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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87658	The pretended antidoe [sic] proved poyson: or, The true principles of the Christian & Protestant religion defended, and the four counterfit defenders thereof detected and discovered the names of which are James Allen, Joshua Moodey, Samuell Willard and Cotton Mather, who call themselves ministers of the Gospel in Boston, in their pretended answer to my book, called, The Presbyterian & independent visible churches in New-England, and else-where, brought to the test, &c. And G.K. cleared not to be guilty of any calumnies against these called teachers of New-England, &c. By George Keith. With an appendix by John Delavall, by way of animadversion on some passages in a discourse of Cotton Mathers before the General Court of Massachusetts, the 28th of the third moneth, 1690.	Keith, George, 1639?-1716.; Delavall, John, d. 1693.	1690 (1690)	Wing K192A; ESTC W42984	110,748	234

past feeling we hold to Scripture phrase that saith the Letter killeth which we thus understand that whoever have not the inward quickning and living operation of the Spirit of God that doth usually attend and accompany the outward Testimony of the holy Scriptures to such the Letter of the Scripture is a killing Letter and the sober of your own Church I suppose will not deny it and so it proveth to all Infidels and Unbelievers while remaining such who are dead in their sins and Trespasses but to all who are made alive unto God the Scriptures Testimony is a living sweet and precious Testimony in all its parts and not at all either a dead Letter or a killing Letter And as for the Gospel Baptism of Christ and his Supper and the glorious Doctrines of Election Justification Perseverance of God's elect Saints and Children we own them with our souls and hearts and only disown your false glosses of all these things ye must not think to be both party and judge in these matters both ye and we have a most impartial and just Judge the great Lord of Heaven and Earth to judge and witness betwixt us and to his Witness Evidence and Testimony in all hearts I can and do freely leave these matters of difference betwixt us in the mean time ye are greatly mistaken to think that either I or my Friends decline all outward Evidences and Testimonies or just and equal Methods or Wayes of fair reasoning and argument touching the matters of d●●ference betwixt us nay it s a great if not woful Mistake in you we shall never fear to deal with you in all fair and reasonable wayes of dispute either by express Scripture or by just rational Consequences therefrom and then to leave all to the impartial judgment of all such who are both spiritual and reasonable men for to be both spiritual and reasonable are well consistent Ye may be greatly ashamed if Shame be compatible unto you to use some of your own words in the beginning of your Preface to tell of Persecutors with Cain 's Club in their hands when ye have been so deeply guilty of using Cain's Club and continuing to justifie it in putting to death so many innocent Servants of the Lord. Ye are idle and impertinent to call me the Champion whom the American Quakers do so much admire I know none called a Quaker in America or else-where that doth admire me we admire and adore the glorious God and Creator but no man nor do I seek the honour and praise of men it is enough that I am loved by my Friends and Brethren and that I am acknowledged to have a part lot among the faithful Ye acknowledge ye pass over many assertions called by you unsound in my Book with a dry foot and so ye might have said ye have passed the substance and matter of the whole and the Arguments thereof without due notice and rather than wet your feet ye wi●● go far abo●● and digress or deviate from that which ye cannot fairly nor justly answer As for Cotton Mather's pretended Vindication of his Father Increase Mather his abuses against the People called Quakers I have fully answered to it in Print in a Book called A Refutation of three Opposers of Truth c. to which I refer and which I suppose is come to his hand long before this of yours came to me Ye express your fear of me as if my supposed Apostacy had rendred me incurable and else-where ye call me a fearful Apostate and insinuate as if I were not only Apostate and Heretick but grown beyond Admonition But how know ye this seeing ye pretend not to a Spirit of discerning or a divine Revelation in the case Suppose I err in some things as I have good assurance I do not in any o● these things ye charge me doth one or some few Errors or Mistakes not willfully held in matters that are not fundamental render me either Heretick or Apostate Ye or at least the more