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

The steps of the Soul towards Christ, ¹are conviction, compunction, Humiliation, Faith: Now if there be nothing of forsaking of sin in all this, then men ⟨p. 491⟩must be united to Christ before they forsake their sins: So the Author: But doth Mr. Shepherd allow of no kind of forsaking of sin before union to Christ? Yes surely, There is, saith he, a separation from sin; so much separation, as makes the Soul willing, that sin should be taken away: So much separation, as is necessary to the Souls closing with Christ: He never thought that a man indulging his lusts, should immediately come, and be united to Christ: No, every step or degree, which he sets in the Souls progress to a closure with Christ, proves the contrary, what need conviction, compunction, humiliation; If the Soul, wallowing in its lusts, might be united to Christ. But Mr. Shepherd makes the end of conviction to be, not reformation of sin, but compunction: But how doth he so? What, that there is no tendency at all in conviction towards reformation? No, he saith expressly, that the next end of it is compunction. Sorrow for sin is so called for in Scripture; that no man may deny it to be one of God's methods, by which he uses to bring men home to himself: Neither is it imaginable, that sin our old joy, unless in some measure it become our sorrow, should ever be ⟨p. 492⟩reformed, as it ought, without compunction (saith Mr. Shepherd) a sinner will never part with his sin: A bare conviction doth but light the Candle to see sin; but compunction burns his fingers, and that makes him dread the fire: But Mr. Shepherd (who places this compunction in a fear of wrath, sorrow for sin, and separation from sin) means by separation, not a leaving of sin, but a being willing, or rather not unwilling, that the Lord should take it away, and that by an irresistible power, and that against our wills. To which, I answer, touching irresistible Grace, and that objection, as if we were made willing against our will, I have before discoursed: In compunction there is a leaving of sin in some measure; the fear of wrath will make a man start from it; sorrow for sin will make it cease to be joy; separation from sin, so as to be willing to have it taken away, is a kind of withdrawing and departure of heart from it: