A66106:789
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.
USE 1. For Information.
1. We hence learn that the soul is passive in vocation: I do not mean as it is a Rational, but as it is a spiritual Agent. If God had not come to the sinner, he had never come to God, nor could he have done it: As well might the widows son lying upon the bier, and carrying ⟨p. 315⟩to the grave, have fetched back his departed soul as a sinner dead in trespasses and sins, recover the lost Image of God. Hither every Regenerate man owes his spiritual original, viz. Not to the strength of his nature, or flexibility of his will, but to God, who came to him there where he lay a dying, and whence he was not able so much as to lift up his eyes towards heaven, without God put the ability into him by reviving Grace. And this proclaims the wonderful concescendency of the great God to undone men and women, in that he is not only ready and willing to receive them when they come to him, but he runs forth to meet them, and to do them good: The condition that all men are lying in, at such time as he speaks that happy word to them, live; tends mightily to enhance or illustrate the unspeakable kindness, of God, and hence deserves an ingemination, Ezek. 16. 5, 6. None eye pitied thee, thou wast cast into the open field; I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, live; yea, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live.
1. We hence learn that the soul is passive in vocation: I do not mean as it is a Rational, but as it is a spiritual Agent. If God had not come to the sinner, he had never come to God, nor could he have done it: As well might the widows son lying upon the bier, and carrying ⟨p. 315⟩to the grave, have fetcht back his departed soul as a sinner dead in trespasses and sins, recover the lost Image of God. Hither every Regenerate man ows his spiritual original, viz. Not to the strength of his nature, or flexibility of his will, but to God, who came to him there where he lay a dying, and whence he was not able so much as to lift up his eyes towards heaven, without God put the ability into him by reviving Grace. And this proclaims the wonderful concescendency of the great God to undone men and women, in that he is not only ready and willing to receive them when they come to him, but he runs forth to meet them, and to do them good: The condition that all men are lying in, at such time as he speaks that happy word to them, live; tends mightily to enhaunce or illustrate the unspeakable kindness, of God, and hence deserves an ingemitiation, Ezek. 16. 5, 6. None eye pitied thee, thou wast cast into the open field; I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, live; yea, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live.
2. Here we see that in Regeneration the whole body of graces are brought into the soul at once and together. In effectual vocation the soul receives Christ himself, and that not only relatively, by receiving his person into such relations whereby he becomes his Redeemer and Saviour, applies his righteousness to him ⟨p. 316⟩for Justification, and by marrying him, admits him among the Adopted Children of God; but also really, by the communication of his graces, and filling him with his spirit: He falls upon his neck and kisseth him; all grace is communicated in this act: and there is great reason for it, for Christ in giving of himself to the soul becomes its life, Gal. 2. 20. Christ lives in me. And Christ thus becomes his spiritual life, not only by changing his relative state from what it was, but especially (life being a principle of operation) by putting this new principle into him, in which are contained all such habits and dispositions as are requisite to fit him to live spiritually: i. e. the habits of all graces, for all flow from one and the same principle, viz. spiritual life.
2. Here we see that in Regeneration the whole body of graces are brought into the soul at once and together. In effectual vocation the soul receives Christ himself, and that not only relatively, by receiving his person into such relations wherby he becomes his Redeemer and Saviour, applyes his righteousness to him ⟨p. 316⟩for Justification, and by marrying him, admits him among the Adopted Children of God; but also really, by the communication of his graces, and filling him with his spirit: He falls upon his neck and kisseth him; all grace is communicated in this act: and there is great reason for it, for Christ in giving of himself to the soul becomes its life, Gal. 2. 20. Christ lives in me. And Christ thus becomes his spiritual life, not only by changing his relative state from what it was, but especially (life being a principle of operation) by putting this new principle into him, in which are contained all such habits and dispositions as are requisite to fit him to live spiritually: i. e. the habits of all graces, for all flow from one and the same principle, viz. spiritual life.
