A23636:137
The principles of the Protestant religion maintained, and churches of New-England, in the profession…
The principles of the Protestant religion maintained, and churches of New-England, in the profession and exercise thereof defended against all the calumnies of one George Keith, a Quaker, in a book lately published at Pennsylvania, to undermine them both / by the ministers of the Gospel in Boston.The principles of the Protestant religion maintained, and churches of New-England, in the profession and exercise thereof defended against all the calumnies of one George Keith, a Quaker, in a book lately published at Pensilvania, to undermine them both / by the ministers of the Gospel in Boston.
printed by Richard Pierce, 1690
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Introduction › Reflections on Chapt. 5. Of God, His Decrees &c.
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.
When he saith, If they partake neither in His God-head nor manhood, they partake not in Him substantially; wants Logic. We say they partake in His graces, and they are substantial things: and then he chargeth us for saying, that Graces are nothing but Accidents, we utterly deny it, we say they are neither the soul nor the body, but they are Adjuncts: and he might have learned to distinguish between Adjuncts and Accidents. Graces are Adjuncts to men, because they are separable without destroying their Humanity; this G. K. believes, and all that deny perseverance must believe it: they are not mere Accidents because Accidents cannot receive Accidents nor Qualities as Adjuncts may, and Graces do; hence the Epithets put upon them in Scripture. But he goes about to make Graces to be the very Divine Substance, because they proceed from GOD; When as if he had studied the Doctrine of God's Efficiency, he would have known better. Nor doth the Doctrine of Dr. Owen, or Mr. Rutherford, in the words of theirs which he Cites, at all run into the Quakers Blasphemy; for who doth not acknowledge the Person of the Holy Spirit, and the Person of Christ in their Operations, for they are personal acts, and therefore the Person ⟨p. 70⟩of the Holy Ghost dwells in us by his Operations, &c. And in sum, we believe that that there is a Divine Act or Influence on us, as in Creating so in assisting our grace; but our reaction of that grace is not God, but an exercise of that principle which is created in us, for Grace it self is a Creature Eph. 4.24.
When he saith, If they partake neither in His God-head nor manhood, they partake not in Him substantially; wants Logick. We say they partake in His graces, and they are substantial things: and then he chargeth us for saying, that Graces are nothing but Accidents, we utterly deny it, we say they are neither the soul nor the body, but they are Adjuncts: and he might have learn'd to distinguish between Adjuncts and Accidents. Graces are Adjuncts to men, because they are separable without destroying their Humanity; this G. K. beleeves, and all that deny perseverance must believe it: they are not meer Accidents because Accidents cannot receive Accidents nor Qualities as Adjuncts may, and Graces do; hence the Epithetes put upon them in Scripture. But he goes about to make Graces to be the very Divine Substance, because they proceed from GOD; When as if he had studied the Doctrine of God's Efficiency, he would have known better. Nor doth the Doctrine of Dr. Owen, or Mr. Rutherford, in the words of theirs which he Cites, at all run into the Quakers Blasphemy; for who doth not acknowledge the Person of the Holy Spirit, and the Person of Christ in their Operations, for they are personal acts, and therefore the Person