not come to his End so soon but must do at last as is intimated concerning the Turkish King of the North Dan. 11. ult Now to keep France so within its own Figure is a Service so considerable to Providence according to Prophecy that it should make Princes and Nations Patient under the inconveniency of War to such an End And it may Answâ—r for a Confederacy of Protestants with Popish Powers so far as that it may be made use of by Providence to such an End as Restraining France Agreeably to Divine Determination And it may justly call us to the Observation of Providence in Ballancing Things so as this Last and former Years it has done so that while as with one hand God is pleased to keep the French Power at such a Height with the other he so Ballances that it should not exceed its Figure So we see it in all the Disposes of Things to this Day So in the Wonderful Preservation of the Kings Person when danger was so every way about and Death so near him Because he hath raised Him up as so peculiar an Instrument to that purpose to give a stop to the Exorbitant Power of France as also to be an Interposer against the Return of Papal Power on these Protestant Nations of England Scotland and Ireland 3. As it was said to Barak This Journey or Expedition shall not be for thy Honour because God would fell Sisera into the Hands of a Woman Judges 4 9 So the great Success of Finishing the War upon France in Conjunction with the Turks God hath reserv'd for the Stone cut oâ—t of the Mountains who is not in any Human Hand No Greater nor more Victorious Atchievements have been therefore Granted to the Confederate Armies nor any gradual Appearances of the Kingdom of Christ because the Glory is reserv'd to Christ so that all shall be done by him in an instant on the sudden at the very Time Appointed by God viz. in the year 97. so near Approaching These things shall be done The French Grandieur as it now stands in opposition to the Kingdom of Christ shall be ground to Powder The Witnesses both the Vaudois and the French Protestants at this Time under his Power and Tyranny shall see the Morning Star Dawning They shall be with Christ when he Breaks the Nations with a Rod of Iron They shall feel a Spirit of Life Entring into them and Causing them to stand on their Feet and they shall hear a Voice from Heaven saying Come up hither The Turkish Woe shall be clear Remov'd But then together with this The Confederate Princes as giving their Kingdom yet to the Beast or Papacy and even the Protestant Princes so Far as they enter into the Constitution of a Nebuchadnezzars Image the Papal Hierarchic Clay where ever it is Found with iâ—s 7000 Names shall all be Ground to Powder also 5. The Supreme Sovereign Event of Events shall then come to paâ—s The Kingdoms of this World shall become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ He shall Reign in his own Name take to himself his Great Power and send out his Everlasting Gospel as on the Wings of Angels and Blessed is he who is not offended at these Things but Loves and Waits for them But indeed if God should please any way to bring down the French Power or Cause it but so much as to Lye still and to Dissolve the League between him and the Turkish Potentacy sooner my Hopes and Expectations might be that God were sooner also working by such Beginnings to much greater Things for the Change of the World In the mean Time I cannot but Represent things as Prophecy Represents them and I presume no further And that I find not to be till 97. Another Prophetical Note The Lord hath been pleas'd much to imprint upon my Spirit is that Habac. 2. 13 14. where the Prophet beholds in Litteral Babylon the Mystical Babilon the Town Built â—ith Blood the Intoxicating Soreeress Enchanting the Nations to the Exposing their Nakedness and Shame through Inebriating them with the Golden Cup of Fornication she holds in her hand and makes the Kings of the Earth Drunk with that they may commit the Whoredoms of Idolatry with her and in the beholding of this and the Foresight of the End and Destruction of it The Prophet is made to see in Spirit by the mighty Influence of that upon him while That bore and carried him alought and moved him and not any Created VVill but the Holy Spirit alone He speaks the State and Posture of Things that shall Confine and Border upon the Ruin and Destruction of that Babylon and the Manifestation of the Glory of the Lord Immediately Consequent upon it And this State he declares shall be by the peculiar Ordination and Constitution of the Lord of Hosts of him who has the Government of the whole Host of Heaven and Earth so that nothing shall be able to move to the Contrary The People shall Labour as in the very Fire the pure perfect Fire and shall weary themselves for very Vanity pure and perfect Vanity For so is it ordain'd by God that thus he may prepare for that great change of the World The very Reason why he orders it so is Because the Knowledg of the Glory of the Lord shall cover the Earth The Glory shall cover the Earth that the