A23636:223
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. 9th of the Visible Church.
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.
And it is grossly untrue, that Independents require no more than such a profession as he talks of, to make them members of their church: for they whom he calls Independents, distinguish between the Church visible, or Christianity at large, & Membership, or Fellowship in a congregational Church, and have not been won• to be charged for their Laxness, but rather Strictness in Admission. Nor doth it argue them of Hypocrisy, or contradiction, because they separated from another Church, viz the Episcopal, it being well known that they did it mainly because their terms of Communion were such as they could not in Conscience comply with; tho' also their promiscuous Admission of all sorts of ignorant & scandalous persons to the Lords Table, added to the incitement: as for the Presbyterian Churches, we did not separate from them ⟨p. 131⟩but have held Communion with them, and have admitted their members to Communion with us; although by reason of some points of Church Administration, which they differ from them in, in principle, they thought they might without any just offence do so in practice too.
And it is grosly untrue, that Independents require no more than such a profession as he talks of, to make them members of their church: for they whom he calls Independents, distinguish between the Church visible, or Christianity at large, & Membership, or Fellowship in a congregational Church, and have not been won• to be charged for their Laxness, but rather Strictness in Admission. Nor doth it argu• them of Hypocrisy, or contradiction, becaus• they separated from another Church, viz the Episcopal, it being well known that they did it mainly because their terms of Communion were such as they could not in Conscience comply with; tho' also their promiscuous Admission of all sorts of ignorant & scandalous persons to the Lords Table, added to the incitement: as for the Presbiterian Churches, we did not separate from them ⟨p. 131⟩but have held Communion with them, and have admitted their members to Communion with us; although by reason of some points of Church Administration, which they differ from them in, in principle, they thought they might without any just offence do so in practice too.