N00458:426
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. Old Sinners; you that have been suffered a great while in the vineyard, and yielded to the Owner of it no profit at all; have not you abundant reason to look continually when Gods patience shall turn into fury, and that fury fall upon you in its weight? surely you have cause to dread the thoughts of it every hour; Consider then,
1. How much you have done to weary him out. You have much more cause to wonder that he hath born with you so long; than to promise your selves that he will wait upon you longer; how often have you grieved him, vexed his holy Spirit? what innumerable affronts have you put upon him? count over the many Sabbaths which you have enjoyed, the Sermons that you have heard, the Convictions that you have had, the mercies that have been bestowed upon you, the afflictions that have come to awaken you, and the ill improvement that you have made of all these, the grievous contempt that you have cast upon them all: What Husbandman would have suffered such a tree so long undestroyed, that ⟨p. 180⟩had been planted and cherished in his Orchard?
2. Consider the Axe lies at your root. God hath brought it thither; are there none of the fore-runners of your ruin come upon you? are there no spiritual beginnings towards it? doth not the spirit of God begin to withdraw his strivings in the means of grace? do you not find your selves more careless and secure under, and more impenetrable by the Word of God which is dispensed to you […] are you not more delighted with, and more violently set in your hearts to live still in your sinful courses? are there no temporal fore-runners of this? do not Gods Servants proclaim his wrath awfully against you? doth not Gods Providence raise up evil, and fearful judgments against you? are there not those infirmities and sicknesses, which are the presage of death upon you? these all have a voice in them.