N00458:342
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. Hence this patience, and these pains which God useth are leading to Repentance. If the Goodness and Forbearance of God exercised towards heathen are so, Rom, 2. 3. How much more are these Gospel endeavours so, which he lays out upon men that are under the dispensations of it? They lead by way of Conviction showing men what reason there is why they should so do; and they lead also by way of Invitation: there is an Invitation in the things themselves, patience saith that God is not willing these sinners should perish, else he needed not to have waited no them, who every day gave him provocation; and that hath a loud call in it. Every time God, comes in an Obeisance or Providence, he doth therein bespeak men: and to be sure all the secret approaches of the spirit of God to their hearts in and by these, have a close call in them.
4. Hence this patience, and these pains which God useth are leading to Repentance. If the Goodness and Forbearance of God exercised towards heathen are so, Rom, 2. 3. How much more are these Gospel endeavours so, which he lays out upon men that are under the dispensations of it? They lead by way of Conviction shewing men what reason there is why they should so do; and they lead also by way of Invitation: there is an Invitation in the things themselves, patience saith that God is not willing these sinners should perish, else he needed not to have waited no them, who every day gave him provocation; and that hath a loud call in it. Every time God, comes in an Ob•i•ance or Providence, he doth therein bespeak men: and to be sure all the secret approaches of the spirit of God to their hearts in and by these, have a close call in them.
5. Hence the more men have of these, and continue unfruitful under them, the more is God despised, and his favours abused. Barrenness under Gods patience & pleading with men, adds contempt to unprofitableness, and by this means all the expense that is laid out upon them comes to be lost, as to their benefit, & they do what in them lies to frustrate God of his just expectation. For a tree in the Wilderness to bear nothing is not so much, but when it is transplanted into the