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

But art thou willing, that Christ should make thee willing, (against thy will) and pitch thee upon a promise and hold thee there? (for shame, poor Soul, refuse not this) then comfort thy self, thou hast a right to Gods promises. Thus this evidence of Sanctification is dwindled away into a desire to be willing; ⟨p. 552⟩Nay, into a desire to be made willing; and he is a strange Man, who cannot go so far.

When a Minister comes to comfort poor afflicted souls,¹ he doth not offer them the Altitudes, the highest Statures of Holiness to measure themselves by, that would be horrid cruelty; but he sets before them that immense mercy, which stoops down, in its acceptance, to the least seeds or sparks of Grace, to grace latent in a desire or willing mind; Nay, to that poverty of the spirit, which, though it seem to it self to have nothing at all of Grace, hath yet a blessedness entailed on it; a broken heart, which hath some truth of Grace, may complain of the prevalency of sin in some sense. The pressure of inherent corruption may make him cry out: O wretched man! the flesh may so lust against the spirit, that he cannot do the things that he would, Gal. 5.17. Yet comfort may and doth belong to him, those promises of subduing iniquity, of treading down Satan; may, without straining them beyond their scope; let out their sweetness to him: When he thinks, that he cannot pray, God may find and accept of a prayer in his sighs and groans, ⟨p. 553⟩when he fears by reason of the stirring lusts, that he shall fall from God; Grace is sufficient and able to make him stand, he may be in Christs hands, and yet not know it to his comfort: He saith, he cannot believe, and yet his Faith, though little, and as the smoking Flax may be true: The deep sense which he hath of the power of sin and want of Faith, argues somewhat of Faith and a Divine Life in him, which struggles against sin, and aspires after more Grace: He saith, that he cannot desire Christ, as he should: And this sense of his want may speak him, not an honest man only, but a pious, such as indeed breaths after Grace: He saith, he cannot grieve or mourn for sin; yet that very saying argues a kind of mourning and lamentation over his hardness, and speaks his heart not to be totally hard or senseless: He complains his will is not such as it should be; and this shows, that in some measure he looks up to that Grace, which is able to make him willing, not as if he were to be made willing against his will; but that Grace can change an unwilling will into a willing one: In such dealings as these with broken hearts; Sanctification is not dwindled