N00458:275
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.
WE have been considering the Person deliberated with, it follows that we take notice of the deliberation it self▪ in which as hath been observed, there are two things to be handled distinctly.
1. The complaint of the Owner against this particular fig-tree, in which he gives the ground and reason of the following sentence which he pronounceth.
In which observe,
1. The great pains and patience which he had used with this tree in expectation of its bearing: the Patience is expressed in that he had waited three years upon it, suffering it all this while, in hope that it would bear in so long a time at least why our Saviour useth the definite number of three, is diversly guessed; some think that he aims at the three years of his public Ministry, which at had spent in that work, when this Parable ⟨p. 112⟩was uttered, and the year requested in the following verse, to aim at the fourth current, in which he suffered: others suppose it to aim at the nature of the fig-tree, which if it be not wholly barren, will bear at least once in three years and then it intends that God had waited upon the sinner as long as there were, any rational hopes of his receiving good, or profiting; or till there was no apparent remedy, as the Scripture sometimes phraseth it. Not that the day of grace is o be limited to three years, but during Gods pleasure, and his pains is intimated, in that all this while he kept coming and looking; which signifies the frequent reiterated means of grace that are used With sinners, and the often applications of the Spirit of God, to them, during the day of Patience.