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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. This serves to discover the great wickedness, and horrid ingratitude of the Children of men, that strengthen themselves in rebellion by that which should soften and break their hearts. That those cords of kindness by which God would bind & engage their souls to love him, must be turned into cords of vanity to bind their hearts more strong in rebellion against him. It is a very sore charge which God draws up against Judah, to the observation of which, as a thing most unreasonable, and horrible, he calls heaven and earth as witnesses, Isa. 1. 2. I have nourished and brought up Children, and they have rebelled against me. How righteour is the condemnation of sinners, that God's kindness should set their hearts more against him, that goodness should engender hatred? This is a strange Antiperistasis. Let it then convince us what wicked hearts we have naturally, and humble us before God, that it should be so.
USE. 2. It plainly discovers to us that the conversion of a sinner is not of himself, nor from any leading motion or inclination of his ⟨p. 59⟩own heart: for the very Bias of a mans heart doth naturally draw him to turn away from God, yea to run as far from him as possibly he can, and he would never return any more, if God did not draw him by his Almighty power: There must be the irresistible attraction of the Spirit of God to incline the soul to seek him, before it will look after him: If all Gods outward favours make him worse, there is no hope till there be something inward to change his heart, that he will ever be better: Wonder not then if we see men growing worse under the best of means and outward mercies, for the sinful nature of man takes advantage by these things to be so; but let us pray earnestly to God for the pouring out of his spirit and work by his power.
USE. 2. It plainly discovers to us that the conversion of a sinner is not of himself, nor from any leading motion or inclination of his ⟨p. 59⟩