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Rutherford, Samuel, 1600?-
1661. J
Letters of the Rev. Samuelj Rntherford
/
LETTERS
OF THE
REV. SAMUEL RUTHERFOPiD,
PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY AT ST. ANDREw's,
A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE
REV. A. A. BONAR,
ArXHOR OF THE MEMOIR OF ROBERT MURRAY M'CHEVNE.
" Rutherford's Letters is one of my classics. Were trutii the beam, I have no doubt, that if Homer, and Virgil, and Horace, and all that the world has agreed to idolize, were weighed against that book, they would be lighter than vanity." — Cecil.
NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS,
No. 285 BROADWAY. 1850.
CONTENTS,
Advertisement vii
Sketch of Samuel Rutherford and his Letters ix
LETTER PAGE
1. To Marion Macknaught 31
2. To a Gentlewoman 31
3. To a Christian Gentlewoman... 32
4. To Lady Kenmure 34
5. To the same 36
6. To the same 38
7. To Marion Macknaught 39
8. To Lady Kenmure 40
9. To the same 42
10. To Marion Macknaught 44
11. To the same 47
12. To the same 48
13. To the same 49
14. To the same 51
15. To Lady Kenmure 51
16. To the same 53
17. To the same 56
18. Tothesame 58
19. To Marion Macknaught 59
20. To the same 62
21. To the same 64
22. To the same 65
23. To the same 66
24. To Lady Kenmure 67
25. To the same 70
26. To the same 71
27. To Marion Macknaught 73
28. To Lady Kenmure 74
29. To the same 75
30. To Marion Macknaught 77
31. To the same 78
32. To the same 79
33. To Lady Kenmure 80
34. To Marion Macknaught 82
35. To Lady Kenmure 82
36. To Marion Macknaught 84
37. To Lady Kenmure 85
38. To the same 87
39. To Marion Macknaught 87
40. To the same 89
41. To the same 91
42. To the same 91
43. To the same 93
44. To the same 95
45. To the same 96
46. To the same 97
47. To the same 98
48. To the same 99
49. To the same 100
50. Tothesame 101
LETTER PAGE
5 1 . To Marion Macknaught 102
52. To the same 102
53. To Earlston, Elder 103
54. To Marion Macknaught 105
55. To Lady Kenmure 106
56. To the same 107
57. To Marion Macknaught 108
58. To the same Ill
59. Tothesame 112
60. To the same 113
61. To Lady Kenmure 114
62. To Lady Culross 115
63. To Mr. Robert Cunningham ... 117
64. To Alexander Gordon 119
65. To Robert Gordon 120
66. To the same 120
67. To William Fullerton 121
68. To his Parishioners at Anwoth. 122
69. To Lady Kenmure 124
70. To the same 126
71. To Hugh Mackail 128
72. To John Fleming 129
73. To Earlston, Elder 130
74. To Lady Culross 131
75. To William Gordon 132
76. To John Kennedy 134
77. To Lord Boyd 135
78. To Margaret Ballantyne 136
79. To Robert Gordon 138
80. To Marion Macknaught 140
81. To Mr. John Meine 140
82. To Cardoness, Elder 141
83. To the Earl of Lothian 144
84. To Jean Brown 146
85. To John Kennedy 148
86. To Elizabeth Kennedy 150
87. To Jonet Kennedy 152
88. To a Christian Gentlewoman... 153
89. To Lord Craighall 155
90. To Ji.hn Kennedy 157
91. To Mr. Robert Blair 159
92. To Mr. John Livinsgton 161
93. To Mr. Ephraim Mel vin 1 62
94. To Robert Gordon 163
95. To Lady Kenmure 166
96. To the same 167
97. To the same 168
98. To the same 169
99. To Alexander Gordon 170
100. To Mr. Alexander Colville 172
IV
CONTENTS.
101. To Earlston, Younger 173
102. To Lady Cardoness 175
103. To Jonet Macculloch 176
104. To Alexander Gordon 177
105. To Lady Cardoness 178
106. To Lady Kenmure 179
107. To a Gentlewoman 181
108. To Lady Kenmure 182
109. To Lady Boyd 184
110. To Lady Ka'skiberry 185
111. To Lady Earlston .". 186
112. To Mr. "David Dickson 187
113. To Jean Brown 188
114. To Mr. John Fergushill 189
115. To Mr. Robert Douglas 190
116. To William Rigge 191
117. To Mr. Alexander Henderson .. 192
118. To Lord Loudon 193
119. To Mr. William Dalgleish 195
120. To Mr. Hugh Mackaii 196
121. To Lady Boyd 197
122. To Mr. David Dickson 199
123. To Mr. Matthew Mowat 200
124. To William Halliday 202
125. To a Gentlewoman 203
126. To John Gordon, Younger 204
127. To John Gordon, Elder 205
128. To Lady Forret 200
129. To Marion Macknaught 207
130. To John Carsen 207
131. To Lady Boyd 208
132. To the Earl of Cassillis 210
133. To Robert Gordon 211
134. To John Kennedy 212
135. To Jean Brown 214
136. To Jean Macmillan 216
137. To Lady Busbie 216
138. To John Ewart 218
139. To William Fullerton 219
140. To Robert Glcndinning 219
141. To William Glendinning 221
142. To Mr. Hugh Henderson 221
143. To the Earl of Cassillis 222
144. To Lord Balmerino 224
145. To Lady Mar, Younger 225
146. To James Macadam 225
147. To William Livingston 226
148. To Williaui Gordon 227
149. To Mr. George Gillespie 228
150. To Jean Gordon 229
151. To Mr. James Bruce 230
152. To John Gordon 230
153. To Lady Hallliill 231
154. To John Osburn 232
155. To John Henderson 233
156. To John Meine 234
157. To Mr. Thomas Garven 234
158. To Bethaia Aird 236
159. To Alexander Gordon 237
160. To Grizzel Fullerton 237
161. To Patrick Carsen 238
162. To Carlton 238
163. To Lady Busbie 240
164. To John Fleming 242
166. To Alexander Gordon 244
LETTER PAGB
166. To Lady Boyd 246
167. To Mr. David Dickson 248
168. To the Laird of Carlton 249
1G9. To Robert Gordon 251
170. To the Laird of Moncrieff. 253
171. To John Clark 255
172. To Cardoness, Elder 256
173. To Cardoness, Younger 258
174. To Lord Craighall 259
175. To John Laurie 262
176. To Carlton 264
177. To Marion Macknaught 267
178. To Lady Culross 269
1 79. To Mr. John Nevay 271
180. To John Gordon, Elder 274
181. To Earlston, Younger 278
182. To Alexander Gordon 281
183. To Mr. J. R 284
184. To Mr. William Dalgleish 286
185. To Marion Macknaught 289
186. To John Gordon 290
187. To Mr. Hugh Henderson 292
188. To Lady Largirie 293
189. To Earlston, Younger 294
190. To Mr. William Dalgleish 296
191. To the Laird ofCally 298
192. To John Gordon, Younger 299
193. To Robert Gordon 301
194. To Alexander Gordon 303
195. To Robert Stuart 305
196. To Lady Gaitgirth 308
197. To Mr. John Fergushill 309
198. To John Stuart 311
199. ToCarsluth 313
200. To Cassincarrie 315
201. To Lady Cardoness 317
202. To Sibylla Macadam 318
203. To the Laird of Cally 319
204. To William Gordon 321
205. To Margaret Fullerton 323
206. To Lady Kenmure 324
207. To the same 325
208. To John Henderson 328
209. To Mr. Alexander Colville 328
210. To Mr. John Nevay 329
211. To Lady Boyd 330
212. To William Glendinning 332
213. To Robert Lennox 333
214. To Mr. James Hamilton 335
215. To Mistress Stuart 337
216. To Mr. Hugh Mackaii 338
217. To Alexander Gordon 340
2)8. To John Bell. Elder 341
219. To Mr. John Row 342
220. To Lord Craighall 343
221 . To Marion Macknaught 343
222. To Lady Culross 344
223. To Alexander Gordon 346
224. To Fulwood, Younger 348
225. To his Parishioners 349
226. To Lady Kilconquhair 355
227. To Lord Craighall 359
228. To Mr. James F'leming 361
229. To Mr. Hugh Mackaii 363
230. To Lady Kenmure 364
CONTENTS.
LETTER PACK
231. To Lord Lindsay 366
232. To Lord Boyd 368
233. To Fulk Elies 371
234. To James Lindsay 373
233. To Lord Craighall 376
236. To Mr. James Hamilton 377
237. To the Laird of Gaitgirth 378
238. To Lady Gaitgirth 379
239. To Mr. Matthew Mowat 380
240. To Mr. John Maine 382
24L To John Fleming 382
242. To Lady Rowallan ,383
243. To Marion Macknaught 384
244. To the same 385
245. To Lady Boyd 387
246. To Mr. Thomas Garven 389
217. To Jonet Kennedy 380
248. To Margaret Reid 391
249. To James Bautie 392
250. To John Stuart 396
251 . To the same 399
252. To the same 400
253. To Lady Busbie 403
254. To Ninian Mure 404
255. To Mr. Thomas Garven 405
256. To the Earl of Cassillis 406
257. To Ladv Largirie 408
258. To Lady Dungueigh 409
259. To Jonet Macculloch 410
260. To Mr. George Gillespie 411
261. To Mr. Robert Blair 411
262. To Lady Carlton 413
263. To William Rigge 414
264. To Lady Craighall 416
265. To Lord Loudon 417
266. To Mr. David Dickson 420
267. To Alexander Gordon 421
268. To Lady Kilconquhair 422
269. To Robert Lennox 423
270. To Marion Macknaught 425
27 1 . To Thomas Corbet 425
272. To Mr. George Dunbar 42S
273. To John Fleming 428
274. To WiUiam Glendinning 428
275. To Earlston, Younger 429
276. To John Gordon 430
277. To William Rigge 432
278. To James Murray 433
279. To Mr. John Fergushill 433
280. To William Glendinning 436
281. To Marion Macknaught 438
282. To Lady Robertland 438
283. To Lord Loudon 440
284. To Professors ofChrist in Ireland 442
285. To Robert Gordon 448
286. To Parishioners of Kilmalcolm. 451
287. To Lady Kenmure 456
28S. To Persecuted Church in Ireland 458
289. To Dr. Alexander Leighton 464
290. To Mr. Henry Stuart, etc 466
291. To Mrs. Pont 471
LKTTER PAOE
292. To Mr. James Wilson 473
293. To Lady Boyd 475
294. To John Fenwick 477
295. To Peter Stirhng 481
296. To Lady Fingask 482
297. To Mr. David Dickson 484
298. To Lady Boyd 485
299. To Agnes Macmath 488
300. To Mr. IV] atthew Mowat 489
301 . To Lady Kenmure 490
302. To Lady Boyd 491
303. To James Murray's Wife 492
304. To Lady Kenmure 493
305. To the same 494
306. To Lady Boyd 495
307. To Mistress Taylor 496
308. To Barbara Hamilton 498
309. To Mistress Hume 500
310. To Lady Kenmure 501
311. To Barbara Hamilton 502
312 To a Christian Friend 503
313. To a Christian Brother 504
314. To a Christian Gentlewoman... 505
315. To Lady Kenmure 508
316. To Mr. J. G 509
317. To Lady Kenmure 510
318. To Lady Ardross 511
319. To M. 0 512
320. To Earlston, Elder 514
321. To Mr. George Gillespie 515
322. To Mistress Gillespie 516
323. To Col. Gilbert Ker 517
324. To the same 519
325. To Mr. William Guthrie 520
326. To Col. Gilbert Ker 521
327. To the same 522
328. To the same 524
329. To the same 527
330. To Lady Kenmure 528
331. To the same 529
332. To Grizzel FuUerton 530
333. To Lady Kenmure 531
334. To Col. Gilbert Ker 532
335. To Mr. John Scott 534
336. To Lady Kenaiure 535
337. To the same 536
338. To the same 536
339. To Mr. John Scott 537
340. To the same 537
341. To Mr. James Durham 538
342. To Mr. John Scott 539
343. To Lady Kenmure 539
314. To the same 540
345. To Mr. Guthrie, Mr. Traill, etc. 542
346. To some Brethren 543
347. On Petitioning Charles II 544
3 18. To Lady Kenmure 546
349. To Mistress Craig 547
350. To Mr. James Guthrie 549
351. To Mr. Robert Campbell 550
352. To Aberdeen 551
ADVERTISEMENT.
In this edition of " The Letters" of that eminently holy minister of the Gospel, who suffered so much persecution for the Word of God, and for Scotland's Covenanted Work of Reformation, the Rev. Samuel Ruther- ford, the text — which, in later editions, had, through carelessness of print- ing, unacquaintance with the Scottish dialect, and attempts to substitute English words and phrases for Scotch ones, become very corrupt — has, by a careful collation of the earliest editions, been corrected and restored ; while the Scottish words, allusions, and idiomatic phrases are explained in notes at the bottom of the page ; and the Letters, which, in some of the former editions, had been very much mutilated, and had, in all of them, been printed without any regard to arrangement, have been arranged according to the dates, in as far as these could be ascertained, at which they were written, and are given without omission, abridgment, suppres- sion, or mutilation.
It is not anticipated that any apology needs to be made for this endeavor to offer to the Christian Public "The Letters" of Rutherford, in a form somewhat worthy of their author's reputation, and of their own intrinsic excellence. It may, perhaps, indeed, be thought by some per- sons, that it would have been better had English words and phrases been substituted, in the text, for those peculiar to the Scottish dialect ; but, had this been attempted, much of the spirit of Rutherford would, in many instances, have evaporated, and the energy of his diction been impaired ; while the style, having ceased to be Scotch Avithout becoming English, would have been greatly debased, enfeebled, and vulgarized. By the plan which has been adopted, it is hoped that the language, allowed to remain as Rutherford wrote it, will be rendered at once, and perfectly, intelligible to the southern reader, even though he never before may have seen or heard a word of the northern speech. No Scotchman can find the slightest difficulty in the diction.
Other persons may, perhaps, think that some of the Letters might have been omitted, some of the sentences suppressed, and certain " homely and familiar expressions, which," Wodrow observes, " have been jested on by profane wits of his age," might have been altered, with advantage to this edition. It is true that there are some of the Letters not so valu- able to the Christian reader as others; but, perhaps there is not one of them which does not present some useful, if not important instruction, respecting either doctrine or duty. There are, indeed, not a few repeti- tions, as was to be expected in familiar letters, written to friends and acquaintances, without the remotest anticipation of their ever being pub- lished ; but, those repetitions are generally statements of facts or feelings regarding matters of absorbing interest to the Christian ; and by those.
VUl ADVERTISEMENT.
therefore, who peruse these Letters with the view of spiritually profiting thereby, will not be complained of: and it must be confessed that there are some expressions which " profane wits" might, perhaps, succeed in turning into ridicule ; but, as there is no danger that they will be so dealt with by any one who can appreciate the poetic and evangelical beauty of the Song of Solomon, and as it is not very likely that any " profane wit" of this age will ever condescend to look into the Letters of the Rev. Samuel Rutherford, they have been allowed to stand as they came from the pen of that eminently pure and heavenly minded man.
This edition, then, is thus offered respectfully to the Church of God, with humble but fervent supplication, that the Holy Ghost, who so fully dwelt in the venerable Author of these Letters, would bless it, to the promotion of His own glory, by rendering it the means of arousing some thoughtless sinners to consider the things which concern their everlasting peace, before they be forever hid from their eyes, and of building up some of the saints and edifying them in their most holy Faith.
Editor.
SKETCH OF SAMUEL RUTHERFORD
AND HIS LETTERS.
In the history of the Reformation we read of Brother Martin, a poor monk at Basle, wliose hope of salvation rested solely on the Lord Jesus, long before Luther arose. Having written out his confession of reliance on the righteousness of Christ alone, the monk placed the parchment in a wooden box, and shut up the wooden box in a hole of the wall of his cell. It was not till last century that this box with its interesting contents was discovered; but it was brought to light when the old wall of the monastery was taken down. And is it not an incident fitted to suggest to us that Basle may have been made a focus of light in its day very much in answer to the prayers, and in acknowledgment of the faith of this "hidden one," and others hke him, who cried day and night to the Lord ?
Now, there is a fact not unlike this in the history of the district where Samuel Rutherford labored so lovingly. The people of that shire tell that there was found, some generations ago, in the wall of the old chapel of Earlston, in Kirkcudbrightshire, a copy of Wickllffe's Bible. It seems to have been shut into that recep- tacle in order to be hid from the view of enemies, but no doubt it was the lamp of light to some godly souls — who, perhaps in the silence of night, found opportunity in that chapel to draw it out of its ark and peruse its pages. It seems that the Lollards of Kyle (which is the adjoining district,) had brought it to Earlston ; and there were friends or members of the family of Earlston who embraced the gospel even in those days.^ May we not believe that the Gordons of Earlston, in Rutherford's days, were not a little, indebted to the faith and prayers of these ancient witnesses who hid the sacred treasure in the chapel wall ? Like the monk of
I Some of the ancestors of Viscount Kemnure embraced the principles of Wicklifie in the 16th century.
X SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD
Basle, their faith and patience were acknowledged in after days by the blessing sent down on that quarter, when the Lord, in re- membrance of his "hidden ones,"* both raised up the Gordons of Earlston, with many others of a Uke spirit, and also sent thither his servant Samuel Rutherford, to sound the silver trumpet and make the lamp of truth blaze like a torch all over that region.
Samuel Rutherford was born about the year 1600. His father is supposed to have been a respectable farmer, and he had two brothers, James and George. The place of his birth was not near the scene of his after labors. It is almost certain that Nisbet, a village of Roxburghshire, close to the Teviot, in the parish of Crailing, was his birth-place; not long ago, there were some old people in the parish who remembered the gable-end of the house in which he was born, and which, from respect to his memory, was permitted to stand as long as it could keep together. Some one may yet light upon the well where, when very young, Samuel nearly lost his life. He had been amusing himself with some companions when he fell in, and was left there till they ran and procured assistance ; but on reaching the spot, they found him seated on a knoll, cold and dripping, yet uninjured. He told them that " A bonnie white man came and drew him out of the well !" Whether or not he really fancied that an angel had delivered him we cannot tell, but it is plain that at all events his boyish thoughts were already wandering in the region of the sky.
He owed little to his native place. There was not so much of Christ known in that parish then as there is now. For in after days he writes, " My soul's desire is, that the place to which I owe my first birth — in which I fear Christ was scarcely named as touching any reality of the power of godliness, — may blossom as the rose." We have no account of his revisiting these scenes of his early life, though he thus wrote to his friend, Mr. Scott, min- ister of the adjoining parish of Oxnam. Like Donald Cargill, born in Perthshire, yet never known to preach there even once, — Rutherford's labors were all in other parts of the land. In this arrangement we see the Master's Sovereignty the better ; the sphere thus appears evidently to be one of God's choosing for the man, and not the man's gratifying his natural predilections. It accords, too, with the Master's own example, He having never returned to Bethlehem, where he was born, to do any of his works.
Jedburgh is a town three or four miles distant from Nisbet, and
1 Gen. xix. 29.
AND HIS LETTERS. XI
thither Samuel went for his education ; either walking to it and returning home at evening, — as a school-boy would scarcely grudge to do, — or residing in the town for a season. The school at that time met in a part of the ancient abbey, called from this circumstance the Latiners' Abbey. In the year 1617, we find him farther from home — removed to Edinburgh, which, forty years before, had become the seat of a College, though not as yet a University. There he obtained, in 1621, the degree of A.M. Soon after, he was appointed Regent or Professor of Humanity, though there were three other competitors; for his talents had attracted the notice of many. But, on occasion of a rumor that cliarged him with some irregularity, — whether with or without foundation, it is now difficult to ascertain, — he demitted his office in 1625, and led a private life, attending prelections on theology, and devoting himself to that study.
It is not unlikely that this may have been the time of which he says in a lettler, " I knew a man who wondered to see any in this life laugh or sport." It may have been then that he was led by the Spirit to know the things that are freely given us of God. We have no proof that he was converted at an earlier period, but rather the opposite. He writes, " Like a fool as I was, I suffered my sun to be high in the heaven and near afternoon, before ever I took the gate by the end." And again, "I had stood sure, if in my youth I had borrowed Christ for my bottom." Affliction fol- lowed ; the clouds returned after the rain ; family trials seemed to have been used by the Lord to promote the better growth of the plant of grace. All these dealings of Providence combined to form his character as a man of God and as a pastor.
