Upon the Vine-tree

By John Bunyan 1628–1688 John Bunyan

XLV. Upon the Vine-tree.

What is the Vine, more than another Tree,

Nay most, than it, more tall, more comly be?

What Work-man thence will take a Beam or Pin,

To make ought which may be delighted in?

It's Excellency in it's Fruit doth lie.

A fruitless Vine! It is not worth a Fly.

Comparison.

What are Professors more than other men?

Nothing at all. Nay, there's not one in ten,

Either for Wealth, or Wit, that may compare,

In many things, with some that Carnal are.

Good are they, if they mortifie their Sin;

But without that they are not worth a Pin.

Biography

John Bunyan, author of the immortal allegory The Pilgrim's Progress (1678, 1684), was born in 1628 in Elstow, near Bedford, to Thomas Bunyan and his second wife, Margaret Bentley Bunyan. Not much is known about the details of Bunyan's life; his autobiographical memoir, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666), is concerned with external events only as they impinge upon spiritual experience. His family was humble though . . .

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