N00458:547
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.
SERMON XIV
Verse IX. And if it bear fruit, well; and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.
3. IT follows that we proceed to consider of the issue that the Vine-Dresser comes to with his Lord about this Fig-tree: He desires but one year more to make some farther experiment upon it; and what then? why here is a double Hypothesis or Supposition that he makes about it, viz. either it will after this bear fruit, or else it will still remain barren; and upon each of these supposals he raiseth a rational inference or conclusion. We may in the first place take the Hypotheses themselves into consideration. The Vine dresser dares not to promise any thing positively, concerning the fig-tree; being uncertain what will be the return of all his labour and pains; the farthest that he can say, is, it is ⟨p. 242⟩possible it may hear, and possibly it may not? however, if his Lord be but willing to try, he is willing to lay out his labour upon it: