A23636:161
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 Cap. 6. of Christ's dying for all, &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.
Sect. 1. His first and main plea is from the words of Scripture, which express it in Universal terms, viz, All, all men, every man, the world, the whole world: (as for that of the Body, Eph. 5.23. Paul himself there interprets it of the Church, and its strange that the World and the Church should be of equal extent) some of ours (whom he calls the Adversaries of Truth) have answered, (though it is not our whole Answer) that by All, is not meant all particulars, (i. e. Individuals) but some of all sorts, all the Elect. His Reply is, that the word [All] must needs be as full and universal with respect to Christ's death and the benefit of it, as it is with respect to Adam's Fall: and who denies it? But it is not so in his sense, except he will plead ⟨p. 85⟩for universal Salvation, as well as Redemption, else the benefit is not parallel to the damage; and so he indeed seems to plead, by Citing 1. Tim. 4.10. for the proof of his Assertion; but yet this he afterwards denies. We are here to consider, that Adam & Christ are in Scripture made parallel in many Respects: as Adam is a common Head, so is Christ: hence, as Adam hath a natural seed, so hath Christ a spiritual seed: as Adam ruined all his seed, so Christ Redeemed all His: as Adam's seed are called the world, because they comprise all the men and women coming into the world by natural Generation; so Christ's Seed are called the world, because they comprise all the men and women that belong to the world to come. But then we must remember, that Christ's Seed are a number selected out of the other; and therefore, though they are all because He loseth none of His Elect, yet not all the Individuals of Adam's posterity; for there are they of whom Christ saith, They are none of my sheep. Nor doth he interpret but pervert that in, 2. Cor. 5.14. If one died for all, then were all dead: for the Apostles intention there, is to prove that all God's Elect were dead, because Christ died for them all: The word [All] therefore, doth not signify ⟨p. 86⟩some, but all that come under that denomination.