Mercy magnified on a penitent prodigal, or, A brief discourse

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