sober among you allow that men holding the fundamentals of the Christian Religion although they be in an Error or Mistake touching divers things that are not fundamental may be allowed to be true Christians and Members of Christs Church hence the mo●e sober of Presbyterians have a charitable judgment of many not only of Baptists and the Episcopals but of Arminians and Lutherans yea and of many in the Church of Rome also ●nd I believe ye cannot give me one instance wherein ye can justly accuse me or my Friends of any fundamental Error in Christian Doctrine so acknowledged by the more sober part among you held by us It is high and extream Uncharitableness for you so to unchristian us but praised be God we can and have holy confidence to appeal from your false Judgment to the just God to whom we are known and whose Peace and Justification we have in our Bosoms that is Proof against all your false and injurious Accusations And I have not dealt so with you so to unchristian you in the whole lump or any one of you altogether meerly for Doctrine for I only did charge it upon you and I believe I have made good my charge That your visible Churches are not the true Church of Christ to wit not having that purity of Doctrine Ministry Worship Constitution Government c. that constitutes the true Church of Christ either as the Church was in the Apostles days or as she is yet to be restored and is now restoring after the great dark night of Apostacy yet I have freely and readi y granted that there are among you who belong to Christ his true Church and though you judge his a great inconsistency and contradiction yet ye are in a great mistake for my charge is as consistent to grant that some among you yea all who are sincere and faithful to what they do know and are really convinced of the Truth but in part that are among you belong to God and to his true Church as the Charity of many of the more sober among you is consistent to grant That the most sincere sort in the Church of Rome belong to God and his Church and are his People for God hath of his People in Babylon whom he calleth to come out of it and this was the judgment generally of these called the first Reformers and is the judgment generally of the more sober and judicious Protestants of all sorts at this day and was my charitable judgment when I was among the Presbyterians and remaineth now to be and yet such who have this charitable judgment of many in the Church of Rome do not call her nor own her for most part to be the true visible Church of Christ but call her a Whore and a false Church and Babylon and for this cause judge that their seperation is just from her And as the Protestants generally who are of the more sober moderate sort do excell these

proof and that ye say Antient and Modern Interpreters agree therein y● show your rashness for ye name no antient Writer that saith so And Theodoretus a very antient Writer expoundeth that place Psal 89.15 in his Commentary on the Psalms of the J●bilation or joyful Sound in the Gentiles in Gospel-dayes who should believe in Christ and it is evident that the Psalm is a Prophecy of Christ and of the great blessings that should come to all Nations both Jews and Gentiles by him as both Theodoretus and other antient and modern Writers understand it as is clear from vers 25 26 27 28 29 c. that is not applicable to David but to Christ whereof David was a Type And that ye say The Quakers give notice of their Meetings we grant but yet we use neither Bell nor Drum to give such notice and find no need nor occasion for any such superstitious Custom Pag. 135. Ye query May ye not succeed the Apostles in their Ministry though not in their Apostleship I Answer Nay seeing ye deny that which qualifieth all true Ministers of Christ which is the Spirit and Power of Christ inwardly revealed and that ye require nothing of real inward Godliness necessary to constitute a Minister of Christ ye have no President for your Ministry that ye plead for without true piety from the true Apostles but from Judas the Apostate that betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ and in so doing fell from his Ministry yea ye are not ashamed to mention him and the Pharisees for your Presidents and Patrons to which I have formerly replyed And though the Apostles ordained Elders and Over-seers over gathered Churches yet it was by the direction of the holy Ghost and this ye deny that your Ordination was such Nor was it proper and peculiar only to the Apostles to travel through the Nations to preach the Gospel but was common to other Pastors and Teachers as to the Apostles as is clear from the Acts of the Apostles and from Christs Commission And every true Minister of Christ is to know his place and calling