knowledg of the Glory of God may so cover it also even as the Waters the Sea that even as in the Sea there is nothing to be seen for Water even so in the Earth There shall be nothing to be seen for the Glory of the Lord it shall so take up the whole View througout all the Earth From hence therefore I Argue All kinds of Disappointment and Frustrations of All the Labour Undertakings Enterprizings that are in the World the Expectations from Princes Councels Governments From Trade and Commerce at Home and Abroad From Armies and Navies From Generals and Commanders of them and their whole Force and this not only in one part of the World but in the Nations and People taken together and in the Gross Such Labouring in the very Fire and wearying themselves for very vanity are no Argument against such a Glory of God being near and the Knowledg of such a Glory covering the Earth as the Waters do the Sea Such a Glorious Revolution and Change of the World being very nigh and at the doors so that they are rather an Argument for the nighness of it to us For God hath given us this as a Prognostick In the very same manner This Divine Prophet beholding that Great Vision of the Kingdom of Christ in its last Accomplishment when all his Enemies shall be under the Invasion with his Troops Intimates That even in the Labour and Service of Nature it self There shall be great Fâ—ustrations and Disappointments that the Fig Tree may not Blossom the Labour of the Olive may fail there may be no Fruit in the Vine
High Ends to be hereafter assign'd For I have been thus large in this matter it being both so Noble a Point as also because it makes much to the True Consideration of the Chief End of Miracles 2. I come therefore to a Second Consideration of Creation and Providence as giving Space and Room for Miracles to enter and that I shall represent First In the General and then be more particular with relation to Miracles 1. When Man had sinned and forfeited the Glory of that State of the Creation that had Respect to him That all things did not immediately as I may say tumble about his Ears dash in peices upon him or fall into an Universal Hell is owing to the Mediator who therefore is said Heb. 1. to Vphold all things by the Word of his Power even he who purged our sins by his own Blood thus upholds All that the Sun shines and invigorates all the Lower Creation with its Light and Beams that the Fruitfulness of the Earth and the Courses of Water remain All is due to the Glory of the Mediator Else All had return'd to the First Tohu Bohu its first dark and desolate state And yet notwithstanding it is so ordered in the Wisdom and Righteousness of God and by the Counsel between him and the Mediator or as Zachary says between them both that there should be many Interspers'd Appearances of the Curse as we all know by abundant sad Experience which are become so setled and expectable that we call such Appearances of the Curse Nature or are so frequent as we account them at least common to Man or Humane Nature such as Sickness Death Lameness Blindness many Insults of the Enemy or the Diabolical Nature either in plainer Possessions or more secret Impressions upon the Mind and Body Now if such Appearances of the Curse had not been there had been no place for many Miraculous Appearances of God and of Christ in Mercy and Grace and so if there had not been General Judgments and more solemn Appearances of the Curse there had not been such Miraculous Acts of Grace as the Ark was to Noah Zoar to Lot Goshen to the Children of Israel Had not there been such Strokes of the Curse there could not have been such Miracles of Healing Restoring Sight Raising the Dead All these Miraculous Acts of Mercy come in by way of Relief against the Curse There could have been no change â—n Exalting the Creation if it had continued according to the First State Good and very Good Except we suppose any Openings to an higher Advancement of Adam and his Posterity in the Kingdom of the Second Adam of whom the First Adam was but a Type and the First Sabbath a Type of that Great Sabbatism of the Lord from Heaven as the Apostle expresly asserts Rom 5. â—2 Heb. 4. 7. Let us therefore I humbly beseech attend to this very thing that there are such Remains of the Excellent Frame of the First Creation Dâ—e and Acknowledgable to the Grace of the Mediator and yet such Mixtures of the Curse as give Place or Room for Mirâ—cles For if all were Judgment there were no Place for Miracles of Mercy except of a Total Restoration For All had been One Peice of Wrath and so must be wholly Restor'd or not at all Or if All had been in the First State of Integrity there had been no need of Exalting the Creation till that Glorious Kingdom I can suppose of the Mediator of Amity or Conciliation tho not of Reconciliation But as Things are now That All Things do not unite in a State of Wrath and Ruine is because the Mediator purging our sins upholds All with the Word of his Power Else as God said when Wickedness had broken into the World to so great an heighth I even I do bring a Flood upon the World So he had put an End to it at the first coming in of sin had not the Mediator come between in the Seed of the Woman breaking the Serpents Head But when Noah had offered a Sacrifice an undoubted Type of the Sacrifice of Christ God then promis'd he would not Curse the Ground so any more but there should be Summer and Winter Spring and Harvest Day and Night until the very coming in of the Restitution of All Things And God set the Rain-Bow to be a Sign of that Covenant as we find Gen. 9. 