Like many other of the great ladies of the Covenant, some of whom we
have already met in these letters, and others of whom are in the full
collection, Lady Robertland was a woman of deep personal faith and of
devoted service to the cause of Christ. She was noted, too, for her
witty and fascinating conversation and her way of illustrating
spiritual truth by most vivid and homely similes and parables.
MISTRESS, -- Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. -- I shall be glad to
hear that your soul prospereth, and that fruit growth upon you, after
the Lord's husbandry and pains, in His rod that has not been a stranger
to you from your youth. It is the Lord's kindness that He will take the
scum off us in the fire. Who knoweth how needful winnowing is to us,
and what dross we must want ere we enter into the kingdom of God? So
narrow is the entry to heaven, that our knots, our bunches and lumps of
pride, and self-love, and idol-love, and world-love, must be hammered
off us, that we may thring in, stooping low, and creeping through that
narrow and thorny entry.
And now for myself, I find it the most sweet and heavenly life to
take up house and dwelling at Christ's fireside, and set down my tent
upon Christ, that Foundationstone, who is sure and faithful ground and
hard under foot. I thank God that God is God, and Christ is Christ, and
the earth the earth, and the devil the devil, and the world the world,
and that sin is sin, and that everything is what it is; because He has
taught me in my wilderness not to shuffle my Lord Jesus, nor to
intermix Him with creature-vanities, nor to spin or twine Christ or His
sweet love in one web, or in one thread, with the world and the things
thereof. Oh, if I could hold and keep Christ all alone, and mix Him
with nothing! Oh, if I could cry down the price and weight of my cursed
self, and cry up the price of Christ, and double, and triple, and
augment, and heighten to millions the price and worth of Christ. But we
are still ill scholars, and will go in at heaven's gates wanting the
half of our lesson; and shall still be bairns, so long as we are under
time's hands, and till eternity cause a sun to arise in our souls that
shall give us wit. We may see how we spill and mar our own fair heaven
and our salvation, and how Christ is every day putting in one bone or
other, in these fallen souls of ours, in the right place again; and
that on this side of the New Jerusalem, we shall still have need of
forgiving and healing grace. I find crosses Christ's carved work that
He markets out for us, and that with crosses He figureth and portrayeth
us to His own image, cutting away pieces of our ill and corruption.
Lord cut, Lord carve, Lord wound, Lord do anything that may perfect Thy
Father's image in us, and make us meet for glory.
Pray for me (I forget you not) that our Lord would be pleased to lend
me house-room to preach His righteousness, and tell what I have heard
and seen of Him. Forget not Zion that is now in Christ's caums, and in
His forge. God bring her out new work. Grace, grace be with you.
ABERDEEN, Jan 4, 1638
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Rutherford was also known for his spiritual and devotional works, such as Christ Dying and drawing Sinners to Himself and his Letters. Concerning his Letters, Charles Spurgeon wrote: "When we are dead and gone let the world know that Spurgeon held Rutherford's Letters to be the nearest thing to inspiration which can be found in all the writings of mere men". Published versions of the Letters contain 365 letters and fit well with reading one per day.
Rutherford was a strong supporter of the divine right of Presbytery, the principle that the Bible calls for Presbyterian church government. Among his polemical works are Due Right of Presbyteries (1644), Lex, Rex (1644), and Free Disputation against Pretended Liberty of Conscience.
Samuel Rutherford was a Scottish Presbyterian theologian and author. He was one of the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly.
Born in the village of Nisbet, Roxburghshire, Rutherford was educated at Edinburgh University, where he became in 1623 Regent of Humanity (Professor of Latin). In 1627 he was settled as minister of Anwoth in Galloway, from where he was banished to Aberdeen for nonconformity. His patron in Galloway was John Gordon, 1st Viscount of Kenmure. On the re-establishment of Presbytery in 1638 he was made Professor of Divinity at St. Andrews, and in 1651 Rector of St. Mary's College there. At the Restoration he was deprived of all his offices.
Rutherford's political book Lex, Rex (meaning "the law [and] the king" or "the law [is] king") presented a theory of limited government and constitutionalism. It was an explicit refutation of the doctrine of "Rex Lex" or "the king is the law." Rutherford was also known for his spiritual and devotional works, such as Christ Dying and drawing Sinners to Himself and his Letters.