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

I have finished two Proposition from this Text: One respecting the death, and the other respecting the life of a sinner: I now proceed to a third, which is, That a very great and notorious ¹sinner may be (at length) converted and changed. [This my Son was dead, and is alive again:] This Son! and who was he, or what was he; in the precedent Verses, you may see his picture, you may read the History of him; he was one, who would be gone from his Fathers House, and into a far Country he went, and there he did waste his substance with riotous living. He made an end of all of it, and in the basest of ways, amongst Harlots; and then betakes himself to sordid shifts: He offered himself to •eed Swine, and would have fed with the Swine, nay, would ⟨p. 280⟩have lived upon the Offals and Husks which the Swine left: He stood it out to the last; if he could possibly have subsisted, if he could but have lived, he would never have come back to his Father: Yet this Son, this Son at length comes back, at length is converted, and is alive again. But I obtained mercy (said Paul, 1 Tim. 1. 13.) Misericordia• donantem, mercy of Conversion; misericordiam condonan•em, mercy of remission: I obtained mercy! Why! what was he more then another, that he does so emphatically speak of himself, I obtained mercy! Yea, there was reason to set it off thus with an Emphasis; for he was a notorious sinner, I was (saith he) a Blasphemer, and a Persecutor and Injurious, yet I, I obtained mercy! Some of you know that it hath been an ancient question and debate about the equality or inequality of sin; I think thus, 1. That Original sin (quantum ad se) is equally divided amongst all men, there is aequalis carentia debiti, and aequalis inhaerentia Indebiti (as touching the nature of Original sin) in every man; in respect of it, one sinner is not a greater sinner then another. 2. Yet the actual exercise of that sin, may be more in one man, then in another; and hence it is, that some sinners we call them lesser, and others we call them greater: By a great sinner, I mean one who exceeds another very much in sinful ways and guilt. And one may be called a great, a very great sinner in four respects; nevertheless they have not hindered conversion.