N00458:563
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.
7. As none but God can bless the means ⟨p. 247⟩with success, so he doth his pleasure in it: Christ, speaking of Regeneration, tells us, Joh. 3.8. The wind bloweth where it listeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit of God: As it is of grace, so that it may appear to be so. God takes and leaves as he sees meet, Rom. 8. 18. He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy. All the labours of his people are under the Sovereign Dispose of his hand; they may throw out the Net, but it is he who must bring the fish into it, if they take any, or else they may toil all night and catch none: nor is he obliged to do it, he is neither obliged to sinners to convert them, for it is by grace that any are saved; nor is he engaged to such as seek and endeavour it, for he can recompense their labour fully in another way, if he please to frustrate it in the thing it self.
7. As none but God can bless the means ⟨p. 247⟩with success, so he doth his pleasure in it: Christ, speaking of Regeneration, tells us, Joh. 3.8. The wind blow•th where it listeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit of God: As it is of grace, so that it may appear to be so. God takes and leaves as he sees meet, Rom. 8. 18. He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy. All the labours of his people are under the Soveraign Dispose of his hand; they may throw out the Net, but it is he who must bring the fish into it, if they take any, or else they may toil all night and catch none: nor is he obliged to do it, he is neither obliged to sinners to convert them, for it is by grace that any are saved; nor is he engaged to such as seek and endeavour it, for he can recompense their labour fully in another way, if he please to frustrate it in the thing it self.