N00302:402
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.
3. The reason why worldly occasions or delights, are to carnal hearts so great an obstruction to their conversion; why they choke good thoughts, good motions, and this is discovered in the thorny ground: Cares and deceitfulness of the world are these thorns; alas! men have so much to do in the world, that it is a wonder if they do not (with those guests, ⟨p. 164⟩Mat. 22.) desire to be excused from coming at the Ordinances; but if they do in complement attend them, yet they have no time or leisure to improve what they hear, by consideration: Men have so much to do here in this world, that they cannot find a convenient time to think of the affairs of their souls: The clamour of outward business, speaks so much that they have no time to say a serious word to themselves about eternity and the things of another world: they are always in a crowd and hurry, and there is no room for meditation; one hath his Shop to look after, another his Ship to fit out, lawful things, and duties in their time and place; but it is great pity that there should be no thoughts mean while of those greater matters: And hence no wonder that our Saviour speaks of it as a difficult, and miraculous thing for a rich man to be converted, because his mind is so taken up, his heart so fixed, his thoughts so occupied here, that he hears not the trumpet sound, nor takes the alarm of the word, nor ever so much as seriously thinks of an after state, and how much he is concerned in it.
3. The reason why worldly occasions or delights, are to carnal hearts so great an obstruction to their conversion; why they choak good thoughts, good motions, and this is discovered in the thorny ground: Cares and deceitfulness of the world are these thornes; alas! men have so much to do in the world, that it is a wonder if they do not (with those ghuests, ⟨p. 164⟩Mat. 22.) desire to be excused from coming at the Ordinances; but if they do in complement attend them, yet they have no time or leisure to improve what they hear, by consideration: Men have so much to do here in this world, that they cannot find a convenient time to think of the affairs of their souls: The clamour of outward business, speaks so much that they have no time to say a serious word to themselves about eternity and the things of another world: they are alwayes in a crowd and hurry, and there is no room for meditation; one hath his Shop to look after, another his Ship to fit out, lawful things, and duties in their time and place; but it is great pity that there should be no thoughts mean while of those greater matters: And hence no wonder that our Saviour speaks of it as a difficult, and miraculous thing for a rich man to be converted, because his mind is so taken up, his heart so fixed, his thoughts so occupied here, that he hears not the trumpet sound, nor takes the alarum of the word, nor ever so much as seriously thinks of an after state, and how much he is concerned in it.