There are so many stony ground hearers who receive the Word with joy that I have determined to suspend my judgment till I know the tree by its fruits.

Do you think any farmer would have crop of corn next year unless he plowed now? You may as well expect a crop of corn on unplowed ground as a crop of grace until he soul is convinced of its being undone without a Savior. That’s the reason we have so many mushroom converts, so many persons that are always happy! happy! happy! and never were miserable. Why? Because their stony ground is not plowed up; they have not got a conviction of the law … they fall away … That makes me so cautious now, which I was not thirty years ago, of dubbing converts too soon. Now I wait a little, and see if people bring forth fruit; for there are so many blossoms which March winds blow away that I cannot believe they are converts till I see fruit brought forth.

- George Whitefield (1714-1770)

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