N00302:175
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. Man's happiness and everlasting wellbeing is no way promoted or furthered by it. A man is never the nearer happiness by all that he bestows upon himself, he may bless himself, and others may bless him, Psal. 49. 18. But he is not in the way to true blessedness: He may swim in pleasure boast himself in his delicacy, and count himself an happy man, but he is not nearer Heaven and Glory. Nay,
3. Hereby he obstructs and woefully hinders his own salvation; in stead of helping it forward, it is the great obstacle to it; it sets him further off from true good: When once the Prodigal is gotten into his far Country, and is now fallen to wasting his Estate in riot, he is in the most hopeless condition of all. A sinner settled in any course of sin, is most unlikely to return to God, whiles he is gratifying his lust, and tasteth a great deal of sweetness in his beloved sin, now he cannot endure so much as ⟨p. 69⟩to think of the state of his soul, & thus his heart is hardened; he is in his heaven already, & regards not any other, his stakes are pitched down, and his pleasant ditty is, Soul take thine ease: Every sacrifice offered to his lusts sets God further from him, and him at a greater distance from God; nay, his account is increased, and his reckoning will be so much the more dreadful; what he thought should have done him good, doth him the greatest hurt; treasures of wrath are heaped up, out of the treasures of abused goodness, and all that which is so abused for the gratifying of his lusts, is turned into so much fuel for hell: And therefore may all that which is used in a way of sin be well called wasting and spending, Jam. 4. 3. Ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
3. Hereby he obstructs and wofully hinders his own salvation; in stead of helping it foreward, it is the great obstacle to it; it sets him further off from true good: When once the Prodigal is gotten into his far Country, and is now fallen to wasting his Estate in riot, he is in the most hopeless condition of all. A sinner setled in any course of sin, is most unlikely to return to God, whiles he is gratifying his lust, and tasteth a great deal of sweetness in his beloved sin, now he cannot endure so much as