The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved. – Song of Songs 7:13

The Church of God has, in herself, through the rich love of her Husband, all manner of pleasant fruits. There are all manner of pleasant fruits among us. One has one, another has another and, in some hearts, there are many fruits united. A church of God, if well cultivated, is rich in multiform displays of the fruit of the Spirit of God. Some of these fruits are new, and oh, how full of savor they are! Our new converts, thank God for them—what a freshness and power there is about their love! Certain moldy old professors have lost their taste all together—they have passed beyond the time in which they were sweet—they have gotten into the sleepy pear state and are getting rotten. They are chips in the porridge—the taste has gone out of them—if they ever had any. Alas, some have acquired a nauseous flavor, they are very naughty figs, indeed! The new fruits may be sharp and have more pungency than mellowness about them, but for all that they are choice to the Lord Jesus whose soul desires the first ripe fruits. I thank God for youthful zeal! It might, with advantage, have a little more knowledge mingled with it, yet the zeal is good and the fervent is good. May we never be without new-born souls! Then there are old fruits, the experience of believers who are ripening for Heaven—the well-developed confidence which has been tried in a thousand battles and the faith which has braved a lifetime of difficulties. These old fruits—the deep love of the matron to Christ, the firm assurance of the veteran believer—there is a mellowness about them which the Lord delights in! All these choice things ought to be laid up. Every good thing in a church is meant to be stored up, not to be despised and forgotten! And the point of all is that all in the Church ought to be laid up for our Beloved. And now is the time when I earnestly ask, in the name of the Lord Jesus, by the roes and by the hinds of the field, yes, by each sacred token of the love you bear your Master, that each one of you should bring forth his pleasant fruits whether they are new or whether they are old. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1066.cfm