A26892:5749
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.
Part 3 › Chapter 11: Directions about our Communion with the Holy Angels.
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.
CHAP. XI. Directions about our Communion with the Holy Angels.
§. 1. Direct. 1. BE satisfied in knowing so much of Angels as God in Nature and Scripture 1hath revealed, but presume not to enquire further, much less to determine of unrevealed things. That there are Angels, and that they are holy Spirits, is past dispute. But what number they are, and of how many worlds, and of what orders and different dignities and degrees; and when they were created, and what locality belongeth to them, and how far they excel or differ from the souls of men, these and many other such unnecessary questions neither Nature nor Scripture will teach us how infallibly to resolve. Almost all the Heretics in the first ages of the Church did make their doctrines of Angels the first and chief part of their Heresies: arrogantly intruding into unrevealed things, and boasting of their acquaintance with the orders and inhabitants of the higher worlds. These being risen in the Apostles days, occasioned Paul to say, Col. 2. 18. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility, and worshipping of Angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.2
§. 1. Direct. 1. BE satisfied in knowing so much of Angels as God in Nature and Scripture 1hath revealed, but presume not to enquire further, much less to determine of unrevealed things. That there are Angels, and that they are holy Spirits, is past dispute. But what number they are, and of how many worlds, and of what orders and different dignities and degrees; and when they were created, and what locality belongeth to them, and how far they excell or differ from the souls of men, these and many other such unnecessary questions neither Nature nor Scripture will teach us how infallibly to resolve. Almost all the Hereticks in the first ages of the Church did make their doctrines of Angels the first and chief part of their Heresies: arrogantly intruding into unrevealed things, and boasting of their acquaintance with the orders and inhabitants of the higher worlds. These being risen in the Apostles dayes, occasioned Paul to say,