by the Spirit of the Lord how long he is to stay among a People whether all his Life time or for some season But if ye were indeed called of God to sit down all your dayes in one pl●ce how cometh it to be so usual among you to remove from one place to another and most commonly to some new place where ye can have a greater Benefice or some better outward Accomodation Pag. 136. Ye say I reflect a Scandal upon you in respect of the endeavours for the Conversion of the Indians for this ye refer to the printed Accounts But ye should have mentioned in particular what these printed acounts say that they might be examined whether true or false for we know many printed Accounts are false and it is most manifest that great Sums of Money have been sent out of Old England to encourage that work of preaching to the Indians and it is as manifest that much of that Money hath been ill bestowed and improved as the Country of New-England knoweth well enough and these called Christian Indians your pretended Converts are known generally to be worse than the poor Heathens CAP. X. PAg. 136. Ye say so little in defence of that ye call your Two Sacraments confessing withal That the Scripture saith nothing of the word Sacrament that I shall not spend Paper nor Time to answer all your Impertinencies considering that I have said enough that may suffice to answer you in my former Reply to Pardon Tillinghast for if Water-Baptism be no Gospel Precept then surely sprinkling Infants is none only I shall consider some of the grossest of them Pag. 137. As for sprinkling ye say ye plead not for it but for pouring Water not on the fore-head only but on the face This seemeth a learned distinction that may pass current among ignorant People what difference betwixt sprinkling and pouring seeing all the Water ye pour is neither gallon nor pint but so much as ye can hold in the hollow of your hand which cannot well wet the whole face and therefore is more sprinkling but still ye are to seek for a proof that either sprinkling or pouring Water on a childs fac● was ever commanded by Christ or practised by any of the Apostles or Ministers of Christ record●d in Scripture Ye say Origine and Cyprian tell us that the Apostles gave order for the baptizing of Infants withal citing Augustin but this is no Scripture-proof and Authority of antient Writers without Scripture ought to be of no weight among true Protestants The Church of Rome doth so argue for her unscriptural Traditions and is more ingenuous than ye that she doth confess There is no A●t●ority for Infant Baptism but only the Tradition of the Church and if ye have no better Authority than Tradition your cause is desperate and your Refuge to the Tradition of antient Writers proveth you more Popish than Protestant And as for Origine Cyprian and Augustine they lived long after the first Century and ye can give no evidence in Church History that Infant Baptism was practised until Cyprians time past two hundred years from Christs Resurrection and whereas while the practice of Water-Baptism continued in the Church it was required that before Baptism the Persons that were to be baptized should confess to the Truth and also that they did confess their sins and declare their Repentance and Faith which Infants could not do and therefore were incapable of Water-Baptism to supply which defect in after Ages the invention of God-fathers that should confess and vow for them was set up that hath no shadow of ground in Scripture Pag. 139. Ye say I fraudule●tly omit that clause citing Luke 18.15 16. For of such i● the Kingdom of God Answ I do not fraudulently omit it but saw no necessity to repeat it as having not the least seeming strength in it for Water-Baptism to Infants for granting that those Infants or such belonged to the Kingdom of God it doth not therefore follow that they were baptized with Water ye must show either Precept or Practice but ye do neither and that ye say It is above the capacity of Children to receive the Lords Supper so call'd ye give no instance wherein that is more above their capacity than to receive Infant Baptism by sprinkling or pouring seeing both ye say are signs of spiritual Mysteries and in Augustines time that call'd the Supper was given to Children or Infants if they be uncapable of understanding the thing signified by the one so are they of understanding the thing signified by the other Ye falsly alledge That Contra-distinguished signifieth two Contraryes the one to the other but I did not un●e●stand any c●ntrariety betwixt John's Baptism and Christ'● but only a diversity nor doth the word contra-distinguished import any other contrariety but as the Type hath to the Anti-type i. e. counter-type Pag. 140 141. Ye contend that Mat.