In 1627 he was settled at Anwoth, a parish situated in Kirciid- brightshire, and though at this period Episcopacy had been ob- truded upon Scotland, and many faithful ministers were suffering on account of their resistance to its ceremonies and services, yet he appears to have been allowed to enter on his charge without any compliance being demanded, and " without giving any en- gagement to the Bishop." — He began his ministry from the text John ix. 39. The same Lord that would not let Paul and Timo- thy preach in Asia,' nor in Bithynia, and yet sent to the one region the beloved John,^ and to the other the scarcely less be- loved Peter,' in this instance prevented John Livingstone going to Anwoth, (though the patron had designed it for him,) and sent Rutherford instead. This was the more remarkable, because
» Acts, xvi 6, 1. 2 Rev. i. 11. 3 1 Peter, L 1.
XU SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD
Livingstone was sent to Ancium, the parish that borders on Nis- bet, while he who was by birth related to that place was dis- patched to another spot. This is the Lord's doing. Ministers must not choose according to the flesh.
During the first years of his labors here the sore illness of his wife was a bitter grief to him. Her distress was very severe. He writes of it : — "She is sore tormented night and day. — My life is bitter unto me. — She sleeps none, and cries as a woman travailing in birth ; my life was never so wearisome." She con- tinued in this state for no less than a year and a month, ere she died. Besides all this, his two children had been taken from him. Such was the discipline by which he was trained for the duties of a pastor, and by which a shepherd's heart of true sympathy was imparted to him.
Anwoth had no large village near the church. The people were scattered over a hilly district, and were quite a rural flock. But their shepherd found their souls worth the caring for, and did not feel that his learning and talents would be ill spent if laid out in seeking souls, obscure and unknown. See him setting out to visit ! passing along yonder field, or climbing that hill in his way to some cottage, his " quick eyes" occasionally glancing on the objects around, but his " face upward" for the most part, as if he were gazing into heaven. He has time to visit, for he rises at three in the morning, and then meets his God in prayer and meditation, and has space for study besides. He takes some days for catechizing. He never fails to be found at the sick-beds of his people. Men said of him, "He is alwai/s praying, always preach- ing, always visiting the sick, always catechiizng, always writing and studying." He was known to fall asleep at night speaking of Christ, and even to speak of him during his sleep. Indeed, himself speaks of his dreams being of Christ.
His preaching could not but arrest attention, though his elocu- tion was not good, and his voice rather shrill. He was, — accord- ing to Wodrow, — "one of the most moving and aflfectionate preachers in his time, or perhaps in any age of the Church."* Especially when he came to dwell upon the subject he so de- lighted in, Jesus Christ, his manner grew so animated that it seemed as if he would have flown out of the pulpit. An English merchant said of him in days when controversy might have turned him to other themes, " I went to St. Andrew's, where I heard a sweet, majestic looking man (R. Blair,) and he showed
1 WodroVs Church Hist. I 205.
AND HIS LETTERS. XIU
me the majesty of God. After him I heard a little fair man, (Rutherford,) and he showed me the loveliness of Christ. ''^^
Anwoth was dear to him^ as the sphere appointed him by his Master, more than because of the fruits of his labors. Two years after being settled there, he writes, "I see exceedingly small fruit of my ministry. I would be glad of one soul, to be a crown of joy and rejoicing in the day of Christ." His people were " like hot iron, which cooleth when out of the fire." Still he labored in hope, and labored often almost beyond his strength. Once he says, "I have a grieved heart daily in my calling." He speaks of his pained breast, at another time, on the evening of the Lord's Day, when his work was done. But he had seasons of refreshing to his own soul at least — especially when the Lord's Supper was dispensed. Of these seasons he frequently speaks. He asks his friend, Marion Macknaught, to help with her prayers on such an occasion, " that being one of the days wherein Christ was wont to make merry with his friends." It was often then that with special earnestness he besought the Father to distribute " the great Loaf, Christ, to the children of his family."
Anwoth church was filled, but not altogether by parishioners. Many came from great distances ; among others, several that were converted, seventeen years before, under John Welsh, at Ayr. These all helped him by their prayers, as did also a goodly number of godly people in the parish itself, who were the fruit of the ministry of his predecessor. Yet over the unsaved he yearned most tenderly. At one time we hear him say, " I would lay my dearest joys in the gap between you and eternal destruction." At another, " My witness is in heaven, your heaven would be two heavens to me, and your salvation two salvations." He could ap- peal to his people, " My day-thoughts and my night-thoughts are of you ;" — and he could appeal to God, " O my Lord, judge if my ministry be not dear to me ; but not so dear by many degrees as Christ my Lord."
All classes of people of Anwoth were objects of his care. He maintained a friendly intercovirse with people of high rank, and
1 M'Crie's Sketches.
2 The oak pulpit out of wliich he preached is still preservei The old church is in the shape of a barn, and could hold only 250 sitters. The years 1631 and 1633 are carved on some of the seats, — perhaps the seats of the Gordons, or other heritors. We may add, — while speaking of this old edifice where " the swallows building their nest," seemed to the exiled pastor " blessed birds," — that the rusty key of that kirk door is now in the keeping of Mr. Rowan, Librarian to the New College, Edinburgh, sent to the college as a precious relic three years ago by a friend through Dr. Welsh.
XIV SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD
many of his letters are addressed to such persoris. — But the herd hoys were not beneath his special attention. He writes of them when at Aberdeen, and exclaims, " Oh if I might but speak to thee or your herd boys, of my worthy Master." He had a heart for the young of all classes, so that he would say of two children of one of his friends, "I pray for them by name," and could thus take time to notice one, "Your daughter desires a Bible and a gown. I hope she shall use the Bible well, which if she do the gown is the better bestowed." He lamented over the few that cry " Ho- sanna" in their youth. " Christ is an unknown Christ to young ones, and therefore they seek him not because they know him not." He dealt with individual parishioners so closely and so per- sonally as to be able to appeal to them that he had so done. He addresses one of them, Jean M'Millan : " I did what I could to put you within grips of Christ; I told you Christ's testament and latter-will plainly." He so carried them about with him (like the priest with the twelve tribes on his breast-plate,) that he could declare to Gordon of Cardoness, " Thoughts of your soul depart not from me in my sleep." "My soul was taken up when others were sleeping, how to have Christ betrothed with a bride in that part of the land," viz. Anwoth. He so prayed over them and for them, that he fears not to say, " There I wrestled with the angel and prevailed. Woods, trees, meadows, and hills, are my wit- nesses that I drew on a fair match betwixt Christ and Anwoth." It is related that on first coming to the parish, there was a piece of ground on Mossrobin farm, where on Sabbath afternoon the people used to play at foot-ball. On one occasion he repaired to the spot and pointed out their sin, calling on the objects round to be witness against them if they persevered, especially three large stones,' two of which still remain, and are called " Rutherford^s witnesses."
Once in Anwoth his labors were interrupted by a tertian fever which laid him aside for thirteen weeks. Even when well re- covered, he could only preach on the Sabbaths ; visiting and cate- chizing were at a stand. This was just before his wife's death in 1630, and he writes in the midst of it, " Welcome, welcome, cross of Christ, if Christ be with it." " An afflicted life looks very like the way that leads to the kingdom." And some years thereafter, when his mother, who resided with him six years after his first wife's death, was in a dangerous illness, he touchingly informs one of his correspondents, to whom he writes from Anwoth, " My
t Josh. xxiv. 27.
AND HIS LETTERS. XV
mother is weak, and I think shall leave me alone, but I am not alone, because Christ's Father is with me."
The manse of Anwoth had many visits of kind friends, who in Rutherford's fellowship felt that saying verified, '- They that dwell under his shadow shall return ; they shall revive as the corn." ' The righteous compassed him about, because the Lord had dealt boun- tifully with him. His letters would be enough of themselves to show that his company was sought by the godly on all sides. But besides this evidence, we have notices of such visitors as his own brother George, at Kirkcudbright. This good man was a teacher in that town, and often repaired to Anwoth to take sweet counsel with Samuel ; and then together, they often talked of and prayed for their only other brother James, an officer in the Dutch service, who had sympathy with their views, and in after days conveyed to Samuel the invitation to become Professor at Utrecht. Visits of those friends who resided near were not un- frequent, such as the Gordons, Viscount Kenmure and his lady, and in humbler li(e, Marion Macknaught. But at times Anwoth manse was hghted up by the glad visit of unexpected guests. There is a tradition that Archbishop Usher, passing through Gal- loway, turned aside on a Saturday to enjoy the congenial society of Rutherford. He came, however, in disguise, and being wel- comed as a guest, took his place with the rest of the family when they were catechized, as was usual that evening. The stranger was asked, " How many commandments are there?" His reply was " Eleven.'''' The pastor corrected him ; but the stranger maintained his position, quoting our Lord's words, '• A new com- mandment / give unto you^ that you love one another.^'' They retired to rest, all interested in the stranger. Sabbath morning dawned, Rutherford arose and repaired for meditation to a walk that bordered on a thicket,* but was startled by hearing the voice of prayer, — prayer too, from the heart, and in behalf of the souls of the people that day to assemble. It was no other than the holy Archbishop Usher ; and soon they came to an explanation, for Rutherford had begun to suspect he had "entertained angels unawares." With great mutual love they conversed together, and at the request of Rutherford, the Archbishop went up to the pulpit, conducted the usual service of the presbyterian pastor, and preached on " the New Commandment."
Scarcely less interesting is the record of one of those incidental
* Hos. xiv. 7.
2 The place is Btill pointed out by tradition, as " Rutherford's Walk"
XVI SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD ,
meetings that are often so refreshing to the saints in their pilgri- mage. Rutherford iiad one day left home to go to the neighbor- ing town of Kirkcudbright, the next day being a day of humilia- tion in that place. Having no doubt spent some time with his like- minded brother, he had turned his steps to tlie house of another friend, Provost Fullerton, whose wife was Marion Macknaught. While sitting with them a knock at tlie door was heard, and then a step on the threshold. It was worthy Mr. Blair, who, on his way from London to Port Patrick, had sought out some of his godly friends, that with them he might be refreshed ere he returned to Ireland. He told them, when seated, that "he had a desire to visit both Mr. Rutherford at Anwoth, and Marion Macknaught at Kirkcudbright, but not knowing how to accomplish both, he had prayed for direction at the parting of the road, and laid the bridle on the horse's neck. The horse took the way to Kirkcudbright, and there he found both the friends he so longed to see." It was a joyful and refreshing meeting on all sides.
In 1634 he attended the remarkable death-bed of Lord Ken- mure, a narrative of which he published fifteen years after, in "The last heavenly speeches and glorious departure of John Viscount Kenmure." ' The inroads of Episcopacy were at this time threatening to disquiet Anwoth. His own domestic afflic- tions were still affecting him ; for he writes that same year, in re- ferring to his wife's death many years before, " which wound is not yet fully healed and cured." About that time, too, there was a proposal never carried into effect to call him to Cramond, near Edinburgh.
Meanwhile he persevered in study as well as in labors, and with no common success. He had himself a metaphysical turn, as well as a great readiness in using the accumulated learning of other days. It might be instructive to inquire why it is that wherever Godliness is healthy and progressive we almost invari- ably find Learning in the Church of Christ attendant on it ; while on the other hand, an illiterate state is attended sooner or later by decay of vital godliness. Not that all are learned in such
' Referring to the previous tempest that swept tlirough Lord Kenmure 's soul, the preface says that we may be taught that, " the wound of a wounded conscience is a most inexpressible terror ; none can describe it but he who has tried and tasted the same. It hnpaireth the health, drieth up the blood, wasteth away the maiTow, pineth away the flesh, consumeth away the bones, maketh pleasure painful, and shortcneth life. No wisdom can counsel it, no counsel can advise it, no advice can persuade it, no assuagement can cure it, no eloquence can move it, no power can overcome it, no epectre affray it, no enchanter charm it."
AND HIS LETTERS. XVU
times ; but there is always an ingredient of the kind among some of those whom the Lord is using. It may be that the energy of soul created by a revival leads on to the study of whatever is likely to be useful in the defence or propagation of the truth, whereas, when decay is progressing in a church, sloth and ease prevail, and are causes why theological learning is thought too heavy to be plodded through. With Samuel Rutherford and his contemporaries we find learning side b}?^ side with vital, and singu- larly deep godliness. Gillespie, Henderson, Blair, Dickson, and others, are well-known proofs. Circumstances led Rutherford in 1636 to publish his elaborate defences of grace against the Armin- ians, in Latin. Its title is " Exercitationes de Gratia." So highly was it esteemed at Amsterdam, where it was published, that a second edition was printed that very year ; and invitations were addressed soon after to the author to come over and occupy the chair of Professor of Divinity in Utrecht. The university of Hardewyrk had already offered him both its chair of Divinity and Hebrew.
The contest for Chrisfs Kingly office had become hot and keen. To Rutherford it appeared no small matter. " I could wish many pounds added to my cross to know that by my suffer- ing Christ was set forward in his Kingly office in this land." July 27, 1636, was a day that put his principles to the test. He was called before the High Commission Court, because of non-con- formity to the acts of Episcopacy, and because of his work against the Arminians. The issue was not doubtful, though Lord Lorn made every exertion in his behalf, — they deprived him of his min- isterial office, which he had exercised at Anwoth for a period of nine years, and banished him to Aberdeen. The next day, writ- ing at evening on the subject, he tells of his sentence, and sub- joins, " The honor that I have prayed for these sixteen years." He made up liis mind to leave Anwoth at once, observing, with a submissiveness which we cannot help wondering at in the author of Lex Rex, " I purpose to obey the king, who has power over my body." * His only regret was lest this separation from his flock
' Tlie following is liLs owii account of this whole matter, as given in a speech de- livered before the General Assembly of 29th Nov. 1638. Wlien asked by the Mod- erator, " "Were you not sent to Aberdeen by the High Commission ?" his reply was, "Most true. I was sent in and summoned by the High Commission for diverse points the Bishop of Galloway hbelled against me, and there was nothing at all proven against me, notwithstanding three several days I was before them ; and the third day they had no other question to propose, but those wherewith they attempted me the first two days, — only the matter of non-conformity, which I stand by ; and upoa this
2
XVIU SKETCH OP RUTHERFORD
was a chastisement on him from the Lord, "Because I have not been so faithful in the end as I was in the two first years of my ministry, when sleep departed from mine eyes through care for Christ's lambs."
On leaving Anvvoth he directed his steps by Irvine, spending a night there with his beloved friend David Dickson. What a night it would be ! To hear these two in solemn converse ! The one could not handle thq harp so well as the other ; for David Dick- son could express his soul's weary longings and its consoling hopes in such strains as that which has made his name familiar in Scot- land, " O mother dear Jerusalem^'' &c. But Rutherford, never- theless, had so much of poetry and sublime enthusiasm in his soul, that any poet could sympathize with him to the full. Many of his lettters " from Chrisfs palace in Aberdeen" have strains of true poetry. What else is such an effusion as this, when rising on eagles' wings, he exclaims, "A land that has more than four summers in the year ! What a singing life is there ! There is not a dumb bird in all that large field, but all sing and breathe out heaven, joy, glory, dominion, to the High Prince of that new- found land. And verily the land is sweeter that He is the glory of that land." "O how sweet to be wholly Christ's, and wholly in Christ — to dwell in Immanuel's high and blessed land, and live in that sweetest air, where no wind blovveth but the breath- ings of the Holy Ghost — no sea nor floods flow but the pure water of life that floweth from under the throne and from the Lamb — no planting, but the tree of life that yieldeth twelve manner of fruits every month ! What do we here but sin and suffer ? O when shall the night be gone, the shadows flee away, and the morning of the long, long day, without cloud or night, dawn?
they Bcntenced me, after I declared by writ, the unlawfuhiess of that act, and that I durst not be answerable to the king to acknowledge that judicatory, because it was against the standing law of the kingdom. Notwithstanding of this, they proceeded against me, deprived me of my ministry in Anwoth, and confined me in Aberdeen. I watched on in Edinburgli, desiring the clerk to give me an extract of the sentence, but could not get it ; and the reason why he shifted me was, because the Bishop of Galloway caused him to add a point to my sentence that I was not sentenced for, viz. that I should exei'cise no ministerial functions within the king's dominions. The clerk denied it was a point of my sentence, notwithstanding the Bishoj) of Galloway caused to add that point, and I could never have the extract of it, only I got a copy." — Re- cords of the Church of Scotland, p. 150. Baillie says, " He was silenced and confined to Aberdeen for preaching against the Articles of Perth, and such things. It is true he refused to give the Chancellor or any of the Bishops their styles. Tliey were aniniat also against him for taxing Cameron in his book, and more for his indiscreet raihng at Jackson." — Baill. i. p. 8.
AND HIS LETTERS. XIX
The Spirit and the bride say ' Come !' O when shall the Lamb's wife be ready, and the Bridegroom say, Come ?" Whoever com- pares such breathings as this with David Dickson's hymn, will at once see how very congenial were their feelings and their hopes, and even their mode of expressing what they felt and hoped, though the one used prose and the other tried more memorable verse.
We follow Rutherford to Aberdeen, the capital of the North, whither he was accompanied by a deputation of his affectionate parishioners from Anwoth, in whose company he would forget the length and tediousness of the way. He arrived here in Septem- ber, 1636. This town was at that time the stronghold of Episco- pacy and Arminianism, and in it the state of religion was very low. " It consisted of Papists, and men of Gallio's naughty faith." ' The clergy and doctors took the opportunity of Rutherford's arrival, to commence a series of attacks on the doctrines he held. But in disputation he foiled them ; and when many began to feel drawn to his earnest dealings or private exhortations, there was a proposal made to remove him from the town. " So cold," writes he, " is northern love ! But (added he) Christ mid I will hear it f deeply feeling his union to him who said to Saul, " why persecutest thou me J?" Often on the streets,^ he was pointed out as " the Ban- ished Minister f^ and hearing of this, he remarked, '-I am not ashamed of my garland." He had visitors from Orkney, and from Caithness, to the great annoyance of his persecutors. Some blamed him for not being ^'■prudent enough^'' as we have seen men ready to do in the case of Dr. Kalley at Madeira in our day; but he replies, " It is ordinary that that should be part of the cross of those who suffer for him P Still he enjoyed, in his solitude, occasional intercourse with some of the godly ones, among whom were Lady Pitshgo, Lady Burnet of Largs, Andrew Cant, and James Martin. His deepest affliction was separation from his flock at Anwoth. Nothing can exceed his tender sorrow over this flock.
It was a saying of his own, " Gold may be gold and bear the king's stamp upon it, when it is trampled upon by men." And
1 Dr. James Sibbald, said to have been a man of great learning, was minister in one of the churches of what was then called New Aberdeen, and Rutherford was a hearer of his ; he taught Arminianism, and Rutherford afterwards testified against him ou this point from what he had himself listened to. — Gordons Scots Affair, iii. 230.
* The impression of some readers might be that he was in prison. But he never ■was so. He was in exile ; but the whole town was his prison, like Shimei confined to Jerusalem.
XX SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD
(his was true of himself. But he came out of his trial unhurt ; or rather, as his many letters from Aberdeen show, greatly in- creased in every grace.
He was part of two years closely confined to that town ; but in 1638 public events had taken another turn. The Lord had stirred up the spirit of the people of Scotland, and the Covenant was again triumphant in the land. Rutherford hastened back to Anwoth. During his absence, " for six quarters of a year," say his parishioners, " no sound of the word of God was heard in our kirk." The swallows had made their nests undisturbed for two summers.
His letters do not refer to the proceedings of the Glasgow As- sembly of 1638 ; still it is well known that he was no mere indif- ferent spectator to what then took place, but was member of sev- eral committees which at that time sat on the affairs of the Church ; and Presbytery being fully restored by that Assembly, it was thought right that one so gifted should now be brought forward to a more important sphere. He was sent by the Church to several districts to promote the cause of reformation and the covenant : and at length, in spite of his reluctance, arising chiefly from love to his flock, — his rural flock at Anwoth, — he was con- strained by the united opinion of his brethren to remove to the Professor's Chair in St. Andrew's, in 1639. He bargained to be allowed to preach regularly every Sabbath in his new sphere ; for he could not endure silence when he might speak a word for his Lord. He seems to have preached, as occasion offered, in the parishes around, especially at Scoonie, where the village of Leven stands. His hands were necessarily filled with work in his new sphere ; yet still he relaxed nothing of his diligence in study. Nor did he lose anything of former blessing. It was here the English merchant heard him preach so affectingly on the loveli- ness of Christ while such was his success as a Professor that " the university became a Lebanon out of which were taken cedars for building the house of God throughout the land."
