N00458:437
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. A barren tree in the vineyard, takes up the room which might be better employed. There is a considerable quantity of ground allowed for a tree to stand and grow in: he who plants an Orchard, allows convenient distances, for the trees to spread themselves in, & to have the advantage of the Sun-beams, that so they may have the help afforded them that is requisite for their flourishing, and bearing of fruit: now if the tree be unfruitful, all this ground is lost, and left, idle, as to any profit, it is as good to have nothing at all upon it, as that which yields nothings; and that must needs be a cumber: and in the mean while it occupies the place in which another that would bear, might stand: The same ground would do for a fruitful tree, that is lost upon a barren one; and if there were such as one there, the same ground and the same tillage would be serviceable for something; whereas this turns to no account at all. Unregenerate Sinners, that do nothings for God, take up as much room in the visible Church as others, they have a like outward privileges with them; but the room they occupy is lost as to them: if in their stead there were such as love God, as fear and serve him, such means and advantages ⟨p. 186⟩would forward them abundantly, and what a cumber must God needs account this to be?
2. A barren tree in the vineyard, takes up the room which might be better employed. There is a considerable quantity of ground allowed for a tree to stand and grow in: he who plants an Orchard, allows convenient distances, for the trees to spread themselves in, & to have the advantage of the Sun-beams, that so they may have the help afforded them that is requisite for their flourishing, and bearing of fruit: now if the tree be unfruitful, all this ground is lost, and left, idle, as to any profit, it is as good to have nothing at all upon it, as that which yields nothings; and that must needs be a cumber: and in the mean while it occupies the place in which another that would bear, might stand: The same ground would do for a fruitful tree, that is lost upon a barren one; and if there were such as one there, the same ground and the same tillage would be serviceable for something; whereas this turns to no account at all. Unregenerate Sinners, that do nothings for God, take up as much room in the visible Church as others, they have a like outward priviledges with them; but the room they occupy is lost as to them: if in their stead there were such as love God, as fear and serve him, such means and advantages