A66106:793
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.
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,
2. The act of Repentance is an actual turning from Sin, and unto God: and it hath both these parts in it, as was before hinted at verse, 18, 19. If it wants one, it wants all; for man, being a dependent creature, must have, will have some object: Now here the soul utterly and everlastingly relinquisheth all its Sinful objects, Hos. 14. 8. It freely and willingly parts with them, and it turns to God, closeth with him as the only object on whom it can rest for Salvation; this is the ultimate scope of Repentance, Jer. 4. 1. Now such an act of choosing and closing with God, which must needs accompany Repentance, necessarily supposeth faith; for a Sinner cannot close with God but by an act of faith, and if there be an act of faith in Repentance, then there was an habit, whence that act flowed.
2. The act of Repentance is an actual turning from Sin, and unto God: and it hath both these parts in it, as was before hinted at verse, 18, 19. If it wants one, it wants all; for man, being a dependent creature, must have, will have some object: Now here the soul utterly and everlastingly relinquisheth all its Sinful objects, Hos. 14. 8. It freely and willingly parts with them, and it turns to God, closeth with him as the only object on whom it can rest for Salvation; this is the ultimate scope of Repentance, Jer. 4. 1. Now such an act of chusing and closing with God, which must needs accompany Repentance, necessarily supposeth faith; for a Sinner cannot close with God but by an act of faith, and if there be an act of faith in Repentance, then there was an habit, whence that act flowed.
3. Inasmuch as Repentance is a change of the affections, which are the feet of the soul, carrying it from and to its object; and hence is a fixing them upon some other object than ⟨p. 323⟩they formerly dwelt upon; where also the prime affections mainly discover themselves viz. Love and hatred. It necessarily prerequires to this act, a gracious disposition infused into these affections. In Repentance the soul is made to hate Sin, which before it loved as its life; and it loves God, whom before it hated; and the one of these strengthens the other: He hates Sin, because he loves God, &c. Now the setting those affections on work, and moving them to their proper object, implies a sanctified change in them; and no other reason can be given of their so acting.
4. The affections being hand-maids of the will, hence a change in them implies a change in the will, and evidenceth that that is turned: it signifies that the heart is altered from what it was; for the will exerts it self in and by the affections: When therefore we see a man truly to hate Sin and love God, we know that his will is set, fixed, his choice is certainly made: and where the will is changed, there is conversion wrought: where the soul hath indeed chosen God, there is saving grace. David therefore asserts his grace from this evidence, Psal. 73. 25.
4. The affections being hand-maids of the will, hence a change in them implies a change in the will, and evidenceth that that is turned: it signifies that the heart is altered from what it was; for the will exerts it self in and by the affections: When therefore we see a man truly to hate Sin and love God, we know that his will is set, fixed, his choise is certainly made: and where the will is changed, there is conversion wrought: where the soul hath indeed chosen God, there is saving grace. David therefore asserts his grace from this evidence, Psal. 73. 25.
5. Repentance is the exercise of the grace of Sanctification: It is practical holiness, which consists in this, to be going from Sin ⟨p. 324⟩to God. Sanctification hath two parts in it, Mortification, and Vivification; Repentance comprehends them both, brings them in to use, and continues them in practice. Now Sanctification is a benefit of the new Covenant, and a fruit of conversion, one of the things for which Christ is given to us, 1 Cor. 1. 30. and is wrought at conversion, as hath been cleared.
