N00302:788
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 1. For Information,
1. We hence learn that the soul is passive in vocation: I do not mean as it is a Rational, but as it is a spiritual Agent. If God had not come to the sinner, he had never come to God, nor could he have done it: As well might the widows son lying upon the bier, and carrying ⟨p. 315⟩to the grave, have fetched back his departed soul' as a sinner dead in trespasses and sins, recover the lost Image of God. Hither every Regenerate man owes his spiritual original, viz. Not to the strength of his nature, or flexibility of his will, but to God, who came to him there where he lay a dying, and whence he was not able so much as to lift up his eyes towards heaven, without God put the ability into him by reviving Grace. And this proclaims the wonderful condescendency of the great God to undone men and women, in that he is not only ready and willing to receive them when they come to him, but he runs forth to meet them, and to do them good: The condition that all men are lying in, at such time as he speaks that happy word to them, live; tends mightily to enhance or illustrate the unspeakable kindness, of God, and hence deserves an ingemination, Ezek. 16. 5,6. None eye pitied thee, thou wast cast into the open field; I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, live; yea, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live.
1. We hence learn that the soul is passive in vocation: I do not mean as it is a Rational, but as it is a spiritual Agent. If God had not come to the sinner, he had never come to God, nor could he have done it: As well might the widows son lying upon the bier, and carrying ⟨p. 315⟩to the grave, have fetcht back his departed soul' as a sinner dead in trespasses and sins, recover the lost Image of God. Hither every Regenerate man ows his spiritual original, viz. Not to the strength of his nature, or flexibility of his will, but to God, who came to him there where he lay a dying, and whence he was not able so much as to lift up his eyes towards heaven, without God put the ability into him by reviving Grace. And this proclaims the wonderful condescendency of the great God to undone men and women, in that he is not only ready and willing to receive them when they come to him, but he runs forth to meet them, and to do them good: The condition that all men are lying in, at such time as he speaks that happy word to them, live; tends mightily to enhaunce or illustrate the unspeakable kindness, of God, and hence deserves an ingemitiation, Ezek. 16. 5,6. None eye pitied thee, thou wast cast into the open field; I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, live; yea, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live.
2. Here we see that in Regeneration the whole body of graces are brought into the soul at once and together. In effectual vocation the soul receives Christ himself, and that not only relatively, by receiving his person into such relations whereby he becomes his Redeemer and Saviour, applies his righteousness to him ⟨p. 316⟩for Justification, and by marrying him, admits him among the Adopted Children of God; but also really, by the communication of his graces, and filling him with his spirit: He falls upon his neck and kisseth him; all grace is communicated in this act: and there is great reason for it, for Christ in giving of himself to the soul becomes its life, Gal. 2. 20. Christ lives in me. And Christ thus becomes his spiritual life, not only by changing his relative state from what it was, but especially (life being a principle of operation) by putting this new principle into him, in which are contained all such habits and dispositions as are requisite to fit him to live spiritually: i. e. the habits of all graces, for all flow from one and the same principle, viz. spiritual life.
2. Here we see that in Regeneration the whole body of graces are brought into the soul at once and together. In effectual vocation the soul receives Christ himself, and that not only relatively, by receiving his person into such relations wherby he becomes his Redeemer and Saviour, applyes his righteousness to him ⟨p. 316⟩for Justification, and by marrying him, admits him among the Adopted Children of God; but also really, by the communication of his graces, and filling him with his spirit: He falls upon his neck and kisseth him; all grace is communicated in this act: and there is great reason for it, for Christ in giving of himself to the soul becomes its life, Gal. 2. 20. Christ lives in me. And Christ thus becomes his spiritual life, not only by changing his relative state from what it was, but especially (life being a principle of operation) by putting this new principle into him, in which are contained all such habits and dispositions as are requisite to fit him to live spiritually: i. e. the habits of all graces, for all flow from one and the same principle, viz. spiritual life.