3. As a consectary from the former, we hence see that at the instant of effectual vocation, the soul is made partaker in every grace; Justification and Adoption fully, Sanctification and Glorification inchoatively, and in their degrees: these come all together and inseparable, and are made over to the soul in the instant in which God converts him: For when God gives Christ, he gives all things with him; Rom. 8. 32. Yea, he gives him to be all to us, 1 Cor. 1. 30. He is made of God to us, Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption There is a succession of these Graces, 1. Doctrinally, ⟨p. 317⟩they are to be handled orderly, methodically, and distinctly, in the opening of the Doctrines of the Gospel. 2. In the apprehension of a Believer, who doth not immediately discern all of them. 3. In order of nature and consequence: But in time they are contemporary: and the reason is, because the whole Covenant is sealed up in Conversion, and all that is contained in it; i. e. all grace.
3. As a consectary from the former, we hence see that at the instant of effectual vocation, the soul is made partaker in every grace; Justification and Adoption fully, Sanctification and Glorification inchoatively, and in their degrees: these come all together and inseparable, and are made over to the soul in the instant in which God converts him: For when God gives Christ, he gives all things with him; Rom. 8. 32. Yea, he gives him to be all to us, 1 Cor. 1. 30. He is made of God to us, Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption There is a succession of these Graces, 1. Doctrinally, ⟨p. 317⟩
4. We here see the Reason of the sudden and strange alteration which we may sometimes see wrought in a sinner: one whom the other day we saw bleeding to death in his sins, rotting in his grave, spending all in riot, slighting all counsels and persuasions, going in the ways of destruction; now changed and become another man, all new in him: yea, one that was wounded under amazement and terrors of conscience, despairing and dying under convictions; now rejoicing and ravished with the experience of the love of God. These are strange alterations, but not to be misbelieved, if we consider the hast that God makes to find out, and take into his arms dying sinners, and the ravishing embraces he affords them. When God comes, he runs; he may delay a while, and let the sinner run himself out, and not come presently to convert him; but when he doth come, he comes without delay, nothing stops him, Hab. 2. 2. Cant. 2. 8.
4. We here see the Reason of the sudden and strange alteration which we may sometimes see wrought in a sinner: one whom the other day we saw bleeding to death in his sins, rotting in his grave, spending all in riot, slighting all counsels and perswasions, going in the ways of destruction; now changed and become another man, all new in him: yea, one that was wounded under amazement and terrours of conscience, despairing and dying under convictions; now rejoycing and ravished with the experience of the love of God. These are strange alterations, but not to be misbelieved, if we consider the hast that God makes to find out, and take into his arms dying sinners, and the ravishing embraces he affords them. When God comes, he runs; he may delay a while, and let the sinner run himself out, and not come presently to convert him; but when he doth come, he comes without delay, nothing stops him, Hab. 2. 2. Cant. 2. 8.
USE 2. For Exhortation to the regenerate, or such as have been converted unto God; meditate much upon, and labour to be deeply affected with the discoveries of God's wonderful love to you: Think often.
1. What hast he made: I was dying, despairing, hopeless; but he speedily came, and put under an everlasting arm: or ever I was aware, &c.
2. With what ardour of affection he fell upon thy neck: Oh remember those embraces; how he took thee up in his arms, an unworthy, filthy, polluted armful; how kind were those claspings which encircled thee? those embraces which took thee out of thy pit.
3. How he kissed thee; breathing his soul into thee, and filling thee with his love; pardoning all thy sins, taking thee to be his son again, influencing thee with his grace, in thy far Country speaking comfortably to thee. Oh! love the Lord all ye his Saints, and let your hearts boil over in ardent affections to him.
Vers. 21. And the Son said unto him, Father I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy Son.
