N00302:100
Mercy magnified on a penitent prodigal, or A brief discourse, wherein Christs parable of…
Mercy magnified on a penitent prodigal, or A brief discourse, wherein Christs parable of the lost son found, is opened and applied, as it was delivered in sundry sermons, / by Samuel Willard teacher of a church in Boston in New-England. ; [Two lines from Luke]
printed by Samuel Green for Samuel Philips, 1684
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.
2. His laying no outward check or restraint upon them to hinder them, or stop their course. When God would no longer leave Israel to himself, he hedgeth up his way with thorns, that he shall not find the way to come at his lusts and lovers, Hos. 2: 6,7: But when […] men have a large range, liberty and opportunity, when he afflicts them not, but they prosper and have all at will, and there is no outward control, this is a leaving men: thus God did to Ephraim, Hos. 4.7. Ephraim is joined to Idols, let him alone:
2. His laying no outward check or restraint upon them to hinder them, or stop their course. When God would no longer leave Israel to himself, he hedgeth up his way with thornes, that he shall not find the way to come at his lusts and lovers, Hos. 2: 6,7: But when 〈…〉 men have a large range, liberty and opportunity, when he afflicts them not, but they prosper and have all at will, and there is no outward controle, this is a leaving men: thus God did to Ephraim, Hos. 4.7. Ephraim is joyned to Idols, let him alone:
3. His turning of these favours into snares and provocations of their lusts, […] allure and draw them after them: There are many lusts in the heart of man and these outward mercies are suitable matter for them to work upon: and when God lets it be so; yea, judicially orders it to be so; when he gives them their table to be a snare, their wealth a snare, their health and strength a snare, their wit and knowledge a snare; when pride, profaneness, and sensuality are promoved and nourished ⟨p. 35⟩by these things, then God gives men up to their own hearts lust, and lets them walk on in their own ways,