A30122:82
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.
Alas, it is not any Fruit will serve; bad Fruit is counted none. Every Tree that bringeth not forth Good Fruit, is hewen down, and cast into the Fire, Matth. 3. 10.
1. There is a Fruit among Professors that withers, and so never comes to be ripe, a Fruit that is smitten in the growth, and comes not to maturity, and this is ⟨p. 24⟩reckoned no Fruit. This Fruit those Professors bear, that have many fair beginnings, or blossoms: That make many fair offers of Repentance and Amendment; that begin to pray, to resolve, and to break off their Sins by Righteousness; but stop at those beginnings, and bring no Fruit forth to perfection. This Man's Fruit is withered, wrinkled, smitten Fruit, and is in effect no Fruit at all.
2. There is an hasty Fruit, such as is the Corn upon the House top, Psal. 129. or that which springs up on the Dunghill, that runs up suddenly, violently, with great stalks, and big show, and yet at last proves empty of Kernel. This Fruit is to be found in those Professors, that on a sudden are so awakened, so convinced, and so affected with their Condition, that they shake the whole Family, the End-ship, the whole Town. For a while they cry hastily, vehemently, dolefully, mournfully, and yet all is but a Pang, an Agony, a Fit, they bring not forth Fruit with Patience. These are called those hasty Fruits, that shall be as a fading flower, Isa. 28. 4.
2. There is an hasty Fruit, such as is the Corn upon the House top,