N00458:332
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. That God doth often judicially leave men to their own choice. He gives them up to their hearts lusts, they resist his grace, and he calls, and convinceth and waits, but they will not near him, and thereupon he suffers them to take their course, because they will not receive instruction: and it is righteous with him so to do, because they in this resistance, shut their eyes against rational conviction, and are wilful against the clearest light; and whilst it is so, let him wait never so long, and come never so often, they will be never the better, but abide barren still.
4. That God doth often judicially leave men to their own choice. He gives them up to their hearts lusts, they resist his grace, and he calls, and convinceth• and waits, but they will not near him, and thereupon he suffers them to take their course, because they will not receive instruction: and it is righteous with him so to do, because they in this resistance, shut their eyes against rational conviction, and are wilful against the clearest light; and whilst it is so, let him wait never so long, and come never so often, they will be never the better, but abide barren still.
2. In respect of partial barrenness.
1. There is a root of corruption, tending to unfruitfulness, in Gods children in this life, Paul hath his body of death which pesters him; and what is the tendency of Death but barrenness? a dead womb is a barren womb; a dead heart, a barren heart. The acts of grace are life acts, death therefore is directly ⟨p. 135⟩contrary to them, and this was the things which made Paul so unable to do the things that he would.