In the year 1640, he married his second wife, " a woman," says one, " of such worth, that I never knew any among men exceed him, nor any among women exceed her. He who heard either of them pray or speak might have learnt to bemoan his own ignorance. Oh how many times I have been convinced by ob- serving them, of the evil of unseriousness unto God, and unsa- voriness in discourse," They had seven children ; but only one
AND HIS LETTERS. XXI
survived the father, a little daughter Agnes, who does not seem to have been a comfort to her godly mother.
In July, 1643, the Westminster Assembly sat ; and to it he was sent up as one of the Commissioners from Scotland. There exists in MS. in the library of the Edinburgh University, a sketch of the Shorter Catechism, in Rutherford's handwriting, very much resembling the Catechism as it now stands, as if he had had the principal hand in drawing it up for the Assembly. He continued four years attending the sittings of this famous synod, and was of much use in<*heir deliberations. So prominent a part did he take, that the great Milton has singled him out for attack in his lines, " On the new forcers of conscience, under the Long Parliament." Milton knew him only as an opponent of his sectarian and Inde- pendent principles, and so could scorn measures proposed by " Mere A. S. and Rutherford." But had he known the soul of the man, would not even Milton have found that there was a sublimity of thought and feeling in his adversary, that at times might ap- proach his own lofty poesy ? Yet how interesting, in any point of view, to find the devoted Pastor of Anwoth, on the streets of Lon- don, crossing the path of the greatest poet of modern times !
During his residence in London, several of his family died ; yet amid the trials and bustle of that time he wrote " the Due Right of Presbytery," " Lex Rex," and " Trial and Triumph of Faith."
Returning home to St. Andrew's he resumed his labors both in the college and in the pulpit with all his former zeal.* He
1 "1651, July 13. — Tlie comm. was given at Scoonie. Mr. Alex. Moncrieff, m. there, did preach the Preparation Sermon, and on Monday morning, Mr. Sa. Ruther- ford did preach ; his text at both occasions "was Luke vii. 36 till 39 v. At this time was present, besides Mr. Sa. Rutherford, Mr. Ja. Guthrie, and Mr. David Bennet, Mr. Ephraim Melven, and Mr. William OHphant, m. in Dumfermhn. lliither did resort many strangers, so that the throng was great. Mr. Ephraim, and Mr. D. Bennet both did sit witliin the pulpit while the minister had his sermon." " 1654, Jan. 4. — Being Saturday, there was a Preparation Sermon for a Thanksgiving preached at Scoonie in Fyfe, for the continuance of the Gospel in the land, and for the spreading of it in some places of the Highlands in Scotland, where in some families two, and in some famiUes one, began to call on God by prayer. Mr. Samuel Rutherford, M. in St. An- drew's, preached on Saturday ; his text, Isai. xlLx. 9, 10, 11, 12. On the Sabbath, Mr Alex. Moncrieff, M then preached ; hi-i lecture, 1 Thess. i. ch. ; his text, Coloss. i. 27. In the afternoon of the Sabbath, Mr. Samuel preached again upon his forementioned text. On Monday morning, Mr. Samuel had a Lecture on PsaL IxxxviiL He did read the whole Psalm. Observe, that on Saturday Mr. Samuel had tliis expression in his prayer after sermon, desiring that the Lord would rebuke Presbyteries and others that had taken the keys and the power in their hands, and keeped out, and would suf- fer none to enter (meaning in the ministry) but such as said as they said." — Lamonl'a Diary.
XXU SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD
joined tlie Protesters in determinedly opposing the proceedings of the Commission of Assembly, who had censured such as pro- tested against the admission to power of persons in the class of Malignants. His friend David Dickson keenly opposed him, and Mr. Blair also, though less violently. It was this controversy that made John Livingstone say in a letter to Blair,' " Your and Mr. D. Dickson's accession to these resolutions, is the saddest thing I have seen in my time. My wife and I have had more bitterness in this respect, these several months, than ever we had since we knew what bitterness meant." Rutherford wiote to© violently on this matter ; for all parties were greatly excited. Still he did not lose his brotherly love, the same brotherly love that led him to embrace Archbishop Usher as a fellow-believer. We may get a lesson for our times from his remarks on occasion of these bitter controversies. It is in 1646, that he writes ; " It is hard when saints rejoice in the sufferings of saints, and redeemed ones hurt, and go nigh to hate, redeemed ones. For contempt of the com- munion of saints, we have need of new-born crosses scarce ever heard of before. — Our star-light hideth us from ourselves, and hideth us from one another, and Christ from us all." And then he subjoins, (and is he not borne out by the words of the Lord in John xvii. 22.) " A doubt it is if we shall have fully one heart, till we shall enjoy one heaven." The state of things lay heavy on his mind : " I am broken and wasted by the wrath that is upon this land."
Milton sings, " They also serve who only stand and wait ;" and Rutherford was longing now for such service. He sometimes refers to this desire ; he wishes for a quiet harbor in his latter days ; only, adds he, " sailing is serving" — and he did delight in serving his Lord.
In 1660, his published work, " Lex Rex," was taken notice of by the government ; for reasonable as it is in defence of the lib- erty of subjects, its spirit of freedom was intolerable to rulers who were gradually advancing to acts of cruelty and death. Indeed, it was so hateful to them, that they burnt it, first at Edinburgh by the hands of the hangman ; and then some days after by the hands of the infamous Sharpe, under the windows of its author's College in St. Andrew's. He was next deposed from all his offices ; and last of all summoned to answer at next Parliament on a charge of high treason. But the summons was too late. He was already on his death-bed, and on hearing of the summons,
1 Wodrow Select Biographies.
AND HIS LETTERS. XXIU
calmly remarked, that he had got another summons before a su- perior Judge and Judicatory, and sent the message, "I behove to answer my first, summons ; and ere your day arrive, I will be \ where few king^and great folks come."
All that is told us of his death-bed is characteristic of the man. He said when asked, " What think ye now of Christ?"—" I shall live and adore him. Glory dwelleth in Immanuel's land." The same afternoon he said, " I shall sleep in Christ, and when I awake I shall be satisfied with his likeness." Once he cried aloud, " O for arms to embrace Him ! O for a well-tuned harp !" This last expression he used more than once, as if already stretch- ing out his hand to get his golden harp, and join the redeemed in their new song. He also said on another occasion, "I hear him saying to me, ' Come up hither.' " His little daughter, Agnes, only eleven years of age, stood by his bed-side ; he looked on her, and said, " 1 have left her upon the Lord." Well might the man say so, who could so fully testify of his portion in the Lord, as a goodly heritage. To four of his brethren, who came to see him, he said, " My Lord and Master is chief of ten thousands of thou- sands. None is comparable to Him in heaven, or in earth. Dear brethren, do all for Him. Pray for Christ. Preach ybr Christ." He seemed to know the hour of his departure, not perhaps so surely as Paul, 2 Tim. iv. 6, or Peter, 2 Peter i. 14, yet still in a manner that seems to indicate that the Lord draws very near his servants in that hour, and gives glimpses of what he is doing. On the last day of his life, in the afternoon, he said, "This night will close the door, and fasten. my anchor within the veil, and I shall go away in a sleep by five o'clock in the morning." And so it was. He entered Immanuel's land at that very hour, March 20, 1661, at his house in St. Andrew's, and is now (as himself would have said) " sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty," till the Lord come. One of his dying sayings was, " There is noth- ing now between me and the resurrection but, 'This day tlioa shalt be with me in Paradise.' " And Livingstone records that his last words were, "Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel's land !" — as if he had caught a glimpse of its mountain tops.'
Had he lived a few v;eeks, his might have been the cruel deatli
1 "1661, Mar. 29, (a mistake for 20.) Mr. Samuel Rutherford, Principal of the "New College in St. Andrew's, departed out of this life, at his dwelhng-house there, and was interred the 30th of Mar. at the ordinary burial place of the said city. Some "weeks before lie had a daughter that departed out of this Ufe Ukewise. Also, the said 30 of Mar. Mr. Andrew Honeyman's mother-in-law was interred Ukewise. They were both carried at one time to their long home." — Zamont's Diary.
XXIV , SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD
endured by his friend James Guthrie, whom he had encouraged by his letters to steadfastness to the end. The vote which the Parhament passed when told that he was dying did him no dis- honor. When they had voted that he should not die in the Col- lege, Lord Burleigh rose and said, " Ye cannot vote him out of heaven."
If ever there was any portrait of him, it is not now known. We are most familiar with the likeness of his soul. There is one expressive line in the epitaph on his tombstone, in the churchyard of the Chapel of St. Regulus :
What tongue, what pen, or skill of men, Can famous Rutherford commend ! His learning justly raised his fame, True greatness did adorn his name. He did converse with things above, Acquainted with ImnianueVs love.
His memory was long cherished, and it is said that so great was the reverence which some of the godly had for this venerable man, that they requested to be buried near where his body was laid. It is also mentioned, that an old man in the parish of Crailing remembers the veneration entertained for him by the great-grand- father of the present Marquis of Lothian. This good Marquis used to lift his hat as he passed the spot where stood the cottage in which Samuel Rutherford was born.
His " Letters" have long been famous among the godly. The collector was godly Mr. M'Ward, who, as a student, being much beloved by Rutherford, went to the Westminster Assembly with him as his secretary. He was afterwards successor to An- drew Gray in Glasgow, and finally minister in Rotterdam. He published them with an enthusiastic recommendation ; but seems sometimes to have given us erroneous readings. At least, there are occasionally expressions or clauses that are obscure, as they stand in print. The first letter is dated April 23, 1628 ; and on- ward from that date, we have occasional pieces up to the year of his death. It will be noticed, that at times, the pen of the ready writer ran on most rapidly. He has written many in one day, when his heart was overflowing. It was easy to write when the Lord was pouring on him the unction that teacheth all things. He would sometimes have written still more, but he had heard that people looked up to him and overpraised his letters. During his confinement at Aberdeen, he wrote about 220.
There are a few unpleasant expressions in the letters, which
AND HIS LETTERS. XXV
are the sparks of a fancy that sought to appropriate everything to spiritual purposes ; but as to extravagance in the thoughts con- veyed, there is none. The extravagance alleged against them by some, is just that of Paul, when he spoke of knowing " the height and depth, length and breadth," of the love of Christ ; or that of Solomon, when the Holy Ghost inspired him to write " The Song of Songs." Rather would we say of these letters, what Living- stone in a letter says of John Welsh's dying words, " O for a sweet fill of this fanatic humor !" In modern days, Richard Cecil has said of Rutherford : " He is one of my classics ; he is a real origi- nal ;" and in older times, Richard Baxter, some of whose theo- logical leanings might have prejudiced him, if anything could, said of his letters : " Hold off the Bible, such a book the world never saw." They were long ago translated into Dutch, and of late years they have been translated into German. Both in these, and in his other writings, we see sufficient proof that had he cultivated literature as a pursuit, he might have stood high in the admira- tion of men.^
The letters often, by a few strokes, suggest very much that is edifying and impressive. There is something not easily forgotten in the words used to express the Church's indestructibleness in that letter, where he says, " the bush has been burning these five thousand years, and 7io man yet saw the ashes of that fire.^^ How mucli truth is conveyed by that saying, " Losses for Christ are but goods given out in bank in Christ's hand." There is an in- genious use of Scripture that often dehghts the reader, as when he speaks of " the corn on the house-tops that never got the hus- bandman's prayer," or of " Him that counteth the basons and knives of his house, (Ezra i. 9, 10,) and bringeth them back safe to his second temple." But the general characteristics of his let- ters are still more worthy of attentive consideration.
' His other works bear the stamp of the same lofty soul. In his Treatise, " De Divina Providentia," the following paragraph occiu-s extolling the glory of Godhead wisdom. " Comparentur cum ilia increata sapientia Dei Patris umbratiles scintillulai creatae gloriolte quotquot nominis celebritate inclaruerunt. Delirat Plato. Mentitur Aristoteles. Cicero balbulit, htesitat, nescit Latine loquL Demosthenes mutus et elinguis obstepescit ; virtutis viam ignorat Seneca, nihil canit Homerus, — male canit Virgiliusl Accedant ad ChriBtum qui virtutis gloria fulgent! Aristides virtutem mentitur. Fahius cespitat, a via justitiae deviat. Socrates ne hoc quidem scit, se niliil Bcire. Cato levis et futdis est, Solon est mundi et voluptatum servus et mancipium, non legislator. Pythagoras nee sophos, nee philosophus est. Bias nee mundi nee inanis glorias contemptor. Alexander Macedo ignavus est," <fec.
XXVI SKETCH OP RUTHERFORD
These Letters will ever be precious to : —
1. All who are sensible of their own, and the Church's, decay and corruptions. The wound and the cure are therein so fully opened out ; self is exposed, even spiritual self. He will tell you, " There is as much need to watch over grace, as to watch over sin." He will show you God in Christ, to fill up the place usurped by self. The subtleties of sin, idols, snares, temptations, self-deceptions, are dragged into view from time to time. And what is better still, the cords of Christ are twined round the roots of these bitter plants, that they may be plucked up.
Nor is it less so in regard to corruption in public, and in the Church. We do not mean merely the open corruption of error, but the secret " gray hairs" of decay. How it suits our day to hear him cry, " There is universal deadness on all that fear God. /Oh whpre are the sometime quickening breathjings, and injlu- y^nces from heaven that have refreshed his hidden ones .'" And then, how like our day when his complaint laments, in the name of the saints, " Wfc are half-satisfied with our witheredness ; nor have we so much of .his strain who doth eight times breathe out that suit (Psa. 119,) Quicken me !" We live far from the well, and copaplain but dryly of our dryness."
' ' ' •■ '5^' ■■'".'. '
2. A II who delight in the Surety^ s imputed righteousness. If
thoroughly aware of the body of sin in ourselves, we cannot but feel that we need a person in our stead,— the person of the God- man in the room of our guilty person. This is full salvation from ^guilt. " To us a Son is given ;" not salvation only, but a Saviour. The person of Jesus is given us, " he gave himself for iis."
These Letters are ever carrying us to the Surety and his right- eousness. The eye never gets time to rest long on anything apart from Him and his righteousness. We are shown the del- uge-waters undried up, in order to lead us into the ark again ; " I had fainted, had not want and penury chased me to the storehouse of ajy says he on one occasion.
3. All who rejoice in the gospel of free grace. Lord Kenmure once said to him, " Sin causeth me to be jealous of His love to such a man as I have been ;" he replied, "Be jealous of yourself, my lord, but not of Jesus Christ." In his "Trial and Triumph of Faith," he remarks, "As holy walking is a duty coming from us, it is no ground of true peace. Believers often seek in them- selves what they should seek in Christ." It is to the like effect
AND HIS LETTERS. XXVll
he says in a letter, "Your heart is not the compass that Christ saileth by," turning away his friends from looking inward, to look upon the heart of Jesus. And this is his meaning, when he thus lays the whole burden of salvation on the Lord, and leaves noth- ing for us but acceptance, "Take ease to thyself, and let him bear all." Then pointing us to the risen Saviour as our pledge of com- plete redemption, "Faith may dance, because Christ singeth ;" " Faith apprehendeth pardon, but never payeth a penny for it." On his death-bed he said to his friends, " I disclaim all that ever God made me will or do, and I look upon it as defiled and imper- fect." And so in his letters he will admit of no addition, or in- termixture of other things ; " The Gospel is like a small hair that hath no breadth, and will not cleave in two." He- Exhorts to as- surance as being the way to be humbled very low before Ood: "Often in us, complaining is but; a hunlbfe backbiting and tra- ducing of Christ's new work in the soul." "Make meikle of as- surance, for it keepeth your anchor fixed." He warns us, in his Trial and Triumph of Faith, " not to be too desirous of keen awakenings to chase us to Christ. Let Christ tutor me as he thinketh good. He has seven eyes : I have but one, and that too dim." In a similar strain he writes : — " The law shall never be my doomster, by Christ's grace ; I shall find a sure enough doom in the gospel to humble and cast me down. There cannot be a more humble soid than a believer. It is no pride in a drowning man to catch hold of a rockP How much truth there is here ! Naaman never was humble in any degree, until he felt himself com,pletely healed of his scaly leprosy : but truly he was humbled and humble then. And what one word is there, that suerffests so many humbling thoughts as that word " Gracef
4. All who seek to grow in holiness. The Holy Ghost delights to show us the glorious Godhead, in the face of Jesus. And this is a very frequent theme in these letters. He often seems to be standing in immovable contemplation of Christ, and so becom- ing holier and holier ; "changed into the same image from glory to glory." " Take Christ for sanctification, as well as justifica- tion," is often his theme. And in him we see a ma"n who seems to have sought (or holiness as unceasingly and as eagerly as other men seek for pardon and peace. In him, " holiness to the Lord^^ seems written on every affection of the heart, and on every fresh- springing thought.
Fellowship with the living God is a distinguishing feature in
XXVlll SKETCH OF RUTHERFORD
the holiness given by the Holy Ghost, " access by one Spirit to the Father through him." It must be with the Living One we meet, and then the sympathies of a Hving heart are felt. Ruth- erford could sometimes say, " I have been so near Him, that I have said, 'I take instruments that this is the Lord.'" And he could from experience declare, " I dare avouch the saints know not the length and largeness of the sweet Earnest, and of the sweet green sheaves before the harvest, that might be had on this side of the water, if we tvoidcl take ino7'e pai?is.'^ "I am every way in your case, as hard-hearted and dead as any man, but yet I speak to Christ through my sleep." All this is from the pen of a man who was a metaphysician, a controversialist, a leader in the Church, and learned in ancient lore. Why are there not such gracious, as well as great men now ?
5, All afflicted persons. He abounds in rich words to such ; indeed, here he had the very " tongue of the learned, to speak a word in season to him that was weary." And with what tender sympathy does he speak, leading the mourner so gently to the heart of Jesus ! He knew the heart of a stranger, for he had been a stranger. " Let no man after me slander Christ for his cross." Yes, says he, his most loved are often his most tried ; "The lintel-stone and pillars of his New Jerusalem suffer more knocks of God's hammer and tools, than the common side-wall stones." Even as to reproach and calumny, " I love Christ's worst reproaches."
It was to Hugh M'Kail, he wrote, " Some have written me that I am possibly too joyful of the cross, but my joy overleapeth the cross, — it is bounded and terminated on Christ." And there it was he found a well of comfort never dry.
6. All who love the Person of Christ. Our age and country have been tempted to be satisfied with speculative, abstract doc- trine. On the one hand, the orthodox have too often rested in the statements of our Catechisms and Confession ; and, on the other, the "Election-doubters," (as Bunyan would have called them,) have gone about with their favorite dogma, that Christ died for all men, as if mere assent to a proposition would save the soul. Rutherford ever places the truth before us in a savory way — full of life and warmth. The person of Him who gave himself for his church is held up in all its attractiveness. With him, it is ever the Person as much as the work done ; or rather, never the
AND HIS LETTERS. XXIX
one apart from the other. Like Paul, he would fain know Him, and the power of his resurrection.
Once when Lord Kenmure asked him, " What will Christ be like when he cometh?" his reply was, " All lovely.''^ And this is everywhere the favorite theme with him. At times he tells of his love. "His love surroundeth and surchargeth me." "If his love was not in heaven, I should be unwilling to go thither." But often he checks his pen to tell of Christ himself. " Wel- come, welcome, sweet, sweet cross of Christ ;" — then correct- ing his language, — " Welcome, fair, lovely, royal King, with thine ow?i cross.^^ " Oh if I could doat as much upon Himself as I do upon his love." " I fear I make more of his love than of HiTnself^^ How peculiar, and how true is this remark, "'I see that in communion with Christ we may make more Gods than one," meaning, that we may be tempted to make the enjoyment itself our God. It was his habitual aim to pass through privi- leges, joys, even fellowship, to God himself; "I have casten this work upon Christ, to get me himself J^ " I would be farther in upon Christ than at his joys — in, where love and mercy lodgeth — beside his heart." " He who sitteth on the throne is his lone a sufficient heaven." " Sure I am He is the far best half of heaven."
In one word, such was his soul's view of the livinsr Person, that he writes, " Holiness is not Christ, nor the blossoms and flowers of the tree of life, nor the tree itself" He had found out the true fountain-head, and would direct all Zion's travellers thither. And let a man try this, — let the Holy Spirit lead a man to this Person, — and surely his experience will be, " None ever came up dry from David's well."
