A30122:118
The barren fig tree, or, The doom and downfall of the fruitless professor showing…The barren fig tree, or, The doom and downfall of the fruitless professor shewing…
The barren fig tree, or, The doom and downfall of the fruitless professor showing that the day of grace may be past with him long before his life is ended : the signs also by which such miserable mortals may be known / by John Bunyan ; to which is added his Exhortation to peace and unity among all that fear God.The barren fig tree, or, The doom and downfall of the fruitless professor shewing that the day of grace may be past with him long before his life is ended : the signs also by which such miserable mortals may be known / by John Bunyan ; to which is added his Exhortation to peace and unity among all that fear God.
London: printed for J. Robinson, 1688
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
And he came and sought, fruit thereon.]
The question is not now, What thou thinkest of thy self, nor what all the people of God think of thee? but what thou shalt be found in that day, when ⟨p. 42⟩God shall search thy boughs for Fruit▪ When Sodom was to be searched for righteous Men, God would not, in that matter, trust his faithful servant Abraham, but still as Abraham interceded, God answered, If I find fifty, or forty and five there, I will not destroy the City. Gen. 18. 20, 21, 26, 27. Barren Fig-tree, what sayest thou? God will come down to see, God will make search for Fruit himself.
And he came and sought Fruit thereon, and found [none.] Then said he to the Dresser of the Vineyard, Behold, these three Years I come seeking Fruit on this Fig-tree, and find none; Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?
These words are the effect of God's search into the boughs of a barren Fig-tree; He sought Fruit, and found none, none to his liking, none pleasant and good. Therefore, first, he complains of the want thereof to the Dresser, calls him to come, and see, and take notice of the Tree; then signifieth his pleasure, he will have it removed, taken away, cut down from cumbering the Ground.