A23636:146
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.
There is a great fallacy lurks in his saying, (p. 76.) that as God hath provided grace whereby some shall certainly be saved; so by the same all are put under a possibility; and that they are not, is not for want of Sufficiency or Efficacy in this grace of its own nature. We grant there is a sufficiency in the means that God affords to save all such as enjoy the Gospel, i. e. a sufficiency of means Isa. 5.4. there need no more: nor doth He use more with them that are saved than with them that perish, 2. Cor. 2.10.16. But that He hath put a sufficient efficacy into these means in respect of all that enjoy them, is a paradox, whence is it then that they are not efficacious? The Efficacy is not in the means themselves, but in the Concomitancy of the Spirit with them to give it, and that is voluntary: and the very notion of a sufficient ⟨p. 76⟩Efficacy of means used, without the Effect wrought in them with whom they are used, is an unintelligible Quakerism.
There is a great fallacy lurks in his saying, (p. 76.) that as God hath provided grace whereby some shall certainly be saved; so by the same all are put under a possibility; and that they are not, is not for want of Sufficiency or Efficacy in this grace of its own nature. We grant there is a sufficiency in the meanes that God affords to save all such as enjoy the Gospel, i. e. a sufficiency of means Isa. 5.4. there need no more: nor doth He use more with them that are saved than with them that perish, 2. Cor. 2.10.16. But that He hath put a sufficient efficacy into these meanes in respect of all that enjoy them, is a paradox, whence is it then that they are not efficacious? The Efficacy is not in the meanes themselves, but in the Concomitancy of the Spirit with them to give it, and that is voluntary: and the very notion of a sufficient ⟨p. 76⟩Efficacy of meanes used, without the Effect wrought in them with whom they are used, is an unintelligible Quakerism.