N00302:280
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. Voluntary; men give themselves up to this slavery; they will do it, Joh. 8. 44. You are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. This bondage is man's own choice: Had this son been willing to return to his father, the necessity had been taken away; but men give themselves up to satan; and the ground of this lies in the very nature of sin, which is a relinquishing of the service of God and enslaving a man's self to satan. Now this bondage is not bodily so much as spiritual; ⟨p. 114⟩it is an enslaving or binding of the soul to his service, and consists in these things.
2. Voluntary; men give themselves up to this slavery; they will do it, Joh. 8. 44. You are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. This bondage is man's own choice: Had this son been willing to retrun to his father, the necessity had been taken away; but men give themselves up to satan; and the ground of this lyes in the very nature of sin, which is a relinquishing of the service of God and enslaving a man's self to satan. Now this bondage is not bodily so much as spiritual; ⟨p. 114⟩it is an enslaving or binding of the soul to his service, and consists in these things.
1. He is now at Satan's beck, and ready to hearken to; and attend every hint from him, to come and go at his pleasure; he hath given him the lordship of his soul, and bids him to take him under his government; hence he is said to rule in the Children of disobedience, Eph. 2. 2.