N00302:105
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. But God seems by this to be an encourager of wickedness, and promoter of mans vile designs: Is not this to put a Sword in a madman's hand, that he may destroy himself therewithal? And if God hateth sin, why would he thus give men advantage to sin against him?
2. But God seems by this to be an encourager of wickedness, and promoter of mans vile designs: Is not this to put a Sword in a madmans hand, that he may destroy himself therewithal? And if God hateth sin, why would he thus give men advantage to sin against him?
Ans. The wisdom of God in ordering of allthings according to his own counsels, is not for us mortals to call in question: God hath other Attributes besides his Justice to make known, and they are his bounty, patience, goodness, long sufferance; and this he can do upon the vessels of wrath, and thereby makes way for the glorious manifestation of his Justice upon them that are not led to repentance by: but abuse his goodness, Rom. 2. 4, 5. Neither doth God by this encourage sin, since by his holy Law (which is man's rule, and a discovery of his righteous Judgment) he strictly forbids, and severely denounceth threatenings against all sin: Neither is God's bounty the moral cause of promoting of sin, but hath argument in it to p•omptmen to holiness and obedience; ⟨p. 37⟩but it is man's corrupt heart abusing it to such ends; whereas an holy heart is encouraged by all God's benefits to study his Glory and praise, Psal. 116. 12. And yet God may righteously leave man to follow his own wicked heart, and so to misimprove all his beneficence to his own just condemnation; yea, he may raise up Pharaoh to that very end, Exod. 9. 16. But I come to the Reasons of the Doctrine, which will serve further to clear the truth from imputation; and they are taken from the ends which God designs in thus doing; which though they are at present secret in regard of the individual persons who are thus left, till God of his Providence shall be pleased to make more full and clear discovery of them, yet in themselves they are always one of these two, for all Gods dealings with mankind do ultimately centre in the one or the other viz. either.