CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

¹Therefore 3. The true and right knowledge of God is only had within the Church, That as God saith of his people, You only of all Nations have I known; so they only of all Nations have known God, Hence the Samaritan Woman is said to worship she did not know what, Joh. 4.22. because Salvation was only of the Jews, viz. the knowledge and true revelation of it. Hence is that saying of Divines, Extra Ecclesiam non est salus; As without the Ark every one perished; For although some of the Ancients and others have been very prone to ascribe salvation even to a natural knowledge of God, as if God would require no more of them; Then in that condition thinking otherwise, that he would reap where he had not sown, yet this Text putteth out of all doubt as well as others, that the knowledge of the true God and of Christ is necessary to Salvation: Now whatsoever they might know of God, yet it is plain they could not by the Creatures know any thing of Christ, his Nature and Offices, being of mere Revelation, and from hence likewise it is apparent that even among the Jews, though the knowledge of the Trinity, and of Christ seemed more obscure and implicit, yet those that were saved had some measure of the knowledge of it, for saith Christ, This is eternal life; The way to it, and ⟨p. 75⟩those in the Old Testament went in the same way to Heaven, as well as those in the new; You see then our Saviour by this Proposition doth assure us that without the knowledge of God and Christ, there is no eternal life, and thereby that it is had only in the Church; There are no flowers can grow out of this garden, No gold sanctified that is not in this Temple.

¹Therefore 3. The true and right knowledge of God is only had within the Church, That as God saith of his people, You only of all Nations have I known; so they only of all Nations have known God, Hence the Samaritan Woman is said to worship she did not know what, Joh. 4.22. because Salvation was only of the Jews, viz. the knowledge and true revelation of it. Hence is that saying of Divines, Extra Ecclesiam non est salus; As without the Ark every one perished; For although some of the Ancients and others have been very prone to ascribe salvation even to a natural knowledge of God, as if God would require no more of them; Then in that condition thinking otherwise, that he would reap where he had not sown, yet this Text putteth out of all doubt as well as others, that the knowledge of the true God and of Christ is necessary to Salvation: Now whatsoever they might know of God, yet it is plain they could not by the Creatures know any thing of Christ, his Nature and Offices, being of meer Revelation, and from hence likewise it is apparent that even among the Jews, though the knowledge of the Trinity, and of Christ seemed more obscure and implicite, yet those that were saved had some measure of the knowledge of it, for saith Christ, This is eternal life; The way to it, and