N00302:455
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. God and the creature cannot both be a man's stay: These are set in opposition in the Scripture, and will alone be our confidence, or not at all, Deut. 32. 12. Therefore the Apostle opposeth these two trusts to each other I Tim. 6. 17.
4. Hence in order to conversion the soul is broken off from his hope, trust, or reliancy upon any created being; he is made to find himself, with the Prodigal, a bankrupt creature living in a famishing world, which hath nothing in it but husks, and he cannot feed upon ⟨p. 190⟩them: he sees Ashur cannot save, he is in a pit wherein no water is, and now he is ready to die, perish, can find no comfort here.
4. Hence in order to conversion the soul is broken off from his hope, trust, or reliancy upon any created being; he is made to find himself, with the Prodigal, a bankrupt creature living in a famishing world, which hath nothing in it but husks, and he cannot feed upon ⟨p. 190⟩them: he sees Ashur cannot save, he is in a pit wherein no water is, and now he is ready to dy, perish, can find no comfort here.
5. In this state there is nothing but hope can sustain the soul from utterly despairing, and without this the heart would certainly break: For, that man who knows that he must certainly perish without help, and all help which he relied on utterly fails him, hath only this to relieve him, to hope that help may come some other way, else his heart must sink and die within him. Now this hope must be preparatory, for,