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

Christ the only Fountain of saving knowledge? ¹Yes doubtless, he is so, and of all saving Graces too, or else he could be no Head, at least not a vital one, to his Church: It is infinitely below him to be a Caput mortuum, affording no influences of Grace to his people. Acquaintance with Christ is a sacred precious thing, no more to be sought among mere Notions, than the living are to be sought among the dead: It imports no less than a [Greek or Hebrew], or Communion with Christ, a having all Grace from him: Take away this, and all the New Creatures in the World must die in a moment, being no more able to subsist without him, than a Ray can be without a Sun, or a Stream without a Fountain. Take away this, and immediately we sink into the Dregs and foul Error of Pelagius, who, besides that Liberum Arbitrium, which however adored, is but mere Nature, placed all Grace in External Revelation. This is evident, because if Graces come not down from him and his Spirit, nothing remains but External Revelation:² Upon which Error St. Austin passes this Censure; Legant & intelligant, ⟨p. 39⟩intueantur atque fateantur; non Lege atque Doctrina insonante forinsecùs, sed internâ atque occultâ, mirabili ac ineffabili potestate operari Deum in cordibus hominum, non solùm veras revelationes, sed etiam bonas voluntates: Desinat igitur Pelagius & seipsum & alios fallere, contra Dei Gratiam disputando. And here Christ, I fear, may be again at odds with his Gospel, if, contrary to its primitive Institution, which was to be an Organ or Ordinance under the free-breathing Spirit of Christ, if it assume all the Dispensation of Grace to it self. But if we may not have acquaintance with Christ himself, may we have one with the Gospel? No, I doubt not, the Gospel tells us, That the Spirit reveals the things of God, 1 Cor. 2.10. and by necessary consequence, the Gospel will lead us unto Christ for that Spirit, and to communion with him; which is the thing opposed by the Author, but to me so precious, that before I would open my lips against it, I would put my self under the penance of Severus Sulpitius; who, having sullied himself with Pelagianism, afterwards repented, and devoted himself to perpetual silence, ut peccatum,