A23636:154
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.
As for the Contempt which in the same page he casts upon Federal Holiness, it argues his ignorance; and as little as he counts the Interest of Children in the visible Covenant worth, we shall not cease to bless God that ours stand so related: and when he grants an Holiness, i. e. a capacity of holiness, in time to come, in some (not all) of our children, we believe if we had talked so wildly, nonsensically, and Self-contradictorily; we should have heard of him. To call a Possibility of Holiness, Holiness, is scarce sense, and to acknowledge a capacity of Holiness but in some, and yet but one page before, to plead a possibility of Conversion in all, would have been a Contradicting himself, if it had not been G. K.
As for the Contempt which in the same page he casts upon Foederal Holiness, it argues his ignorance; and as little as he counts the Interest of Children in the visible Covenant worth, we shall not cease to bless God that ours stand so related: and when he grants an Holiness, i. e. a capacity of holiness, in time to come, in some (not all) of our children, we believe if we had talked so wildly, nonsensically, and Self-contradictorily; we should have heard of him. To call a Possibility of Holiness, Holiness, is scarce sense, and to acknowledge a capacity of Holiness but in some, and yet but one page before, to plead a possibility of Conversion in all, would have been a Contradicting himself, if it had not been G. K.
Sect. 7. We have G. K. here speaking the Scripture fair. The Scripture is a rich treasure, and he is for Scripture Words, and it is not safe to leave them: and what is all this for? why, the Scripture indeed acknowledgeth all to be born in sin; but what then? Why, the seed or principle of sin and Corruption is, but it is not imputed, till men join their Consent to it, and actually obey it; and its as clear as midnight from Rom. 5.13. and thus he interprets it; The time of Infancy is the time wherein there is no Law, and therefore ⟨p. 82⟩(tho children are dead in law) there is no imputation. Excellently well expounded! Paul is there proving that there was a law antecedent to the edition of the law of Moses and his argument is because there was sin in the world before: and that it is imputed he might have found, if he had read the following verse, for there we find the sentence executed, which necessarily presupposeth imputation; nay, the very calling it Sin is a charge or imputation, and a supposition of a Law condemning men for it: nor do his many Citations at all prove that none dye and finally perish for the first sin, but for actual sins of their own; which was now to be proved; for they only intimate that all mens actions are liable to the Judgement, and shall be tried and sentenced; but deny not that man's state in Adam shall be so too: Because the Scripture saith, that men shall perish for actual sin, doth it thence follow that men shall not so for original sin?