N00302:734
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.
SERMON XXI.
Thus much for the season; now let us consider the manner of the Fathers carriage to his Son, according as it is described: 1. By the cause of it. 2. By the effect, or carriage it self. 1. The cause of it, he saw and had compassion. 2. The effect; He ran, &c.
THus much for the season; now let us consider the manner of the Fathers carriage to his Son, according as it is described: 1. By the cause of it. 2. By the effect, or carriage it self. 1. The cause of it, he saw and had compassion. 2. The effect; He ran, &c.
1. To begin with the cause; his seeing his Son, and having compassion on him, do not decipher two acts, but only one. God chooseth miserable man to be a subject of his mercy, and makes his misery an occasion of discovering it; but mans misery is not the impulsive cause, but Gods mercy: the meaning of the expression is, that he looked upon him with a compassionate eye, when lying in his misery, and his own pity moved him to do as he did. Divine Attributes, the declarative glory whereof God designs in the World, have a subject in which they are pleased to discover themselves: but this subject doth not move them, but they incline themselves to the subject. The word [Had compassion] comes ⟨p. 298⟩from a root that signifies bowels, and the English of it is, his bowels did earn; and the bowels being the seat of the affections, especially of pity, Hence the word is used to express great and active pity. Thence,