N00458:189
The barren fig trees doom. Or, A brief discourse wherein is set forth the…
The barren fig trees doom. Or, A brief discourse wherein is set forth the woeful danger of all who abide unfruitful under Gospel privileges, and Gods husbandry. Being the substance of sixteen sermons preached on Christ's parable of the fig-tree. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Four lines from Matthew]The barren fig trees doom. Or, A brief discourse wherein is set forth the woful danger of all who abide unfruitful under Gospel priviledges, and Gods husbandry. Being the substance of sixteen sermons preached on Christ's parable of the fig-tree. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Four lines from Matthew]
Boston: printed by Benjamin Harris, 1691
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 III.
To quicken and encourage us all in our endeavours after fruitfulness. Doth God take such particular notice of each of us? let every Christian carry this thought upon his own heart, & make it an in•entive and engagement to him, to endeavour to answer Gods ends in this respect▪ And there are these three things which this thought should engage and excite us unto.
1. To see that we bring forth good fruit. If God be so curious, let it make us to be so too. They that would approve themselves to an all-seeing and heart searching God, had need to take heed to themselves, and beware of being imposed upon. God not only looks whether we bear, but what we bear; let us do so too: and here let us know, that the tree must be made good, if ever the fruit be good: grapes are not gathered of thorns. It should make all that call themselves Christians, to be afraid of living one day in a state of unregeneracy; for as ⟨p. 72⟩long as we so do, we do nothing at all that will turn to account. See that you have a principle of Grace within, and then take heed that your lives be the continued exercise of it,