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…

Now, in my handling of this Point, I shall discourse of the cutting down, or the Judgment here denounced, as it respecteth the doing of it by God's Hand immediately, and that too, with respect to his casting them out of the World; and not as it respecteth an Act of the Church, &c. And as to this cutting down, or Judgment, it must be concluded, that it cannot be before the Day of ⟨p. 79⟩Grace be past with the Fig-tree. But according to the Observation, There be some Professors whose Day of Grace will end, with cut it down; and according to the words of the Text, Then [after that] thou shalt cut it down. After that, that is, after all my Attempts and Endeavours to make it fruitful, after I have left it, given it over, done with it, and have resolved to bestow no more Days of Grace, Opportunities of Grace, and Means of Grace upon it; then, after that, thou shalt cut it down.

Besides, the giving up of the Fig-tree, is before the Execution. Execution is not always presently upon the Sentence given; for after that a convenient Time is thought on, and then is cutting down: And so it is here in the Text. The Decree, that he shall perish, is gathered from its continuing fruitless quite through the last Year, from its continuing fruitless at the end of all Endeavours: But cutting down is not yet, for that comes with an after-word; Then after that thou shalt cut it down.

So then, that I may orderly proceed with the Observation, I must lay down these two Propositions.