A30122:188
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.
Lord, let it alone this Year also.
Here is astonishing Grace indeed, astonishing Grace! I say, that the Lord Jesus should concern himself with a barre• Fig-tree; that He should step in to stop• the blow from a barren Fig-tree. True▪ He stopped the blow but for a time; Bu• why did he stop it at all? Why did no• he fetch out the Axe? Why did he not do Execution? Why did not he cut it down? Barren Fig-tree! 'tis well for thee that there is a Jesus at God's right Hand, a Jesus of that largeness of bowels, As to have compassion for a barren Fig-tree, else Justice had never let thee alone to cumber the Ground as thou hast done. When Israel also had sinned against God, down they had gone, But that Moses stood in the breach, Exod. 32. 10. Let me alone, said God to him, that I may consume them in a moment, and I will make of thee a great Nation. Barren Fig-tree, dost thou hear? Thou knowest not how oft the hand of Divine Justice hath been up to strike, and how many Years since thou hadst been cut down, had not Jesus caught hold of his Father's Axe. Let me alone, let ⟨p. 65⟩me fetch my blow, or cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground? Wilt thou not hear yet, Barren Fig-tree? Wilt thou provoke still! Thou hast wearied Men, and provoked the Justice of God; And wilt thou weary my God also?