N00458:450
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.
1. There is no loss to the Owner in cutting such a tree down. It never did any good by standing there; it brought in no profit to the husbandman; his revenue will be never the less when that is gone: and what glory will God lose by you, when you are destroyed? you never did him any service since you were born; he hath been at a great deal of cost upon you, but there hath no good at all come of it; you have stood in the vineyard, but all that you have done hath bin to make a show, to take up a room there; but if none in his Church should do him more service than you have done, he might even throw it up to the waste Wilderness again, for any revenue that is paid him; and is it not wisdom to remove an unprofitable Creature from the earth, and lay out no more upon it to no purpose?
1. There is no loss to the Owner in cutting such a tree down. It never did any good by standing there; it brought in no profit to the husbandman; his revenue will be never the less when that is gone: and what glory will God lose by you, when you are destroyed? you never did him any service since you were born; he hath been at a great deal of cost upon you, but there hath no good at all come of it; you have stood in the vineyard, but all that you have done hath bin to make a shew, to take up a room there; but if none in his Church should do him more service than you have done, he might even throw it up to the waste Wilderness again, for any revenue that is paid him; and is it not wisdom to remove an unprofitable Creature from the earth, and lay out no more upon it to no purpose?
2. There is a great deal of harm occasioned by letting such a tree stand any longer. It cumbers the ground: it doth mischief in the place that it takes up; and is it not prudence in the Owner, to root up a tree that not ⟨p. 195⟩only doth no good, but much damage? if he could Bear with the former, yet this is an intolerable provocation. Every unregenerate sinner among Gods people doth mischief, others are the worse for him, and therefore it is fitting that God, who is resolved to be no loser by any, should take such away from doing any more: so many years as they have been born with, […] exercised his patience.