N00458:376
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 all the while that any remain unfruitful in Gods Vineyard, they cast contempt on ⟨p. 154⟩Gods Patience. For this reason impenitent sinners are said to despise it, Rom. 2. 3. God looks upon himself to be scorned, and his lenity to be trampled on by such persons; for hereby they do withstand and directly set themselves against the very design of the Gospel, they do, as to the present efficacy, make void all the pains and endeavours that are laid out upon them; they turn the grace of God into wantonness: God waits for their repentance, and they answer it with obstinacy, and impenitence, which is directly contrary: and when is mercy despised, but when it is abused? and what greater abuse can be offered to it than this?
5. Hence God is hereby greatly dishonoured, and therefore must needs be very highly provoked. For Sinners to offer an affront to any of Gods Attributes, is a reflection of dishonour upon him. Men count themselves disparaged when they lose their labour; and Gods Honour is trodden upon by Sinners when they abide unprofitable in his vineyard, If then he be bound for his glory in all, and •e Jealous for his great Name, it must be an high provocation that is thus offered to him; and we must not think that he cannot resent it; no, he declares that his holy Spirit is grieved by such things, Psal. 78. 40. and they vex him, Isa. 63. 10. and therefore God himself is brought in making that complaint, ⟨p. 155⟩Amos 2. 13. I am pressed under you as a Cart that is pressed with sheaves. God speaks as a man, who though he bears, and is patient, as to any discovery of himself, yet is inwardly weary, and finds a burden which he would willingly be eased of: intimating that he is displeased at such things; and he is wont to express this displeasure of his, partly in the solemn warnings of his Ordinances, partly in the rebukes of his Providence, which he lays upon such, in sore and heavy affliction; to signify, that though for the present he bears with them, yet he is dissatisfied at them.