N00458:403
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. Cutting down is Properly for destruction. This is the true import of the word here: it is not a promise, but a threatening, when a tree is cut down and rooted up, it is by that very act destroyed; it kills it, it presently dies upon it, it withers up, the sap & leaves are presently gone, there is henceforth no more possibility that it should bear any fruit; it puts an end to all hopes of any such thing. Christ therefore intends that God will destroy the sinner; he before seemed to have some sap in him, and bear the leaves of a fair profession, it may be: but new as the Fig-tree Cursed by Christ, he withers up to the very roots▪ The Apostle speaks of some in the Visible Church, whose end is destruction, Phil. 3. 19. A Tree may be moved for its better growing, but it is cut down to put it beyond hopes of any such thing.
2. Cutting down is Properly for destruction. This is the true import of the word here: it is not a promise, but a threatning, when a tree is cut down and rooted up, it is by that very act destroyed; it kills it, it presently dies upon it, it withers up, the sap & leaves are presently gone, there is henceforth no more possibility that it should bear any fruit; it puts an end to all hopes of any such thing. Christ therefore intends that God will destroy the sinner; he before seemed to have some sap in him, and bear the leaves of a fair profession, it may be: but new as the Fig-tree Cursed by Christ, he withers up to the very roots▪ The Apostle speaks of some in the Visible Church, whose end is destruction, Ph•l. 3. 19. A Tree may be moved for its better growing, but it is cut down to put it beyond hopes of any such thing.
3. When the Owner cuts down the tree, he now puts an end to all his husbandry about the Tillage of it. Tillage and extirpation are contraries▪ he may prune it, and cut off many exuberant branches from it, for its advantage, that it may bring forth more fruit and grow the better; but i […] cuts it down, this is no part of Husbandry to the tree, but a putting of an end to it. It therefore signifies, that God will no more do any thing