which work the Angels that have the Vials are to begin and finish as Mr. Mede and others judge upon considerable grounds c. But in chap. 12. is begun the story of the new Prophesie of the true Church in the Primitive times which is there represented by a Woman cloathed with the Sun and having the Moon under her feet and upon her head a Crown of twelve Stars whereby was described her excellency of the Primitive Church of Christ which soon contesteed with the great red Dragon and his Angels till she by Faith and Prayer obtained the Man-child Constantine the reforming Emperor by whose means God cast down the great red Dragon from his heaven upon earth together with his Angels by which means the Woman had two wings of an Eagle given her to flee into the Wilderness for a time times and half a time but before her flight into that retired hidden condition the Serpent cast out his flood of abominable Heresies chiefly against the Persons of the Holy Trinity by Arrius Eutiches Macedonius and others to have carried her away thereby which took up probably almost an hundred years before her time times and half with Antichrists 42 months took place all which time from Constantine the forementioned Author reckons within the date of the Beast and consequently he ends it as much too soon as may farther appear and yet for the Earths opening her Mouth and swallowing up of the Dragons flood of Heresies what he objects against the usual opinion to wit That it was not the incursion of the Barbarous Nations because some of them favoured Arrianism the same might likewise be objected against what he says of the visible Professing Rulers to be the Earth then opposing those Eerrors in many Councils though they favoured Superstition and so might be accounted the Earth but to that might be answered amongst them were many in those times good and Orthodox men about the fourth Century and yet perhaps more fitly it might be applyed to the Bishops of Rome and their party that in those times to get to themselves preheminence did take upon them to end differences in Religion and became in a sort famours thereby getting honor and credit among men thereby and being to be the Beast out of the Earth acting for earthly ends the Earth might be said to help the Woman by withstanding errors against the Sacred Trinity yet promoting Superstition c. and so might swallow up the flood Rev. 13. Concerning the two Beasts in the thirteenth Chapter the said Author is very excellent full and clear above any I have seen if he had timed their rising rightly only he seems to confound the number of his Name ver 17. with the number of the Beast ver 18. whereas the first denotes evidently the remotest sort of Antichrists followers that only may be reckoned or numbred amongst his party which were to be in the last days as they are described by the Apostle 2 Tim. 3.1 2 3 4 5. when others of the Beasts party come in the latter times which forbid Marriage and command to abstain from Meats c. 1 Tim. 4.1 2 3. But the number of the Beast ver 18. belongs to the Beast himself concerning the Exposition whereof he giveth a probable conjecture of his many errors as the Sober Guess and others produce many more which learned and industrious men have observed and particularly opposing the Beasts number to the 144000 or the measure of the Holy City and I conceive the considering it as numerus Terminans as Dan. 5. may be more considerable than many think as was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in another consideration setting out what Countrey man Antichrist should be and what Language he should use in his Laws and Worship wherein I conceive the wonderful Divine Wisdome of God is much to be acknowledged in setting down Mystery Babylons name so to exercise the several gifts he hath given to several men several ways to have their apprehensions agreeable to truth and considerable in reference to this menifold monstrous Beast wherein they are to be found in one respect on other and so the largest comprehensive sence is like to prove the true sence and many of them to be acknowledged real in such a strange compounded Creature of many as he