N00458:478
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.
A. We may come at this in a few steps;
1. There is Planted in Man by Nature a ⟨p. 205⟩Love to Mankind. Merely sensible creatures have such an instinct of Nature in them, that they stand affected to their own kind. Ravening Wolves, and Cruel Tigers do participate in this: And this had a more peculiar impression upon reasonable creatures, whose understanding hath a capacity of reasoning it self into, and stirring up of these affections. And although it be one of the unhappy fruits of mans Apostasy, that it hath woefully depraved this principle, and made men without natural affection having at least destroyed the gracious impression which was upon this principle, yet there is the root of such an inclination abiding in the hearts of men, and a disposition in them to exert it in a natural, though not in a gracious way.
1. There is Planted in Man by Nature a ⟨p. 205⟩Love to Mankind. Meerly sensible creatures have such an instinct of Nature in them, that they stand affected to their own kind. Ravening Wolves, and Cruel Tygers do participate in this: And this had a more peculiar impression upon reasonable creatures, whose understanding hath a capacity of reasoning it self into, and stirring up of these affections. And although it be one of the unhappy fruits of mans Apostacy, that it hath wofully depraved this principle, and made men without natural affection having at least destroyed the gracious impression which was upon this principle, yet there is the root of such an inclination abiding in the hearts of men, and a disposition in them to exert it in a natural, though not in a gracious way.