All who love that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the great God our Saviour. The more we love the person of Christ, the more ought we to love his appearing, and the more we cherish both feelings, the holier shall we become. Rutherford abounds in aspirations for that day ; he is one who " looks for and hastens unto the coming of the day of God !" While in exile at Aber- deen in 1637, he writes, "O when will we meet ! O how long is it to the dawning of the marriage day? O sweet Jesus, take wide steps ! O my Lord, come over mountains at one stride ! O my Beloved, flee as a roe or young hart upon the mountains of separation." Now and then he has the expression of an intense desire for the restoration of Israel to their Lord, and the fulness
XXX SKETCH OP RUTHERFORD.
of the Gentiles; but far oftener his desires go forth to his Lord himself. " O fairest among the sons of men, why stayest thou so long away ? O heavens, move fast ! O time, run, run, and hasten the marriage day !" To Lady Kenmure his words are, "The Lord hath told you what you should be doing till he come. 'Wait and hasten,' saith Peter, 'for the coming of the Lord.' Sigh and long for the dawning of that morning and the breaking of that day of the coming of the Son of Man, when the shadows shall flee away. Wait with the wearied night-watch for the breaking of the eastern sky." Saints who feel their exile and ab- sence most are those who will most fervently love their Lord's ap- pearing. It was thus with Daniel on the banks of Ulai, and John in Patmos ; and Samuel Rutherford's most intense aspirations for that day are breathed out in Aberdeen.
His description of himself on one occasion is, — "A man often borne down and hungry, and waiting for the marriage supper of the Lamb." He is now gone to the " mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense;" and there he no doubt still wonders at the unopened treasures of Christ. But O for his insatiable de- sires Christward in our day ! O for ten such men ' in Scotland to stand in the gap, men who all day long find nothing but Christ to rest in, and whose very sleep is a pursuing after Christ in dreams, and who intensely desire to " awake with his likeness."
1 Gea xviiL 32.
EELIGIOUS LETTERS.
LETTER I.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved and Dear Sister, — My love in Christ remem- bered— I have sent to you your daughter, Grizzel, with Robert Gor- don, who came to fetch her. I am in good hopes that the seed of God is in her, as in one born of God, and God's seed will come to God's harvest. I have her promise that she will be Christ's, for I have told her that she may promise much in his-w^orthy name ; for he becometh caution' to his Father for all such as resolve and promise to serve him. I shall remember her to God. I trust that you will acquaint her with good company, and be diligent to know with whom she loveth to haunt.
Remember Zion, and our necessities. I bless your daughter from our Lord, and pray the Lord to give you joy and comfort of her. Remember my love to your husband, to William and Sam- uel, your sons.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, at all power in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, June 6th, 1624.
LETTER IL
TO A GENTLEWOMAN.
Mistress, — I beseech you to have me excused if the daily em- ployments of my calling shall hinder me to see you, according as I would wish ; for I dare not go abroad, since many of my people are sick, and the time of our communion^ draweth near. But fre- quent the company of your worthy and honest-hearted pastor, Mr. Robert, to whom the Lord hath given the tongue of the learned, to minister a word in due season to the weary. Remem- ber me to him, and to your husband.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Your affectionate Friend, S. R.
' Surety. 2 Dispensation of the Lord's Supper.
32 Rutherford's letters
LETTER III.
TO A CHRISTIAN GENTLEWOMAN.
Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered to you : — I was in- deed sorrowful at my departure from you, especially since ye were in such heaviness after your daughter's death ; yet I do persuade myself that ye know that the weightiest end of the cross of Christ, which is laid upon you, lieth upon your strong Saviour ; for Isaiah saith, (chap. Ixiii. 9,) " In all your afflictions he is afflicted." O blessed Second, who suffereth with you ! and glad may your soul be, even to walk in the fiery furnace, with One like vmto the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God. Courage ! up your heart ! when ye do tire, he will bear both you and your burden. (Ps. Iv. 22.) Yet a little while, and ye shall see the salvation of God.
Remember of what age your daughter was ; so long was your lease of her. If she was eighteen, nineteen, or twenty years old I know not ; but sure I am, seeing her term was come, and your lease run out, ye can no more justly quarrel with your great Supe- rior for taking his own, at his just term-day, than a poor farmer can complain that his master taketh a portion of his own land to himself when his lease is expired. Good mistress, if ye would not be content that Christ should hold from you the heavenly inher- itance, which is made yours by his death, shall not that same Christ think hardly of you, if you refuse to give him your daugh- ter willingly, who is a part of his inheritance and conquest?' I pray the Lord to give you all your own, and to grace you with patience, to give God his also. He is an ill debtor who payeth that which he hath borrowed with a grudge. Indeed that long loan of such a good daughter, an heir of grace, a member of Christ, (as I believe,) deserveth more thanks at your Creditor's hands, than that ye should gloom'^ and murmur when he craveth but his own. I believe ye would judge them to be but thankless neigh- bors who would pay you a sum of money after this manner. But what? Do ye think her lost, when she is but sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty ? Think not her absent who is in such a friend's house. Is she lost to you, who is found to Christ? If she were with a dear friend, although ye should never see her again, your care of her would be but small. Oh, now, is she not with a dear Friend, and gone higher, upon a certain hope that ye shall, in the Resurrection, see her again, when (be ye sure) she shall neither be hectic, nor consumed in body ? Ye would be sorry either to be, or be esteemed, an atheist ; and yet not I, but the Apostle, (1 Thess. iv. 13,) thinketh those to be hopeless atheists who mourn excessively for the dead. But this is not a challenge^ on my part ; I do speak this only fearing your weakness, for your
' Acquisition by purchase or industry. 2 Let your countenance fall.
3 Accusation.
Rutherford's letters. 33
daughter was a part of yourself; and, therefore, nature m you being, as it were, cut and halved, will indeed be grieved : but Ave have to rejoice, that when a part of you is on earth, a great part of you is glorified in Heaven. Follow her, but envy her not ; for, indeed, it is self-love in us that niaketh us mourn for them that die in the Lord. Why 1 Because for them we cannot mourn, since they are never happy till they be dead ; therefore, we mourn for our own private respect. Take heed, then, that in showing your affection in mourning for your daughter, ye be not, out of self-affection, mourning for yourself. Consider what the Lord is doing in it. Your daughter is plucked out of the fire, and she resteth from her labors ; and your Lord in that is trying you, and casting you into the fire. Go through all fires to your rest : and now remember that the eye of God is upon you, beholding your patience and faith ; he delighteth to see you in the burning bush and not consumed ; and he is gladly content that such a weak woman as ye should send Satan away, frustrated of his design. Now honor God, and shame the strong Roaring Lion, when ye seem Aveakest. Should such an one as ye faint in the day of ad- versity ? Call to mind the days of old : the Lord yet liveth : trust in him, although he should slay you. Faith is exceedingly char- itable, and believeth no evil of God. Now is the Lord laying in the one scale of the balance your making conscience of submission to his gracious Avill : and, in the other, your affection and love to your daughter — which of the tAvo Avill ye then choose to satisfy ? Be Avise, then ; and, as I trust that ye love Christ better than a sinful Avoman, pass by your daughter, and kiss the Lord's rod. Men do lop the branches off their trees round about, to the end they may groAV up high and tall ; the Lord hath, in this Avay, lopped your branch, in taking from you many children, to the end ye should grow upAvard, like one of the Lord's cedars, setting your heart above, Avhere Christ is at the right hand of the Father. What is next, but that your Lord cut down the stock after he hath cut the branches? Prepare yourself; ye are nearer your daughter this day than you Avere yesterday ; Avhile ye prodigally spend time in mourning for her, ye are speedily posting after her. Run your race Avith patience ; let God have his own, and ask of him, instead of your daughter, Avhom he hath taken from you, the daughter of faith, which is patience ; and in patience possess your soul. Lift up your head ; ye do not knoAV hoAV near your redemp- tion doth draAV.
Thus, recommending you to the Lord, who is able to establish you, I rest,
Your loving and affectionate Friend,
In the Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, April 23, 1628.
3
34 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER IV.
TO THE VISCOUNTESS OP KENMURE.^
Madam, — All dutiful obedience in the Lord remembered — I have heard of your Ladyship's infirmity and sickness with grief; yet I trust that ye have learned to say, " It is the Lord, let him do what- soever seemeth good in his eyes." It is now many years since the apostate angels made a question, whether their will or the will of their Creator should be done ; and since that time, froward man- kind hath always, in that same suit of law, compeared'^ to plead with them against God, in daily repining against his will : but the Lord, being both party and judge, hath obtained a decreet,^ and saith, (Isaiah xlvi. 10,) "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." It is then best for us, in the obedience of faith, and in a holy submission, to give that to God which the law of his almighty and just power Avill have of us. Therefore, madam, your Lord willeth you, in all states of life, to say, " Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven ;" and herein shall ye have com- fort, that He, who seeth perfectly through all your evils, and know- eth the frame and constitution of your nature, and what is most healthful for your soul, holdeth every cup of affliction to your head with his own gracious hand. Never beheve that your tender- hearted Saviour, who knoweth the strength of your stomach, will mix that cup with one dram-weight of poison. Drink then with the patience of the saints ; and the God of patience bless your physic.
I have heard your Ladyship complain of deadness, and want of the bestirring power of the hfe of God ; but, courage ! He, who walked in the garden, and made a noise that made Adam hear his voice, will also, at some times, walk in your soul, and make you hear a more sweet word — ^yet ye will not always hear the noise and the din of his feet when he walketh. Ye are, at such a time, like Jacob mourning at the supposed death of Joseph, when Joseph was living. The new creature, the image of the Second Adam, is hving in you ; and yet ye are mourning at the supposed death of the life of Christ in you. Ephraim is bemoaning and mourning, (Jer. xxxi. 18,) Avhen he thinketh God is far off, and heareth not; and yet God is like the Bridegroom, (Cant, ii.,) standing only behind a thin wall, and laying to his ear ; for he saith himself, (ver. 18,) " I have surely heard Ephraim bemoan- ing himself." I have good confidence, madam, that Christ Jesus, whom your soul, through forests and mountains, is seeking, is within you : and yet I speak not this to lay a pillow under your head, or to dissuade you from a holy fear of the loss of your
1 Lady Jean, third daughter of Archibald Campbell, seventh Earl of Argyll, and the sister of the Martyr Archibald, Marquis of Argyll.
2 Appeared as in court. 3 Sentence.
Rutherford's letters. 35
Christ, 01- of provoking and stirring up the Beloved before he please, by sin. I know that in spiritual confidence, the Devil will come in, as in all other good works, and cry, "Half mine!" and so endeavor to bring you under a fearful sleep, till He, whom your soul lovcth, be departed from the door, and have left off knocking ; and, therefore, here the Spirit of God must hold your soul's feet in the golden mid-line, betwixt confident resting in the arms of Christ, and presumptuous and drowsy sleeping in the bed of fleshly security. Therefore, worthy Lady, so count little of yourself, because of your own wretchedness and sinful drowsi- ness, that ye count not also little of God in the course of his un- changeable mercy ; for there be many Christians, most like unto young sailors, who think the shore and the whole land do move, when the ship and they themselves are moved ; just so, not a few do imagine that God moveth, and saileth, and changeth places, because their giddy souls are under sail, and subject to alteration, to ebbing and flowing — but the foundation of the Lord abideth sure. God knoweth that ye are his own. Wrestle, fight, go forward, watch, fear, believe, pray ; and then ye have all the infallible symptoms of one of the elect of Christ within you.
Ye have now, madam, a sickness before you ; and also after that, a death : gather then now fooTT for the journey. God give you eyes to see through sickness and death, and to see something beyond death. I doubt not that if Hell were betwixt you and Christ, as a river which ye behooved to cross ere ye could come at him, but ye would willingly put in your foot, and make through to be at him, upon hope that he would come in himself into the deepest of the river, and lend you his hand. Now I believe that your hell is dried up, and that ye have only these two shallow brooks, sickness and death, to pass through ; and ye have also a promise that Christ will do more than meet you, even that he will come himself and go with you foot for foot, yea, and bear you in his arms. Oh then ! oh then ! for the joy that is set before you, for the love of the Man (who is also God over all, blessed forever,) that is standing upon the shore to welcome you ; run your race with patience. The Lord go with you. Your Lord will not have you, nor any of his servants, to exchange for the worse. Death, in itself, includeth both the death of the soul and the death of the body ; but to God's children the bounds and the limits of death are abridged, and drawn into a more narrow compass : so that when ye die, a piece of death shall only seize upon you, or the least part of you shall die, and that is, the dissolution of the body : for in Christ ye are delivered from the Second Death ; and, therefore, as one born of God, commit not sin, (although ye cannot live and not sin,) and that serpent shall but eat your earthly part — as for your soul, it is above the law of death. But it is fearful and dangerous to be a debtor and a servant to sin ; for the count of sin ye will not be able to make good before God, except Christ both count and pay for you.
36 Rutherford's letters.
I trust also, madam, that ye will be careful to present to the Lord the present estate of this decaying Kirk;* for what shall be concluded in Parliament anent" her, the Lord knoweth. Sure I am that the decree of a most fearful Parliament in Heaven is at the very point of coming forth, because of the sins of the land ; for we have cast away the law of the Lord, and despised the words of the Holy One of Israel, (Isaiah v. 24.) "Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter." (Isaiah lix. 14.) Lo, the Prophet, as if he had seen us and our Kirk,' resembleth justice to be handled as an enemy, holden out at the ports of our city, so is she banished ; and truth to a person sickly and dis- eased, fallen down in a deadly swooning fit in the streets before he can come to an house. The priests have caused many to stumble at the Law, and have corrupted the Covenant of Levi, (Mai. ii. 8.) But what will they do in the end? (Jer. v. 31.) Therefore give the Lord no rest for Zion.
Stir up your husband, your brother, and all with whom ye are in favor and credit, to stand upon the Lord's side against Baal. I have good hope that your husband loveth the peace and prosperity of Zion. The peace of God be upon him for his intended courses anent' the establishment of a powerful ministry in this land.
Thus, not wilhng to weary your Ladyship farther, I commend you, now and always, to the grace and mercy of that God who is able to keep you that ye fall not. The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Your Ladyship's servant, at all dutiful obedience in Christ,
Anwoth, July 27, 1G28. S. R.
LETTER V.
TO THE ELECT AND NOBLE LADY, MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Saluting your Ladyship with grace and mercy from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ — I was sorry at my departure, leaving your Ladyship in grief; and should still be grieved at it, if I were not assured that ye have One with you in the furnace, whose visage is like unto the Son of God. I am glad that ye have been acquainted, from your youth, with the wrest- lings of God ; and that ye get scarce hberty to swallow down your spittle, being casten ^ from furnace to furnace, knowing that if ye were not dear to God, and if your health did not require so much of him, he would not spend so much physic upon you. All the brethren and sisters of Christ must be conformed to his image and copy in suffering, (Rom. viii.,) and some do more vively^ resemble the copy than others. Think, madam, that it is a part of your
I Church. 2 Concerning.
3 Tossed. < In a lively manner.
Rutherford's letters. 37
glory to be enrolled among those whom one of the elders (Rev. vii. 14,) pointed out to John, " These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Behold your Forerunner going out of the world, all in a lake of blood ; and it is not ill to die as he did. Fulfil, with joy, the remnant of the grounds and remainders of the afflictions of Christ in your body.
Ye have lost a child— nay, she is not lost to you, who is found to Christ ; she is not sent away, but only sent before ; like unto a star, which, going out of our sight, doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another hemisphere ; ye see her not, yet she doth shine in another country. If her glass was but a short hour, what she wanteth of time, that she hath gotten of eternity ; and ye have to rejoice that ye have now some plenishing' up in Heaven. Build your nest upon no tree here ; for ye see God hath sold the forest to death ; and every tree, whereupon we would rest, is ready to be cut down, to the end that we might flee^ and mount up, and build upon the Rock, and dwell in the holes of the Rock. What ye love besides Jesus, your husband, is an adulterous lover : now it is God's special blessing to Judah, that he will not let her find her paths in following her strange lovers. (Hos. ii. 6,) " There- fore behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths." (Ver. 7,) "And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them." Oh thrice happy Judah, when God buildeth a double-stone wall be- . twixt her and the fire of Hell ! The world, and the things of the world, madam, is tlie lover that ye naturally affect, beside your own husband, Christ. The hedge of thorns, and the wall which God buildeth in j^our way, to hinder you from this lover, is the thorny hedge of daily grief, loss of children, weakness of body, in- iquity of the time, uncertainty of estate, lack of wordly comfort, fear of God's anger for old unrepented-of sins. What lose ye if God twist and plait the hedge daily thicker ? God be blessed ! the Lord will not let you find your paths. Return to your first husband. Do not weary, neitlier think that death walketh toward you with a slow pace. Ye must be riper ere ye be shaken ; your days are no longer tlian Job's, that were swifter than a post, and passed away as the ships of desire, and as the eagle that hasteth for the prey. (Job ix. 25, 26,) There is less sand in your glass >^ now than there was yesterday; this span-length of ever-posting time will soon be ended ; but the greater is the mercy of God, the more years ye get to advise upon what terms, and upon what con- ditions, ye cast your soul into the huge gulf of never-ending eter- nity. The Lord hath told you what ye should be doing till he come : wait and hasten, saith Peter, for the coming of our Lord. All is night that is here, in respect of ignorance and daily ensuing troubles, one always making way to another, as the ninth wave of the sea to the tenth ; therefore, sigh and long for the dawning
I Furniture, 2 Fly.
X
38 Rutherford's letters.
of that morning, and the breaking of that day of the coming of the Son of Man, when the shadows shall flee away. Persuade yourself that the King is coming. Read his letter sent before him, (Rev. iii. 11,) "Behold, I come quickly." Wait, with the Avearied nio-ht-watch, for the breaking of the eastern sky, and think tltat ye have not a morrow ; as the wise father said, Avho, being invi- ted against to-morrow to dine with his friends, answered, "These many days I have had no morrow at all." I am loath to weary you. Show yourself a Christian, by suffering witliout murmuring, for which sin fourteen thousand and seven hundred were slain. (Numb. xvi. 49.) In patience possess your soul — they lose nothing who gain Christ.
Thus, remembering my brother's and my wife's humble service to your Ladyship, I commend you to the mercy and grace of our Lord Jesus, assuring you that your day is coming, and that God's mercy is abiding you.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in the Lord Jesus, at all dutiful obedience, S. R.
Anwoth, Jan. 15, 1629.
LETTER VL
TO MY LADY KENMURE,
Madam, — ^Saluting you in Jesus Clirist — to my grief I must bid you (it may be) forever farewell, on paper, having small assurance ever to see your face again till the last general assembly, where the whole Church universal shall meet ; yet promising, by his grace, to present your Ladyship, and your burdens to Him, who is able to save you, and to give you an inheritance with the saints, after a more special manner than ever I have done before.
Ye are going to a country where the Sun of righteousness in the Gospel shineth not so clearly as in this kingdom ; but if ye Avould know where He, whom your soul loveth, doth rest, and where he feedeth at the noon-tide of the day, wherever ye be, get ye forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed yourself beside the shepherds' tents, (Cant. i. 7, 8,) that is, ask for some of the w^atch- men of the Lord's city, who will tell you truly, and will not lie, where you shall find Him, whom your soul loveth. I trust that ye are so betrothed in marriage to the true Christ, that ye will not give your love to any false Christ. Ye know not how soon your marriage-day will come ; nay, is not eternity hard upon you ? It were time, then, that ye had your wedding-garment in readiness. Be not sleeping at your Lord's coming : I pray God that ye may be upon your feet standing when he knocketh. Be not discour- aged to go from this country to another part of the Lord's earth — the earth is his, and the fulness thereof (Psalm xxiv. 1.) This is the Lord's lower house ; and, while we are lodged here, we have
Rutherford's letters. 39
no assurance to lie ever in one chamber, but must be content to remove from one corner of our Lord's ncthcr-house to another, resting in hope that, when we come up to the Lord's upper city, Jerusalem that is above, we shall remove no more ; because then we shall be at home. And, go whithersoever ye will, if your Lord go with you, ye are at home ; and your lodging is ever taken before night, so long as He, who is Israel's dwelling-house, is your home. (Psalm xc. 1.) Believe me, madam, my mind is, that ye are well lodged; and that in your house there are fair ease-rooms' and pleasant lights, ^if ye can in faith lean down your head upon the breast of Jesus Christ ; and till this be, ye will never get a sound sleep. Jesus, Jesus, be your shadow and your covering — it is a sweet soul-sleep to lie in the arms of Christ, for his breath is very sweet.
Pray for poor friendless Zion ! Alas ! no man will speak for her now, although at home, in her own country, she hath good friends, her liusband, Christ, and his Father, her father-in-law. Beseech your husband to be a friend to Zion, and to pray for her.
I have received many and divers dashes and heavy strokes since the Lord called me to the ministry ; but, indeed, I esteem your departure from amongst us the weightiest : but I perceive that God will have us to be deprived of whatsoever we idolize, that he may have his own room. I see exceedingly small fruit of my ministry, and would be glad to know of one soul to be my crown - and rejoicing in the day of Christ. Though I spend my strength in vain, yet my labor is with my God. (Isaiah xlix. 4.) I wish and pray that the Lord would harden my face against all, and make me to learn to go with my face against a storm.
