ONI

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,

AUTHOR OF THE "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS," "HOLY WAR," ETC.

Philadelphia:

AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY,

118 ARCH STREET

DIVINITY SCHOOL

LIBRARY

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by the

AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

STEREOTYPED BY GEORGE CHARLES.

PRINTED BY KING & BAIRD.

THE AUTHOR TO THE READER.

COURTEOUS READER.

I have written to thee now about the Barren Fig-tree, or how it will fare with the fruitless professor that standeth in the vineyard of God.

Of what complexion thou art, I cannot certainly divine; but the parable tells thee, that the cumber-ground must be cut down.

A cumber-ground professor, is not only a provocation to God, a stumblingblock to the world, and a blemish to religion, but a snare to his own soul also. "Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds; yet he shall perish for ever, like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he?" Job

xx. 6, 7. Now "they count it pleasure to riot in the day-time." 2 Pet. ii. 13, 14. But what will they do when the axe is fetched out? The tree whose fruit withereth, is reckoned a tree without fruit, a tree twice dead, one that must be plucked up by the roots. Jude 12.

O thou cumber-ground! God expects fruit. God will come seeking fruit shortly. My exhortation, therefore, is to professors, that they look to it; that they take heed. The barren fig-tree in the vineyard, and the bramble in the wood, are both prepared for the fire. Profession is not a covert to hide from the eye of God; nor will it palliate the revengeful threatening of his justice; he will command to cut it down shortly.

The church and a profession are the best of places for the upright, but the worst in the world for the cumber-ground. He must be cast, as profane, out of the mount of God; cast, I say, over the wall of the vineyard, there to wither; thence