N00302:549
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. Where God gives true Repentance, he makes the Sinner to see and confess himself to be utterly unworthy of any mercy, and worthy of all misery.
The Grace we are here considering of is true Humility, a fruit and discovery of Faith, and concomitant of sound Repentance. You shall see that our Saviour finds and acknowledgeth true and great Faith in it, Mat. 8. 8. with 10. It is a Grace which God requires and earnestly calls for in Scripture, and is made the end of many solemn dispensations of God to his People, Deut. 8.14, 15, 16. now this Humility hath two things in it: viz. 1. A low and vile esteem of one self. 2. Which follows, a yielding one self up to Gods dispose: the former we have now consider; the latter follows in the next words: This first is an utter renouncing of self-excellence. Man by nature is very proud, he thinks himself to be of some desert and worth; hence he counts all the evil that befalls him, an injury, and all good, a debt: the Soul is not fit for Christ, but God, when he draws him home to himself, makes him know that he is the most worthless creature in the World to receive any good, and worthy of all evil. And that we may make some particular discovery of this Grace, we may consider it in two things, viz. 1. The root of it. 2. The fruit proceeding from it.
The Grace we are here considering of is true Humility, a fruit and discovery of Faith, and concomitant of sound Repentance. You shall see that our Saviour finds and acknowledgeth true and great Faith in it,