Again, I commend you, body and spirit, to Him, who hath loved us, and washed us from our sins, in his own blood. Grace, grace, grace, forever, be with you. Pray, pray continually.
Your Ladyship's, at all dutiful obedience in Christ, S. R. Anwoth, Sept. 1-1, 1629.
LETTER VII.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Loving and Dear Sister, — If ever you would pleasure me, entreat the Lord for me, now when I am so comfortless, and so full of heaviness, that I am not able to stand under the burden any longer. The Almighty hath doubled liis stripes upon me ; for my wife is so sore tormented, night and day, that I have won- dered why the Lord tarrieth so long. My life is bitter unto me, and I fear that the Lord be my contrary party. It is (I now know by experience) hard to keep sight of God in a storm, especially when he hideth himself for the trial of his children. If he would
1 Rooms for repose.
40 Rutherford's letters.
be pleased to remove his hand, I have a purpose to seek him more than I have done. Happy are they that can win away' with their soul : I am afraid of his judgments. I bless my God, that there is a death and a heaven. I would weary to begin again to be a Christian, so bitter is it to drink of the cup that Christ drank of, if I knew not that there is no poison in it. God give us not of it whill^ we vomit again, for we have sick souls when God's physic worketh not. Pray that God would not lead my wife into tempta- tion. Wo" is my heart that I have done so little against the king- dom of Satan in my calling ; for he would fain attempt to make me blaspheme God in his face. I believe, I believe, in the strength of Him, who hath put me into his work, that he shall fail in that which he seeketh. I have comfort in this, that my Captain, Christ, hath said I must fight and overcome the world, (John xvi. 33,) and with a weak, spoiled, weaponless devil, (John xiv. 30.) " The Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me."
Desire Mr. Robert to remember me, if he love me. Grace, grace be with you, and all yours. Remember Zion.
There is a letter procured from the King, by Mr. John Maxwell, to urge conformity, to give the Communion at Christmas, in Edin- burgh. Hold fast that which ye have, that no man take the crown from you.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
Anwoth, Nov. 17, 1629.
LETTER VHL
TO MY LADY KENMURE
Madam, — I have longed exceedingly to hear of your life and health, and growth in the grace of God. I lacked the opportunity of a bearer, in respect I did not understand of the hasty departure of the last, by whom I might have saluted your Ladyship ; and, therefore, I could not write before this time. I entreat you, madam, to let me have two lines from you, concerning your present condi- tion. I know that ye are in grief and heaviness ; and if it were not so, ye might be afraid, because then your way should not be so like the way that our Lord saith leadeth to the New Jerusalem. Sure I am that, if ye knew what was before you, or if ye saw but some glances of it, ye would with gladness swim through the present tloods of sorrow, spreading forth your arms out of desire to be at land. If God has given you the earnest of the Spirit, as part of payment of God's principal sum, ye have to rejoice ; for our Lord will not lose his earnest, neither will he go back nor re- pent him of the bargain. If ye find, at some time, a longing to see God, joy in the assurance of that sight, howbeit that feast be
1 Escape. 2 Till. 3 Grieved.
Rutherford's letters. 41
hut like the Passover, that cometh ahoiit only once a year. Peace of conscience, liberty of prayer, the doors of God's treasure casten up' to the soul, and a clear sight of himself looking out, and say- ing, with a smiling countenance, " Welcome to me, afflicted soul," this is the earnest that he giveth sometimes, and which maketh glad the heart, and is an evidence that the bargain will hold.
But to the end that ye may get this earnest, it were good to come oft into terms of speech with God, both in prayer and hear- ing of the word ; for this is the house-of-wine, where ye meet Avith your Well-beloved. Here it is where he kisseth you with the kisses of his mouth, and where ye feel the smell of his garments ; and they have indeed a most fragrant and glorious smell. Ye must, I say, wait upon him, and be often communing with Him, whose lips are as lilies, dropping sweet-smelhng myrrh, and by the moving whereof he will assuage your grief; for the Christ, that saveth you, is a speaking Christ ; the Church knoweth him (Cant, ii.) by his voice, and can discern his voice among a thou- sand. I say this, to the end that ye should not love those masks of Anti-christian ceremonies, which the Church, where ye are for a time, hath casten^ over the Christ, whom your soul loveth. This is to set before you a dumb Christ. But when our Lord cometh, he speaketh to the heart in the simplicity of the Gospel.
I have neither tongue nor pen, to express to you the happiness of such as are in Christ. When ye have sold all that ye have, and bought the field wherein this pearl is, ye will think it no bad market : for if ye be in him, all his is yours ; and ye are in him ; " therefore, because he liveth, ye shall hve also." (John xiv. 19.) And what is that else, but as if the Son had said, " I will not have Heaven, except my redeemed ones be with me ? they and I can- not live asunder — abide in me and I in you." (John xv. 4.) Oh sweet communion, when Christ and we are through other,^ and are no longer two ! " Father, I will that those Avhom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, to behold my glory, that thou hast given me." (John xvii. 24.) Amen : dear Jesus, let it be according to that word.
I wonder that ever your heart should be casten^ down, if ye be- lieve this truth. And they are not worthy of Jesus Christ, who will not suffer forty years' trouble for him, since they have such glorious promises. But we fools beheve those promises as the man that read Plato's writings concerning the immortality of the soul. So long as the book was in his hand, he beheved that all was true, and that tlie soul could not die ; but so soon as he laid by the book, presently he began to imagine, that the soul is but a smoke or airy vapor, that perishcth with the expiring of the breath : so we at starts do assent to the sweet and precious promises ; but laying aside God's book, we begin to call all in question. It is faith, indeed, to believe without a pledge, and to hold the heart constant at this work, and when we doubt, to run to the Law and
1 Thrown open. 2 Thrown. 3 Promiscuously united. * Cast,
42 Rutherford's letters.
to the Testimony, and stay there. Madam, hold you here. Here is your Father's testament, read it : in it he hath left to you re- mission of sins and life everlasting. If all that ye have here be crosses and troubles, downcastings, frequent desertions, and depart- ure of the Lord, who is suiting' you in marriage, courage ! He, who is wooer and suiter, should not be an household-man with you, till ye and he come up to his Father's house together. He purposeth to do you good at your latter end, (Deut. viii. 1(3,) and"^ to give you rest from the days of adversity. (Psalm xciv. 13.) It is -good to bear the yoke of God in your youth. (Lam. iii. 27.) Turn in to your strong-hold as a prisoner of hope. (Zee. ix. 12.) " For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie : though it tarry, wait for it ; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." (Hab. ii. 3.) Hear himself saying, (Isa. xxvi. 20,) " Come my people," — rejoice, he calleth on you — " Enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee ; hide thyself, as it were for a little moment, till the indigna- tion be overpast." Believe then, " believe and be saved." Think it not hard, if ye get not your will, nor your delights in this life ; God will have you to rejoice in nothing but himself. God forbid that ye should rejoice in anything but in the cross of Christ. (Gal. vi. 16.)
Our Church, madam, is decaying ; she is like Ephraim's cake, and gray hairs are here and there upon her, and she knoweth it not. (Hos. vii. 9.) She is old and gray-headed, near the grave, and no man layeth it to heart — her wine is sour, and is corrupted. Now if the wife of Phineas did live, she might travail in birth and die, to see the Ark of God taken, and the glory departing from our Israel — the power and life of religion is away, " Wo unto us, for the day goeth away, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out." (Jcr. vi. 4.) Madam, Zion is the ship wherein ye are carried to Canaan. If she suffer shipwreck, ye will be casten" overboard, upon death and life, to swim to land upon broken boards. It were time for us, by prayer, to put upon^ our Master-pilot, Jesus, and to cry, " Master, save us, we perish !"
Grace, grace be with you. We would think it a blessing to our Kirk* to see you here ; but our sins withhold good things from us. The great Messenger of the covenant preserve you, in body and in spirit.
Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
Anwoth, Feb. 1, 1630.
LETTER IX.
TO THE LADY K E N M U R E .
Madam, — Grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied upon you — I received your Ladyship's letter, in the which I perceive that your
1 Wooing. 2 Cast. 3 Importune. « Church.
Rutherford's letters. 43
case in this world smelleth of worship and communion with the Son of God in his sufferings. Ye cannot, ye must not, have a more pleasant or more easy condition here, than He had, who, through afflictions, was made perfect. (Heb. ii. 10.) We may indeed think, cannot God bring us to Heaven with ease and pros- perity? Who doubteth that he can? But his infinite wisdom thinketh, and decreeth the contrary ; and w^e cannot see a reason for it, yet he hath a most just reason. We never with our eyes saw our own soul, yet we have a soul ; we see many rivers, but we know not their first spring and original fountain, yet they have a beginning. Madam, when ye are come to the other side the water, and have set down your foot on the shore of glorious eternity, and look back again to the waters, and to your wearisome journey, and shall see, in that clear glass of endless glory, nearer to the bottom of God's Avisdom, ye sliall, then, be forced to say, ^'If God had done otherwise with me than he hath done, I had never come to the enjoying of this crown of glory." It is your part now to believe, and suffer, and hope, and wait on : for I pro- test, in the presence of that all-discerning Eye, who knoweth what I write, and what I think, that I would not want the sweet ex- perience of the consolations of God, for all the bitterness of afflic- tion : nay, whether God come to his children with a rod or a crown, if he come himself with it, it is well. Welcome, welcome Jesus, what w'ay soever thou comest, if we can get a sight of thee. And sure I am that it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to the bed-side, and draw by the curtains, and say, " Courage ! I am thy salvation !" than to enjoy health, being lusty and strong, and never to be visited of God.
Worthy and dear Lady, in the strength of Christ, fight and overcome. Ye are now your lone ; ' but ye may have, for the seeking, Three always in your compan}^, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — I trust they are near you. Ye are now deprived of the comfort of a lively ministry, so was Israel in their captivity : yet hear God's promise to them, (Ez. xi. 16,) "Therefore say, thus saith the Lord God, 'Although I have cast them far off' among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary, in the coun- tries where they shall come.' " Behold a sanctuary ! for a sanc- tuary God himself, in the place and room of the Temple of Jeru- salem. I trust in God that, carrying this temple about with you, ye shall see Jehovah's beauty in his house.
We are in great fears of a great and fearful trial to come upon the Kirk^of God; for those, who would build their houses and nests on the ashes of mourning Jerusalem, have drawn our King upon hard and dangerous conclusions, against such as are termed Puritans, for the rooting of them out. Our prelates — the Lord take the keys of his house from these bastard porters ! — assure us that for sucJi as will not conform, there is nothing but imprison-
1 By yourself alone. 2 Church.
44 RUTHKRFORn's LETTERS.
ment and deprivation. The Spouse of Jesus shall ever be in the fire ; -but I trust in my God that she shall not be consumed, because of the good-will of Him, who dwelleth in the bush, for he dwelleth in it with good-will. All sorts of crying sins, without controlment, abound in our land. The glory of the Lord is departing from Israel, and the Lord is looking back over his shoulder to see if any will say, "Lord! tarry," and no man requesteth him to stay. Corrupt and false doctrine is openly preached by the idol-shepherds of the land. For myself I have daily griefs, through the disobe- dience unto, and contempt of the word of God.
I was summoned before the High Commission by a profligate person in this Parish, convicted of incest. Li the business, Mr. Alexander Colville, for respect to your Ladyship, was my great fiiend, and wrote a most kind letter to me. — The Lord give him mercy in that day. Upon the day of my compearance,' the sea, and winds, refused to give passage to the Bishop of St. Andrew's. I entreat yoem- Ladyship, to thank Mr. Alexander Colville, with two lines of a letter.
My wife now, after a long disease and torment, for the space of a year and a month, is departed this life ; — the Lord hath done it ; blessed be his name. I have been diseased of a fever tertian for the space of thirteen weeks, and am yet in that sickness, so that I preach but once on the Sabbath with great difficulty. I am not able either to visit, or examine the congregation.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Your Ladyship's, at all obedience, S. R.
Anwoth, June 26th, 1G30,
LETTER X.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved and Dear Sister, — My love, in the Lord Jesus, remembered — I understand that you are still under the Lord's visitation, in your former business with your enemies, which is God's dealing. For, till He take his children out of the furnace, who knoweth how long they should be tried, there is no deliver- ance ; but after God's highest and fullest tide, that the sea of trouble is gone over the souls of his children, then cometh the gracious long-hoped-for ebbing, and drying up of the waters. Dear sister, do not faint ; the wicked may hold the bitter cup to your head, but God mixeth it, and there is no poison in it ; they strike, but God moveth the rod ; Shimei curseth, but it is because the Lord biddeth him.
I tell you, and I have it from Him before whom I stand for God's people, that there is a decreet^ given out in the Great Court of the Highest Heavens, that your present troubles shall be dis-
1 Appearance, in obedience to a legal citation, 2 Sentence.
Rutherford's letters. 45
persed as the morning cloud, and God will bring forth your right- eousness as the light of the noontide of the day. Let me entreat you in Christ's n^me, to keep a good conscience in your proceed- ings in that matter, and beware of yovirself — yourself is a more dangerous enemy than I, or any without you. Innocence, and an upright cause, is a good advocate before God, and will plead for you, and shall win your cause ; and count much of your Master's approbation, and his smiling. He is now as the king that is gone to a far country. God seemeth to be from home, (if I may say so,) yet he seeth the ill servants, who say, " Our Master deferreth his coming," and so strike their fellow-servants. But patience, my beloved, Christ, the King, is coming home ; the evening is at hand, and he will ask an account of his servants. Make a fair clear count to him. So carry yourself, as at night you may say, "Master, I have wronged none : behold, ye have your own with advantage." Oh your soul then will esteem much one of God's kisses and embracenients, in the testimony of a good conscience ! The wicked, howbeit they be casting many evil thoughts, bitter words, and sinful deeds behind their back, yet they are, in so doing, clerks to their own process, and doing nothing all their lives, but gathering dittays' against themselves; for God is angry at the wicked every day. And I hope your present process shall be sighted 2 one day by Him who knoweth your just cause ; and the bloody tongues, crafty foxes, double-ingrained hypocrites, shall appear as they are before his Majesty, when he shall take the mask off their faces : and oh ! thrice happy wnll your soul be then, when God findeth you covered with nothing but the white robe of the saints' innocence, and the righteousness of Jesus Christ. You have been of late in the King's wine-cellar, where you were welcomed by the Lord of the inn, upon a condition that you would walk in love. Put on love, and brotherly kindness, and long suffering. Wait as long upon the favor and turned hearts of enemies as your Christ waited upon you, and as dear Jesus stood at your soul's door with dewy and rainy locks, the long, cold night. Be angry, but sin not. I persuade myself that that holy unction within you, which teacheth you all things, is also saying, " Overcome evil with good." If that had not spoken in your soul, at the tears of your aged Pastor, you would not have agreed, and forgiven his foolish son who wronged you : but my Master bade me tell you, that God's blessing shall be upon you for it ; and from him I say, "Grace, grace, and everlasting peace be upon you." It is my prayer for you, that your carriage may grace and adorn the Gospel of that Lord who hath graced you. I hear that your husband also was sick, but I beseech you, in the bowels of Jesus, to welcome every rod of God ; for I find not, in the whole book of God, a greater note of the child of God, than to fall down and kiss the feet of an angry God ; and when he seem- eth to put you away from him, and to loose your hands that grip'
1 Indictments. 2 Examined. 3 Grasp.
46 Rutherford's letters.
him, to look up in faith, and say, " I shall not, I will not be put away from thee : howbeit thy Majesty draw to free thyself of me, yet. Lord ! give me leave to hold and cleave uuto thyself" I shall pray that your husband may return in peace. Your de- creet' Cometh from Heaven, look up thither; for many (saith Solomon) seek the face of the ruler, but every man's judgment Cometh of the Lord ; and be glad that it is so, for Christ is the clerk of your process, and will see that all go right : and I per- suade myself, that he is saying, "Yonder servants of mine are wronged ; for my blood. Father, give them justice." Think you not, dear sister, but our High Priest, our Jesus, the Master of re- quests, presenteth our bills of complaint to the great Lord Justice ? Yea, I believe it, since he is our Advocate, and Daniel calleth him the Spokesman, whose hand presenteth all to the Father.
For other businesses, I say nothing, whill^ the Lord give me to see your face. I am credibly informed, that multitudes of Eng- land, and especially worthy preachers, and silenced preachers of London, are gone to New England ; and I know one learned holy preacher, Avho hath written against the Arminians, who is gone thither. Oar blessed Lord Jesus, who cannot get leave to sleep with his Spouse in this Land, is going to seek an inn where he will be better entertained ; and what marvel ? Wearied Jesus, after he had travelled from Geneva, by the ministry of Avorthy Mr. Knox, and was laid down in his bed, and reformation begun, and the curtains drawn, had not gotten his dear eyes well together, when irreverent bishops came in, and, with the din and noise of ceremonies, holy-days, and other Romish corruptions, awoke our Beloved. Others came to his bed-side, and drew the curtains, and put hands on his servants, banished, deprived and confined them ; and for the pulpit, they got a stool and a cold fire in the Black- ness :^ and the nobility drew the covering off him, and have made him a poor naked Christ, in spoiling his servants of the tithes and Mvirk-rents : and now there is such a noise of crying sins in the land, as the want of a knowledge of God, of mercy and truth, such swearing, whoring, lying, and blood touching blood, that Christ is putting on his clothes, and making him, like an ill-han- dled stranger, to go to other lands. Pray him, dear sister, to iy down again with his Beloved.
Remember my dearest love to John Gordon, to whom I shall write when I am strong ; and to John Brown, Grizzel, Samuel, and WiUiam — Grace upon them. As you love Christ, keep Christ's favor; and put not upon ^ him when he sleepeth, to awake him before he please.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Your Brother in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, July 21, 1630.
1 Sentence. 2 Till. 3 Blackness Castle, on the Firth of Forth.
* Church. 5 To put upon, to importune.
Rutherford's letters. 47
LETTER XI.
' i FOR MARION MACK NAUGHT.
Well-beloved Sister, — I have been thinking, since my de- parture from you, of the pride and malice of your adversaries : and ye may not (since ye have lieard the Book of the Psahns so often) take hardly with this ; for David's enemies snufied at him, and through the pride of their hearts said, "The Lord will not require it," (Psalm x. 13.) I beseech you, therefore, in the bowels of Christ, to set before your eyes the patience of your ^'ore-rimrier, Jesus, " Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again ; when he suffered he threatened not, but committed himself to Hijn that judgeth righteously." (1 Pet. ii. 23.) And, since our Lord and Redeemer with patience received many a black stroke on his glo- rious body, and many a buffet of the unbelieving world, and saith of himself. (Isaiah 1. 6,) " I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair ; I hid not my face from shame and spitting," follow him, and think it not hard that you receive a blow with your Lord : take part with Jesus of his suffer- ings, and glory in the marks of Christ. If this storm were over, you must prepare yourself for a new wound. For, five thousand years ago, our Lord proclaimed deadly war betwixt the Seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent. And marvel not that one toAvn cannot keep the children of God and the children of the Devil ; for one belly could not keep Jacob and Esau ; one house could not keep peaceably together Isaac the Son of the Promise, and Ishmael the Son of the Hand-maid. Be you upon Christ's side of it, and care not what flesh can do. Hold yourself fast by your Saviour, howbeit ye be buffeted, and those that follow him. "Yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be." See 2 Cor. iv. 8, " We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed ; we are per- plexed, but not in despair ;" (ver. 9,) " persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." If you can possess yovu' soul in patience, their day is coming.
Worthy and Dear Sister, know how to carry yourself in trouble : and when ye are hated and reproached, the Lord showeth it to you. (Psahii xliv. 17.) " All this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant." (Psalm cxix. 92.) "Unless thy law had been my delights, I had perished in mine affliction." Keep God's covenant in your trials. Hold you by his blessed word, and sin not. Flee anger, wrath, grudging, envying, fretting. P^orgive an hundred pence to your fellow-servant, because your Lord hath forgiven you ten thou- sand talents. For, I assure you by the Lord, that your adversa- ries shall get no advantage against you except ye sin, and offend your Lord in your sufferings. But the way to overcome is, by patience, forgiving, and praying for your enemies, in doing
48 Rutherford's letters.
whereof you heap coals upon their heads, and your Lord will open a door to you in your trouble. Wait upon him, as the night- watch waiteth for the morning. He will not tarry ; go up to your watch-tower, and come not down, but by prayer, and faith, and hope, wait on. When the sea is full, it will ebb again ; and, so soon as the wicked are come to the top of their pride, and are waxed high and mighty, then is their change approaching — They that believe make not haste.
