A23636:169
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. 5. This Paragraph is but Nausea his cocta, asserting, but neither expounding nor proving, that all men have had more or less, and all sufficient means of salvation: sure it will be some great thing, which has so much preparation made to introduce it.
Sect. 6. Here he begins with a good Confession, viz. that, Never any were saved but by Jesus of Nazareth; but he seldom spake Truth without a design, and hath frequentLY some Error in a readiness to graft upon it. He knows it would be asked him, how any could be saved by Christ, who never heard of him? and how shall they hear without the Gospel? He therefore anticipates it, and answers with Railing instead of Reason: only he puts in a Quibble, and thinks he hath tied a knot upon us that is indissoluble: We plead for the Salvation of Infants by Christ; and why may not he with as good reason, plead for that of the Gentiles? The parallel looks but odd; viz. If Infants may be saved by the working of the Spirit in them, why may not the Gentiles be so by giving obedience to the light in them? We might only say, they are not causes equally ⟨p. 92⟩powerful. But let us a little commorate here? Observe then: 1. That we deny not the power of God to save without outward means; but to argue merely from His power to His Will, without His own Revelation, is to give laws to the Almighty. 2. That the Infants of Believers are under the visible means of Grace, viz. the Covenant, & Baptism, and so are not the Heathen; Isa. 63.19. 3. That Christ hath assured us that some Infants are saved, Mat. 19.14. 2. Sam. 12.23. but we have no assurance concerning Heathen or Pagans, but the contrary, Prov. 29.18. 4. That the different capacity of Infants and grown persons, in regard to the means, requires a different manner of the dispensation of grace to the one and the other: that therefore is asserted concerning all adult persons,