ruths and goods of worship,
and the lot of profaners after death is the worst of all fates. They are
meant by the Lord's words in Matthew (12:43-45) about those whose last
state is worse than the first. Besides, if miracles were to be done for
those who have no faith from the miracles in the Word, they would have to
be done constantly and before their eyes. It may be plain from all this
why miracles are not done at this day.

134. (ii) No one is reformed by visions or by communication with the
dead, for they coerce. Visions are of two kinds, divine and diabolic.
Divine visions are effected by representations in heaven; diabolic by
magic in hell. There are also phantasmal visions, which are illusions of
an estranged mind. Divine visions, produced as we said by representative
things in heaven, are such as the prophets had who at the time were not
in the body but in the spirit, for visions cannot appear to anyone in
bodily wakefulness. When these came to the prophets, therefore, it is
remarked that they were "in the spirit," as is plain from the following:

Ezekiel said, The Spirit picked me up and carried me to Chaldea to the
captivity in a vision of God, in the spirit of God; so the vision rose
over me which I saw (11:1, 24).

Again that the Spirit bore him between earth and heaven and brought him
to Jerusalem in visions of God (8:3, 4).

He was likewise in visions of God or in the spirit when he saw four
beasts which were cherubim (1 and 10).

So, too, when he saw a new temple and a new earth, and an angel measuring
them (40-48 ).

That he was in "visions of God" then, he says at 40:2, 26, and that he
was "in the spirit" at 43:5.

[2] Zechariah was in a similar state when he saw

a horseman among myrtle trees (1:8 ff)

four horns (1:18) and a man with a measuring line in his hand (2:1-3 ff )

a candlestick and two olive trees (4:1 ff)

a flying roll and an ephah (5:1, 6)

four chariots coming out between two mountains, and horses (8:1 ff).

In a like state was Daniel when he saw

four beasts coming up from the sea (7:1 ff )

a combat between a ram and a he-goat (8:1 ff).

That he saw these things "in the vision of his spirit" is stated at 7:1,
2, 7, 13; 8:2; 10:1, 7, 8, and that the angel Gabriel was seen by him in
a "vision" at 9:21.

[3] John was also in the vision of the spirit when he beheld what he has
described in the Apocalypse, as when he saw

seven candlesticks and the Son of man in the mi