Mercy magnified on a penitent prodigal, or A brief discourse, wherein Christs parable of…

1. Which are usually wrought by the application of the Law, in which is the curse, and by which is the knowledge of sin, Rom. 7. 8. Misery ariseth out of the curse, and the curse comes upon the breach of the Law, Gal. 3. 12. The Law therefore firstly discovers it.

2. Which are common works, and not in themselves saving; and so the word legal is often used in Divinity, of which nature is this before us: Conviction of misery may befall hypocrites, ⟨p. 95⟩Isa. 43. 14. Yea, of it self this is hell begun in the soul, or conscience.

2. Which are common works, and not in themselves saving; and so the word legal is often used in Divinity, of which nature is this before us: Conviction of misery may befal hypocrites, ⟨p. 95⟩Isa. 43. 14. Yea, of it self this is hell begun in the soul, or conscience.

3. I call it the first legal work: my meaning is that God usually begins here, and so man for the most part is made to look upon the effect, before he discovers the cause, yea is led by it thereunto: he first sees and feels misery upon himself, and thence is led to see sin as the blameable & meritorious cause of all this misery: Man usually apprehends that he is condemned, before he apprehends sin to be the just condemnation, he feels himself miserable, before he justifieth God: for though it be sin which the law condemns, and hence he must so far see sin, as to know that he hath broken this law, yet he is not made to know sin in its just merit, but rather counts it a rigour of the law which makes him angry, with that and not with sin,