N00302:527
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.
5. He will excuse and mince it with all diminutive circumstances, to make it look like a very little fault, as, 1. He did it ignorantly, he knew no sin there was in it but, thought that he had done well enough: Thus Saul excuseth himself for sacrificing, 1 Sam. 13. 11, 12. 2. He did but follow his natural inclination, it was, at worst, but a trick of youth, &c. 3. It was no great matter, a thing of no great consequence, and others frequently do the like. 4. He was provoked to it; yea, had many great provocations which bare him down. These, and many the like excuses, the corrupt heart of man is ready to frame: But when God sets sin home upon the soul with the right conception of it, he then lays the blame upon himself, and that with greatest aggravation, in which,
5. He will excuse and mince it with all deminutive circumstances, to make it look like a very little fault, as, 1. He did it ignorantly, he knew no sin there was in it but, thought that he had done well enough: Thus Saul excuseth himself for sacrificing, 1 Sam. 13. 11, 12. 2. He did but follow his natural inclination, it was, at worst, but a trick of youth, &c. 3. It was no great matter, a thing of no great consequence, and others frequently do the like. 4. He was provoked to it; yea, had many great provocations which bare him down. These, and many the like excuses, the corrupt heart of man is ready to frame: But when God sets sin home upon the soul with the right conception of it, he then layes the blame upon himself, and that with greatest aggravation, in which,
1. He acquits God; lays it not in the least to his charge, but declares him to be altogether blameless: David takes his sin to himself, that God may be righteous and justified, Psal. 51 4. q. d. I have nothing to accuse God of, he is holy and righteous.