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

SECT. IV.

According to the notion of these Men, ¹men may, nay, must be united to Christ while they continue in their sins; Mr. Shepherd tells us expressly: That Obedience doth not make us Gods People, or God our God; but he is first our God (which is only by the Covenant of Grace) and hence it is, that he being ours, and we his, we of all others are most bound to obey him: We are Gods People, and that by virtue of the Covenant, before we obey him. The same Author tells us: That we are united to Christ our life, not by Obedience as Adam was to God by it, but by Faith (that is, by such a Faith of which Obedience is no part) and therefore as all actions in living things come from union, so all our acts of Obedience are to come by Faith, from the Spirit on Christs part, and Faith on ours, which make the union; The meaning is this, We must first be united to Christ by Faith, before we can do any thing that is good; before this union the best actions we can do are sins, which is a plain demonstration of the ⟨p. 483⟩truth of this charge; because according to this principle, we can do nothing but sin, before we be united to Christ; hence these Men constantly place our Justification before our Sanctification, that we are first accounted holy by God before we are made so; now our Justification follows our union to Christ, and our Sanctification follows our Justification; and therefore we must first be united to Christ, before we are sanctified, that is, before we are made holy: Hence we are told, that holiness is a remote end of vocation, but the next end is to come to Christ. And the same Author makes a speech for Christ to a Sinner (more gracious than all the Gospel invitations) though thou hast resisted my Spirit, refused my grace, wearied me with thy iniquities; yet come to me, this will make me amends, I require nothing of thee else but to come.

According to the notion of these Men, ¹