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.

Cut it down.

The Woman that delighteth in her Garden, if she have a Slip there, suppose (if it was fruitful) she would not take five Pounds for it; Yet if it bear no Fruit, if it wither, and dwindle, and die, and turn cumber-ground only, it my not stand in her Garden. Gardens and Vineyards are places for Fruit, for Fruit according to the nature of the plant or flowers. Sup∣pose such a Slip as I told you of before, should be in your Garden, and there die: Would you let it abide in your Garden? No! away with it, away with it. The Woman comes into her garden towards the Spring, where first she gives it a slight cast with her eye; then she sets to ga∣thering out the Weeds, and Nettles, and Stones; takes a Beesom and sweeps the Walks: this done, she falls to prying into her Herbs and Slips, to see if they live, to see if they are likely to grow: Now, if she comes to one that is dead, that she is confident will not grow, up she pulls that, and makes to the heap of rubbish

with it, where she despisingly casts it down, and valueth it no more than a Nettle, or a Weed, or than the dust she hath swept out of her Walks. Yea, if any that see her should say, Why do you so? The answer is ready, 'Tis dead, 'tis dead at Root: If I had let it stand, 'twould but have cumbered the ground. The strange Slips (and also the Dead ones) they must be a heap in the Day of Grief, and of desperate Sorrow; Isa. 17. 10, 11.