Remember Zion, forget her not ; for her enemies are many, for the nations are gathered together against her ; " But they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they his coun- sel ; for he shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor. Arise and thresh, O Daughter of Zion." (Micah iv. 12, 13.) Behold, God hath gathered his enemies together as sheaves to the thresh- ing— let us stay and rest upon these promises. Now again, I trust in our Lord, that ye shall by faith sustain yourself, and com- fort yourself in your Lord, and be strong in his power ; for you are in the beaten, and common way to Heaven, when you are under our Lord's crosses. Ye have reason to rejoice in it more than in a crown of gold, and to rejoice, and be glad to bear the reproaches of Christ.
I rest — recommending you, and yours, forever, to the grace and mercy of God.
Yours, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, Feb. 11, 1631.
LETTER Xn.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved in the Lord, — Ye are not unacquainted with the day of our Communion. I entreat, therefore, the aid of your prayers for that great work, which is one of our feast-days, wherein our Well-beloved, Jesus, rejoiceth, and is merry with his friends. Good cause have we to wonder at his love, since the day of his death was such a sorrowful day to him, even the day when his mother, the Kirk' crowned him with thorns, and he had many against him, and compeared ^ his lone^ in the open fields against them all — yet he delighteth with us to remember that day. Let us love him, and be glad and rejoice in his salvation. I am con- fident that you shall see the Son of God that day ; and I dare, in his name, invite you to his banquet. Many a time you have been well entertained in his house, and he changeth not upon his friends, nor chideth them for too great kindness. Yet I speak not this to make you leave off to pray for me, who have nothing of myself, but in so far as daily I receive from Him, who is made of his Father a running-over fountain, at which I and others may
1 Church. 2 Appeared. 3 By himself alone.
Rutherford's letters. 49
come with thirsty souls, and fill our vessels. Long hath this well been standing open to us. Lord Jesus, lock it not up again upon us. I am sorry for our desolate Kirk ;i yet I dare not but trust, that so long as there be any of God's lost money here, he will not blow out the candle. The Lord make fair candlesticks in his house, and remove the blind lights !
I have been, this time by-passed, thinking much of the incoming of the Kirk' of the Jews. Pray for them. When they were in their Lord's house, at their Father's elbow, they were long- ing for the coming of their Little Sister, the Kirk' of the Gen- tiles. They said to their Lord, (Cant. viii. ver. 8,) " We have a little Sister, and she hath no breasts ; what shall we do for our Sister in the day when she shall be spoken for ?" Let us give them a meeting. What shall we do for our elder Sister, the Jews? Lord Jesus give them breasts! That were a glad day, to see us and them both set down at one table, and Christ at the head of the table. Then would our Lord come shortly with his fair guard, to hold his great court.
Dear sister, be patient for the Lord's sake, under the wrongs that you suffer of the wicked. Your Lord shall make ye see your desire on your enemies ; some of them shall be cut off. (Job xv. ver. 33,) They shall shake off their unripe grapes as the vine, and cast off their flower as the olive : God will make them like unripe sour grapes, shaken off the tree with the blast of God's wrath ; and, therefore, pity them, and pray for them. Others of them nuist remain to exercise you ; God hath said of them, Let the tares grow up whilP harvest. (Matt, xiii.) It proveth you to be your Lord's wheat. Be patient, Christ went to Heaven with many a wrong. His visage and countenance were all marred more than the sons of men. Ye may not be above your Master. Many a black stroke received innocent Jesus, and he received no mends,* but referred them all to the great Court-day, when all things shall be righted.
I desire to hear from you within a day or two, if Mr. Robert re- main in his purpose to come and help us. God will give you joy of your children. I pray for them, by their names. I bless you, from the Lord, your husband and children. — Grace, grace and mercy be multiplied upon you.
Yours, in the Lord, forever, S. R.
Anwoth, May 7, 1631.
LETTER Xm.
FOR MARION MACK NAUGHT.
Well-beloved Sister, — My love in Christ remembered — I have received a letter from Edinburgh, certainly informing me,
' Church. 2 Till. 3 Reparation.
4
50 Rutherford's letters.
that the English service, and the organs, and King James's Psalms, are to be imposed upon our Kirk,' and that the Bishops are deal- ing for a General Assembly. A. R. hath confirmed the news also, and saith, he spoke with Sir William Alexander, who is to come down with his Prince's warrant to that effect. I am desired, in the received letter, to acquaint the best affected about me with that storm ; therefore, I entreat you, and charge you, in tlie Lord's name, to pray; but do not communicate this to any whilP I see you. My heart is broken at the remembrance of it ; and it was my fear, and answereth to my last letter, except one, that I wrote unto you.
Dearly beloved, be not casten' down, but let us, as the Lord's doves, take us to our wings, for other armor we have none, and flee into the hole of the Rock. It is true that A. R. saith that the wortiiiest men in England are banished and silenced, about the number of sixteen or seventeen choice Gospel-preachers, and that the persecution is already begun. Howbeit, I do not write this unto you with a dry face, yet I am confident in the Lord's strength, that Christ and his side shall overcome ; and you shall be assured that the Kirk' were not a Kirk,' if it were not so. As our dear husband, in wooing his Kirk,' received many a black stroke, so his bride in wooing him getteth many blows ; and in this wooing there are strokes upon both sides. Let it be so. The Devil shall not make the marriage go back, neither can he tear the contract ; the end shall be mercy. Yet, notwithstanding all this, we have no warrant of God to leave off all lawful means. I have been writing to you the counsels and draughts of men against the Kirk ;' but they know not, as Micah saith, the counsel of Jehovah. The great men of the world may make ready the fiery furnace for Zion, but, trow ye that they can cause the fire to burn? No. He that made the fire, I trust, will not say Amen to their decreets.* I trust m my Lord, that God hath not subscribed their bill, and that their conclusions have not yet passed our Great King's seal. There- fore, if ye think good, address yourself first to the Lord, and then to A. R., anent* the business that you know.
I am most unkindly handled by the Presbytery ; and, as if I had been a stranger, and not a member of that seat to sit in judg- ment with them, I was summoned, by their order, as a witness against B. A. ; but they have got no advantage in that matter. Other particulars you shall hear, God willing, at meeting.
Anent" the matter betwixt you and J. E., I remember it to God. I entreat you in the Lord, to be submissive to his will ; for the higher that their pride mount up, they are the nearer a fall : the Lord will more and more discover that man. Let your husband, in all matters of judgment, take Christ's part for the defence of the poor, and needy, and oppressed, for the maintenance of equit\r and justice in the town. And take you no fear that He will take your
1 Church. 8 Till. 3 Cast. * Sentences.
5 Concernins.
Rutherford's letters. 51
part, and then you are strong enough. What? Howbeit ye re- ceive indignities, for your Lord's sake let it be so. When he will put His holy hand up to your face in Heaven, and dry your face, and wipe the tears from your eyes, judge ye if ye will not have cause then to rejoice ?
Anent* other particulars, if ye would speak wdth me, appoint any of the first three days of the next week, in Carlton, when Carlton is at home, and acquaint me with your desires.
Remember me to God, and my dearest affection to your husband : and, for Zion's sake, hold not your peace.
The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you, and your husband, and children.
Yours, in the Lord, S. R.
Anwoth, June 2, 1631.
LETTER XIV.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Dear Mistress, — I have not time, this day, to write to you ; but God, knowing my present state, and the necessities of my call- ing, will, I hope, spare my mother's life for a time — for the which I have cause to thank my Lord. I entreat you not to be cast down, for that which I wrote before to you, anent' the planting of a minister in your town. Believe, and you shall see the sal- vation of God. I write this because, when you suffer, my heart suffereth with you. I do believe that your soul shall have joy in your labors and holy desires for that work.
Grace upon you, and your husband, and your children.
Yours ever, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XV.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Having saluted you in the Lord Jesus — I thought it my duty, having the occasion of this bearer, to write again unto your Ladyship. Though I have no new purpose, but what I wrote of before, yet ye cannot be too often awakened to go forward toward your city, since your way is long, and, (for any- thing ye know,) your day is short ; and ydiu- Lord requireth of you, as ye advance in years, and steal forward insensibly towards eternity, that your faith may grow and ripen for the Lord's harvest. For the great Husbandman giveth a season to his fruits, that they may come to maturity ; and having got their
1 Concerning.
52 Rutherford's letters.
fill of the tree, that they may be then shaken, and gathered in for his use; whereas the wicked rot upon the tree, and their branch shall not be green ; (Job xv. 33,) " He shall shake off his unripe grapes as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive." It is God's mercy to you, madam, that he giveth you your fill, even to loathing, of this bitter world, that ye may willingly leave it, and, like a full and satisfied banqueter, long for the drawing of the table ; and at last, having trampled under your feet all the rotten pleasures that are under sun and moon, and having, '-rejoiced as though ye rejoiced not, and having bought as though ye possessed not," (1 Cor. vii. 30,) ye may, like an old crazy ship, arrive at your Lord's harbor, and be made welcome, as one of those who have ever had one foot loose from this earth, longing for that place where your soul shall feast and banquet forever and ever upon a glorious sight of the in- comprehensible Trinity, and where ye shall see the fair face of the Man, Christ, even the beautiful face, that was once, for your cause, more marred than any of the visages of the sons of men, (Isa. lii. 14,) and was all covered with spitting and blood. Be content to wade through the waters betwixt you and glory with him, holding his right hand fast ; for he knoweth all the fords. Howbeit ye may be ducked, yet ye cannot drown, being in his company ; and ye may, all the way to glory, see the way bedewed with His blood, who is the Forerunner. Be not afraid, therefore, when ye come even to the black and swelling river of death, to put in your foot, and wade after hiin. The current, how strong soever, cannot carry you down the water to Hell : the death and resurrection of the Son of God are stepping-stones, and a stay to you ; set down your feet by faith upon these stones, and go through as on dry land. If ye knew wliat he is preparing for you, ye would be too glad. He will not, (it may be,) give you a full draught till ye come up to the well-head, and drink, yea, drink abundantly, of the pure river of the water of life, " that proceedeth out from the throne of God, and from the Lamb." (Rev. xxii. 1.) Madam, tire not, weary not. I dare find you the Son of God caution* that when ye are got up thither, and have casten^ your eyes to view the golden city, and the fair and never withering Tree of Life, which beareth twelve manner of fruits every month, ye will then say, " Four-and-twenty hours' abode in that place is worth threescore and ten years' sorrow upon earth." If ye can but say that ye long earnestly to be carried up thither, (as I hope ye cannot for shame deny him the honor of having wrought that desire in your soul,) then hath your Lord given you an earnest : and, madam, do ye believe that our Lord will lose his earnest, and rue of the bargain, and change his mind, as if he were a man, that can lie, or the son of man that can repent ? Nay, he is un- changeable, and the same this year that he was the former year. And his Son, Jesus, who upon earth ate and drank with publicans and sinners, and spake and conferred with whores and harlots, 1 Surety. 2 Cast.
Rutherford's letters. 53
and put out his holy hand and touched the leper's filthy skin, and came evermore nigh sinners, even now, in glory, is yet that same Lord: his honor and liis great court' in Heaven have not made him forget his poor friends on earth ; in him honors change not manners, and he doth yet desire your company. Take him for the old Christ, and claim still kindness to him, and say, "Oh, it is so ! he is not changed, but I am changed :" nay, it is a part of his unchangeable love, and an article of the New Covenant, to keep you that ye cannot dispone" him nor sell him. He hath not played fast and loose with us, in the Covenant of grace, so that we may run from him at our pleasure. His love hath made the bargain surer than so ; for Jesus, as the cautioner,^ is bound for us, (Heb. vii. 22,) and it cannot stand with his honor to die in the borrows,^ (as we use to say,) and lose thee, whom he must render again to the Father, when he shall give up the kingdom to him. Consent, and say "Amen" to the promises, and ye have sealed that God is true, and Christ is yours. This is an easy market : ye but look on with faith ; for Christ suffered all, and paid all.
Madam, fearing lest I be tedious to your Ladyship, I must stop here, desiring always to hear that your Ladyship is well, and that ye have still your face up the mountain. Pray for us, madam, and for Zion, whereof ye are a part. We expect a trial. God's wheat in this land must go through Satan's sieve, but their faith shall not fail. I am still wrestling in our Lord's work, and have been tried and tempted by brethren, who look aAvry to the gospel.
Now He, that is able to keep you until that day, preserve your soul, body and spirit, and present you before his face with his own Bride, spotless and blameless. Your Ladyship's,
To be commanded always in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, Nov. 2G, 1631.
LETTER XVL
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — I am grieved exceedingly that your Ladyship should think, or have cause to think, that such as love you in God, in this country, are forgetful of you. For myself, madam, I owe to your Ladyship all evidences of my high respect (in the sight of my Lord, whose truth I preach, I am bold to say it,) for his rich grace in you.
My communion, put off till the end of a longsome and rainy harvest, and the presbyterial exercise (as the bearer can inform your Ladyship) hindered me to see you. And for my people's
1 Favor, influence. * Dispose. 3 Surety.
* To die in the borrows, to fail wrhile the borrow, or pledge, or surety, for another.
54 Rutherford's letters.
sake (finding them like hot iron, that cooleth being out of the fire, and that is phable to no work,) I do not stir abroad, neither have I left them at all since your Ladyship was in the country, save at one time only, about two years ago ; yet I dare not say but it is a fault, howbeit no defect in my affection ; and I trust to make it up again so soon as possibly I am able to wait upon you.
Madam, I have no new purpose to Avrite unto you, but of that which I think, nay, which our Lord thinketh, needful, that one thing, Mary's good part, which ye have chosen. (Luke x. 42.) Madam, all that God hath, both himself and the creatures, he is dealing and parting amongst the sons of Adam. There are none so poor as that they can say in his face that he hath given them nothing ; but there is no small odds betwixt the gifts given to lawful bairns' and to bastards ; and the more greedy ye are in suiting,'^ the more willing is he to give, delighting to be called open-handed.
I hope that your Ladyship laboreth to get assurance of the surest patrimony, even God himself. Ye will find in Christianity that God aimeth, in all his dealings with his children, to bring them to a high contempt of, and deadly feud with the world ; and to set a high price upon Christ, and to think iiim one who cannot be bought for gold, and well worthy the fighting for. And for no other cause, madam, doth the Lord withdraw from you the child- ish toys and the earthly delights that he giveth unto others, but that he may have you wholly to himself. Think, therefore, of the Lord, as of one who cometh to woo you in marriage, when ye are in the furnace ; he seeketh his answer of you in affliction, to see if ye will say, "Even so I take him." Madam, give him this answer presently, and in your mind do not secretly grudge nor murmur. When he is striking you in love, beware to strike again ; that is dangerous, for those who strike again shall get the last blow.
If I hit not upon the right string, it is because I am not ac- quainted with your Ladyship's present condition ; but I believe that your Ladyship goeth on foot laughing, and putting on a good countenance before the world, and yet ye carry heaviness about with you. Ye do well, madam, not to make them witnesses of yovu" grief who cannot be carers of it ; but be exceedingly chari- table of your dear Lord. As there be some friends worldly, of whom ye will not entertain an ill thought, far more ought ye to believe good evermore of your dear Friend, that lovely fair person, Jesus Christ. The thorn is one of the most cursed, and angry, and crabbed weeds that the earth yieldeth, and yet out of it springeth the rose, one of the most sweetly smelled flowers, and most delightful to the eye, that the earth hath. Your Lord will make joy and gladness out of your afflictions ; for all his roses have a fragrant smell. Wait for the time when his own holy hand shall hold them to your nose ; and, if ye would have present comfort under the cross, be much in prayer ; for at that time your 1 Children. s Urging a suit.
Rutherford's letters. 55
faith kisseth Christ, and he kisselh the soul — and oh ! if the breath of his holy mouth be sweet! I dare be caution,' out of some small experience, that ye shall not be beguiled; for the world (yea not a few*^ number of God's children,) know not well what that is which they call a godhead. But, madam, come near to the Godhead, and look down to the bottom of the well: there is much in him, and sweet were that death to drown in such a well. Your grief taketh liberty to work upon your mind, when ye are not busied in the meditation of the ever-delighting and all- blessed Godhead. If ye would lay the price ye give out (which is but some few years' pain and trouble,) beside the commodities ye are to receive, ye would see that they were not worthy to be laid in the balance together ; but it is nature that maketh you look to what ye give out, and weakness of faith that hindereth you to see what ye shall take in. Amend your hope, and frist^ your faithful Lord awhile. He maketh himself your debtor in the New Covenant: lie is honest — take his word. (Nahum i. 9,) "Afflic- tion shall not spring up the second time." (Rev. xxi. 7,) " He that overcometh shall inherit all things." Of all things, then, which ye want in this life, madam, 1 am able to say nothing, if that be not believed which ye have. (Rev. ii. 7, and Rev. iii. 5,) " The overcomer shall be clothed in Avhite raiment," &c. ; and, (ver. 21.) '- To the overcomer I will give to sit with me on my throne, as I overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne." Consider, madam, if ye are not high up now, and far ben* in the palace of our Lord, when ye are upon a throne, in white raiment, at lovely Christ's elbow. Oh, thrice fools are we, who, like new-born princes weeping in the cradle, know not that there is a kingdom before them! Then let our Lord's sweet hand square us, and hammer us, and strike off the knots of pride, self- love, and world-worship, and infidelity, that he may make us stones and pillars in his Father's house. (Rev. iii. 12.) Madam, what think ye to take binding with the fair Corner-stone, Jesus? The Lord give you wisdom to believe and hope that your day is coming. 1 hope to be a witness of your joy, as I have been a hearer and beholder of your grief Think ye it much to follow the Heir of the crown, who hath experience of sorrows, and was acquainted with grief? (Isaiah liii.) It were pride to aim to be above the King's Sou : it is more than we deserve that we are equals in glory, in a manner.
Now, commending you to the dearest grace, and mercy of God, I rest,
Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, Jan. 4, 1G42.
1 Surety, 2 Small. 3 Credit.
< Admitted to great familiarity.
56 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER XVII.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Understanding-, a little after the writing of my last letter, of the going- of this bearer, I would not omit the opportu- nity of remembering your Ladyship, still harping upon that string which, in our whole lifetime, is never too often touched upon, nor is our lesson well enough learned, that there is a necessity of ad- vancing in the way to the Kingdom of God, of the contempt of the world, of denying ourself, and of bearing of our Lord's cross ; which is no less needful for us than daily food. And among many marks that we are on this journey, and under sail toward Heaven, this is one, when the love of God so filleth our hearts that we for- get to love and care too much for the having or wanting of other things ; as one extreme heat burnetii out another. By this, madam, ye know that ye have betrothed your soul in marriage to Christ, when ye do make but small reckoning of all other suitors or wooers, and when ye can, (having little in hand, but much in hope) live as a young heir during the time of his non-age and minority, being content to be as hardly handled, and under as precise a reckoning as servants, because his hope is upon the in- heritance. For this cause, God's bairns' take well with the spoil- ing of their goods, (Heb. x. 34,) knowing in themselves that they have in Heaven a better and an enduring substance. That day that the earth and the works therein shall be burned with fire, (2 Pet. iii. 10,) your hidden hope and your hidden life shall ap- pear. And, therefore, since ye have not now many years of your endless eternity, and know not how soon the sky above your head shall rive, and the Son of Man be seen in the clouds of Heaven, what better and wiser course can ye take than to think that your one foot is here, and your other foot in the life to come, and to leave off loving, desiring, or grieving for the wants that shall be made up, when your Lord and ye shall meet, and when ye shall give in your bill that day of all your wants here ? If your losses be not made up, ye have place to challenge the Almighty; but it shall not be so. Ye shall then rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, and your joy shall none take from you, (1 Pet. i. 8; John xvi. 22.)
It is enough, that the Lord hath promised you great things ; only let the time of bestowing them be in his own carving. It is not for us to set an hour-glass to the Creator of time, since he and we differ only in the term of payment. Since he hath promised payment, and we believe it, it is no great matter, we will put that in his own will ; as the frank buyer, who cometh near to what the seller seeketh, useth at last to refer the difference to his will, and so cutteth off the course of nuitual prigging.* Madam, do not
» Children. 2 Chafferinir.
