N00458:214
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.
2. There are also Cursed Principles of Corruption in natural men, that help to increase this barrenness. Original sin in man is not merely morally Privative, or a disabling of man from doing good, by emptying him of the Grace which he had at the first; but there is something Morally positive in it too, i. e. all the Moral powers of his Soul are habitually bent unto sin, his Heart is set in him to do Wickedly, Eccl. 8. 11. So that he can as well withhold from acting as from sinning; and by these renewed acts of such a principle, the habit is fortified, which adds to the barrenness of the Soul a deeper rooting and confirmation in it; and nature, being strengthened by custom, is yet made more unlikely to do any thing that may answer Gods expectation: it is more settled in its evil way: and therefore God puts stress upon this argument, Jer. 13. 23. q. d, Whatever might have bin hoped before, yet now they are next to hopeless.
2. There are also Cursed Principles of Corruption in natural men, that help to encrease this barrenness. Original sin in man is not meerly morally Privative, or a disabling of man from doing good, by emptying him of the Grace which he had at the first; but there is something Morally positive in it too, i. e. all the Moral powers of his Soul are habitually bent unto sin, his Heart is set in him to do Wickedly, Eccl. 8. 11. So that he can as well withhold from acting as from sinning; and by these renewed acts of such a principle, the habit is fortified, which adds to the barneness of the Soul a deeper rooting and confirmation in it; and nature, being strengthened by custom, is yet made more unlikely to do any thing that may answer Gods expectation: it is more setled in its evil way: and therefore God puts stress upon this argument, Jer. 13. 23. q. d, Whatever might have bin hoped before, yet now they are next to hopeless.