Mercy magnified on a penitent prodigal, or A brief discourse, wherein Christs parable of…

1. Else they will come to nothing; they will prove but the Fools Dream, and Sluggards Wish: God will one day say to you, why did you not do as you thought? why did you stand still, or go backward?

2. These resolutions are the suggestions of the Spirit of God, calling you to your duty, and if you neglect them, you quench the Spirit, and so provoke him to forsake you.

3. These are resolutions not to be neglected or repented of: they are the best purposes that ever you made in your lives; they have a right object before them, and there lies a necessity on you, if you will ever do well to practise them: For 1. Something must be done, or else you perish: there is no lying still where you are, where there is nothing but Famine and misery. 2. If your return to your old ways and courses, it is but to act over your old miseries: the World will never be better than a desolate Wilderness; if you go to it, you do but return to Famine and destruction. 3. Jesus Christ, and no other, can save you; and he is willing to save you, and is grieved to see you ⟨p. 283⟩halting so long between two Opinions, faintly resolving, and dubiously promising: he waits to see you do at last as you have often said. For Help,

3. These are resolutions not to be neglected or repented of: they are the best purposes that ever you made in your lives; they have a right object before them, and there lies a necessity on you, if you will ever do well to practise them: For 1. Something must be done, or else you perish: there is no lying still where you are, where there is nothing but Famine and misery. 2. If your return to your old wayes and courses, it is but to act over your old miseries: the World will never be better than a desolate Wilderness; if you go to it, you do but return to Famine and destruction. 3. Jesus Christ, and no other, can save you; and he is willing to save you, and is grieved to see you