Samuel Willard (1640–1707) on God Begging

(2.) FROM this treaty they are brought to proceed to entreaty. They mutually ask peace one of the other. God, who in the law had breathed threatnings of wrath and ruine against the sinner, held no correspondence with him, and had sentenced him to hell, and destruction, now condescends to sollicit, beg, entreat, pray the sinner to be reconciled, and accept of his peace, which he freely makes tender of to him, and sends his Ambassadors to treat about it. 2 Cor. 5.20. Yea comes with his Spirit, swears that he delights not in his death, begs of him to turn, tells him he is a God of mercy. Ezek. 33.11. Jer. 3.12. And with these entreaties the sinners heart is broken, and he is melted, and falls down at God’s foot full of shame and confusion, freely confessing the unreasonable affronts and wrongs he hath offered to God, and begs of him for Christ’s sake to pardon and pass them by, and accept him in the beloved, and be at peace with him.

Samuel Willard, A Complete Body of Divinity in Two Hundred and Fifty Expository Lectures on the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism (Boston in New England: Printed by B. Green and S. Kneeland for B. Eliot and D. Henchman, and sold at their shops, 1726), 309–10.

Use. Let the Consideration of these things call on us all, on Children in particular, to labour to make sure of the Adoption. Let this be your great Ambition, to be the Children of God: And that, not by an outward relation in the Gospel Covenant only, but by that which is introduced by Faith in Christ, thro' whom only you can obtain Sonship & Heirship to this incorruptible and never fading Inheritance. Your Earthly Parents must dye shortly, if they are not gone already, and it is a poor Portion, which they can bestow on you, which can never make you happy. But if God once be your Father in Christ, you are happy indeed: He will be your Father in Heaven. He lives for ever, He will take care of you, He will never fail nor forsake you; He will keep you safe through an evil World, and bring you without fail to his Heavenly Kingdom: He will do more for you, then you can ask or think. He offers this to you, and begs of you to accept it. Receive Christ for your Spouse, and his Father will be your Father, his God your God, and nothing shall ever seperate you from his Love. [February 14 1698]

Samuel Willard, A Complete Body of Divinity in Two Hundred and Fifty Expository Lectures on the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism (Boston in New England: Printed by B. Green and S. Kneeland for B. Eliot and D. Henchman, and sold at their shops, 1726), 490–91.

7. In the grief he expresseth when men after all wilfully reject his tendered forgiveness. He speaks after the manner of men, when he tells us of his Spirit being grieved at such carriages, Psal. 95.10. And what is this but a grief of compassion, extended to such as are in misery! he might justly be enraged at mens despising of such favour offered them, and fall on them in his fury; and may in time be provoked to it by their obstinacy; but how often doth he express such compassion, as Christ did, in Mat. 23.37. Luke 19.41, 42. And this shows how ill God takes it, when men refuse him the glory of his Grace in forgiving them, by disregarding it, when he comes and begs their entertainment of it.

Samuel Willard, The Truly Blessed Man (Boston in N.E.: Printed by B. Green, and J. Allen, for Michael Perry, 1700), 259–260.

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