3. As a consectary from the former, we hence see that at the instant of effectual vocation, the soul is made partaker in every grace; Justification and Adoption fully, Sanctification and Glorification inchoatively, and in their degrees: these come all together and inseparable, and are made over to the soul in the instant in which God converts him: For when God gives Christ, he gives all things with him; Rom. 8. 32. Yea, he gives him to be all to us, 1 Cor. 1. 30. He is made of God to us, Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption There is a succession of these Graces, 1. Doctrinally, ⟨p. 317⟩they are to be handled orderly, methodically, and distinctly, in the opening of the Doctrines of the Gospel. 2. In the apprehension of a Believer, who doth not immediately discern all of them. 3. In order of nature and consequence: But in time they are contemporary: and the reason is, because the whole Covenant is sealed up in Conversion, and all that is contained in it; i. e. all grace.
3. As a consectary from the former, we hence see that at the instant of effectual vocation, the soul is made partaker in every grace; Justification and Adoption fully, Sanctification and Glorification inchoatively, and in their degrees: these come all together and inseparable, and are made over to the soul in the instant in which God converts him: For when God gives Christ, he gives all things with him; Rom. 8. 32. Yea, he gives him to be all to us, 1 Cor. 1. 30. He is made of God to us, Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption There is a succession of these Graces, 1. Doctrinally,
4. We here see the Reason of the sudden and strange alteration which we may sometimes see wrought in a sinner: one whom the other day we saw bleeding to death •n his sins, rotting in his grave, spending all in riot, slighting all counsels and persuasions, going in the ways of destruction; now changed and become another man, all new in him: yea, one that was wounded under amazement and terrors of conscience, despairing and dying under convictions; now rejoicing and ravished with the experience of the love of God. These are strange alterations, but not to be misbelieved, if we consider the hast that God makes to find out, and take into his arms dying sinners, and the ravishing embraces he affords them. When God comes, he runs; he may delay a while, and let the sinner run himself out, and not come presently to convert him; but when he doth come, he comes without delay, nothing stops him, Hab. 2. 2. Cant. 2.8.
4. We here see the Reason of the sudden and strange alteration which we may sometimes see wrought in a sinner: one whom the other day we saw bleeding to death •n his sins, rotting in his grave, spending all in riot, slighting all counsels and perswasions, going in the ways of destruction; now changed and become another man, all new in him: yea, one that was wounded under amazement and terrours of conscience, despairing and dying under convictions; now rejoycing and ravished with the experience of the love of God. These are strange alterations, but not to be misbelieved, if we consider the hast that God makes to find out, and take into his arms dying sinners, and the ravishing embraces he affords them. When God comes, he runs; he may delay a while, and let the sinner run himself out, and not come presently to convert him; but when he doth come, he comes without delay, nothing stops him, Hab. 2. 2. Cant. 2.8.
USE. 2. For Exhortation to the regenerate, or such as have been converted unto God; meditate much upon, and labour to be deeply affected with the discoveries of God's wonderful love to you: Think often.
1. What hast he made: I was dying, despairing, hopeless; but he speedily came, and put under an everlasting arm: or ever I was aware, &c.
2. With what ardour of affection he fell upon thy neck: Oh remember those embraces; how he took thee up in his arms, an unworthy, filthy, polluted armful; how kind were those claspings which encircled thee? those embraces which took thee out of thy pit.
3. How he kissed thee; breathing his soul into thee, and filling thee with his love; pardoning all thy sins, taking thee to be his son again, influencing thee with his grace, in thy far Country speaking comfortably to thee. Oh! love the Lord all ye his Saints, and let your hearts boil over in ardent affections to him.
Vers. 21. And the Son said unto him, Father I have finned against heaven, and in thy fight, and am no more worthy to be called thy Son.
