N00302:59
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.
USE This may put us upon it to try our hopes, and prove what it is that our confidence is grounded upon: we say we call God Father, and if we would do so rightly, Consider 1 Pet. 1.17. If ye call on the Father,—pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. It will little avail us to challenge him to be our Father, if he refuseth to own us as his Children: and let us be assured, that if we do not bear his image, we shall notwithstanding all our pretences be looked upon as Bastards and not Sons: it is not verbal calling of God our Father, but a careful doing the will of our Heavenly Father, that will render us blessed.
3. We come to consider the demand it self: Give me the portion of Goods that falleth to me. This I call his unreasonable demand: for though at first blush it may look as if it were rational, he asks but his Portion, his Share, that which falls to him by the right of Sonship, and […] saith give, seeming […] acknowledge his Fathers power, and that it is his bounty which he depends upon: although the word [Give] doth not always intimate a free favour, but sometimes a delivering of a thing out of our hands to another, which is his by right: but the unreasonableness of the demand appears in these things.
3. We come to consider the demand it self: Give me the portion of Goods that falleth to me. This I call his unreasonable demand: for though at first blush it may look as if it were rational, he asks but his Portion, his Share, that which falls to him by the right of Sonship, and 〈…〉 saith give, seeming 〈…〉 acknowledge his Fathers power, and that it is his bounty which he depends upon: although the word [Give] doth not alwayes intimate a free favour, but sometimes a delivering of a thing out of our hands to another, which is his by right: but the unreasonableness of the demand appears in these things.