N00458:498
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.
Hence we must Cautiously interpret those imprecations, which Gods Faithful Prophets have sometimes used against impenitent sinners, on Scripture Record. We shall find of them in the Psalms, and Prophecy, of Jeremiah: and some are ready to make a wrong improvement of them, and justify their own passionate wishes against others by them: It may be said of them, that they were men of like passions; and all that is recorded concerning Holy Men in Scripture, is not commendable; some such expressions might be ⟨p. 217⟩the boiling over of their corruption. But I suppose, there may be a better account given of them than so: viz: that they were men inspired, & delivered prophesies, and therefore did not declare their own desire (as least in such as were personal) but Gods purpose, which they sometimes delivered in plain Enunciations, sometimes in Rhetorical imprecations, according as the Spirit of God suggested to them: hence we find, that they were mean while praying and interceding with God for their People, and protesting their integrity in so doing: and God is put upon it more than once, •o forbid Jeremiah from praying for that People.
Hence we must Cautiously interpret those imprecations, which Gods Faithful Prophets have sometimes used against impenitent sinners, on Scripture Record. We shall find of them in the Psalms, and Prophesie, of Jeremiah: and some are ready to make a wrong improvement of them, and justify their own passionate wishes against others by them: It may be said of them, that they were men of like passions; and all that is recorded concerning Holy Men in Scripture, is not commendable; some such expressions might be