N00458:631
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. That their Church-privileges will not save them. Many are ready to think that the Sanctuary shall shelter them, whatever they be, how obstinately soever they refuse to hearken to the voice of God, yet the Temple shall save them; they are in the vineyard, and no evil can come at them; this was the carnal confidence of these Jews, which our Saviour Christ would put them from entertaining, and bring them to see that impenitence would break an hole in the wall, and open a way for wrath to come upon them, and all they could challenge could not secure them, and see Jer. 9. 25, 26.
2. That their Church-priviledges will not save them. Many are ready to think that the Sanctuary shall shelter them, whatever they be, how obstinately soever they refuse to hearken to the voice of God, yet the Temple shall save them; they are in the vineyard, and no evil can come at them; this was the carnal confidence of these Jews, which our Saviour Christ would put them from entertaining, and bring them to see that impenitence would break an hole in the wall, and open a way for wrath to come upon them, and all they could challenge could not secure them, and see Jer. 9. 25, 26.
3. That when it comes to this, they shall then have none to plead for them. That a sinner under the Gospel may sin himself our of all pity, and beyond the prayers of the Godly: they may go on so far in their obstinacy, that even they who have been most ⟨p. 283⟩solicitous for them, and have many a time with tears begged of God, to spare and forbear them, shall have done on this account, leave off praying for them, and stand in the gap between an angry God and them no longer: and now the way to Gods wrath stands open, and there will be none to obstruct it; none to stay his hand or keep him back from vengeance; the hearts that before melted for them, shall now be hardened against them, and they shall readily comply with, and rejoice in the Judgments of God that shall fall upon them,