13. and Ezek. 1. 28. and Revel 4. 3. The Rain-Ron encirculed the Throne All which shews the great Prevalency of the Mediator in the upholding the World in its present State That though God the Creator be to be acknowledg'd yet Creatorship and Providence are now Vested in the Redeemer But yet still there are such legible Characters of the Curse in innumerable Kinds that they give full place to Miracles in further and higher Grace to relieve against that Curse 2. There being such a State of Mercy and Grace through the Mediator there is place also given to another sort of Miracles viz. Miracles of Greater and more Extraordinary Strokes of Wrath than generally we observe in the World wherein the Mediator so far deserts his Interposal of Mediation and then Miracle of Judgment immediately enters so far also as may appear in several Great Instances to be given And this I desire you would seriously attend to because it will be found to contribute very much to the clearing the Great Point of Miracles I begin therefore the clearing this Matter in that first Judgment of the Flood upon the Old World In which as also in the Judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah the Apostles Peter and Jude instance because as is after to be shewn they have Great Concernment in making it appear That Miracles appertain to the world to come whereof we are speaking I begin therefore with this Flood on the World of the Vngodly for which whatever Preparations there might * According to the most Learned and Ingenious Theory of Dr. Burnet be yet to shew Gods own supreme Hand in it he thus expresses I even I do bring a Flood And to shew how far the Mediator did desert and how far he did not undertake is made more manifest He did undertake for Noah and his Family Noah is therefore said to find Grace in the Eyes of the Lord an Expression proper to the Mediators Undertaking The Rest even the World of the Vngodly not finding Grace were swallowed up Lo here a Miracle of Judgment For this was beyond the ordinary proportion of the Curse upon the Fall as bounded by the Mediator a Curse on the Earth far Greater than usual Again if we consider this in relation to Sodom Gen. 19. 23. The Sun was risen upon the Earth so far the Mediator undertook for Sodom Then Lot entered into Zoar At that very same time God Rain'd upâ—n Sodom and upon Gomorrah Brimstone and Fire from the Lord out of Heaven It could not be done before For says the Angel to Lot Haste thee Escape thither
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 Fullfiâ—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 aâ—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 Gospâ—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 deâ—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 aâ— 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 Dâ—ctrines as of Justification by Works Transubstantiaâ—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
shall be your Judges as in a Conneel The Miraculous Efficacies were also of greater Disposition and freer Distribution Accordingly we may suppose The 144000 with the Fathers Name writ on their Foreheads who learn the New Song First and those who are In structed by Them in it shall very Universally yet according to his Wisdom and Will who is the Supreme Donor be Endued with Power from above as Ministers of State in the Kingdom of Christ and Receiving Gifts for it 3. These Miraculous Powers were Dispens'd in a Frequency in a Continued Dayliness in an universality we find our Lord on all occasions dispens'd these Largesses of Heavenly Bounty and Compassion He never denyed any He extended them to his very Enemies the High Priests Servant onely he was as it were Repuls'd in his Grace by the Vnbelief of some He could do no mighty Works because of their Vnbelief that is he declar'd himself so that he might leave a Testimony against that Sin and Warn all of it Else He went about doing good He Healed all manner of Sickness and diseases And so by the Apostles This Miraculous Power was carried throughout the several Circuits of their Ministry as the Apostle Paul Witnesses concerning his own round about from Jerusalem to Illyricum He Preached the Gospel with mighty Signs and Wonders and Gifts of the Holy Spirit Rom. 15. And without doubt in the same manner shall this Miraculous Power Compass Sea and Land in the Preaching the Everlasting Gospel to every Tongue Nation and Lauguage And till this be I would Require none to believe Miracles are Return'd and then indeed it will be undeniable 4. As there was thus a Power of Miracles given to the Commission'd Officers of Christ and to his Gifted Servants So there was a Faith of both doing Miracles and a Faith of Receiving the Benefit of those Miraculous Efficacies For as the Apostle speaks of All Faith 1 Cor. 13. 