N00458:222
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. Hereby he discovers the great wickedness which is in the hearts of men; it would never have been known how vile men •are▪ if they had ⟨p. 86⟩not lived under the means of grace. and there been waited upon with all the offers of grace, & endeavours with them for their good. For men to Transgress in a Land of Uprightness, to sin against all the counsels, warnings, invitations, encouragements, obligations, of the Gospel, is the •op of wickedness: and this mightily clears up the righteousness of the Judgment of God against ungodly men.
3. This also discovers to his people evidently, that it is by Grace that they are saved, Godly men have by this means before them continually such monuments as the very looking on them, helps to convince them that it is not of themselves, but the gift of God, that they are made fruitful; when they see them of the same nature with them, under the same dispensations, notwithstanding all to abide in their impenitency, and live unprofitably under all the advantages of profiting; it tells them what hearts and natures they have in them, and how much they owe to the praise of Gods Grace, that hath made them to differ.
4. Hereby these also are prepared to be the more eminent instances of Gods Revenging Justice. Not only God's Grace, but his Justice too, are to be eminently exalted in the visible Church: here are to be sound the more stupendous monuments of his severity, where his mig••y works have been done, and men have no […]: It is not so much i