N00302:109
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.
USE, 1. To teach us not too much to bless our selves in our enjoyment of outward favours. God's love is not from hence to be positively concluded: It is the wise mans observation, Eccl. 9. begin. No man knows love or battered by all that is before him. And yet there is nothing more common than for men to be be proud and self conceited in these things whereas they are indeed nothing else but some of the offals of God's favours, which he can spare to the swine of the world, and often throws out to them in a plentiful measure: Things common to the Elect and Reprobate are not just matter of boasting; if you have all these blessings, and are wicked in the enjoyment of them, you are not happy but miserable in that enjoyment.
USE, 1. To teach us not too much to bless our selves in our enjoyment of outward favours. God's love is not from hence to be positively concluded: It is the wise mans observation, Eccl. 9. begin. No man knows love or batred by all that is before him. And yet there is nothing more common than for men to be be proud and self conceited in these things whereas they are indeed nothing else but some of the offals of God's favours, which he can spare to the swine of the world, and often throws out to them in a plentiful measure: Things common to the Elect and Reprobate are not just matter of boasting; if you have all these blessings, and are wicked in the enjoyment of them, you are not happy but miserable in that enjoyment.
USE, 2. It may also teach us not to grudge at, or envy wicked men, for their great parts, and large estates, or whatever other worldly blessings they enjoy in a more liberal measure than other men: and the more we ought to beware of this, inasmuch as good men have sometimes been prone to be envious at these things, Psal. 73. begin. Yea, the Prophet had a mind to have impleaded God about it, Jer. 12. 1