A30122:45
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.
A certain Man had a Fig-tree planted in his Vineyard.]
The Man, I told you, is to present us with God the Father, by which Similitude He is often set out in the New-Testament.
Observe then, That it is no new thing, if you find in God's Church, ⟨p. 7⟩barren Fig-trees, fruitless Professors; even as here you see is a Tree, a fruitless Tree, a fruitless Fig-tree in the Vineyard. Fruit is not so easily brought forth, as a Profession is got into; 'tis easy for a Man to clothe himself with a fair show in the flesh, to word it, and say, Be thou warmed and filled with the best. 'Tis no hard thing to do these with other things; but to be fruitful, to bring forth fruit to God, this doth not every tree; No not every Fig-tree, that stands in the Vineyard of God. Them words also, Joh. 15. 2. [Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away,] assert the same thing. There are branches in Christ, in Christ's Body mystical, (which is his Church, his Vineyard) that bear not Fruit, wherefore the Hand of God is to take them away. I looked for Grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes, Isa. 5. 4. that is, no fruit at all that was acceptable with God. Again,