N00458:456
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 III.
This may serve to humble and abase us for all our barrenness. Are there not too many of us that have never done any thing for God in sincerity, that have brought no glory to his name at all, that have lived in their sins, and despised all the means used with them? and is it not a matter of shame and sorrow to you, to think what kind of creatures you are, what God esteems of you, and what you do really prove your selves to be? a mere burden to the places you live in? Oh! how low should it lay us? how vile should it make us to be in our own eyes, to think that we are not only good for nothing, but that we also do mischief? the places we dwell in suffer by us; we do not serve God our selves, and we hinder others also from serving him as they might, and we hereby expose them to the anger of God, and pull down a great deal of his wrath upon our people; and it is enough to make the best of us to blush at our selves, when we consider that so much barrenness, so much cumber: that all our short comings in living answerable to our profession, & Gods expense upon us, are not only to our own loss, but the damage of the whole.
This may serve to humble and abase us for all our barrenness. Are there not too many of us that have never done any thing for God in sincerity, that have brought no glory to his name at all, that have lived in their sins, and despised all the means used with them? and is it not a matter of shame and sorrow to you, to think what kind of creatures you are, what God esteems of you, and what you do really prove your selves to be? a meer burden to the places you live in? Oh! how low should it lay us? how vile should it make us to be in our own eyes, to think that we are not only good for nothing, but that we also do mischief? the places we dwell in suffer by us; we do not serve God our selves, and we hinder others also from serving him as they might, and we hereby expose them to the anger of God, and pull down a great deal of his wrath upon our people; and it is enough to make the best of us to blush at our selves, when we consider that so much barrenness, so much cumber: that all our short comings in living answerable to our profession, & Gods expense upon us, are not only to our own loss, but the damage of the whole.