N00302:432
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. 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 ⟨p. 178⟩with another, Isa. 42. 8.
USE, 1. For Information, here we see,
1. The reason why Jesus Christ and his salvation are no more welcome and acceptable to the most of men, and so why the work of conversion is so rare and infrequent even there where the Gospel comes with most clearness; it is because the most of men have yet something of then own to live upon; they have not spent all, they are not nipped with the famine. Though all natural men are prodigals, yet they have not as yet made away with their portion, they still have something to support them; they do not feel themselves poor perishing creatures; but are like Laodicea, Rev. 3.17. Rich and want for nothing. Tell them of the riches of grace in Christ, the full supplies that are with him, that he hath wherewithal to satisfy the hungry soul, what care they? they need it not, the are not hungry and pinched; the most of the children of men think they can do sufficiently without Christ, therefore they say to him depart from us,