A30122:343
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.
Fourthly; This Unity and Peace consists in our joining and agreeing to pray for, and to press after those Truths we do not know. The Disciples in the Primitive Times, were conscious of their Imperfections, and therefore they with one accord continued in Prayer and Supplications: If we were more in the sense of our own Ignorances and Imperfections, we should carry it better towards those that differ from us, then we should abound more in the Spirit of Meekness and Forbearance, that thereby we might bring others (or be brought by others) to the knowledge of the Truth; this would make us go to God, and say with Elihu, Job 34. 32. That which we know not, teach thou us. Brethren, did ⟨p. 19⟩we but all agree that we were erring in many things, we should soon agree to go to God, and pray for more Wisdom and Revelation of his Mind and Will concerning us.
Fourthly; This Unity and Peace consists in our joyning and agreeing to pray for, and to press after those Truths we do not know. The Disciples in the Primitive Times, were conscious of their Imperfections, and therefore they with one accord continued in Prayer and Supplications: If we were more in the sence of our own Ignorances and Imperfections, we should carry it better towards those that differ from us, then we should abound more in the Spirit of Meekness and Forbearance, that thereby we might bring others (or be brought by others) to the knowledg of the Truth; this would make us go to God, and say with Elihu, Job 34. 32. That which we know not, teach thou us. Brethren, did ⟨p. 19⟩we but all agree that we were erring in many things, we should soon agree to go to God, and pray for more Wisdom and Revelation of his Mind and Will concerning us.
But here's our misery, that we no sooner receive any thing for Truth, but we presently ascend the Chair of Infallibility with it, as though in this we could not err: Hence it is we are impatient of contradiction, and become uncharitable to those that are not of the same Mind; but now a consciousness that we may mistake, or that if my Brother err in one thing, I may err in another, this will unite us in Affection, and engage us to press after Perfection, according to that of the Apostle,