N00302:873
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.
They cannot bear that God should show any love to repenting Prodigals: The elder brother is angry that his father should make a feast for his returning son: The comforts and consolations of a Penitent are his great eyesores: The Scribes and Pharisees could not bear that Christ should conve••e with Publicans and sinners,: Hence the more they observe of God's love to any, the more they hate and abhor them. This was Cain's sin, and for this very cause he murdered his innocent brother, because God had more respect to his sacrifice, than to Cain's: this is the ground of persecution, and their prosecuting them with all malice, and studying by all means to do them injury: they are the joys of the People of God that these m•n cannot bear.
They cannot bear that God should shew any love to repenting Prodigals: The elder brother is angry that his father should make a feast for his returning son: The comforts and consolations of a Penitent are his great eyesores: The Scribs and Pharisees could not bear that Christ should conve••e with Publicans and sinners,: Hence the more they observe of God's love to any, the more they hate and abhoor them. This was Cain's sin, and for this very cause he murdered his innocent brother, because God had more respect to his sacrifice, than to Cain's: this is the ground of persecution, and their prosecuting them with all malice, and studying by all means to do them injury: they are the joyes of the People of God that these m•n cannot bear.
I shall give the evidence of the Doctrine in two things▪