N00458:535
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 II.
This tells us that all the time that is afforded to a sinner, after some eminent deliverance is bestowed upon him, is probation time. It is an opportunity given him on very ⟨p. 236⟩purpose, to see if he will yet at last improve the day of grace, and return to God. Such deliverances are not evidences that God is reconciled to them, and that their state is now good, because God hath heard prayers for them, and hath spared them from just now going to the pit: no, but they in their distress made promises, that if God would restore them, and give them a little more time, they would not live as before they had done: if they might have their life given them: and a few more Sabbaths and Ordinances allowed them, they would husband them better; and they who prayed with them, promised that they would dig about them, and dung them; this is the ground on which they were restored, and now they live upon trial, whether they will do so or no: and there are three things wherein this probation is to be taken notice of.
1. It gives them a new opportunity to return to God, and live to his praise. It affords, them not only farther time, but also a renewed season; it suffers them to stand still in the vineyard; it stops the axe of revenge from cutting them down; it gives them leave to go to Gods House, and there to hear his Word, and to be called upon, counselled and warned to repent; it lengthens out the day of their visitations, and holds the things of their, peace still before them: now, all the opportunities