N00458:561
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.
5. We cannot know antecedently to conversion who are chosen, i. e. by any ordinary notes or signs. God did sometimes immediately reveal this to his Extraordinary Ambassadors of old, although not always: but there are no rules given us, by which we may conclude positively that such are Elected, and thereby encourage our selves particularly to use endeavours with them that ⟨p. 246⟩they may be called; there being no Scripture Rules on which we can proceed: and therefore such a Faith hath no foundation. There is no••ing in their good natures; for God sometimes chooseth the most rugged dispositions, when he passeth by the most ingenious; that young man, Mat. 19. bad fair, but he fell short: not by any impulse on our spirits, making us to be more earnest and solicitous for them than others; for God may thus encourage endeavours in us, to make them thereby become the more inexcusable.
5. We cannot know antecedently to conversion who are chosen, i. e. by any ordinary notes or signs. God did sometimes immediately reveal this to his Extraordinary Ambassadors of old, although not always: but there are no ruies given us, by which we may conclude positively that such are Elected, and thereby encourage our selves particularly to use endeavours with them that ⟨p. 246⟩they may be called; there being no Scripture Rules on which we can proceed: and therefore such a Faith hath no foundation. There is no••ing in their good natures; for God sometimes chuseth the most rugged dispositions, when he passeth by the most ingenious; that young man, Mat. 19. bad fair, but he fell short: not by any impulse on our spirits, making us to be more earnest and sollicitous for them than others; for God may thus encourage endeavours in us, to make them thereby become the more inexcusable.