Rutherford's letters. 57
prig' with your frank-hearted and gracious Lord about the time of the fulfiUing of your joys. It shall be — God hath said it. Bide his harvest, wait upon his whitsunday.^ His day is better than your day. He putteth not the hooi^^ into the corn till it be ripe and full-eared. The great Angel of the Covenant bear you com- pany, till the trumpet shall sound and the voice of the Archangel awaken the dead. Ye shall find it your only happiness, under whatever thing disturbeth and crosseth the peace of your mind in this life, to love nothing for itself, but only God for himself It is the crooked love of some harlots, that they love bracelets, ear- rinofs, and riagrs, better than the lover that sendeth them : but God will not be so loved : for that were to behave as harlots, and not as the chaste spouse, to abate from our love wdien these things are pulled away. Our love to him should begin on earth, as it shall be in Heaven. For, as the bride taketh not by a thousand degrees so much delight in her wedding-garment as she doth in her bridegroom, so we, in the life to come, howbeit clothed with glory as with a robe, shall not be so much affected with the glory that goeth about us as with the Bridegroom's joyful face and pres- ence. Madam, if ye can win* to this here, the field is won ; and your mind, for anything ye want, or for anything your Lord can take from you, shall soon be calmed and quieted. Get himself as a pawn, and keep him, till your dear Lord come and loose the pawn, rue upon you, and give you all again that he took from you, even a thousand talents for one penny. It is not ill to lend God willingly, who otherwise both will and may take from you against your will. It is good to play the usurer with him, and take in, instead of ten of the hundred, an hundred of ten, often an hundred of one.
Madam, fearing to be tedious to you, I break off here, commend- ing you, as I trust to do while I live, your person, ways, burdens, and all that concerneth you, to that Almighty, who is able to bear you and your burdens. I still remember you to Him, who will cause you one day to laugh. I expect that whatever ye can do by word or deed, for the Lord's friendless Zion, ye will do it. She is your Mother, forget her not, for the Lord intendeth to melt and try this land ; and it is high time that we were all upon our feet, and falling about ^ to try what claim we have to Christ. It is like that the Bridegroom will be taken from us, and then we shall mourn. Dear Jesus, remove not, else take us with thee !
Grace, grace be with you forever.
Your Ladyship's, at all dutiful obedience, S. R.
Anwoth, Jan. 14, 1632.
I Higgle. 2 Termday. 3 Sickle, * Attain.
* Searching about.
I 58 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER XVIII.
\ TO MY LADY K E N M U R E .
Madam, — Your Ladyship will not, I know, weary nor be of- fended, though I trouble you with many letters: the memory of^ w^hat obligations I am under to your Ladyship is the cause of it,
I am possibly impertinent in what I write, because of my igno- rance of your present estate ; but, for all that is said, I have learned of Mr. William Dalgleish that ye have not changed upon, nor wearied of your sweet Master, Christ, and his service ; neither were it your part to change upon Him, who resteth in his love. Ye are among honorable company, and such as affect grandeur and court. But, madam, thinking upon your estate, I think that I see an improvident wooer, coming too late to seek a bride, be- cause she is contracted already, and promised away to another; and so the wooer's busking' and bravery (who cometh to you as, who but he !) is in vain. The outward pomp of this busy wooer, a beguiling world, is now coming in to suit^ your soul too late, when ye have promised away your soul to Christ many years ago. And I know, madam, what answer ye may justly make to the late suitor ; even this, " Ye are too long in coming. My soul, the bride, is away already, and the contract with Christ subscribed; and I cannot choose but I must be honest and faithful to him." Honorable Lady, keep your first love, and hold the first match with that soul-delighting, lovely Bridegroom, our sweet, sweet . Lord, Jesus, fairer than all the children of men, the Rose of Sha- ron, and the fairest and sweetest-smelled rose in all his Father's garden. There is none like him. I would not exchange one smile of his lovely face with kingdoms. Madam, let others take their silly- feckless^ heaven in this hfe. Envy them not ; but let your soul, like a tarrowing^ and mislearned^ child, take the dorts, '^ as we use to speak, or cast at^ all things, and disdain them, ex- cept one only — either Christ or nothing. Your Well-beloved, Jesus, will be content, that ye be here devoutly proud, and ill-* to please, as one that contenmeth all husbands but himself. Either the King's Son or no husband at all — -this is humble and worthy ambition. What have ye to do to dally with a whorish and fool- ish world ? Your jealous husband will not be content that ye look by '" him to another : he will be jealous indeed, and offended, if ye kiss another than himself.
What weights do burden you, madam, I know not, but think it great mercy that your Lord from your youth hath been hedging-in your out-straying affections, that they may not go a-whoring from himself If ye were his bastard, he would not nurture you so : if
1 Decking. 2 Court. 3 Contemptible. * Poor, unreal.
5 To /arrow, to feel reluctance, especially to lake one's food, arisincr from some pettisli humor. « Illbred. T Pe't. 8 Object to
9 Hard. 10 Past.
Rutherford's letters. 59
ye were for the slaughter, ye would be fattened ; but be content, ye are his wheat growing in our Lord's field, (Matt. xiii. 25, 38.) And if wheat, ye must go under our Lord's threshing instrument, in his barn-tioor, and go through his sieve, (Amos ix. 9,) and through his mill to be bruised, as the Prince of our salvation, Jesus, was, (Isa. liii. 10,) that ye may be found good bread in your Lord's house. Lord Jesus, bless the sjDiritual husbandry, and separate you from the chaff that dow not bide* the wind. I am persuaded that your glass is spending itself by little and little, and that if 3'e knew who is before you, ye would rejoice in your tribu- lation. Think ye it a small honor to stand beibre the throne of God and the Lamb, and to be clothed in white, and to be called to tlie marriage-supper of the Lamb, and to be led to the Fountain of living waters, and to come to the well-head, even God himself, and get your fill of the clear, cold, sweet, refreshing Water of life, the King's own well, and to put up your own sinful hand to the Tree of Life, and take down and eat the sweetest apple in all God's heavenly paradise, Jesus Christ, your Life and your Lord? Up your heart ! shout for joy ! your King is coming to fetch you to his Father's house.
Madam, I am in exceeding great heaviness ; God thinking it best for my own soul thus to exercise me, thereby, it may be, to fit me to be his mouth to others ; I see and hear, at home and abroad, nothing but matter of grief and discouragement, which indeed maketh my life bitter — and I hope in God never to get my will in this world. And I expect ere long a fiery trial upon the Church ; for as many men almost in England and Scotland, as many false friends to Christ, and as many pulling and drawing to pull the crown off his holy head ; and for fear that our Beloved stay amongst us, (as if his room were more desirable than himself,) men are bidding him go seek his lodging. Madam, if ye have a part in silly° friendless Zion, as I know ye have, speak a word on her behalf to God and man. If ye can do nothing else, speak for Jesus, and ye shall thereby be a witness against this declining age. Now, from my very soul, laying and leavflig you on the Lord, and desiring a part in your prayers, (as my Lord knoweth tiiat I re- member you,) I deliver over your body, spirit, and all your neces- sities, to the hands of our Lord, and remain forever,
Your Ladyship's, in your sweet Lord Jesus, and mine, S. R.
Anwoth, Feb. 13, 1632.
LETTER XIX.
for MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Beloved Mistress, — My dearest love in Christ remembered to you — know that Mr. Abraham showed me that there is to be a
* la not able to stand. * Poor, in the sense of exciting compassion.
60 Rutherford's letters.
meeting of the Bishops at Edinburgh shortly. The causes are known to themselves ; it is our part to hold up our hands for Zion. Howbeit it is reported that they came sad from court. It is our Lord's wisdom that his Kirk should ever hing' by a thread ; and yet the thread breaketh not, being hung upon Him, who is the sure Nail in David's house, (Isaiah xxii. ver. 23,) upon whom all the vessels, great and small, do hang : and the Nail (God be thanked) neither crooketh, nor can be broken. Jesus, that Flower of Jesse, set without hands, getteth many a blast, and yet wither- eth not, because he is his Father's noble Rose, casting a sweet smell through Heaven and earth, and must grow ; and in the same garden with him grow the saints, God's fair and beautiful lilies, vmder wind and rain, and all sun-burned, and yet life re- maineth at the root. Keep within his garden, and ye shall grow with them, till the great Husbandman, our dear Master-gardener, come, and transplant you from the lower part of his vineyard up to the higher, to the very heart of his garden, above the wrongs of the rain, sun, or wind ; and then wait upon the times of the blow- ing of the sweet south and north wind of his gracious Spirit, that may make you cast a sweet smell in your Beloved's nostrils ; and bid your Beloved come down to his garden, and eat of his pleasant fruits. (Cant. iv. ver. 16.) And he will come. Ye will get no more than this, until ye come up to the Well-head, where he shall put up your hand, and take down the apples of the Tree of Life, and eat luider the shadow of that Tree — these apples are sweeter up beside the Tree, than they are down here, in this piece of a clay prison-liouse. I have no joy but in the thoughts of these times. Doubt not of your Lord's part, and the Spouse's part — she shall be in good case. That word shall stand, (Hosea xiv. 5,) "I will be as tlie dew to Israel, he shall grow up as the lily ; and cast out his roots as Lebanon." (Ver. 6,) "His branches shall spread, his beaut}'" shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon." (Isaiah xi. ver. 12,) Christ shall set up his colors, and his ensign for the nations, and shall gather together the outcasts of Israel. (Ezek. xxxvii. 11,) "Then the Lord said to me. Son of man, these dead bones are the whole House of Israel; behold, they say. Our bones are dried, our hope is lost, we are cut off for our parts." (Ver. 12,) " Therefore prophesy unto them, and say. Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you come up out of your graves, and bring you unto the land of Israel." These promises are not wind, but the breast of our Beloved, Christ, which we nuist suck, and draw comfort out of. We have cause to pity those poor creatures, that stand out against Christ, and the building of his house. Silly men, they have but a feckless" and silly' heaven, nothing but meat and clothes ; and they laugh a day or two in the world, and then in a moment go down to the grave. And they shall not be able to
1 Hang. 2 Unsubstantial ' Despicable.
Rutherford's letters. 61
hinder Christ's building ; he that is Master of the work, will lead stones ' to tlie wall over their belly.
And for that present tumult, that the children of this world raise anent" the planting of your town with a pastor, believe and stay upon God (as ye still shame us all in believing;) go forward in the strength of the Lord, and from my Lord I say, before whom I stand, have your eyes upon none but the Lord of armies; and the Lord will either let ye see what ye long to see, or then fulfil your joy more abundantly another way. Ye and yours, and the children of God whom ye care for, in that town, shall have as much of the Son of God's supper, cut and laid down upon your trenchers, be he who he will that carveth, as shall feed you to eternal life. And be not cast down for all that is done, your reward is laid up with God. I hope to see ye laugh and leap for joy. Will the temple be built without din and tumult? No ! God's stones of his house in Germany are laid with blood ; and the Son of God no sooner beginneth to chop and hew stones with his hammer, but as soon the sword is drawn. If the work were of men, the world would set their shoulders to yours; but in Christ's work, two or three must fight against a presbytery, (though his own court,) and a city. This proveth that it is Christ's errand, and, therefore, that it shall thrive. Let them lay iron chains cross over the door, — stay, and believe, and wait, whill* the Lion of the tribe of Judah come. And He, that cometh from Heaven clothed with the rainbow, and hath the little book in his hand, when he taketh a grip* of their chains, will lay the door upon the broad-side,* and come in, and go up to the pulpit, and take the man with him whom he hath chosen for his work. There- fore, let me hear from you, whether you be in heaviness, or re- joicing under hope, that I may take part of your grief, and bear it with you, and get part of your joy, which is to me also as my own joy.
And as to what are your fears anent ^ the health or life of your dear children, lay it upon Christ's shoulders ; let him bear all. Loose your grips* of them all ; and, when your dear Lord pulleth, let them go with faith and joy ; it is a tried faith, to kiss a Lord that is taking from you. Let them be careful, during the short time that they are here, to run, and get a grip' of the prize. Christ is standing in the end of their way, holding up the garland of end- less glory to their eyes, and is crying, " Run fast, and come, and receive :" happy are they, if their breath serve them to run, and not to weary, vvhilP their Lord, with his own dear hand, put the crown upon their head. It is not long days, but good days, that make the life glorious and happy ; and our dear Lord is gracious to us, who shorteneth, and hath made the way to glory shorter than it was : so that the crown that Noah did fight for five hun- dred years, children may now obtain in fifteen years. And Heaven is in some sort better for us now than it was to Noah : for the
1 To had stones, to cany stones in a cart from one place to another.
« Concerning. 3 Till. * Gripe, hold. 5 Flat on the side.
62 Rutherford's letters.
Man, Christ, is there now, who was not come in the flesh in Noah's days.
You will show this to your children, whom my soul in Christ blesseth ; and entreat them, by the mercies of God, and the bowels of Jesus Christ, to covenant with Jesus Christ to be his, and to make up the bond of friendship betwixt their souls and their Christ, that they may have acquaintance in Heaven, and a friend at God's right hand — such a friend at court is much worth.
Now I take my leave of you, praying my Christ, and your Christ, to fulfil our joy, and moe graces and blessings from our sweet Lord Jesus to your soul, your husband's, and children, than ever I wrote of letters of A, B, C, to you.
Grace, grace, be with you.
Yours, in my sweet Master, Jesus Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, March 9, 1632.
LETTER XX.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Dearly beloved Mistress, — My love in Christ remembered — Ye are not ignorant what our Lord, in his love-visitation, hath been doing with your soul, even letting you see a little sight of that dark trance which ye must go through ere you come to glory. Your life hath been near the grave, and ye were at the door, and ye found the door shut fast ; your dear Christ thinking it not time to open these gates to you, whill ' ye have fought some longer in his camp. And, therefore, he willeth you to put on your armor again, and to take no truce with the Devil, or this present world. Y^e are little obliged to any of the two : but I rejoice in this, that when any of the two cometh to suit^ your soul in marriage, ye have an answer in readiness to tell them — "Ye are too long a-comitig : I have many a year since promised my soul to another, even to my dearest Lord Jesus, to whom I must be true." And, therefore, ye are come back to us again, to help us to pray for Christ's fair Bride— a marrow^ dear to him.
Be not cast down in heart, to hear that the world barketh at Christ's strangers, both in Ireland and in this land. They do it because their Lord hath chosen them out of this world; and this is one of our Lord's reproaches, to be hated and ill-entreated by men: the silly* stranger in an unco^ country, must take with smoky inn, and coarse cheer, and a hard bed, and a barking ill- tongued host. It is not long to-day, and he will to his journey upon the morrow, and leave them all. Indeed our fair morning is at hand, the day-star is near the rising, and we are not many miles from home ; what matter of ill entertainment in the smoky
1 Till. 2 Court. 3 Partner. * Poor. s Strange.
Rutherford's letters. 63
inn of this miserable life ? We are not to stay here, and we shall be dearly welcome to Him whom we go to. And I hope, that when I shall see you clothed in white raiment, washen ' in the blood of the Lamb, and shall see you even at the elbow of your dearest Lord and Redeemer, and a crown upon your head, and following our Lamb, and lovely Lord whithersoever he goeth, ye will think nothing of all these days, and ye will then rejoice, and no man shall take your joy from you. And it is certain there is not much sand to run in your Lord's sand-glass, and that day is at hand, and, till then, your Lord in this life is giving you some little feasts. It is true that ye see him not now, as ye shall see him then. Your Well-beloved standeth now behind the wall, looking out at the window, (Cant. ii. 9,) and ye see but a little of his face; then ye shall see all his face, and all the Saviour, — a. long, and high, and broad Lord Jesus, the most lovely person among the ciiildren of men. O joy of joys ! that our souls know there is such a great supper preparing for us ; even howbeit we be but half-hungered' of Christ here, and many a time dine behind noon,' yet the supper of the Lamb shall come in Xime, and will be set before us, before we famish, and lose our stomachs. Ye have cause to hold up your heart in remembrance, and hope of that fair, long, summer-day; for in this night of your life, wherein ye are in the body, absent from the Lord, Christ's fair moon-light, in his word and sacraments, in prayer, feeling, and holy conference, hath shined upon you, to let you see the way to the city.
I confess that our diet here is but sparing ; we get but tastings of our Lord's comforts ; but the cause of that is not because our Steward, Jesus, is a niggard, and narrow-hearted, but because our stomachs are weak, and we are narrow-hearted : but the great feast is coming, when our hearts shall be enlarged, and the cham- bers of them made fair and wide, to take in the great Lord Jesus — come in, then. Lord Jesus, to hungry souls, gaping for thee ! In this journey take the Bridegroom, as ye may have him, and be greedy of his smallest crumbs : but, dear mistress, buy none of Christ's delicates spiritual with sin, or fasting against your weak body. Remember that ye are in the bod}^, and it is the lodging- house, and ye may not, without offending the Lord, suffer the old walls of that house to fall down, through want of necessary food. Your body is the dwelling-house of the Spirit ; and. therefore, for the love ye carry to the sweet Guest, give a due regard to his house of clay. When he looseth the wall, why not? welcome, Lord Jesus ! but it is a fearful sin in us, by hurting the body by fasting, to loose one stone, or the least piece of timber in it ; for the house is not our own, the Bridegroom is with you yet ; so fast, as that, also, ye may feast and rejoice in him.
I think upon your magistrates ; but He, that is clothed in linen, and hath the writer's in.k-horn by his side, hath written up their names in Heaven already— pray, and be content with his will.
1 Washed. 2 Half- fed.
3 Dinner, in the days of Rutherford, was never later than noon.
64 Rutherford's letters.
God hath a council-house in Heaven, and the end will be mercy unto you. For the planting of your town with a godly minister, have your eye upon the Lord of the harvest. I dare promise you that God, in this life, will fill your soul with the fatness of his house, for your care to see Christ's bairns fed ; and your posterity shall know it, to whom I pray for mercy, and that they may get a name among the living in Jerusalem ; and if God portion them with his bairns, their rent is fair, and I hope it shall be so.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Yours, ever in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, Sept. 19, 1632.
LETTER XXL
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved Sister in Christ, — Ye shall understand that I have received a letter from Edinburgh, that it is suspected that there will be a General Assembly, or then '■ some meeting of the Bishops ; and that at this Synod there will be some commis- sioners chosen by the Bishop ; which news have so taken up my mind, that I am not so settled for studies as I have been before ; and, therefore, was never in such fear for the work. But, because it is written to me as a secret, I dare not reveal it to any, but to yourself whom I know : and, therefore, I entreat you, not for any comfort of mine, who am but one man, but for the glory and honor of Jesus Christ, the Master of the banquet, be more earnest with God, and, in general, show others of your Christian acquaint- ance my fears for myself. I can be content of shame in that work, if my Lord and Master be honored : and, therefore, petition our Lord, especially to see to his own glory, and to give bread to his hungry bairns, howbeit I go hungry away from the feast.
Request Mr. Robert from me, if he come not, to remember us to our Lord.
I have neither time, nor a free disposed mind, to write to you anent''^ your own case. Send me word if all your children and your husband be well. Seeing they are not yours, but your dear Lord's, esteem them but as borrowed, and lay them down at God's feet — your Christ to you is better than they all.
You will pardon my unaccustomed short letter ; and remember me, and that honorable feast, to our Lord Jesus. He was with us before : I hope he will not change upon us, but I fear that I have changed upon him — but, Lord ! let old kindness stand.
Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
Yours, in his sweet Lord, Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth.
I Otherwise. * Concerning.
Rutherford's letters. 65
LETTER XXIT.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved, and Dear Sister, — My tender affection in Christ remembered — I left you in as great heaviness as I was in since I came to tliis country ; but I know that ye doubt not that (as the truth in Christ is) my soul is knit to your soul, and to the souls of all yours, and would, if I could, send you the largest part of my heart inclosed in this letter. But by fervent calling upon my Lord, I have attained some victory over my heart, which run- neth often not knowing whither, and of my beguiling hopes, which I know now better than I did. And I trust in my Lord to hold aloof from the enticings of a seducing heart, by which I am daily cozened ; and I mind not, by His grace, who hath called me ac- cording to his eternal purpose, to come so far within the grips ' of my foolish mind, gripping about ^ any folly coming its way, as the woodbine or ivy goeth about the tree.
I adore and kiss the providence of my Lord, who knoweth well what is most expedient for me, and for you, and your children: and I think of you, as of myself, that the Lord, who turneth about, in his deep wisdom, all the v*'heels and turnings of such changes, will also dispose of that for tlie best to you and yours. In the pres- ence of my Lord, I am not able, howbeit I would, to conceive amiss of you in that matter. Grace, grace forever upon you and your seed ; and it shall be your portion, in despite of all the powers of darkness: do not make more cpiestion of this. But the Lord saw a nail in my heart loose, and he hath now fastened it — honor be to his Majesty.
