N00302:398
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.
4. The improvement of it, is to draw useful practical conclusions from it. All truths lead to practice; and that consideration that issues not here is fruitless: The work of consideration is to say, what have I done, or what have I to do, if these things be thus or so? Now, till the soul comes unto this, it is not so much as in the way to conversion; for, though the spirit draws, yet the soul follows, and that not as a blind or dead thing, but as it is affected or persuaded by the efficacy of that which leads it sweetly after, and whereof it can give an account, and render a reason for what it doth: Thus Lydia's heart was touched, and she hearkened &c, Thus the Prodigal, comes to himself, ⟨p. 161⟩and then he reasons within himself.
4. The improvment of it, is to draw useful practical conclusions from it. All truths lead to practice; and that consideration that issues not here is fruitless: The work of consideration is to say, what have I done, or what have I to do, if these things be thus or so? Now, till the soul comes unto this, it is not so much as in the way to conversion; for, though the spirit draws, yet the soul follows, and that not as a blind or dead thing, but as it is affected or perswaded by the efficacy of that which leads it sweetly after, and whereof it can give an account, and render a reason for what it doth: Thus Lydia's heart was touched, and she hearkned &c, Thus the Prodigal, comes to himself, ⟨p. 161⟩and then he reasons within himself.
USE, 1. For Information; we may hence learn.