A55299:342
An answer to the discourse of Mr. William Sherlock, touching the knowledge of Christ,…
An answer to the discourse of Mr. William Sherlock, touching the knowledge of Christ, and our union and communion with him by Edward Polhill ..., Esquire.
London: printed for Ben. Foster, 1675
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.
To which I answer, That Jesus is the Son of God, in its proper signification imports, that he is his Son by Eternal Generation, and from thence we may infer, that his Authority is Divine: But we must remember, that Christ was a Prophet under the Old Testament; his Spirit, and surely then his Authority, was in the Prophets. The Author seems to hint by those places, Joh. 20.31. and 1 Joh. 5.5. that justifying Faith consists only in assent to divine Principles, such as that (That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God) is; but though those places in the Letter sound only an assent to that divine Axiom, That Jesus is the Son of God, yet more must be taken into the construction; as well because the Scripture, which ever consists with it self, doth in other places assert, that in justifying Faith, there is, over and above a mere assent, a fiducial Recumbency on Christ; as also because wicked men, who have no justifying Faith, may have an assent to all Evangelical Axioms: Nay, the very Devils cried out, and confessed, That Jesus was the Son of God, Matth. 8.29. and yet (as our Church observes) for all this they were but Devils.
To which I answer, That Jesus is the Son of God, in its proper signification imports, that he is his Son by Eternal Generation, and from thence we may inferr, that his Authority is Divine: But we must remember, that Christ was a Prophet under the Old Testament; his Spirit, and surely then his Authority, was in the Prophets. The Author seems to hint by those places, Joh. 20.31. and 1 Joh. 5.5. that justifying Faith consists only in assent to divine Principles, such as that (That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God) is; but though those places in the Letter sound only an assent to that divine Axiom, That Jesus is the Son of God, yet more must be taken into the construction; as well because the Scripture, which ever consists with it self, doth in other places assert, that in justifying Faith, there is, over and above a meer assent, a fiducial Recumbency on Christ; as also because wicked men, who have no justifying Faith, may have an assent to all Evangelical Axioms: Nay, the very Devils cried out, and confessed, That Jesus was the Son of God,