I hear that your son is entered to the school. If I had known of the day, I would have begged from our Lord, that he would have put the book in his hand, with his own hand. I trust in my Lord it is so, and I conceive a hope to see him a star to give light in some room of our Lord's house ; and purpose, by the Lord's grace, as I am able, (if our Lord call you to rest be- fore me,) when you are at your home, to do the uttermost of my power to help him every way, in grace and learning, and his brother, and all your children— and I hope that ye would expect that of me.
Further, ye shall know that Mr. William Dalgleish is come home ; who saith it is a miracle that your husband, in this pro- cess before the Council, escaped both discredit and damage. Let it not be forgotten that he was, in our apprehension, to our grief, cast down and humbled in the Lord's work, in that matter betwixt him and the baillie;^ now the Lord hath Jionored him, and made him famous for virtue, honesty, and integrity, two several times,
• Grasp. 2 Clasping about.
' A magistrate in a Scottish borough, similar to an alderman in England.
5
66 Rutherford's letters.
before the nobles of this kingdom. Your Lord hveth ; we will go to his throne of grace again ; his arm is not shortened.
The King is certainly expected. Ill is feared. We have cause, for our sins, to fear that the Bridegroom shall be taken from us ; by our sins, we have rent his fair garments, and we have stirred up and awakened our Beloved. Pray him to tarry, or then' to take us with him. It were good that we should knock and rap at the Lord's door : we may not tire to knock oftener than twice or thrice — he knoweth the knock of his friends.
I am still what I was ever to your dear children, tendering their souls' happiness, and praying that grace, grace, grace, mercy and peace from God, even God our Father, and our Lord Jesus, may be their portion ; and that now, while they are green and young, their hearts may take band'^ with Jesus, the Corner-stone, and win^ once in, into our Lord and Saviour's house, and then they will not get leave to flit.
Pray for me, and especially for humility and thankfulness. I have always remembrance of you and your husband, and dear children. The Lord, Jesus, be with your spirit.
Yours evermore, in my dear Lord Jesus, and yours, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XXIII.
TO MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Well-beloved, and Dear Sister, — My love in Christ re- membered— God hath brought me home from a place, where I have been exercised with great heaviness ; and I have found at home a new matter of heaviness, yet dare not but in all things give thanks.
In my business in Edinburgh, I have not sinned, nor wronged my party, by his own confession, and by the confession of his friends. I have given of my goods for peace, and the saving of my Lord's truth from reproaches, which is dearer to me than all I have. My mother is weak, and I think shall leave me alone ; but I am not alone, because Christ's Father is with me.
For your business anent^ your town, I see great evidences ; but Satan and his instruments are against it, and few set their should- ers to Christ's shoulder to help him. But he will do all his lone ;" and I dare not but exhort you to believe, and persuade you, that the hungry in your city shall be fed; and as for the rest, that want a stomach, the parings of God's loaf will suffice them — and, therefore, believe it shall be well. I may not leave iriy mother to come and confer with you of all particulars : I have given such
' OQierwise.
2 To take band, to unite. Liine is said to take band with the stones in a building when it unites with them.
J Get. < Concerning. s By himself alone.
Rutherford's letters. 67
directions to our dear friend as I can, but the event is in our Lord's hand.
God's Zion abroad flourisheth ; and his arm is not shortened with us, if we could beheve. There is a scarcity and famine of the word of God, in Edinburgh.
Your sister Jean laboreth mightily in our business ; but hath not as yet gotten an answer from J. P. Mr. A. C. will work what he can. My Lady saith she can do little, and that it suiteth not her nor her husband well to speak in such an affair. I told her my mind plainly.
I long to know of your estate. Remember me heartily to your dear husband : grace be the portion of your bairns. I know that you are mindful of the green wound of our sister kirk in Ireland. Bid our Lord lay a plaister to it ; he hath good skill to do so, and set others to work.
Grace, grace, upon your soul and body, and all yours.
Yours, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XXIV.
TO MY LADY KENMURE,
Madam, — The cause of my not writing to your Ladyship, is not my forgetfulness of )^ou, but the want of the opportunity of a convenient bearer; for I am under more than a simple obligation to be kind (on paper at least) to your Ladyship.
I bless our Lord, through Christ, who halh brought you home again to your country, from that place, where ye have seen with your eyes that which our Lord's truth taught you before, to wit, that worldly glory is nothing but a vapor, a shadow, the foam of the water, or something less and lighter, — even nothing ; and that our Lord hath not without cause said in his word, (I Cor. vii. 31,) "The countenance or fashion of this world passeth away." In which place our Lord compareth it to an image in a looking-glass, for it is the looking-glass of Adam's sons. Some come to the glass, and see in it the pictme of honor, and but a picture indeed, for true honor is to be great in the sight of God ; and others see in it the shadow of riches, and but a shadow indeed, for durable riches stand, as one of the maids of Wisdom, upon her left hand, (Prov. iii. 16 ;) and a third sort see in it the face of painted pleasures, and the beholders will not believe, but the image which they see in this glass is a living man, till the Lord come and break tlie glass in pieces, and remove the face ; and then, like Pharaoh awakened, they say, "And, behold, it was a dream."
I know that your Ladyship thinketh yourself little in the com- mon of this world, for the favorable aspect of any of these three
* Under obligation to.
68 Rutherford's letters.
painted faces ; and blessed be our Lord that it is so ; the better for you, madam; they are not worthy to be wooers to suit' in marriage your soul, — that looketh to an higher match than to be married upon painted clay. Know, therefore, madam, that the place whither our Lord Jesus cometh to woo a bride, it is even in the furnace: for if ye be one of Zion's daughters, (which I ever put beyond all question, since I first had occasion to see in your Ladyship such pregnant evidences of the grace of God,) the Lord, who hath his fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem, (Isa. xxxi. 9,) is purifving you in the furnace. And, therefore, be content to live in it ; and every day to be adding and sewing a passment^ to your wedding garment, that ye may be at last decored- and trim- med as a bride for Christ, a bride of his own busking,^ beautified in the hidden man of the heart, forgetting your father's house, so shall the King greatly desire your beauty, (Psalm xlv. IL)
If your Ladyship be not changed, as I hope that ye are not, I believe that ye esteem yourself to be of those whom God hath tried these many years, and refined as silver. But, madam, I shall show your Ladyship a privilege that others want, and which ye have, in this case. Such as are in prosperity, and are fatted with earthly joys, and increased with children and friends, though the word of God is, indeed, written to such, for their instruction; yet to you, who are in trouble, (spare me, madam, to say this,) from whom the Lord hath taken many children, and whom he hath exercised otherwise, there are some chapters, some particular promises in the word of God, made in a most especial manner, which should never have been yours, so as they now are, if ye had had your portion in this life as others have: and, therefore, all the comforts, promises, and mercies, which God oifereth to the afllicted, are as so many love-letters written to you : take them to you, madam, and claim your right, and be not robbed. It is no small comfort, that God hath written some scriptures to you which he hath not written to others ; ye seem rather, in this, to be envied than pitied ; and ye are, indeed, in this, like people of another world, and those that are above the ordinary rank of inankind, whom our King and Lord, our Bridegroom, Jesus, in his love-let- ter to his well-beloved Spouse, hath named, beside all the rest, and hath written comforts and his hearty commendations, in the Ivi. of Isa., ver. 4, 5, and Ps. cxlvii. 2, 3, to you. Read these, and the like, and think that your God is like a friend, who sendeth a letter to a whole house and family, but speaketh in his letter to some, by name, that are dearest to him in the house^ye are then, madam, of the dearest friends of the Bridegroom. If it were law- ful, I would envy you, tliat God honored you so above many of his dear children. Therefore, madam, your part is, in this case, (seeing God taketh nothing from you but that which he is to sup- ply with his own presence,) to desire your Lord to know his own
1 To urge a suit.
2 An ornament. Passments are strips of lace sewed upon clothes.
3 Decorated. ♦ Decking.
Rutherford's letters. 69
room, and to take it even upon biin to come in, in the room of dead children. "Jehovah, know thy own place, and take it to thee !" is all ye have to say.
Madam, I persuade myself, that this world is to you an unco' inn: and that ye are like a traveller, who hath his bundle upon his back, and his staff in his hand, and his feet upon the door- threshold. Go forward, honorable and elect Lady, in the strength of your Lord, (let the world bide at home and keep the house,) with your face toward him, who longeth more for a sight of you than ye can do for him. Ere it be long he will see us. I hope to see you laugh as cheerfully after noon, "as ye have mourned before noon. The hand of the Lord, the hand of the Lord, be with you in your journey ! What have ye to do here 7 this is not your mountain of rest. Arise then, and set your foot up the mountain ; go up out of the wilderness leaning upon the shoulder of your Be- loved, (Cant. viii. 5.) If ye knew the welcome that abideth you when ye come home, ye would hasten your pace ; for ye shall see your Lord put up his own holy hand to your face, and wipe all tears from your eyes ; and I trov/ tliat then ye shall have some joy of heart.
Madam, paper willeth me to end, before affection. Remember the estate of Zion. Pray that Jerusalem may be, as Zechariah prophesied, (chap. xii. 3.) a burdensome stone for all ; that who- soever boweth down to roll the stone out of the way, may hurt and break the joints of their back, and strain'^ their arms, and dis- joint their shoulder-blades : and pray Jehovah, that the stone may lie still in its own place, and keep band' with the Corner-stone. I hope it will be so ; He is a skilled master-builder who laid it. I should, madam, under great heaviness, be refreshed with two lines from your Ladyship, which I refer to your own wisdom.
Madam, I should seem undutiful not to show you, that great solicitation is made by the town of Kirkcudbright to have the use of my poor labors amongst them. If the Lord will call, and his people cry, who am I to resist? But, without his seen calling, and till the flock, whom I now oversee, be planted with one to whom I dare intrust Christ's Spouse, gold nor silver, nor favor of men, I hope, shall loose me.
I leave your Ladyship, praying more earnestly for grace and mercy to be with you, and multiplied upon you, here and here- after, than my pen can express.
The Lord Jesus be with your spirit.
Your Ladyship's, at all obedience in the Lord, S. R.
Kirkcudbright.
1 Strange. 2 Sprain. 3 Continue united.
70 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER XXV.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — Having saluted you with grace and mercy from God, our Father, and from our Lord, Jesus Christ — I long both to see your Ladysliip, and to hear how it goeth with you.
I do remember you, and present you and your necessities to Him, who is able to keep you, and to present you blameless before his face with joy : and my prayer to our Lord is, that ye may be sick of love for Him, who died of love for you, I mean your Sa- viour, Jesus: — And, oh! sweet were that sickness, to be soul-sick for him ! and a living death it were to die in the fire of the love of that Soul-lover, Jesus ! And, madam, if ye love him, ye will keep his commandments ; and this is not one of the least, to lay your neck cheerfully and willingly under the yoke of Jesus Christ : for I trust that your Ladyship did first contract and bargain with the Son of God, to follow him upon these terms, that by his grace ye should endure hardship, and suffer afiliction as the soldier of Christ. They are not worthy of Jesus, who will not take a blow for their Master's sake. As for our glorious Peace-maker, when he came to make up the friendship betwixt God and us, God bruised him, and struck him, the sinful world, also, did beat him, and crucify him ; yet he took buffets of both the parties : and — honor to our Lord, Jesus! — he would not leave the field for all that, till he had made peace betwixt the parties. I persuade my- self that your sufferings are but like your Saviour's, (yea, incom- parably less and lighter,) which are called but a bruising of his heel, (Gen. iii. L5,) a v/ound far from the heart. Your life is hid with Christ, in God, (Col. iii. 3,) and, therefore, ye cannot be rob- bed of it. Our Lord handleth us as fathers do their young chil- dren. They lay up jewels in a place above the reach of the short arms of bairns, else bairns would put up their hands, and take them down, and lose them soon. So hath our Lord done with our spiritual life. Jesus Christ is the high coffer, in the which our Lord hath hid our life ; we, children, are not able to reach up our arm so high as to take down that life and lose it; it is in our Christ's hand. Oh long, long may Jesus be lord-keeper of our life ! and happy are they that can, with the Apostle, (2 Tim. i.) lay their soul in pawn in the hand of Jesus ; for he is able to keep that which is committed in pawn to him against that day. Then, madam, so long as this life is not hurt, all other troubles are but touches in the heel. I trust that ye shall soon be cured.
Ye know, madam, that kings have some servants in their courts who receive not present wages in their hand, but live upon their hopes : the King of kings, also, hath servants in liis court, that, for the present, get little or nothing, but the heavy cross of Christ, troubles without, and terrors within ; but they live upon hope, and
Rutherford's letters. 71
when it cometh to the parting of the inheritance, they remain in the house as heirs : it is better to be so than to get present pay- ment, and a portion in this hfe, an inheritance in this world, (God forgive me, that I should honor it with the name of an inheri- tance, it is rather a farm-room,') and then in the end to be casten* out of God's house, with this word, " Ye have received your con- solation, ye shall get no more." Alas ! what get they? The rich glutton's heaven. Oh, but our Lord, (Luke xvi.) maketh it a silly' heaven ! He fared well, (saith our Lord.) and delicately every day. Oh, no more? a silly heaven ! Truly no more, except that he was clothed in purple, and that is all. I persuade myself, ma- dam, that ye have joy when ye think that our Lord hath dealt more graciously with your soul. Ye have gotten little in this life, it is true, indeed : ye have, then, the more to crave ; yea, ye have all to crave ; for, except some tastings of the first fruits, and some kisses of His mouth, whom your soul lovetb, ye get no more. But I cannot tell you what is to come ; yet I may speak as our Lord doth of it. The foundation of the City is pure gold, clear as crys- tal : the twelve ports are set with precious stones : if orchards and rivers commend a soil upon earth, there is a paradise there, wherein groweth the Tree of Life that beareth twelve manner of fruits every month, which is seven-score and four harvests in the year : and there is there a pure river of water of life, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb : and the city hath no need of the light of the sun, or inoon, or of a candle ; for tire Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the light thereof. Madam, be- lieve and hope for this, till ye see and enjoy. Jesus is saying in the Gospel, " Come and see ; and he is come down in the chariot of truth, wherein he rideth through the world, to conquer men's souls, (Ps. xlv. 4,) and is now in the world, saying, "Who will go with me? Will ye go? My Father will make you welcome, and give you house-room ; for in my Father's house are many dwell- ing-places." Madam, consent to go with him.
Thus I rest, commending you to God's dearest mercy.
Yours, in the Lord Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth.
LETTER XXVL
TO MY LADY KEN MURE.
Madam, — I am afraid now, (as many others are,) that at the sitting down of our Parliament, the Spouse of our Lord Jesus shall be roughly handled; and it iiuist be so. since false and declining Scotland, whom our Lord took off the dunghill, and out of hell, and made a fair bride to himself, hath broken her faith to her sweet Husband, and hath put on the forehead of a whore ; and,
1 A rented room. 2 Cast. 3 Poor, contemptible.
72 Rutherford's letters.
therefore, he saith that he will remove. Would to God, we could stir up ourselves to lay hold upon Him, who, bein<j highly provoked with the haiidling he hath met with, is ready to depart ! Alas, we do not importune him, by prayer and supplication, to abide amongst us ! If we could but weep upon him, and, in the holy pertinacy ' of faith, wrestle with him, and say, "We wnll not let thee go;" it might be (hat then He, who is easy to be entreated, would )'et, notwithstanding our high provocations, condescend to stay, and feed among the lilies, till that feir and desirable day break, and the shadows flee away. Ah ! what cause of mourning is there, when our gold is become dim, and the visage of our Nazarites, sometimes 2 whiter than snow, is become blacker than a coal ; and Levi's house, once comparable to fine gold, is now changed, and become like vessels in wdiich he hath no pleasure ! Madam, think upon this, that when our Lord, who hath his handkerchief to wipe the face of the mourners in Zion, shall come to wipe away all tears from their eyes, he may wipe yours also, in passing, amongst others. I am confident, madam, that our Lord will yet build a new house to himself of our rejected and scattered stones ; for our Bridegroom cannot want a wife. Can he live a widower? Nay he will embrace both us, the Little young Sister, and the Elder Sister, the Church of the Jews; and there will yet be a day of it : and, therefore, we have cause to rejoice, yea, to sing and shout for joy. The Church hath been, since the world began, ever hanging by a small thread, and all the hands of Hell and of the wicked have been drawing at the thread ; but, God be thanked, they only break their arms by pulling, but the thread is not broken, for the sweet fingers of Christ our Lord have spun and twisted it. — Lord, hold the thread whole !
Madam, stir up your husband, to lay hold upon the covenant, and to do good. What hath he to do with the world ? It is not his inheritance : desire him to make home-over,^ and put-to his hand to lay one stone or two upon the wall of God's house, before he go hence. I have heard also, madam, that your child is re- moved ; but to have or want is best, as He pleaseth. Whether she be with you, or in God's keeping, think it all one ; nay, think it the better of the two by far, that she is with him. I trust in our Lord, that there is something laid up and kept for you ; for our kind Lord, who hath wounded you, will not be so ciiiel, as not to allay the pain of your green wound; and, therefore, claim Christ still as your own, and own him as your One thing.
So resting, I commend your Ladyship, your soul and spirit, in pawn to Him, who keepeth his Father's pawns, and will make an account of them faithfully, even to that Fairest amongst the sons of men, otn- sweet Lord, Jesus, the fairest, the sweetest, the most delicious Rose in all his Father's great field. The smell of that Rose perfume your soul !
Your Ladyship's, in his sweetest Lord, Jesus, S. R.
Anwoth, April 1, 1G33. ' Pertinacity. 2 Formerly. 3 Homewards.
Rutherford's letters. 73
LETTER XXVII.
FOR MARION MACKNAUGHT.
Dear Sister, — I longed much to have conferred with you at this time. I am grieved at anything in your house that grievetli you, and shall, by my Lord's grace, suit^ my Lord to help you to bear your burden, and to come in behind you, and give you and your burdens a putt- up the mountain. Know you not that Christ wooeth his wife in the furnace, (Isa. xlviii. 10,) "Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver ; I have chosen thee in the fur- nace of aliliction. He casteth his love on you when ye are in the furnace of affliction : ye might, indeed, be casten down, if he brought you in and left you there ; but when he leadeth you through the waters, think ye not that he has a sweet soft hand? You know his love grip ^ already : you shall be delivered; wait on : Jesus will make a road, and come and fetch home the cap- tive : ye shall not die in prison, but your strokes are such as were your Husband's, who was wounded in the house of his friends — strokes were not ne wings ^ to him, and neither are they to you. But your winter-night is near spent; it is near-hand^ the dawn- ing. I shall see you leap for joy. The Kirk shall be delivered; this wilderness shall bud and grow up like a rose ; Christ got a charter of Scotland from his Father, and who will bereave him of his heritage, or put our Redeemer out of his mailing,^ until his tack'' be run out?
I must have j^ou praying for me; I am black-shamed ^ for ever- more with Christ's goodness; and in private, on the 17th and 18th of August, I got a full answer of my Lord, to be a graced minister, and a chosen arrow hidden in his own quiver. But know that this assurance is not kept but by watching and prayer ; and, therefore, dear mistress, help me. I have gotten now — honor to my Lord ! — the gate^ to open the slot,'" and shute'* the bar of his door ; and I think it easy to get anything from the King by prayer, and to use holy violence with him. Christ was in Carsp- hairn Kirk, and opened the people's hearts wonderfully : .Tesus is looking up that water, '"^ and minting '^ to dwell amongst them. I would that we could give him his welcome-home to the Muirs.'* Now peace and grace be upon you, and all yours.
Yours, in Christ, S. R.
Anwoth, August 20, 1G33.
I Ur<Te. 2 A strong push. 3 Grasp.
■• Novelties. ^ Near. ^ Farm.
T Lease. ^ Utterly ashamed. 9 Way.
•0 A bar running from one siJe of a door to the other, and let, at both ends, into the wall. '' Push aside. '2 River.
13 Intimating by signs, an intention. i^ A district of healthy uplands.
74 Rutherford's letters.
LETTER XXVIII.
TO MY LADY KENMURE.
Madam, — I determined, and was desirous, also, to have seen your Ladyship, but, because of a pain in my arm, I could not. I J know that ye will not impute it to any unsuitable forgetfulness of your Ladyship, from whom, at my first entry to my calling in this country, and since also, I received such comfort in my affliction as I trust in God never to forget, and shall labor, by his grace, to recompense in the only way possible to me, and that is, by pre- senting your soul, person, house, and all your necessities, in prayer to Him, whose I hope you are, and who is able to keep you till that day of appearance, and to present you before his face with
joy-
I am confident that your Ladyship is going forward in the be- gun journey to your Lord and Father's home and Kingdom ; howbeit, ye want not temptations within and without. And who, among the saints, hath ever taken that castle without