N00302:367
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.
10. Folly and madness discovers it self in all they do: A wise word or action may steal unawares from them, but this is the tract of their life, you may read it in the tenor of their course: so spiritual madness is in all that unconverted men do; what is the life of the proud ⟨p. 145⟩and ambitious, but a pleasing and priding themselves in a gay Coat, an handful of dirt, a cap and […] knee an empty title? which is mere foolery. How looks the covetous man, who like a boy spends his time in rolling up a great snow ball, which melts before the sun? What but madness are all the actions of the voluptuous, who put off man, and put on beast, being brutish in all their prosecutions? what doth the passionate man, but scatter coals, and throw about fire-brands, as if he had nothing else to do, but set the world in a flame?
10. Folly and madness discovers it self in all they do: A wise word or action may steal unawares from them, but this is the tract of their life, you may read it in the tenor of their course: so spiritual madness is in all that unconverted men do; what is the life of the proud ⟨p. 145⟩and ambitious, but a pleasing and priding themselves in a gay Coat, an handful of dirt, a cap and 〈…〉 knee an empty title? which is meer foolery. How looks the covetous man, who like a boy spends his time in rolling up a great snow ball, which melts before the sun? What but madness are all the actions of the voluptuous, who put off man, and put on beast, being brutish in all their prosecutions? what doth the passionate man, but scatter coals, and throw about fire-brands, as if he had nothing else to do, but set the world in a flame?
USE, 1. It may teach us not to wonder at all the exorbitanci•s and confusions which we see acted in the world: when fools and madmen have gotten the reins in their necks, and act all their own pleasure without any control, what better can be expected? The workers of iniquity all of them have no knowledge, no marvel then that they act so foolishly: Nay, much rather have we cause to wonder at the power and wisdom of God, that so wisely orders, and powerfully manageth this great Bedlam, as to carry on his own ends and designs in it without control or let, causing even the folly of men to pay tribute to his wisdom.