but what the Arch-Angel gave to a Railing Accusation But if ye think it worthy of Imitation to follow the Example of the Arch-Angel now at last why did ye not so at first Why did not the answer of the Arch-Angel suffice you at first to have given me What is this but to abuse the Scripture first to use an extraordinary Licentiousness of Railing Accusations against me and then to conclude ye will bring no Railing Accusa●ion unless ye Repent you of your former Rai●ing and Reviling Speeches against me and my Friends I call them justly railing Speeches because they are false and grounded upon false Surmises Allegations that ye can never prove but what I have charged on y●u is true and I have proved it and can more abundantly do And whereas ye are big ●ith hope that ye have now furnished New-England with an Antidote against that f●lsly called by you The Contagion of Quaker sin If the cloud of Prejudice that are in many or most of the People were removed your Antidote would prove very mean and ineffectual It is the unhappiness of too many the ●rejudice of their Education and that they have suckt in false Principles almost with their Mothers Milk and a too great credulity to false Teachers all which in due time God wi●l remove and I believe That ye call you Antidote may prove to many an occasion to discover your Nakedness Ignorance and Unsoundness of Doctrine more than formerly Ye tell us of a sort of Quakerism not long since broached in Italy called Quierists but ye find fault with ●ome of the Quakers among you That they disturb the quiet o● all that are about them As for the Quietists so called in Italy they have not been so quiet but they have made a great noise in the World however that they either are or have called themselves Quakers doth not appear and their Principles and ours sufficiently differ But it will not prove that the Quakers are not a quiet and peaceable People that they witness against false Doctrine and Unchristian Practices for so did the quiet and peaceable Christians of old and so did the Apostles who yet were said to turn the World upside down by their false Accusers Ye seem to rejoyce and glory that the Religion of the Quakers hath got place but in some more obscure nooks and corners of New-England And what doth this prove against the truth of their Religion or what doth it give you of glorying more than that there was no room for Christ in the Inn after he was born and the Foxes i. e. the false Teachers have holes and the Fowles of the Air i. e. proud and airy men have nests but the Son of Man even Christ and his blessed Doctrine hath scarce where to lay his head It was not the better for the Gadareus rejoycing that Christ departed out of their Coasts In the close of your Preface ye presume to prophesie as if some Enthusiastical efflatus or breathing had got hold of you although ye are declared Enemies to the Spirit of Prophecy or divine Inspiration now remaining where ye say The day is at hand when our blessed Saviour will purifie his Temple and sweep Quakerism with other Defilement o●t of it c. But in opposition to this your false Prophecy I believe and am well perswaded that the holy Truth and Doctrine witnessed unto by ●he honest and sincere Quakers so call'd which ye call Quakerism the day hastneth that God will abundantly plant it both in New-England and in all other parts of the World for every plant of Gods planting will grow and fill the Earth with fruit in due time and what he hath not planted will be rooted up But how think ye shall Quakerism as ye call it be sweeped out of Gods Temple hath it then got place in Gods Temple in New-England what is that Temple is it your Presbyterian and Independent Churches or any part of them Or how can Quakerism which ye hold so poysonous that it destroyeth all men and maketh them who hold it to be No Temple or Church of God but Apostates and Infidels Denyers of God and Christ c. have any place in the Temple of God But this is none of the least of your many Contradictions CAP. I. PAge 1 ye alledge That by my over-liberal Concessions I have given cause to my Brethren ●alled Quakers to judge of me as the Papists judge of Bellarmine and Erasmus who professing to be Catholicks yet yeilded too much to the Protestants And p. 2. ye say It is apparent that he hath mig●●●ly betrayed the cause he undertoo● to patronize But all his is but your bare affirmation without any proof I have conceded to nothing but what both the hol● Scriptures the Quakers Doctrine rightly duly understood wi●l bare me out in I should know the Quakers better than any of you and their t●ue Principles having been so long ●nd so much conversant with them and in unity with them but ye neither rightly know the Quakers Doctrine nor them and ye are not willing to learn but after the manner of all such as were declared Enemies to the Christian Religion ye charge false things upon them which they no wise hold as Celsus and other Heathen Philosophers used to charge the antient Christians to whose false Accusations Tertullian Justin Origen Arnobius and many others did solidly answer And so in your Imagination ye make a ridiculous thing and call it a Quaker and then fight against it being your own shadow yet this is not to justifie ●ny unsound words that possibly may have dropped from some ignorant unsound persons called Quakers for as ye judge not your selves obliged to own any unsound words or practices of any called Presbyterians or Independents no more are we to own any or every thing said or done by them who may be called Quaker● or may call themselves so but yet are not one with us in spirit and doctrine And seeing ye only mention G. F. but cite none of his words ye had as good done nothing I know not wherein I differ f●om G. F. in Doctrine and ● judge I know him much bett●r than ye If it were needful I could produce plain and evident Testimo●ies from my friends printed Books long before mine that my Doctrine is one with theirs But what doth it advantage you The design of my writing to you was to convince you of Error and that in a friendly way if ye could have received it and whatever be the Doctrine of the Quakers ye are concerned to answer to the things charged against you or confess your Error Pag. 4. Ye say of me as if Benhadad seems to be risen again citing 1 Kings 20.10 But as I am not Benhadad in the case so nor are ye the King of Israel P. 5. Ye call my Epistle to the People of N. England Paltry Stuff but ye only say it and that is all and this is most generally or rather