A23636:208
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. 4. We are now come to the Quakers Doctrine of Perfection of which they boast: and here he first rails at ours that denies it, and then tries to prove his own, tho' that very Essay will prove him to be very imperfect.
Sect. 4. We are now come to the Quakers Doctrine of Perfection of which they boast: and here he first rails at ours that denyes it, and then tries to prove his own, tho' that very Essay will prove him to be very imperfect.
That the best Duties of the best Saints in this life are imperfect, and that by reason of sinful mixtures in them; and that daily the most holy come short of perfect legal Obedience, & might be charged with sin for their best, if God should be strict, we believe; & can appeal to the sensible complaints of holy men in Scripture; but for him hence to infer, that we say, that, the good works of God's Holy Spirit are defiled in & by the saints; and ⟨p. 119⟩to print it in another Character, as our very words, is cheating. But how far our Duties are the work of the Spirit, and how far they are our own, has been already discussed. Its he that makes the Chimaera, and not we; we never say, that One & the same thing is a perfect man & a perfect dog: We say, that every Believer in this life, hath a new nature & an old in him; a body of Grace, & a body of Corruption: the one increasing & the other decaying; imperfect grace, but growing; a body of death, but dying; and he is as it were two men: and so Paul distinguisheth of himself, Rom. 7.15.17. Nor do we say that the work is totally perfect, and totally sin; but we say, that the work it self is imperfect, by reason that, though it be influenced by grace, it is also defiled by sin, being done by one in whom there is both sin, & the Influence of it into his best performances. Nor do we any whit misinterpret God, when we say, He accepts of these works in Christ, tho they be defiled: and if he shall say, that we do therefore suppose that God accepts of the defilement that is in them, he mistakes: In all the gracious Actings of Gods people there is Imperfection (now all moral Imperfection is defilement) and God accepts of the sincerity, & pardons the imperfection, and both in