and responsibility. We are all ready enough to eat tibe fat and drink the sweet, and bask in the sanshine of our position both as Christians and Englishmen, — ^and even to spare a few pitying thoughts for the half naked savage who bows down to stocks and stones. But we are very slow to remember that we are acoountaUe to God for all we enjoy ; and that to whomsoever much is given, of them much will b^ required. Let us awake to a sense of these things. We are the most favoured nation upon earth. We are in the truest sense ^* a fig tree planted in a vineyard." Let us not forget that the great Master looks for "fruit."
We learn, secondly, from this passage, that it is a most dangeram thing to be unfruitful under great religiom privileges.
The manner in which our Lord conveys this lesson to us is deeply impressive. He shows us the owner of the barren fig tree complaining that it bore no fruit : "These three yeaxs I come seeking fruit and find none." — ^He describes him as even ordering the destruction of the tree as a useless cumberer of the ground : "Out it down ; why cumbereth it the ground P " He brings in the dresser of the vineyard pleading for the fig tree, that it may be spared a little longer : "Lord, let it alone this year also.'' And He concludes the parable by putting these awful words into the vinedresser's mouth: "If it bear fruit, well : and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down/'
There is a plain warning here to all professing Churohep of Christ. If their ministers do not teach sound doctrine, and their members do not live holy lives, they are in im- minent peril of destruction. God is every year observing
LUKB, CHAP. Xin. VKR. 6 — 9. 115
Hiem, and taking account of all their ways. They may aboond in ceremonial religion. They may be covered with the leaves of forms, and services, and ordinances. But if they are destitute of the fruits of the Spirit, they are reckoned useless cumberers of the ground. Except ihey repent, they will be cut down. It was so with iihe Jewish Church forty years after our Lord's ascen- sion. It has been so since with the African Churches. It will be so yet with many others, it may be feared, before the end comes. The axe is lying near the root of many an unfr*uitf ul Churdi. The sentence will yet go forth, "Cut it down."
There is a plainer warning still in^ the passage for all unconverted Christians. Thei^ are many in every con- gr^ation who hear the Gospel, who are literally hang- ing over the brink of the pit. They have lived for years in the best part of God's vineyard, and yet borne no fruit. They have heard tiie Gospel preached faith- fully for hundreds of Sundays^and yet have never em- braced it) and taken up the cross, and followed Christ. They do not perhaps run into open sin. But they do nothing for God's glory. There is nothing positive about their religion. Of each of these the Lord of the vine- yard might say with truth, "I come these many years seeking fruit on this tree and find none. Cut it down. It cumbereth the ground." There are myriads of respect- able professing Christians in- this plight. They have* not the least idea how neaiF they are to* destruction. Never let ^.forget ti>at to be content wiOi aitiin^in iiie congregation and hearing sermons, while we bear nofimit in our lives, is conduct which is most offensive to God. It provokes Him to cut us off suddenly, and that without remedy.