N00302:882
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.
DOCT. 1. It is the Hypocrites own fault that he doth not partake with the People of God in their joys.
DOCT. 1. It is the Hypocrites own fault that he doth not partake with the People of God in their joyes.
The father did not shut the elder son out, but he would not come in; yea, though his father entreated him he still refused.
Object. But he was not invited, how then should he come?
Ans. But if he had had an ingenious and brotherly spirit, he might have come when he heard of it: The word tacitly insinuate that the servant did entreat him, but he would not hear him. But to give a closer de cision of the case; unregenerate men are not, and yet they are invited: There is not the inward, spiritual, powerful invitation which compels them, and by particular application of grace draws them: But there is a general, doctrinal, conditional invitation presented to all where the Gospel comes, in which God by his Servants speaks seriously, pleads earnestly, expostulates industriously, waits patiently, as one that is willing and desirous that they should come in; this is the invitation which they reject: and of such it is that our Saviour useth those expressions,