N00458:438
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.
3. Hence, a barren tree in a vineyard draws away the sap and strength of the ground to no purpose. The ground spends, and its virtue is as much exhausted by maintaining a barren tree, as one that bears never so much fruit: it sucks away its virtue, and makes it require as much mending, and all for nothing: and this is really mischievous to it. It is the same Soil to appearance, the same fruitful hill in which Hypocrites and formal Professors are planted, that sincere Christians grow in, for Gods vineyard is upon a fruitful hill, Isa. 5. 1. and the same means are used with them, the same cost is laid out upon the one and the other, so far as concerns means, for God demands what he could do more, verse 3. and it is by a formal improvement of these, that an Hypocrite maintains his profession, and makes such a flourish in those leaves which he bears. It is from the vineyards fatness that he sucks up his formality, makes his brags and boasts, and by which he upholds himself, or else he would wither away quickly; and by this means it comes to be spent unprofitably, and to damage.
3. Hence, a barren tree in a vineyard draws away the sap and strength of the ground to no purpose. The ground spends, and its vertue is as much exhausted by maintaining a barren tree, as one that bears never so much fruit: it sucks away its vertue, and makes it require as much mending, and all for nothing: and this is really mischievous to it. It is the same Soil to appearance, the same fruitful hill in which Hypocrites and formal Professors are planted, that sincere Christians grow in, for Gods vineyard is upon a fruitful hill, Isa. 5. 1. and the same means are used with them, the same cost is laid out upon the one and the other, so far as concerns means, for God demands what he could do more, verse 3. and it is by a formal improvement of these, that an Hypocrite maintains his profession, and makes such a flourish in those leaves which he bears. It is from the vineyards fatne's that he sucks up his formality, makes his brags and boasts, and by which he upholds himself, or else he would wither away quickly; and by this means it comes to be spent unprofitably, and to damage.