N00302:438
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.
USE, 2. For Exhortation, let it serve to call upon and invite every unregenerate sinner to serious and solemn consideration of this truth, viz. that he is perishing, starving, famishing, dying: It is the saddest sight in the world to see poor miserable men and women dying, and they ignorant; dropping every day into hell, because they have nothing to live upon, and yet not consider. If you ask me who is intended by this perishing Prodigal; I answer, if thou art unconverted thou are the ⟨p. 182⟩person; and that thou mayest be convinced of, and made to apprehend it, take into thought these things.
1. Thy poor soul must have something to live upon, or else it will perish everlastingly: This is a truth that man little thinks of, hence he cares only for his outward man; but it is evident, man is every way a dependent creature; if the soul have not spiritual food to live on, it must needs die: as the life is lost without food, so is the soul lost without Christ, hence called. our life. Col. 3. 4.
1. Thy poor soul must have something to live upon, or else it will perish everlastingly: This is a truth that man little thinks of, hence he cares only for his outward man; but it is evident, man is every way a dependent creature; if the soul have not spiritual food to live on, it must needs dy: as the life is lost without food, so is the soul lost without Christ, hence called. our life. Col. 3. 4.
2. Thou hast nothing in thy self to live upon, and therefore in thy self art certainly perishing: Such is the condition of every soul out of Christ, he is going to destruction: Look upon thy self and thou shalt find in thee all the symptoms of a perishing creature: all thou hadst to live upon is spent, or, I am sure, will be spent without thy profit: Original righteousness and holiness thou hast lost already, and thy vain and carnal hopes thou wilt lose sooner or latter: thou art a law breaker, art under the curse, sentenced to die everlastingly; God, in whose favour alone is life, is thy Enemy; the Law, in obedience to which thou mightest have lived, is broken by thee, and calls for thy destruction; thou hast nothing to redeem thee from the efficacy of it; thou hast no power to obey it, no price to satisfy with for thy violation