N00302:31
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.
Verse 12. And the younger of them said to his Father, Father give me the portion of Goods that falleth to me, and he divided unto them his Inheritance.
The first part describeth to us the Prodigal's going away from his Father, with the circumstances ⟨p. 9⟩and events. We must not seek for mysteries in every word: the general scope of it is to show us how far sin leadeth us from God, how many provocations it hath in it, and to what miseries and straits it reduceth us: and this is set forth by the pattern of a foolish ingrateful Son, dealing most unworthily by a kind and indulgent Father; meriting by his carriage to be rejected, and bringing of himself to all miserable exigencies by his so doing. Of this part of the Parable we may briefly take this partition; it consists of two parts, or holds out to us:
The first part describeth to us the Prodigal's going away from his Father, with the circumstances ⟨p. 9⟩and events. We must not seek for mysteries in every word: the general scope of it is to shew us how far sin leadeth us from God, how many provocations it hath in it, and to what miseries and straits it reduceth us: and this is set forth by the pattern of a foolish ingrateful Son, dealing most unworthily by a kind and indulgent Father; meriting by his carriage to be rejected, and bringing of himself to all miserable exigencies by his so doing. Of this part of the Parable we may briefly take this partition; it consists of two parts, or holds out to us:
1. The folly of the younger Son.