N00302:343
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.
DOCT. IV. God many times, when he intends a Soul true good, withholds from him the thing of this world, though he long for, and lay out after them never so earnestly.
Men labour hard, take a great deal of pains, ⟨p. 135⟩weary themselves in pursuit, and think why may not they obtain it as well as others? their opportunities are as fair, their understandings as pregnant, their endeavours as prudent and diligent, and still there is an unseen obstacle, a remora that is put to their endeavours, that they prosper not: That this is of God, the Prophet tells us, Hab. 2. 13. and he oftentimes makes it to be thus in order to their conversion and best good. And the reason why God takes this course is,
1. From the natural tendency which there is in outward prosperity to hinder a sinners conversion: for it is an occasion of making him proud, self-conceited, deaf to counsel, Jer. 22. 21. I spake to thee in thy prosperity, and thou wouldest not hear. When men are settled upon the world and their hearts are at ease, they like not to be disturbed.
1. From the natural tendency which there is in outward prosperity to hinder a sinners conversion: for it is an occasion of making him proud, self-conceited, deaf to counsel, Jer. 22. 21. I spake to thee in thy prosperity, and thou wouldest not hear. When men are setled upon the world and their hearts are at ease, they like not to be disturbed.