N00302:431
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.
2. Man is naturally most opposite and contrary to God, and will not (be sure) come to him until he be driven: It is very evident, that he will try every way, turn every stone, use all means to do well otherwayes, before he will betake him ••fe to God: the Prodigal will live meanly, fare hardly, scramble, and debase himself if that will do rather than return to his father's house: as long as a sinner hath any hopes that he can make a shift to keep up himself from sinking, he flies not unto God: (the ••ven; if he can have carrion to light upon and feed of, returns not to the Ark:) for till now he hath no need of God: A man must be sick before he will send for a Physician, and dangerously sick, heart sick, before he will send for one whom he hates, other Physicians must first fail him.
2. Man is naturally most opposite and contrary to God, and will not (be sure) come to him until he be driven: It is very evident, that he will try every way, turn every stone, use all means to do well otherwayes, before he will betake him ••fe to God: the Prodigal will live meanly, fare hardly, scramble, and debase himself if that will do rather than return to his father's house: as long as a sinner hath any hopes that he can make a shift to keep up himself from sinking, he flyes not unto God: (the ••ven; if he can have carrion to light upon and feed of, returns not to the Ark:) for till now he hath no need of God: A man must be sick before he will send for a Physitian, and dangerously sick, heart sick, before he will send for one whom he hates, other Physitians must first fail him.
4. In Conversion there must be a whole reliance upon God, and that must presuppose an better rejection of all other helps and props, Hos. 14. 3. Ashur shall not save us, &c. Now man hath naturally such an opinion of himself, and of the creature, that till he be throughly convinced of its emptiness, he will not forsake it, and till that he cannot close truly with God, who will not be a divided trust, or part glory