N00458:446
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.
USE I.
For Conviction; it shows the great equity of Gods cutting down such as these. It saith that there is no injustice with God when he ⟨p. 193⟩so doth; nay that he doth nothing but what is proper and requisite: let it therefore tell all such, what reason you have to expect it; If a tree doth no good, and a great deal of hurt, what shall be done with it else? and that you may see and be convinced of this, let me offer these things:
For Conviction; it shews the great equity of Gods cutting down such as these. It saith that there is no injustice with God when he ⟨p. 193⟩so doth; nay that he doth nothing but what is proper and requisite: let it therefore tell all such, what reason you have to expect it; If a tree doth no good, and a great deal of hurt, what shall be done with it else? and that you may see and be convinced of this, let me offer these things:
1. Gods tenderness hath been already declared to you, in and by all that patience which he hath used with you, and the cost that he hath laid out upon you. God will for ever be acknowledged, and you shall be enforced to confess, that he did not deal with you as he might have done, that he did not execute all the rigour of his Justice upon you which you deserved: hear how Christ expostulates with Jerusalem in this regard, Mat. 23. 37. your very station in his Church: all the offers of grace made to you; and all the strivings of his holy spirit with yea, and all the long time wherein he waited upon you, will witness for him, that you undid your selves, that you were the blameable cause of your own destruction: every time that he came and said to you, Oh turn! why will you die? receive instruction & live, which you slighted, will say that you undid your selves.