N00302:229
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.
1. His state was as bad before, only the difference is, he then saw it not, but now he doth, he thought himself rich, and the world a trust friend: both these were mistakes, and now he finds them so to be; so that the substance of this charge is, now he is convinced that before he cheated himself: Hence,
2. His state is not properly mended by this conviction; for though he sees his misery in some degree, yet this sight doth not free him from it: Conviction is not Conversion, though God can, when he pleaseth, make it a step towards it: Conviction doth not make any man really better, though it doth give us hopes that where the spirit begins he may carry it on; for Cain and Judas fared never the better by it, though many souls have, by Divine Grace.
2. How this conviction is wrought?
Answ. 1. If we speak of the Author or ef••••• C••se of this work, it properly belongs to the spirit of God, who (in a work of common grace) brings the creature to the sense and apprehension of this misery. I deny not but that rational conviction may be gathered and applied from the rational consideration of things, but that this sensible conviction depends on a special work of the spirit, appears.