A92856:713
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.
because my hands strike not, and yet my heart is full of malice, and revenge, and murder?
Quest. But here a single scruple may be propounded, viz. Whether every internal change be an evidence of true Conversion. To which I answer, it is not; there are four Internal changes which may be in a man unconverted. 1. A change from ignorance to knowledge: The man who was an ignorant sinner, may become a knowing sinner, and yet remain still an unconverted ⟨p. 308⟩sinner; for a man may hate the good which he knows, and love the evil which he knows; neither of which can consist with true Conversion. 2. A change from error to truth. Many 1a man forsakes the Popish Religion, and embraceth the Protestant Religion; his opinion and judgment of things may be altered, and yet his sinful heart may not be altered; he may hold justification by faith only, and yet his heart be utterly void of saving faith; he may deny merit unto the works of Repentance, and yet his heart never truly repent; he may hold the true and right Government of Christ in his Church, and yet that Government of Christ may never be set up in his own heart. 3. A change from security to trouble and perplexity: It is possible that a great 2sinner who was as senseless as the Rock, may now be as trembling as the Leaf, and his conscience troubled as the Sea, and yet his heart not converted; Cain was troubled, so was Pharaoh, so was Saul, so was Judas, yet none of them converted: There is a trouble which riseth from a quick conscience, and there is a trouble which riseth from quickening grace; this latter is an evidence of true Conversion, the other is not. 4. A temporary change, or 3rather a transient diversity in the affections. It is possible for some scornful person to hear the Gospel preached by some John Baptist (as Herod did) with joy, and to hear some Paul (as Felix did) with trembling, who formerly scorned all preaching; yea, this man may be in a great changeableness, yet never be truly changed; divine truths may fall upon him with that evidence and efficacy, as to shake his heart, stir his affections, excite his resolutions, and yet after a little while, as the cold doth on Water that is heated, all these workings expire into nothing, his old incorporated, familiar lusts prevail over them, and work them wholly out; till the inward change be a change of the heart, it is not a truly converting change.