N00458:480
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.
2. The Grace of God, where it comes, restores this principle again to its regular activity. It is the work of Sanctifying grace to restore the lapsed nature of man to a capacity of acting according to the Image of God which once it had upon it. It Sanctifies the understanding, by discovering to it what is the love which we owe one to another, and wherein it ought more peculiarly to exert it self, according to the state and condition of the object of it, and shows them that their souls are more deeply concerned in this than their bodies; that their eternal well-being is more to be sought than their temporal solicity. And ⟨p. 206⟩it Sanctifies the Will by enabling it to elect accordingly: and this influenceth the Affections making them to desire, long after, and solicitously pursue this design: it turns that love which before was carnal into an holy love.
2. The Grace of God, where it comes, restores this principle again to its regular activity. It is the work of Sanctifying grace to restore the lapsed nature of man to a capacity of acting according to the Image of God which once it had upon it. It Sanctifies the understanding, by discovering to it what is the love which we ow one to another, and wherein it ought more peculiarly to exert it self, according to the state and condition of the object of it, and shews them that their souls are more deeply concerned in this than their bodies; that their eternal well-being is more to be sought than their temporal solicity. And ⟨p. 206⟩it Sanctifies the Will by enabling it to elect accordingly: and this influenceth the Affections making them to desire, long after, and sollicitously pursue this designe: it turns that love which before was carnal into an holy love.
3. This love makes them exceeding loth that any should perish; and consequently grieved at the apprehension of the danger of it. It is an Affection full of compassion; and therefore misery and danger of the Object greatly moves it. How much of this was exemplarily found in the man Christ, who wept over Jerusalem?