A92856:588
The parable of the prodigal. Containing, The riotous prodigal, or The sinners aversion from…
The parable of the prodigal. Containing, The riotous prodigal, or The sinners aversion from God. Returning prodigal, or The penitents conversion to God. Prodigals acceptation, or Favourable entertainment with God. Delivered in divers sermons on Luke 15. from vers. 11. to vers. 24. By that faithful servant of Jesus Christ Obadiah Sedgwick, B.D. Perfected by himself, and perused by those whom he entrusted with the publishing of his works.The parable of the prodigal. Containing, The riotous prodigal, or The sinners aversion from God. Returning prodigal, or The penitents conversion to God. Prodigals acceptation, or Favourable entertainment with God. Delivered in divers sermons on Luke 15. from vers. 11. to vers. 24. By that faithfull servant of Jesus Christ Obadiah Sedgwick, B.D. Perfected by himself, and perused by those whom he intrusted with the publishing of his works.
London: printed by D. Maxwel for Sa. Gellibrand, 1660
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.
Object. But how may a man know that he is as yet in a lost condition? 1Sol. This may be resolved by these Queries: 1. Where is thy Home? 2. What is thy way? 3. When didst thou return? 1. Every lost man is a man afar off. In longum abiit, he is gone 2far from home, from his Father: When the Prodigal was lost, where was he then? The Text saith, That he was gone into a far Country. When the Ephesians were lost, where were they? Afar off, Ephes. 2. 17. When the Israelites were lost, where were they? They are gone away far from me, Jer. 2. 5. A natural man is far from God, (take me right,) you can never find God and a wicked man together; his nature is far from God, and his thoughts are far from God, and his affections are far from God: O, he cannot endure the presence of God, he cannot endure Holiness, he cannot endure holy Ordinances, nor holy Services, nor holy Admonitions, nor holy Reproofs, nor any holy Communion; the further he is from these, the better doth he think his condition to be. A man is never at home till he hath a God, and till he stands in Gods presence, and till he hath communion with his God: But the natural man, &c. 2. Every lost man is in a false way, in 3a by-way; his ways are sinful ways: The lost man, he is out of the common and known Road; he is in the Woods, in the Ditches, in the Deserts, in the Fields, and he goes from one strange place to another strange place. O man! whilst thou walkest after thy sins, whilst thou runnest from sin to sin, whiles thy way and course of Life is in the fulfilling and following of thy Lusts, assuredly thou art a lost man. 3. Didst thou ever yet return to 4God? If not, then as yet thou art in a lost condition. O consider this, consider it seriously, When didst thou return? How didst thou return? Wherein didst thou return back unto thy God? Is not he lost, who is still losing of himself? who still goes on in his Wilderness? And this thou doest; where thou wast twenty years ago, there thou art still.