WE now come to observe the Son's deportment to his Father; or how he carried it under these large and liberal expressions of his love to him; and that is, with all humble and penitent carriage. The blotting out and pardoning of his sins, doth not blot them out of his remembrance, or make him ever the less apprehensive of his unworthiness; no, but it draws out his humble and penitent confession. This acknowledgement, is the same for substance which he had resolved upon, vers. 18, 19. He purposed, if ever he could meet his father, thus he would say; he now not only sees him, but finds himself in his embraces, and here he pours out his soul to him. There is only the last clause omitted, ⟨p. 320⟩and why omitted is not essential to enquire; divers reasons are given, and that which seems most probable, is that his father's kind carriage, and abundant expression of his love, had left him no room for it, because he now found himself accepted in quality of a son. The particular meaning of these words, as they express the nature of true repentance hath been spoken to from, vers. 18, 19. That which we have now to consider, is only his expressing of them at this time, viz. after his father had shown himself, fully reconciled, and so signally testified it in his carriage to him. Hence,
WE now come to observe the Son's deportment to his Father; or how he carried it under these large and liberal expressions of his love to him; and that is, with all humble and penitent carriage. The blotting out and pardoning of his sins, doth not blot them out of his remembrance, or make him ever the less apprehensive of his unworthiness; no, but it draws out his humble and penitent confession. This acknowledgment, is the same for substance which he had resolved upon, vers. 18, 19. He purposed, if ever he could meet his father, thus he would say; he now not only sees him, but finds himself in his embraces, and here he poures out his soul to him. There is only the last clause omitted, ⟨p. 320⟩and why omitted is not essential to enquire; divers reasons are given, and that which seems most probable, is that his father's kind carriage, and abundant expression of his love, had left him no room for it, because he now found himself accepted in quality of a son. The particular meaning of these words, as they express the nature of true repentance hath been spoken to from, vers. 18, 19. That which we have now to consider, is only his expressing of them at this time, viz. after his father had shewn himself, fully reconciled, and so signally testified it in his carriage to him. Hence,
God's pardoning and accepting Grace, sensibly apprehended, will make a soul more to loth his sins, accuse himself of them, and be ashamed at them. Though whiles God is kindling these resolves, he comes in with them and brings his Salvation, yet this shall not extinguish those resolutions, but help them. This is the season to express and act, Godly sorrow, humiliation and repentance. We have David in this for an excellent example; whom when ⟨image ?⟩[…] ⟨p. 337⟩none but free Citizens were to wear rings: others, for his ennoblement, among the Oriental nations, none but the Nobility had this privilege: others for the seal of the spirit: The Wedding Ring was given as a ratification of Marriage; so now the union between Christ and the soul is sealed and confirmed.
God's pardoning and accepting Grace, sensibly apprehended, will make a soul more to loth his sins, accuse himself of them, and be ashamed at them. Though whiles God is kindling these resolves, he comes in with them and brings his Salvation, yet this shall not extinguish those resolutions, but help them. This is the season to express and act, Godly sorrow, humiliation and repentance. We have David in this for an excellent example; whom when ⟨image ?⟩〈…〉 ⟨p. 337⟩none but free Citizens were to wear rings: others, for his ennoblement, among the Oriental nations, none but the Nobility had this priviledge: others for the seal of the spirit: The Wedding Ring was given as a ratification of Marriage; so now the union between Christ and the soul is sealed and confirmed.
3. Shoes are put upon his feet: The feet are the affections, shoes are both for Ornament, and for saying the feet from harm: These shoes are the preparation of the Gospel, of peace, Eph. 6. 15. The soul is adorned with sanctifying grace, and the affections preserved from being gravelled, and galled with the pebbles of carnal desires.
4. The fatted Calf is killed [Gr. the fatted Calf, sacrifice it] This intends Christ, and may bear some respect to the Sacrament of the Supper: the soul is now spiritually fit for it, and to be invited to it. In sum, the best preparation is made, the soul is feasted: i. e. Divine love is shed abroad, Rom. 5. 5. God gives him all his favours in titles and communicates of them to him, according to that measure which is best for him; and so much (at least) of Divine light is irradiated upon him, as enables him to rely upon Christ alone for life, and hope in his Grace. This must needs be a joyful day; for,
4. The fatted Calf is killed [Gr. the fatted Calf, sacrifice it] This intends Christ, and may bear some respect to the Sacrament of the Supper: the soul is now spiritually fit for it, and to be invited to it. In summe, the best preparation is made, the soul is feasted: i. e. Divine love is shed abroad, Rom. 5. 5. God gives him all his favours in titles and communicates of them to him, according to that measure which is best for him; and so much (at least) of Divine light is irradiated upon him, as enables him to rely upon Christ alone for life, and hope in his Grace. This must needs be a joyful day; for,
