N00583:92
Reformation the great duty of an afflicted people. Setting forth the sin and danger…
Reformation the great duty of an afflicted people. Setting forth the sin and danger there is in neglecting of it, under the continued and repeated judgments of God. : Being the substance of what was preached on a solemn day of humiliation kept by the Third Gathered Church in Boston, on August. 23d. 1694. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of the said church. ; [Four lines from Zechariah]
printed by Bartholomew Green, 1694
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.
3. Hence by their Apostasy they render themselves unprofitable: and there are none more so than they. All the cost, and care, and peculiar husbandry that God hath laid out upon them is lost; he hath been at a great deal more of expense upon his Vineyard,than upon the wast wilderness; he hath fenced it, cleared it, and planted it, and afforded it a great deal of special tendance and this, as to any fruit which they bring forth for him, is thrown away upon it. God on this account compares his people to a vine, which is a sort of plant, that if it bear well, and good grapes plentifully, is very excellent and useful; but if it doth not so bear, it is good for nothing but to make a fire of: Ezek. 15. begin. Other trees, though they do not bear fruit, yet they may serve for many other uses, but the vine is altogether unserviceable in any other way but this.
3. Hence by their Apostasy they render themselves unprofitable: and there are none more so than they. All the cost, and care, and peculiar husbandry that God hath laid out upon them is lost; he hath been at a great deal more of expense upon his Vineyard,than upon the wast wilderness; he hath fenced it, cleered it, and planted it, and afforded it a great deal of special tendance and this, as to any fruit which they bring forth for him, is thrown away upon it. God on this account compares his people to a vine, which is a sort of plant, that if it bear well, and good grapes plentifully, is very excellent and usefull; but if it doth not so bear, it is good for nothing but to make a fire of: Ezek. 15. begin. Other trees, though they do not bear fruit, yet they may serve for many other uses, but the vine is altogether unservicable in any other way but this.
4. God in Afflicting of them, useth means, if it may be obtained, that he may bring them to their fruitfulness again. Whiles they enjoyed times of peace and prosperity, and all things went according to their desire, they grew wanton and left off to bring forth fruit to his praise; now these afflictive providences which he brings upon them, were his pruning and cutting of them; he hereby pares off their excrescencies, and lets them blood, and this, if any thing, looks as if it were probable to recover