Addendum Causa Sine Qua Non

One other quote of Gill on Eternal Justification to prove that Gill's view was inconsistent with equating gospel knowledge with the faith given in regeneration:

"It deserves regard and attention, that the saints under the Old Testament, were justified by the same righteousness of Christ, as those under the New, and that before the sacrifice was offered up, the satisfaction given, and the everlasting righteousness brought in; for Christ's blood was shed for the remission of sins that were past, and his death was for the redemption of transgressions under the first Testament, #Ro 3:25 Heb 9:15.Now if God could, and actually did, justify some, three or four thousand years before the righteousness of Christ was actually wrought out, taking his Son's word and bond as their Surety, and in a view of his future righteousness; why could he not, and why may it not be thought he did, justify all his elect from eternity, upon the word and bond of their Surety, and on the basis of his future righteousness, which he had engaged to work out, and which he full well knew he would most certainly work out? and if there is no difficulty in conceiving of the one, there can be none in conceiving of the other."

My line of reasoning here equally destroys Garrett's position as well as Gill's, if Gill truly made the true faith of regeneration equal to gospel knowledge.

How can gospel knowledge of our New Testament era be equated with the faith given in the effectual call of the Old Testament Saints? Were all the regenerate under the Old Testament taught intellectual knowledge of the gospel as we have it today directly by God? This seems absurd as it would supplant the place of the "Old" Testament in which the future Messiah was known nebulously (at least in terms of intellectual knowledge) only by types and shadows. Jesus Christ is obviously never referred to as plainly in the Old Testament as he appears in the New Testament; otherwise Paul is misleadingly redundant to say that the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, and it would make the Old Testament fully moot as "revelation" because God had directly revealed in actual intellectual, gospel knowledge just as we have today far more than a purposeless Old Testament could hope to reveal.

Surely this line of reasoning shows the folly of equating gospel, intellectual knowledge with the fundamental trust in God that embraces whatever special revelation is available.