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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.
Reas. From the usefulness there is of this conviction in order to Conversion: It is useful▪
1. For the seasonableness of it: God intending to advance himself in man's Salvation, and his Glory being declarative (for his essential Glory is incapable of any advancement) hence the more gracious he appears to be, the more Glory redounds to his great Name: Now the greatness of grace herein appears in one discovery of it, viz. the greatness of the misery from which the subject of this grace is delivered: For the illustration whereof, this work is very fit and seasonable: For, 1. Man must see his own misery, or else he will never admire God's mercy. 2. The best knowledge of this misery, is by a sensible apprehension of the distressing efficacy of it. 3. The sense and apprehension cannot be so well after conversion, because then the apprehension of God's mercy, applied to faith in the promise, cannot but afford some relief against the sense of misery: Thought it is true, the right improvement of this is after mercy hath been apprehended; yet still the remembrance of this distress is a main help to fill the soul with admiration, Isa. 53. 6.
1. For the seasonableness of it: God intending to advance himself in man's Salvation, and his Glory being declarative (for his essential Glory is incapable of any advancement) hence the more gracious he appears to be, the more Glory redounds to his great Name: Now the greatness of grace herein appears in one discovery of it, viz. the greatness of the misery from which the subject of this grace is delivered: For the illustration whereof, this work is very fit and seasonable: For, 1. Man must see his own misery, or else he will never admire God's mercie. 2. The best knowledge of this misery, is by a sensible apprehension of the distressing efficacy of it. 3. The sense and apprehension cannot be so well after conversion, because then the apprehension of God's mercy, applyed to faith in the promise, cannot but afford some relief against the sense of misery: Thought it is true, the right improvement of this is after mercy hath been apprehended; yet still the remembrance of this distress is a main help to fill the soul with admiration,