N00458:598
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.
2 God will repent him of the evil which he had threatened him withal. It is true, repentance cannot properly be in God, because it argues something rash, imprudent, inconsiderate in him that acts it, of which the Infinitely wise God is incapable: but it is ascribed to him on the account of his providence. God sometimes threatens sinners, and in those threatenings, there is a reserve, in case of their repentance: and then, when ⟨p. 264⟩the sinner repents, God is said to repent, viz. when he revokes the threatening, and doth not put it in execution, hence that Jer 18. 8. the meaning of such language is, the sinner is now out of the danger of those judgments; he shall not die, hence that advice Zeph, 2. begin. which intends not the eternal purpose of God, but the threatening of the law which was denounced against them.
2 God will repent him of the evil which he had threatned him withal. It is true, repentance cannot properly be in God, because it argues something rash, imprudent, inconsiderate in him that acts it, of which the Infinitely wise God is incapable: but it is ascribed to him on the account of his providence. God sometimes threatens sinners, and in those threatnings, there is a reserve, in case of their repentance: and then, when ⟨p. 264⟩the sinner repents, God is said to repent, viz. when he revokes the threatning, and doth not put it in execution, hence that Jer 18. 8. the meaning of such language is, the sinner is now out of the danger of those judgments; he shall not dy, hence that advice Zeph, 2. begin. which intends not the eternal purpose of God, but the threatning of the law which was denounced against them.
3. Hence his estate is now safe. He is put into a state of life and salvation; he is past from death to life; God is atoned to him, and loves him, and accepts of him: he shall abide in the vineyard as long as God sees meet to use him for his service there, and then he shall be transplanted into the Kingdom of Glory: he is numbered among the Children and entitled to the inheritance, he may now say as the Prophet