A23636:204
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.
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. 3. G. K. knowing that there were some Scriptures that did so fully assert the Perseverance of God's People, that he could with no face deny the truth in them, begins, in this Paragraph, to concede, yet so as not to favour our principle at all, who say, that Its the privilege of every true Believer to persevere. He therefore makes it a particular state of Holiness which only some of these arrive unto; and then they commit no gross sins, but only Peccadillo's (and thus, with the Papists he introduceth the distinction of mortal and venial sins, which hath been sufficiently confuted by ours; who have made it evident that all sins are mortal by the law, Ezek. 18.4. That all sin, excepting that against the Holy Ghost, is venial by the Gospel, ⟨p. 116⟩Mat. 12.31.) but when he comes to describe who these are that are thus indulged, he woefully prevaricates. In p. 46. he tells us they are, 1. such as are born of the free woman, and not of the bond woman; Well, this is not a peculiar privilege of some, but is common to all Believers, even the Galatians, who were so weak and foolish, Cap. 4. ult. 2. They are throughly renewed. If by being throughly renewed, he means so sanctified as to have no dregs of sin remaining; then there are no such; for he grants of these he speaks of, that they do commit little faults, & that must be because there is something of the old man in them. If by throughly, he means in all the parts, then it belongs to every Believer, 2. Cor. 5.17. 3. They are such as are born of God: and that belongs to Faith where ever it is, Gal. 3.36, Joh. 1.12. When he saith that, those who commit any gross sins, as Fornication, Murder. Adultery &c. never arrived to to the pure state of sonship, he doth, 1. Mistake the notion of the difference between servants and sons; true believers are both, sons by Adoption, servants by being devoted to the Obedience of the Gospel. How often doth Paul call himself the servant of Jesus Christ? and so does James, Cap. 1.1. & Peter, 2. Ep. 1.1. & Jude, vers. 1. Its true, Paul distinguisheth ⟨p. 117⟩