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

But let us consider, ¹the whole progress of the Soul to a closure with Christ; the several steps to this are Conviction, Compunction, Humiliation, and Faith, which is the uniting Grace. Now if there be nothing of forsaking of sin included in all this, then Men must be united to Christ before they forsake their sins: Now, Conviction is a great sense of the evil of sin, and the evil after it, of its abominable & accursed Nature, and the Judgments which follow it; and this is as it ought to be, Men must be awakened to see these evils, before they will reform their lives; Reform? nay, you are out, this is not the end of Conviction to reform sin (that is a legal way) but Compunction is the end of it; well ⟨p. 487⟩then, what is this Compunction? Why, Compunction is first a great fear of being damned, he sees death, wrath, eternity near to him; next to this succeeds a great sorrow and mourning for sin, and that which perfects this Compunction, is a separation from sin; this is something like, but by a separation from sin, you must not understand a leaving sin, but such a separation as consists with living in it; For it is nothing but a being willing, or rather not unwilling, that the Lord should take it away; the Lord doth not wound the heart, that the Soul should first heal it self, but that it may desire the Physician, the Lord Jesus, to come and heal it: So that all he means by separation from sin, is to be content that Christ by an irresistible power should take away our sins: By this Separation the Soul is cut off from the will to sin, not from all (no, nor from any) sin in the will, for that must be mortified by a Spirit of holiness, after the Soul is implanted into Christ. Now this is down right non-sense, for he must be a subtle Man, who can distinguish between a will to sin, and sin in the will; and all that can be made of it is this, that this separation is a willingness, or rather not unwillingness, that Christ ⟨p. 488⟩should take away our sins against our wills; and therefore he tells us, That this Separation is no part of our Sanctification: The whole design of this Compunction, is to work humiliation in us, which is the work of the Spirit, whereby the Soul, broken off from self-conceit and confidence, submitteth and lieth under God, to be disposed as he pleaseth; this self-confidence is any hope of pleasing God, by Reformation, or Repentance, or any thing he can do.