The beatitudes

1. Unfruitfulness is a shame: Barrenness of old was counted a great shame. For a tree in winter to be fruitless, is no great wonder; but in the Spring and Summer to be without fruit, is a reproach to the Tree: So in the winter of ignorance and Popery to have less fruit was less culpable; but in the Spring time of the Gospel, when the Sun of Righteousness hath shined so gloriously in our Horizon, now to be without fruit is a reproach not to be wiped away; men think it a shame to want an eye, or a limb; but it is a greater shame to want fruit.

1. Unfruitfulness is a shame: Barrenness of old was counted a great shame. For a tree in winter to be fruitless, is no great wonder; but in the Spring and Summer to be without fruit, is a reproach to the Tree: So in the winter of ignorance and Popery to have less fruit was lesse culpable; but in the Spring time of the Gospel, when the Sun of Righteousness hath shined so gloriously in our Horizon, now to be without fruit is a reproach not to be wiped away; men think it a shame to want an eye, or a limb; but it is a greater shame to want fruit.

2. What account can the unfruitful Christian give to God? God will come with this question, Where is your fruit? a godly man dies full of fruit; Job 5.26. Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of Corn, &c. The unfruitful Christian comes to his grave not as shock of corn, but as a bundle of straw, fit only for the fire: 'Tis good to bethink our selves what answer we shall give to God for our barrenness. The Lord hath planted us in a rich soil; he may say to us as to his Vineyard, Isa. 5.1. My beloved hath a Vineyard in a very fruitful hill, and he fenced it, and planted it with the choicest Vine, &c. and he looked that it should bring forth Grapes, ⟨p. 602⟩and it brought forth wild grapes, in an Hill] hilly places are judged the fittest for Vines to grow in,