1. Viz. Miraculous or Wonder working Faith So that I could saith he remove Mountains c so there is a Faith of Receiving the Benefit of Miracles For Peter and John and Paul are said Acts 2. c. 14 To perceive a Faith to be Healed a Faith of Receiving And our Lord took notice of the Faith of the Centurion and others altho it is True In many Acts of Grace there was no Regard we can Find to the Faith of the Receiver but the mighty Power and Mercy of God Sallyed out upon Persons by the Faith of the Ministers of the Miraculous Power Having Mercy because he would have Mercy And it gives us an Emblem of the Grace and Power of Christ in Conversion and bringing home to himself sometimes as it seems in a way of Preparation sometimes wholly without but however it seems it is certain Divine Power and Grace Drawing near did Erect that Faith that is in the Wise Ordination necessary to Receive Christ Grace Pardon Justification Sanctification even as the Miraculous Power of Christ being abroad and Drawing Nigh Raised so generally a Faith in that Miraculous Power so general and the particular Dtawing Nigh of Christ excited it in the particular Persons on whom the Benefits were bestowed And thus in the Return of Miracles the Servants of Christ both in Ordinary and Extraordinary Commission'd to Work Miracles shall be Cloath'd with a Faith to that End that those who can by no means Believe now such a Power shall Return will by Feeling that very Power comming upon them and the Hand-writing of the Fathers Name by the Spirit on their Foreheads will be fully perswaded of his wondrous works being as near as his Name to Declare it and these effects flowing out from it upon others There will be a Rousing the Senseless sleepy World that knows not yet the Blessings near it to wait for the Graces to be bestowed by this Power Till these things are No Opinions or best Fram'd Discourses No Essays Beginnings or Scatterings of such a Power can perswade I know none would have it so that Miracles are Returned But when these are none will be able to perswade the contrary and in the mean time the Hopes Expectations and Prayers of Christians are hereby rais'd 5. There arose then and there will arise at the Return of Miracles such full Assurance such Plerophory of Persuasion concerning the Truth of Things that they can be no more doubted than the Assurances of the Light and of the Day and indeed as Cartes Argues Rational Intellectual Assurance surmounts all Sensible even so Spiritual Surmounts both Sensible and Intellectual and this both as to matter of Fact that indeed such things are wrought and that they are wrought by God by a Divine Power and that herein is the Finger of God 6. Herewith a mighty Stream and Torrent of Truth pass'd along and Fill'd the World with the Light and Glory of it in very wonderful manner then and shall much more do so at the Return of Miracles that the Isles shall wait for the Law of Christ his Name shall be great from the Rising of the Sun to the going down of the same The Knowledg of the Lord and of his Glory shall Cover the Earth as the VVaters do the Sea The Light of one Day shall be as the Light of Seven For so hath the mouth of the Lord spoken He hath spoken and he will do it He will VVork and none shall let it He the Lord will hasten it in his own Time No one of these things shall want it's Mate and tho it be wonderful in our Eyes yet shall it be so in his 7. There was a mighty Power of Converting Grace a change of the Hearts Tempers purpose manner of Life and Conversation of men as appears by the 3000 Converted at one Sermon of the Apostle Peters Acts 2. a Real and Sincere and Sound Conversion as the Spirit of God Implies to us saying the Lord Added to that Number then of his Church and to his Church Daily such as should be saved The Five first Chapters of the Acts plainly shew us what the State of Christianity and of the Churches of Christ was before the Apostasy made some Inroads upon it c. 6. How they walk'd in singleness of heart all Spiritual Joy and Gladness of Heart in the Fear of the Lord and had all things Common a Heavenly Spirit and Temper prevailed in them And so shall it be at the return of Miracles a Spirit of Holiness Heavenly Mindedness Love Charity Singleness of Heart and all Purity shall come back with them For these inward Powers of Grace and Divine Presence are the Life and Spirit to Miracles when the one returns so shall the other also and nothing will indeed so convince the World of a Divine Power and Presence as to find it self thus Chang'd and quite other than as now it Criminates and recriminates upon it self as it now perpetually complains of Accuses and Condemns it self 8. As in the Miracles of Christ and of the Apostles there