WE now come to observe the Son's deportment to his Father; or how he carried it under these large and liberal expressions of his love to him; and that is, with all humble and penitent carriage. The blotting out and pardoning of his sins, doth not blot them out of his remembrance, or make him ever the less apprehensive of his unworthiness; no, but it draws out his humble and penitent confession. This acknowledgement, is the same for substance which he had resolved upon, vers. 18, 19. He purposed, if ever he could meet his father, thus he would say; he now not only sees him, but finds himself in his embraces, and here he pours out his soul to him. There is only the last clause omitted, ⟨p. 320⟩and why omitted is not essential to enquire; divers reasons are given, and that which seems most probable, is that his father's kind carriage, and abundant expression of his love, had left him no room for it, because he now found himself accepted in quality of a son. The particular meaning of these words, as they express the nature of true repentance hath been spoken to from, vers. 18, 19. That which we have now to consider, is only his expressing of them at this time, viz. after his father had shown himself, fully reconciled, and so signally testified it in his carriage to him. Hence,
VVE now come to observe the Son's deportment to his Father; or how he carried it under these large and liberal expressions of his love to him; and that is, with all humble and penitent carriage. The blotting out and pardoning of his sins, doth not blot them out of his remembrance, or make him ever the less apprehensive of his unworthiness; no, but it draws out his humble and penitent confession. This acknowledgment, is the same for substance which he had resolved upon, vers. 18, 19. He purposed, if ever he could meet his father, thus he would say; he now not only sees him, but finds himself in his embraces, and here he poures out his soul to him. There is only the last clause omitted, ⟨p. 320⟩and why omitted is not essential to enquire; divers reasons are given, and that which seems most probable, is that his father's kind carriage, and abundant expression of his love, had left him no room for it, because he now found himself accepted in quality of a son. The particular meaning of these words, as they express the nature of true repentance hath been spoken to from, vers. 18, 19. That which we have now to consider, is only his expressing of them at this time, viz. after his father had shewn himself, fully reconciled, and so signally testified it in his carriage to him. Hence,
God's pardoning and accepting Grace, sensibly apprehended, will make a soul more to loth his sins, accuse himself of them, and be ashamed at them. Though whiles God is kindling these resolves, he comes in with them and •rings his Salvation, yet this shall not extinguish those resolutions, but help them. This is the season to express and act. Godly sorrow humiliation and repentance. We have David in this for an exe[…]nt example; whom when ⟨p. 321⟩the Prophet had convinced for his great sin, he confesseth it; but when he had witnessed from God that his sin was pardoned, then he breaks forth in a penitential Psalm, viz. Psal. 51. wherein he humbleth himself into the very dust.
God's pardoning and accepting Grace, sensibly apprehended, will make a soul more to loth his sins, accuse himself of them, and be ashamed at them. Though whiles God is kindling these resolves, he comes in with them and •rings his Salvation, yet this shall not extinguish those resolutions, but help them. This is the season to express and act. Godly sorrow humiliation and •epentance. We have David in this for an exe〈…〉nt example; whom when ⟨p. 321⟩the Prophet had convinced for his great sin, he confesseth it; but when he had witnessed from God that his sin was pardoned, then he breaks forth in a penitential Psalm, viz. Psal. 51. wherein he humbleth himself into the very dust.
Reas. 1. From the nature of true Repentance, sound Humiliation, and Godly sorrow; which is such as, before grace received from God, cannot act kindly, no not at all. All that the man hath before he is converted, is legal: Take the force of the reason in these particulars.
1. All acts presume their habits. It is a principle in Logic, that no effect exceeds the virtue of the cause. The tree must first be made good before it can bring forth good fruit; the thorn turned into a fig-tree, if it bear figs. There must be an habit before there can be acts correspondent: there must be an eye before there can be any sight: So there must be habitual Repentance, or a principle of it in the soul, before there can be exertion of it. Now this principle or habit is not in the soul before conversion. Conversion is the turning of a Sinner from Sin to God; this is done by changing his heart and all his faculties; it is by making him a new creature, and he is thus made by the infusion of the body of spiritual graces into him, or laying the foundation of ⟨p. 322⟩Sanctification in his soul. Repentance is a grace, a special gift of God, and we in the former Doctrine observed, that all graces come at once, and then when God taketh a Sinner into favour, then he furnisheth him with his grace; hence, being in Christ, and being a new creature are convertible, 2 Cor. 5. 17.
1. All acts presume their habits. It is a principle in Logick, that no effect exceeds the vertue of the cause. The tree must first be made good before it can bring forth good fruit; the thorn turned into a fig-tree, if it bear figs. There must be an habit before there can be acts correspondent: there must be an eye before there can be any sight: So there must be habitual Repentance, or a principle of it in the soul, before there can be exertion of it. Now this principle or habit is not in the soul before conversion. Conversion is the turning of a Sinner from Sin to God; this is done by changing his heart and all his faculties; it is by making him a new creature, and he is thus made by the infusion of the body of spiritual graces into him, or laying the foundation of ⟨p. 322⟩Sanctification in his soul. Repentance is a grace, a special gift of God, and we in the former Doctrine observed, that all graces come at once, and then when God taketh a Sinner into favour, then he furnisheth him with his grace; hence, being in Christ, and being a new creature are convertible,
