A92145:47
A sermon preached before the Right Honourable House of Lords, in the Abbey Church…A sermon preached before the Right Honorable House of Lords, in the Abbey Church…
A sermon preached before the Right Honourable House of Lords, in the Abbey Church at Westminster, Wednesday the 25. day of June, 1645. Being the day appointed for a solemn and public humiliation. / By Samuel Rutherfurd Professor of Divinity at St. Andrews.A sermon preached before the Right Honorable House of Lords, in the Abbey Church at Westminster, Wednesday the 25. day of Iune, 1645. Being the day appointed for a solemne and publique humiliation. / By Samuel Rutherfurd Professor of Divinitie at St. Andrews.
London: printed by R.C. for Andrew Crook, 1645
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Every man at his best state is altogether vanity▪ 1if the Hebrew express it better (as I humbly conceive it doth) it runs thus, ver. 6. surely, all men are all vanity, even standing on their feet, or every man is every vanity, though he stand on his tiptoes, or stand straight up, as a Champion or an army of Soldiers that stand fast and keep their ground, for so the word [Greek or Hebrew] signifieth as the learned observe, vanity is a light, a moving and rolling thing, like a Cart wheel or a feather in the air. Thirdly, the Church for one good day of ease hath ten, twenty troublesome days of war, persecution, divisions, heresies, plots. Read the History of the Judges, and of the persecuting, yea and Christian Emperors, and you shall see the ups and downs of the Church, they had ease, yea and court and favour with godly Emperors, but a very short time. Thirdly, in their spiritual relation, the Church is a moving thing: in that, 1. change is a part of sufferings, and suffering and the Cross is the patrimony of the Church; whereas David saith of the wicked, Psal. 55. 19. Because they have not changes, therefore they fear not God; Moab is not moved from vessel to vessel, 2and hath not gone to captivity, therefore his taste remained in him, and his sent is not changed, Jer. 48. 11. Secondly, the Song of Solomon showeth the inward and spiritual ups and downs, and changes of the Church; as sometime Chap. 2. it is full noon-day with the Church; she being taken into the banqueting house, and Vers. 4. his banner over her was love; and she is in great Court, Vers. 16. My well beloved is mine, and I am his, he feedeth among the Lilies, 17. till the day break, and the shadows flee away; but there is a change of Court, and a great revolution, Chap. 3. 1. By night, on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth, I sought him, but I found him not. Again, Chap. 4. there is a revolution, Christ breaketh out in a high commendation and praise of his Church, Chap. 4: Vers. 16. there is a prayer of hers in sense of love and heat of faith for an ⟨p. 15⟩union; Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits; here the ship hath fair weather, and sails fair before the wind, for Christ answereth, Ch. 5. 1.