N00302:53
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.
DOCT. II. Wicked men are apt to challenge a special propriety in God.
The Prodigal accosts his Father with a title of nearest relation: the degenerate and profane Jews, that had cast off the fear of God, yet must needs challenge him to be their Father: Job. 8.41. We have one Father, even God. Oftentimes there are none more confident then such; God is their God, they profess him, own and acknowledge him.
The Prodigal accosts his Father with a title of nearest relation: the degenerate and prophane Jews, that had cast off the fear of God, yet must needs challenge him to be their Father: Job. 8.41. We have one Father, even God. Oftentimes there are none more confident then such; God is their God, they profess him, own and acknowledge him.
Reas. 1. From the conviction which every natural man carries upon his mind of his Absolute dependence upon God, and that he alone can make him happy or miserable: for, although this be a truth which man by his sinful courses practically contradicts, and a light which he is not unwilling to extinguish, it is yet so riveted in the mind of man, that he cannot wholly evade it; it sticks as close to him as his being; and hence it follows that though he neither loveth, nor careth for serving of God, yet he would maintain an hope, which may uphold his spirits from sinking, though it be but a rotten hope.