The parable of the prodigal. Containing, The riotous prodigal, or The sinners aversion from…

Now I proceed to the Application of this point; the Uses are many, 1. For Conviction of Error in Judgment.¹

1. 1Use 1. Conviction. It is no easy work to Repent.Use 1. Conviction. It is no easie work to Repent.

1. That it is an easy work to Repent, and to leave sin. When I am sick, or come to die, then I will think of that work. No, brethren, if the heart of man be of so subtle a temper, and so perverse a frame, can afflictions do it of themselves? if the love of sin be so strongly in grain, that many waters of afflictions cannot wash it out, nor many beams of mercy melt and turn it; you must then imagine it not to be an easy work to turn the heart from sin, if it will adventure the loss of heaven, and the endurance of hell, and the actual presence of many sore calamities; confess then, That the descents ⟨p. 53⟩into sin are easy, but the returns from it are not ordinary or facile. ¹Where all the means, tending to the Conversion of a sinner, are opposed, and, as it were, wholly defeated and frustrated, there the heart is not so easily wrought upon to return. 2. That no more is required to Convert a sinner, but External and Congruous Grace; as if the heart were like a Fish upon the hook, which might be drawn at pleasure to the shore; or, like Wax prepared, and it were no more but to put on the Seal: or, as if to Convert a sin, were no more then to report a History, or to offer a man a Purchase. Nay, but there must be likewise Impressions as well as Invitations; not only Means, but Grace it self; not only the Rod and Word, but likewise the Spirit of God, and his mighty Operation; not only a Voice saying, This is the way, but also the Spirit of God which must cause us to walk in that way: there must be healing Medicines put within the Soul by the hand of God himself, or else all the means in the world, the Word, the Sacraments, the afflictions, and miseries, and examples may say and complain with the Prophet,