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

What the Author means by all possible Means of Salvation,¹ I know not: Surely God could have given as great Means to all other Nations as he did to Israel, who was exalted above them all, in Laws, Revelations, Miracles, Protections, Symbols of the Divine Presence, in so signal a manner, that the Jews doubt not to say, That the seventy Souls, that went down with Jacob into Egypt, were worth as much as the seventy Nations of the World. As for that of the Apostle, Rom. 3.29. Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: The Apostle, in the precedent Verse, concludes, that the only way of Justification is Faith; in this he shows, that the one way of Justification was open to Gentiles, as well as Jews; in the next Verse he infers, that it is one God who justifies both of them in a way of Faith. He speaks not of being the Gentiles God, in respect of Care and common Providence. but in respect of extending this way of Justification to them, upon their coming in to Christ, who was that blessed Seed of Abraham, in whom all ⟨p. 28⟩Nations were to be blessed: However till the Gospel came to them, they sate in darkness and in the shadow of death, aliens from Israel, strangers from the Covenant, without God, without Christ, without hope; seeing no further than Nature, and that desperately corrupted, and not knowing whether there were any such thing as Grace, or Glory, the Centre of it. As for Israel, I wonder that any man should deny Gods special Love to that people: What! did he call them his first-born, his peculiar treasure, the apple of his eye, without special Love? Did he sever them from other people to be his own, Levit. 20.21. choose them to himself above all people on the earth; set his love upon them, and that merely because he loved them, Deut. 7.6, 7, and 8. Verses, and all this without special Love? Were theirs the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the service of God, and the promises, Rom. 9.4. and all this without special Love? He hath not dealt so with any nation, saith the Psalmist. To call this special Love partial fondness, is to me a presumption not unlike that of the old Pelagians, who charged a [Greek or Hebrew] or unjust Partiality upon Gods special