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

1. Get as distinct a knowledge of sin, as clear conviction as ¹you can. It is our blindness which keeps us in service; and the Will is usually perverse, because the Judgment is greatly dark: Did we know sin aright, (truly, fully, experimentally,) you have attained to Reasons enough, why you should resolve against it. Sin carries its own condemnation with it: Sometimes the particular effects of sin do half persuade us to be Christians, to leave the service of sin; a stroke or two upon the Conscience, do thus far prevail, as to pause and stop; If then we knew sin in the latitude of its bitter effects, and in the intensiveness of them (beyond all thoughts) for bitterness and perpetuity, as also that extreme vileness in the formal nature of it, which is the vast womb and Ocean, out of which these bitter waters do flow; if we did know sin as the darkest blot, and loathsome blur, opposite to the truest Glory of purest Holiness; and as the most deformed and highest Rebellion to the most equal Laws and Rules of Divine Sovereignty; and as the very Eclipse, and utter Inconsistence with all real Happiness; and as the infallible and unavoidable Precipice of our intolerable and eternal Damnation: At least, this would be an occasional excitation, if not a strong foundation, upon which to raise a Resolution to quit and forsake it. Sure I am, the defect of this, that men know not sin, makes them bold and venturous, obstinate, and tenacious; they will not desist from the ⟨p. 100⟩practice of sin, because they know not the evil of sin.

1. Get as distinct a knowledge of sin, as clear conviction as ¹you can. It is our blindness which keeps us in service; and the Will is usually perverse, because the Judgment is greatly dark: Did we know sin aright, (truly, fully, experimentally,) you have attained to Reasons enough, why you should resolve against it. Sin carries its own condemnation with it: Sometimes the particular effects of sin do half perswade us to be Christians, to leave the service of sin; a stroke or two upon the Conscience, do thus far prevail, as to pause and stop; If then we knew sin in the latitude of its bitter effects, and in the intensiveness of them (beyond all thoughts) for bitterness and perpetuity, as also that extreme vileness in the formal nature of it, which is the vast womb and Ocean, out of which these bitter waters do flow; if we did know sin as the darkest blot, and loathsome blur, opposite to the truest Glory of purest Holiness; and as the most deformed and highest Rebellion to the most equal Laws and Rules of Divine Soveraignty; and as the very Eclipse, and utter Inconsistence with all real Happiness; and as the infallible and unavoidable Precipice of our intollerable and eternal Damnation: At least, this would be an occasional excitation, if not a strong foundation, upon which to raise a Resolution to quit and forsake it. Sure I am, the defect of this, that men know not sin, makes them bold and venturous, obstinate, and tenacious; they will not desist from the