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For conviction; it shows the great equity of God's cutting down such as these. It says that there is no injustice with God when he so does; no, that he does nothing but what is proper and requisite: let it therefore tell all such, what reason you have to expect it; if a tree does no good, and a great deal of hurt, what shall be done with it else? And that you may see and be convinced of this, let me offer these things:

1. God's tenderness has been already declared to you, in and by all that patience which he has used with you, and the cost that he has laid out upon you. God will for ever be acknowledged, and you shall be enforced to confess, that he did not deal with you as he might have done, that he did not execute all the rigour of his justice upon you which you deserved: hear how Christ expostulates with Jerusalem in this regard (Matthew 23:37). Your very station in his Church: all the offers of grace made to you; and all the strivings of his holy Spirit with you, and all the long time wherein he waited upon you, will witness for him, that you undid yourselves, that you were the blameable cause of your own destruction: every time that he came and said to you, Oh turn! why will you die? Receive instruction and live, which you slighted, will say that you undid yourselves.

2. God's wisdom is now deeply concerned in this matter. If after all, you remain barren, you cannot expect but that a wise God will deal with you so, as shall commend that wisdom of his to the world: and therefore, what would be acknowledged to be wisdom in him that owns a vineyard, in his dealing with a barren tree in it, must be much more justified in God's dealings with, and proceedings against you, for not serving of him, here then,

1. There is no loss to the owner in cutting such a tree down. It never did any good by standing there; it brought in no profit to the husbandman; his revenue will be never the less when that is gone: and what glory will God lose by you, when you are destroyed? You never did him any service since you were born; he has been at a great deal of cost upon you, but there has no good at all come of it; you have stood in the vineyard, but all that you have done has been to make a show, to take up a room there; but if none in his Church should do him more service than you have done, he might even throw it up to the waste wilderness again, for any revenue that is paid him; and is it not wisdom to remove an unprofitable creature from the earth, and lay out no more upon it to no purpose?

2. There is a great deal of harm occasioned by letting such a tree stand any longer. It cumbers the ground: it does mischief in the place that it takes up; and is it not prudence in the owner, to root up a tree that not only does no good, but much damage? If he could bear with the former, yet this is an intolerable provocation. Every unregenerate sinner among God's people does mischief, others are the worse for him, and therefore it is fitting that God, who is resolved to be no loser by any, should take such away from doing any more: so many years as they have been born with, [illegible] exercised his patience.

3. Hence it is for the good of others that such should be cut down. God has a care for his vineyard in general and for those plants in it in particular as do bear [illegible]: it is for the sake of the righteous ones there that he keeps it up! And therefore he will take care for their good. And indeed there is great benefit accrues to others by such judgments of God: it sometimes does good by awakening of others that were unfruitful before, and hastening their conversion; the destruction of one impenitent sinner, is sometimes the occasion of the repentance of many: sometimes it gives great advantage to God's children, by removing hindrances of their growth out of the way, and awakening and exciting of the graces that are in them.

4. It is the only way that is now left for God to get honor by such as these. What would you have God to do with you? Serve and honor him you will not, he has tried and waited, and all to no purpose, you grow worse and worse after all, and shall he lose by such as you? Shall he make a creature, and do all for him, and have no honor by him? If he have, in what other way is it to be had? Let this then stop every mouth, and vindicate a holy God in all the severity which he proceeds to after his patience is wearied out.