N00302:674
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.
Mercy Magnified ON A PENITENT Prodigal. › Sermon 19 › DOCT. True Repentance is practical Repentance.
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.
2. That which discovers the falsehood of these resolutions is, that they are very short-lived; they soon expire: many of them do not live long enough to make any visible show in practice, but die in the womb; many a sick man in horror, promiseth Reformation, if God will spare him: but he recovers not so fast as his resolutions decay and die. Others that have had a more forcible impulse, do a little seemingly, but are like the stony ground, Mat. 13. they are often too violent to be permanent, and by this discover, that they are acted by external force, and not an inward principle.
2. That which discovers the falshood of these resolutions is, that they are very short-lived; they soon expire: many of them do not live long enough to make any visible shew in practice, but die in the womb; many a sick man in horror, promiseth Reformation, if God will spare him: but he recovers not so fast as his resolutions decay and die. Others that have had a more forcible impulse, do a little seemingly, but are like the stony ground, Mat. 13. they are often too violent to be permanent, and by this discover, that they are acted by external force, and not an inward principle.
3. The whole man is gone away from God by sin, and therefore the whole must return by repentance, Not only the heart is defiled, but the life is polluted; not the inward man alone, but the outward too is gone away from God, and must return to him: now true Repentance is not a partial, but a whole turning: we owe God the whole man, Soul, Body and Spirit, I Thess.5.23.
3. The whole man is gone away from God by sin, and therefore the whole must return by repentance, Not only the heart is defiled, but the life is polluted; not the inward man alone, but the outward too is gone away from God, and must return to him: now true Repentance is not a partial, but a whole turning: we ow God the whole man, Soul, Body and Spirit,