A66106:583
Mercy magnified on a penitent prodigal, or, A brief discourse
Mercy magnified on a penitent prodigal, or, A brief discourse wherein Christs parable of the lost son found is opened and applied as it was delivered in sundry sermons / by Samuel Willard ...
printed by Samuel Green for Samuel Philips, 1684
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1. You have driven a trade of sinning against ⟨p. 245⟩and provoking him all your lives long: it hath been your custom from your youth upward; nay, you have done it with delight; you have made nothing to break his holy commands; yea, it hath been a sport and recreation to you, you could not sleep without it.
2. You have abused and mis-improved all his mercies, taking encouragement by them to sin against him: with his own you have dishonoured his great Name; with his flax, and his wool, &c. Hos. 2. 8, 9. You have spent that substance which he lent you in riot, have made his creatures to serve your sins, and so armed them against him, and thereby made the creation to groan under your oppression.
2. You have abused and mis-improved all his mercies, taking encouragment by them to sin against him: with his own you have dishonoured his great Name; with his flax, and his wool, &c. Hos. 2. 8, 9. You have spent that substance which he lent you in riot, have made his creatures to serve your sins, and so armed them against him, and thereby made the creation to groan under your oppression.
3. You have sought for succour, relief, comfort, to other things, and not to him, have trusted in creatures and not in the Creator, you have lived upon husks, and fed on the air, and have made your selves servants; yea, slaves to Satan and the World, and thereby disgraced your Original, and forgotten your end, which was to serve God, and depend upon him for all.