N00406:174
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 [sic], to undermine them both. / By the minsters of the Gospel in Boston, ; [Nine lines of Scripture texts]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 [sic], to undermine them both. / By the minsters of the Gospel in Boston, ; [Nine lines of Scripture texts]
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. 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 […]? The parallel looks but odd; viz. If Infants may be saved by the working of the Spirit in them, wi•• may not the Gentiles he so by giving […] light in them? We might only say, they are not causes equally ⟨p. 92⟩powerful. But let us a little commora•• here? Observe then: 1. That we de•• not the power of God to save without outward means; but to argue merely fro• His power to His Will, without His own Revelation, is to give laws to the Almighty. 2. That the Infants of Believers are under t•• visible means of Grace, viz. the Covenant & Baptism, and so are not the Heathen Isa. 63. 19. 3. That Christ hath assure 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 o•• and the other: that therefore is asserted concerning all adult persons, Rom. 10. 14. For him therefore to assert that All honest else gentiles are saved in some other way, is […] mere Begging of principles that will never be conceded. That moral Honesty is a meritorious Cause either of Salvation, or of any further Discoveries of saving grace to men, is a Jesuitical principle; That there are any Elect among Pagans, who never had the gospel offered them, is not only without Scripture-Warrant, but