A26892:1739
A Christian Directory
A Christian directory, or, A sum of practical theology and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortify every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
8. All Prophecies were not of equal obligation. The first Prophecies of any Prophet, who brought no attestation by Miracles, nor had yet spoken any Prophecy that had been fulfilled, might be a merciful revelation from God, which might oblige the hearers to a reverent regard, and an enquiry into the authority of the Prophet, and a waiting in suspense till they saw whether it would come to pass: And the fulfilling of it increased their obligation. Some Prophecies▪ that foretold but temporal things (captivities or deliverances) might at first (before the Prophets produced a Divine attestation) be rather a bare prediction than a Law; and if men believed them not, it might not make them guilty of any damning sin at all, but only they refused that warning of a temporal judgement, which might have been of use to them had they received it.
8. All Prophecies were not of equal obligation. The first Prophecies of any Prophet, who brought no attestation by Miracles, nor had yet spoken any Prophecie that had been fullfilled, might be a merciful revelation from God, which might oblige the hearers to a reverent regard, and an enquiry into the authority of the Prophet, and a waiting in suspense till they saw whether it would come to pass: And the fullfilling of it increased their obligation. Some Prophecies▪ that foretold but temporal things (captivities or deliverances) might at first (before the Prophets produced a Divine attestation) be rather a bare prediction than a Law; and if men believed them not, it might not make them guilty of any damning sin at all, but only they refused that warning of a temporal judgement, which might have been of use to them had they received it.
9. But our obligation now to believe the same Scripture Prophecies is greater; because we live in the ages when most of them are fulfilled, and the rest are attested by Christ and his Apostles who proved their attestations by manifold Miracles.
9. But our obligation now to believe the same Scripture Prophecies is greater; because we live in the ages when most of them are fullfilled, and the rest are attested by Christ and his Apostles who proved their attestations by manifold Miracles.