N00458:406
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.
5. There are usually divers strokes given for the cutting a tree down, it is not ordinarily done at once, but several blows; it is a successive action; every stroke doth something toward it, but the thing is accomplished by degrees, it falls not till the last be given: and thus God often proceeds gradually to the destruction of such sinners; he first kills them by Prophets, and afterwards by his own hand; he first smites them with spiritual plagues, and after that with temporal judgments. It is true, God sometimes to show his power and the strength of his hand, useth a sharp axe, and strikes a fearful blow, by which he cuts them down at once, but for the most part he doth it by divers Judgments successive; and it is to be observed that every thing which God doth to them, after once he hath clapped the curse and seal of his wrath upon them, is a stroke given towards their cutting down, a step directly to their ruin Rev. 20. 20.
5. There are usually divers stroaks given for the cutting a tree down, it is not ordinarily done at once, but several blows; it is a successive action; every stroak doth something toward it, but the thing is accomplished by degrees, it falls not till the last be given: and thus God often proceeds gradually to the destruction of such sinners; he first kills them by Prophets, and afterwards by his own hand; he first smites them with spiritual plagues, and after that with temporal judgments. It is true, God sometimes to shew his power and the strength of his hand, useth a sharp ax, and strikes a fearful blow, by which he cuts them down at once, but for the most part he doth it by divers Judgments successive; and it is to be observed that every thing which God doth to them, after once he hath clapt the curse and seal of his wrath upon them, is a stroak given towards their cutting down, a step directly to their ruine Rev. 20. 20.
6. Cutting down is in order to casting out. When the Husbandman is come to ⟨p. 170⟩this work, it saith that he is resolved this tree shall stand here no longer; and therefore as soon as that is done he presently throws it out of the vineyard; it is there to continue no longer: if he had intended it a room in his Orchard, he would have let it grow still, for it was because he could not endure to see it there that he thus dealt with it. Thus God, when he comes to bring this Judgment upon unfruitful professors, he removes them by it out of the visible Church, he takes them away from all relation, to, or benefit of the privileges that hitherto they had enjoyed there. There is an Ordinance of Christ, instituted in his Church, whereby men are cut off from communion with his people, which is a ministerial cutting them down, and is a figure or token of what God himself will do to such if they repent not, but go on to provoke him.