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

Repentance and Reformation are good things, but they must be done in a good manner, they must not be made our Christ's or Saviours, they must not keep us off from Jesus Christ, or make us say, as the Pagan mentioned by St. Austin did, Jam benè vivo, quid mihi necessarius est Christus? I can live well already, what need have I of Christ? All that reformation, which ⟨p. 495⟩is without Faith in Christ, is, as our Church saith of works without Faith, But dead before God: Nemo computet bona opera sua ante fidem, saith St. Austin, If we would reform indeed, we must go to Christ by Faith: But, saith the Author, in this Humiliation of Mr. Shepherds, a man must have such a sense of his inability to please God, that he must not dare be so profane as to attempt it; and such a sense of his unworthiness, as to submit to God, whether he will save or damn him, he must in some measure be indifferent, whether he be saved or damned; but it is an hard thing to bring a man in his wits to this. To which, I answer, for the first, a sense of our inability to please God, is a thing so necessary, that our Saviour tells Laodicea, that she was wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, and must have her gold, and raiment, and eye-salve, and all from him: If we think we can please God in our selves, & not in the beloved Jesus Christ; or that we can please God, by walking in our own strength, and not in the power of Grace, we do but deceive our selves, and our labour will be but in vain; it will fare with us, as it did with the man storied of in one of the Jewish Rabbins, who in the ⟨p. 496⟩night lighted his Candle, and it went out again, and lighted it again, and again, and still it went out: Our Lamps of a self-made Sanctity and Righteousness, though trimmed over and over, with our endeavours, will certainly go out, and at last we must resolve, as he did, to wait for the Sun, to have all Grace come down to us in the healing Beams of the true Sun of Righteousness, Jesus Christ. And as for the second thing, a sense of our unworthiness, so as to submit to God, whether he will save or damn us; it is no such strange thing to me, that poor sinners should lye prostrate at Gods feet, acknowledging their worthiness to be for ever condemned, and Gods Sovereignty in dispensing Grace as he pleases;

Repentance and Reformation are good things, but they must be done in a good manner, they must not be made our Christ's or Saviours, they must not keep us off from Jesus Christ, or make us say, as the Pagan mentioned by St. Austin did, Jam benè vivo, quid mihi necessarius est Christus? I can live well already, what need have I of Christ? All that reformation, which