N00302:57
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.
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.
Reas. 2. From the carnal confidence that is in the hearts of many ungodly men: they are not willing to believe themselves such and so bad as they are, but presume that they are as much as any in the favour of God: the Jews thought themselves the Temple, though fallen into the depth of Apostasy, Jer. 7. 4. Men build upon false Grounds, and place their ⟨p. 16⟩trust in lying words; and suppose that if they can but fairly dissemble with God, he must needs believe them.
Reas. 2. From the carnal confidence that is in the hearts of many ungodly men: they are not willing to believe themselves such and so bad as they are, but presume that they are as much as any in the favour of God: the Jews thought themselves the Temple, though fallen into the depth of Apostacy, Jer. 7. 4. Men build upon false Grounds, and place their ⟨p. 16⟩trust in lying words; and suppose that if they can but fairly dissemble with God, he must needs believe them.