# Rutherford: It is much better to be afflicted than to be guilty



## NaphtaliPress (Jun 23, 2018)

Rutherford (1644): “(6) It is much better to be afflicted than to be guilty, and that the church may have pardon, and want [‘_lack’_] peace.

(7) That the faith which is more precious than gold, can bid the devil do his worst, and that the patience of the saints can out-weary the malice of Babylon or Babel, on whose skirts is found the blood of the saints.

(8) That it is now and ever true, ‘_as when a hungry man dreams, and behold he eats, but he awakens and his soul is empty, or, as when a thirsty man drinks, but he awakes, and behold he (is) faint, so shall the multitude of all nations be that fight against mount Zion’ _(Isa. 29:8).

(9) Vengeance is gone out from the Lord against those who feast upon Zion’s tears, and they must ‘_die the death of the uncircumcised’ _(Ezek. 28:10), ‘_who clapped their hands, and stamped with the feet, and rejoiced in heart with all their despite against the land of Israel’ _(Ezek. 25:6).

(10) They are in no better condition who refuse to help the Lord against the mighty, and whose heart is as a stone and a piece of dead flesh, at all the revolutions and tossings of Christ’s Kingdom, who dance, eat and laugh within their own orb, and if their desires be concentric to the world and themselves, care not whether Joseph dies in the stocks or not [Ps. 105:18], or whether Zion sinks or swims; because whatever they had of religion, it was never their mind both to summer and winter Jesus Christ.”

Samuel Rutherford, “To the Christian Reader,” prefixed to his House of Commons sermon, _Sermons Preached Before the English Houses of Parliament by the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly of Divines 1643–1645 _(Naphtali Press, 2011) 388–389. Limited Printing. Out of Print!

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