Decennium luctuosum An history of remarkable occurrences, in the long war, which New-England hath…

In the mean Time, I owe unto the Public, a piece of History, which it may be for the Safety of our Northern Towns, to be acquainted withal. Know, Sirs, That once the famous George Keith, undertook to be the Champion of our New-English Quakers; and bid fair to be the very Dalae, or Prester John, of all the English Tartars; but a Minister of Boston, upon that occasion, publishing a Book, Entitled, Little Flocks guarded against grievous Wolves, could not but complain of it, as a very Scandalous Thing, in George Keith, to maintain the points of the Foxian ⟨p. 165⟩Quakerism, while he really differed from them. All this while, George Keith was admired by our Quakers, as an Apostle, or, an Oracle: but, he finding it impossible to maintain the gross Tenets of the common Quakers, preached unto them the Necessity of Believing on a Christ without, as well as a Christ within. Hereupon, there grew such alienations between him, and the other Quakers, (who had been taught by George Fox, to say, The Devil is in them, who say, they are Saved by Christ without them:) that he not only ha's written diverse Learned Books, to confute those very Doctrines of the Common Quakers, which the Pastors of New-England had, upon his Provocation, Written against, but also ha's therefore undergone a Storm of Persecution, from the Friends in Pennsylvania: Yea, 'tis verily thought, that poor George would have been made a Sacrifice to Squire Samael Jennings, and the rest of the Pennsylvanian Dragons, and that, since a crime which their Laws ha• made Capital, was mentioned in the Mittimus whereby Keith was committed, they would have Hanged him, if a R• volution upon their Government had not set him at liberty. Being by the Fines, and Gaols, and Fierce Usages of the Quakers in Pennsylvania, driven over to England, the Wonderful Hand of God, hath made this very man, I think I may say, incomparably the greatest Plague, that ever came upon that Sect, of Energumens. Although ⟨p. 166⟩he do himself still retain the Name of a Quaker, yet he hath in one Treatise after another, Earnestly called upon the Divines, throughout the Nation, more Vigorously to Employ their Talons, against the Quakers, as a more Dangerous Generation of People than they are well aware; and he did in the year 1696. with the leave of the Lord Mayor, Challenge the Quakers, to make their Appearance at Turners Hall, in the chief City of Europe;