N00458:50
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
SERMON I. › Doctrine 1: DOCTRINE I. The Visible Church is Gods Vineyard.
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. Not only on a general account, as the whole Creation is called his, but upon more ⟨p. 12⟩special and peculiar reasons, it is to be acknowledged for his propriety, and that more especially.
1. Because he hath done all that for it where▪ by it is made a vineyard, it is all his doing; he planted, he fenced it, &c. all the cost and labour which hath been laid out upon it is his charge: God tells them that he planted them, Jer. 2. 21. and whom shall the vineyard call Master, but him who made it so? all the World lay in common, all mankind were alike by their Apostasy, and God was under no obligation to them, or necessity lying on him to extend this favour to any, or to these more than others, to bring them into such an estate as that, but he, of his good pleasure, because he had a mind to make them his people, dealt thus with them.
2. Because the visible Church, and they that are in it, are by Profession devoted to him. There is an outward Sanctification, or Consecration of them to the Service of God: They do by Covenant, declare that they are none of their own but his. This properly belongs to the Profession of Christians, and they that deny it, deny themselves to be such: they say they are Gods propriety, and have given themselves up to him and his Service. Every time they renew their Covenant, they anew assert it: this is their plea with God in trouble, Jer. 14. 9. We are called by thy Name.