An answer to the discourse of Mr. William Sherlock, touching the knowledge of Christ,…

The Dr. discourses of the Love of Christ as he is God:¹ There is in God Amor Complacentiae, a Love of Complacence, whereby he delights in good men; but is there not Amor Benevolentiae too, a gracious purpose of bestowing good things on us? All the good things Temporal in the World, and Spiritual in the Church, know no other Spring or Origen than this; our Repentance, Faith, Grace, Holiness (unless we will blaspheme the great Donor, and deny them to be Gifts) are so many pregnant proofs of it: Hence the Apostle tells us, That God worketh in us to will and to do, [Greek or Hebrew], of his good pleasure, Phil. 2.13. And is not this Love or gracious Purpose an Eternal one? It can be no other; all the divine Decrees are so: His Works are in Time, but his Decrees in the same Eternity with himself, as being no other than Deus Volens. Should his Decrees be made in time, the Divine Will, though it ever had an infinite Reason and Wisdom standing by it, must yet hang in suspense, and float in uncertainties touching things to come, till its own Creature, Time, came forth into Being; and then upon passing those Decrees, a new Generation of ⟨p. 246⟩Futures must start up which were never before, and withal a new Prescience in God to look upon those novel Objects; both which are impossible. But this is a Love, which doth all for us, and leaves nothing for us to do: Thus the Author.² The Semipelagians, to blast the Doctrine of St. Austin touching God's Free Grace, formed out of their own Brain a Story of the Praedestinatiani, an odious Sect which, as was pretended, held such a Notion, as rendered an holy Life altogether unnecessary: But why the Author should charge the Dr. with any such thing, I know not, he never said or thought any such thing; nay, he hath again and again urged the Necessity of Obedience: Neither do I see how there can be a more unnatural Consequence framed than this; Christ loved us, and therefore we need do nothing our selves: Our Love to Christ is an excellent Principle of Obedience to him, and, to set it a working, his Love to us is a divine Inflammative to ours. But, saith the Author, All that the Gospel tells us, is, That Christ loved Sinners, so as to die for them, and that he loves good men, who believe and obey the Gospel: But sure this is not all;