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

Name: Mercy magnified on a penitent prodigal, or, A brief discourse
Author: Samuel Willard

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 ...

Samuel Willard 1640–1707printed by Samuel Green for Samuel Philips, 1684

[6], 391, [1] p. · 92k words · Wing W2285 · ESTC R40698

Title page typeset from the transcription.

Mercy Magnified ON A PENITENT Prodigal. › Sermon 23 › DOCT. When God manifests his special love to the soul of a sinner i…: DOCT. When God manifests his special love to the soul of a sinner in Conversion, it will…Mercy Magnified ON A PENITENT Prodigal. › Sermon 23 › DOCT. When God manifests his special love to the soul of a sinner i…: DOCT. When God manifests his special love to the soul of a sinner in Conversion, it wil…

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.

[ Earlier:810–825 of 995

:810p. 325–326¶1

1. We have here a note of distinction between a legal and a saving Repentance. The Scripture makes mention of both; it tells us of Ahab's repentance as well as of David's: It puts one name upon things vastly different; and if we would know how to distinguish them, here is it to be discerned: The one is effected by a spirit of Bondage, the other by the spirit of Adoption; the one is produced by te••ours, the other by love: the one confesseth […] Sin, vomits up his morsels, takes upon him a profession of holiness, driven to it by the dismal reflections of his own Conscience, and apprehensions ⟨p. 326⟩of the wrath to come: the other is taken into embraces of amity, confirmed with a kiss of favour; and by this his heart is melted into Godly sorrow, in his fathers arms he bemoans himself. The truly broken heart, is an heart broken with love.

1. We have here a note of distinction between a legal and a saving Repentance. The Scripture makes mention of both; it tells us of Ahab's repentance as well as of David's: It puts one name upon things vastly different; and if we would know how to distinguish them, here is it to be discerned: The one is effected by a spirit of Bondage, the other by the spirit of Adoption; the one is produced by te••ours, the other by love: the one confesseth 〈…〉 Sin, vomits up his morsels, takes upon him a profession of holiness, driven to it by the dismal reflexions of his own Conscience, and apprehensions ⟨p. 326⟩of the wrath to come: the other is taken into embraces of amity, confirmed with a kiss of favour; and by this his heart is melted into Godly sorrow, in his fathers arms he bemoans himself. The truly broken heart, is an heart broken with love.

:811p. 326¶2

2. Here we see when is the genuine season of godly sorrow; and the reason why a soul that is newly converted is so full of bitterness, complaints and self accusations. If a soul do not repent and bitterly mourn for Sin now, when shall he? before he could not, in heaven there will be no room for it. God the father, the great Husband man of his Vineyard, deals in great skill with the soul: For having broken up the fallow ground of the heart, and sown the seed of grace in it, he now sends seasonable showers upon it, to water the ridges thereof, that it may be made to bring forth a plentiful Harvest,

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SERMON XXIV.