N00458:219
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.
4. Why God suffers such in his visible Church? this may also seem a mystery. That he sees, and knows them, yea observes them we have heard; and that they do not answer his expectation, and for that reason must needs be a provocation to him: Why then should he let them be there?
4. Why God suffers such in his visible Church? this may also seem a mistery. That he sees, and knows them, yea observes them we have heard; and that they do not answer his expectation, and for that reason must needs be a provocation to him: Why then should he let them be there?
A. In general; God knows how to advance his Glory, and gain his ends by them in thus doing. Gods last end in all he doth is his own glory, he hath a name to get by his works; and there are various ways in ⟨p. 85⟩which he promoves it. As there are divers Attributes which he displays to us, so there are divers Subjects in which he will have them exalted, and whatsoever serves to the exaltation of these, proportionably to the cost that is laid out upon it, is not in vain: now that God both can and will do so in this affair, will be more particularly seen in the consideration of these things.
1. God hereby declares his great Patience. This is one of the Perfections of God, which he sets an high price upon: he tells us that he is a God that bears, and for bears, and endures sinners with much long-suffering; and it mightily commends him to the souls of his people that he is so; the discoveries which they make of it, are to them matter of great encouragement; and in none is it more evidently made to appear, than in these: that fruitless trees should be let alone in the Vineyard, and have all the protection and husbandry of it afforded to them; and though still they abide barren, yet they are not presently cut down, but suffered there, this is great patience. It is nothing so much to hear with a wicked world, that have not these means; these are therefore called The ches of Gods Goodness,