N00302:238
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. God often brings secure sinners into an ⟨p. 99⟩afflicted condition, who were before that prosperous, and whiles prosperous, they were secure; but now Gods begins to open their eyes: Thus it was with this younger son, Text, and Context.
2. In this afflicted estate men are apt to ponder and think of their condition: Affliction puts men upon consideration, and makes them usually more ready to hear, and take into their meditation such things as may concern them, Hos. 5. 15.
3. Now God many times brings home the Word to them, and moves them to a more serious and particular consideration of it: Their own concerns are now in it, whereas they looked at themselves as unconcerned before: In prosperity they would not hear, but now the Word is made more to affect them than formerly.