A92856:689
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.
The first Use shall be for Trial of our selves, what the fruit of 1all our afflictions is; I think there is no man almost in all the Kingdom, but God hath of late some way or other afflicted him. Many have lost all their estates, not an House is left to them, nor Land, nor a Rag to their backs; many have lost their Husbands or their Children in the War; many have lost some of their Family with the Plague lately; who hath not been some way or other afflicted? Now consider, 1. It is the saddest affliction, 2to be no way bettered by afflictions; No misery like that, to love the sins, and continue still in the sins which brought our ⟨p. 293⟩misery: Oh, to be as far from our friends (as before) and as far from our God as before; to be thrust out of an earthly possession, and not yet to get an heavenly inheritance; to lose our Lands, and not yet to get Christ; to have no home to go to here, nor any home to go unto hereafter; to lose our estates, and keep our sins; to lose the world, and to lose the soul too; to lose all our comforts, and yet not to lose the cause of all our discomforts. It was a miracle that the three children were in a fiery furnace, yet not one hair of their heads was singed; It was a miracle that Moses bush was burning, and not consumed: Oh, it is a sad wonder that so many afflictions are upon men, and not one sin troubled, not one sin consumed, mortified! 2. Many persons, though much afflicted, and long afflicted, yet are not converted; God complained of old, they return not to him 3that smites them; and in another place, yet have ye not returned to me, saith the Lord. There are eight sorts of men, whose afflictions have not been effectual to their Conversion. 1. Stupid Sinners, who know not from whom afflictions are sent, nor for what end: Wherefore hath all this evil befallen us, said they. 2. Desperate Sinners, who forsake God in their afflictions: They cry not when he bindeth them, Job. 30. 13. This evil is of the Lord; why should I wait upon the Lord any longer? said he in 2 Kin. 6. 33