N00458:581
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 IV.
This may also teach us to have a care of placing to much upon men. It is true, all the gifts, and graces, and industry, which one hath and useth more than another, is of God, and he is to be acknowledged in it: but when they are best furnished for their work, and most faithful in the discharge of it, they are men still: they are but instruments in the hand of God; and Paul useth this as an argument to discover the vanity of his Corinthians by, in saying, I am of Paul, &c. I Cor. ⟨p. 258⟩3. […]. who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but Ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord give every man. It follows not that because such a Minister is able, peons and painful, that therefore he must needs convert more unto God than another that is not so furnished as he is; that because we have Parents that are Godly, and are very diligent in doing their duty for us and to us, that we must of necessity be saved: If God hath placed us under such, we have a great dea• of reason to bless him for it, for every good and prefect giving is from him: but know it, that they may do all that lies in their power, and yet you may get no good by them; and if you confide in this, it is the way to get none.
This may also teach us to have a care of placing to much upon men. It is true, all the gifts, and graces, and industry, which one hath and useth more than another, is of God, and he is to be acknowledged in it: but when they are best furnished for their work, and most faithful in the discharge of it, they are men still: they are but instruments in the hand of God; and Paul useth this as an argument to discover the vanity of his Corinthians by, in saying, I am of Paul, &c.