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

So much Holiness,¹ as is included in true Faith, is necessary to our Union to Christ; an unholy man, that is, a wicked man, cannot be united to Christ, believers are not such; but an unholy man, that is, one who yet hath not lead an holy life, may be united to Christ, and his after holy life, is a sure mark of that Union, because a necessary effect thereof: But when doth the holy life follow that Union? I answer, immediately: Thus our Church tells us in the twelfth Article, That good works do spring necessarily out of a true and lively Faith; insomuch, that by them a lively Faith may be as evidently known, as a tree discerned by the fruit: The want of an holy life, in the very instant of believing, is not an evidence, that a man is not is Christ, but soon after, the want of it will tell him, that his Faith was but a fancy, and his being in Christ but a dream: The best actions of christless men are, I confess, as our Church tells us in the ⟨p. 534⟩thirteenth Article, not pleasant to God; nay, they have the nature of sin, without Faith it is impossible to please God, in our persons or actions: our persons must first be accepted in Christ, and then our services; the best actions of a man, not in Christ, are not acceptable to God: Those actions cannot be acceptable to him, whose defects are unpardoned, and the defects of those actions are unpardoned, whilst their Agent is so. But the Author from hence concludes, That Holiness cannot be an evidence of our Union to Christ, because we must first know our Union, before we can know that we are holy. To which, I answer, Our Union to Christ cannot be known to be so without a knowledge of Faith; nor an holy life cannot be known to be so, without a knowledge of Faith; because without Faith neither can be in reality: when we see our Faith flowing out in an holy life, we see the truth of our Union to Christ, and the truth of our holy life both at once: An holy life taken not merely in its outward acts, but in its efflux from Faith is an infallible mark of our Union to Christ.

So much Holiness,¹ as is included in true Faith, is necessary to our Union to Christ; an unholy man, that is, a wicked man, cannot be united to Christ, believers are not such; but an unholy man, that is, one who yet hath not lead an holy life, may be united to Christ, and his after holy life, is a sure mark of that Union, because a necessary essect thereof: But when doth the holy life follow that Ʋnion? I answer, immediately: Thus our Church tells us in the twelfth Article, That good works do spring necessarily out of a true and lively Faith; insomuch, that by them a lively Faith may be as evidently known, as a tree discerned by the fruit: The want of an holy life, in the very instant of believing, is not an evidence, that a man is not is Christ, but soon after, the want of it will tell him, that his Faith was but a fancy, and his being in Christ but a dream: The best actions of christless men are, I confess, as our Church tells us in the