A30122:385
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.
Last of all; I now come to give you Twelve Directions and Motives for the obtaining Peace and Unity.
First; If ever we would live in Peace and Unity, we must pray for it. We are required to seek Peace: Of whom then can we seek it with expectation to find it, but of him who is a God of Peace, and hath promised to bless his People with Peace? It is God that hath promised to give his People one Heart, and one Way; yet for all these things, he will be sought unto: O then let us seek Peace, and pray for Peace, because God shall prosper them that love it.
The Peace of Churches is that which the Apostle prays for in all his Epistles; in which his desire is, that Grace and Peace may be multiplied and increased among them.
Secondly; They that would endeavour the Peace of the Churches, must be careful who they commit the care and oversight of the Churches to; as, first, (over and besides those Qualifications ⟨p. 46⟩that should be in all Christians) they that rule the Church of God, should be Men of Counsel and Understanding; where there is an ignorant Ministry, there is commonly an ignorant People, according as it was of old, Like Priest, like People.