At the time of this letter the Presbyterian Church of Ireland was in
a very depressed condition. In 1632, as we have seen, Robert Blair and
other ministers were deposed for nonconformity. In the autumn of 1636
the same thing happened to five more. All were obliged to leave the
country. In consequence the Church was deprived of many of its best
ministers. Rutherford's letter was intended to confirm them in
adherence to the cause for which they and their ministers were
suffering.
DEARLY BELOVED IN THE LORD, AND PARTAKERS OF THE HEAVENLY CALLING.-
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you, from God our Father and from our
Lord Jesus Christ.
I always, but most of all now in my bonds (most sweet bonds for
Christ my Lord) rejoice to hear of your faith and love; and that
persecutions and dockings of sinners have not chased away the Wooer
from the house. I persuade you in the Lord that the men of God, now
scattered and driven from you, put you upon the right scent and pursuit
of Christ; and my salvation on it (if ten heavens were mine) if this
way, this way that I now suffer for, this way that the world nicknameth
and reproacheth, and no other way, be not the King's gate to heaven.
And I shall never see God's face (and, alas, I were a beguiled wretch
if it were so!) if this be not the only saving way to heaven. Oh that
you would take a prisoner for Christ's word for it (nay, I know you
have the greatest King's word for it), that it shall not be your wisdom
to speer out another Christ, or another way of worshipping Him, than is
now savingly revealed to you. Therefore, though I never saw your faces,
let me be pardoned to write to you, if possibly I could, by any weak
experience, confirm and strengthen you in this good way, everywhere
spoken against. I can with the greatest assurance (to the honor of our
highest, and greatest, and dearest Lord, let it be spoken!) assert
(though I be but a child in Christ, and scarce able to walk but by a
hold, and the meanest, and less than the least of saints), that we do
not come nigh, by twenty degrees, to the due love and estimation of
that fairest among the sons of men. Therefore, faint not in your
sufferings and hazards for Him. Where can we find a match to Christ, or
an equal, or a better than He, among created things? Oh this world is
out of all conceit, and all love, with our Well-beloved. Oh that I
could sell my laughter, joy, ease, and all for Him, and be content with
a straw bed, and bread by weight, and water by measure, in the camp of
our weeping Christ! I know that His sackcloth and ashes are better than
the fool's laughter, which is like the crackling of thorns under a pot.
But, alas! we do not harden our faces against the cold north storms
which blow upon Christ's fair face. We love well summer-religion, and
to be that which sin has made us, even as thin-skinned as if we were
made of white paper; and would fain be carried to heaven in a
close-covered chariot, wishing from our hearts that Christ would give
us surety, and His handwrite, and His seal, or nothing but a fair
summer until we be landed in at heaven's gates!
How many of us have been here deceived, and have fainted in the day
of trial! Amongst you there are some of this stamp. I shall be sorry if
my acquaintance A.T. has left you: I will not believe that he dare to
stay away from Christ's side. I desire that ye show him this from me;
for I loved him once in Christ, neither can I change my mind suddenly
of him. But the truth is, that many of you, and too many also of your
neighbor Church of Scotland, have been like a tenant that sitteth
mail-free and knoweth not his holding whill his rights be questioned.
And now I am persuaded, that it will be asked at every one of us, on
what terms we brook Christ; for we have sitten long mail-free.
Many take but half a grip of Christ, and the wind bloweth them and
Christ asunder. Indeed, when the mast is broken and blown into the sea,
it is an art then to swim upon Christ to dry land. It is even possible
that the children of God, in a hard trial, lay themselves down as
hidden in the lee-side of a bush whill Christ their Master be taken, as
Peter did; and lurk there, whill the storm be over-past. All of us know
the way to a whole skin; and the singlest heart that is has a by-purse
that will contain the denial of Christ, and a fearful backsliding. Oh,
how rare a thing it is to be loyal and honest to Christ, when He has a
controversy with the shields of the earth! I wish all of you would
consider, that this trial is from Christ; it is come upon you unbought.
Do not now joule, or bow, or yield to your adversaries in a
hair-breadth. Christ and His truth will not divide; and His truth has
not latitude and breadth, that ye may take some of it and leave other
some of it. It is not possible to twist and compound a matter betwixt
Christ and Antichrist; and, therefore, ye must either be for Christ, or
ye must be against Him. I know and am persuaded that Christ shall again
be high and great in this poor, withered and sun-burnt Kirk of
Scotland; and that the sparks of our fire shall fly over the sea and
round about to warm you and other sister churches; and that this
tabernacle of David's house, that is fallen, even the Son of David's
waste places, shall be built again. And I know the prison, crosses,
persecutions and trials of the two slain witnesses that are now dead
and buried (Rev. 11.9) and of the faithful professors, have a back-door
and back-entry of escape; and that death and hell and the world and the
tortures shall all cleave and split in twain, and give us free passage
and liberty to go through toll-free: and we shall bring all God's good
metal out of the furnace again, and leave behind us but our dross and
scum. We may then beforehand proclaim Christ to be victorious. He is
crowned King of Mount Zion: God did put the crown upon His head (Ps.
2.6; 21.3) and who dare take it off again?
Two special things ye are to mind: First, try and make sure your
profession; that ye carry not empty lamps. Alas! security, security is
the bane and wrack of the most part of the world. Oh how many
professors go with a golden lustre, and are gold-like before men (who
are but witnesses to our white skin) and yet are but bastard and base
metal! False under water, not seen, is dangerous, and that is a leak
and rift in the bottom of an enlightened conscience; often failing and
sinning against light. Woe is me that the holy profession of Christ is
made a stage garment by many, to bring home a vain fame, and Christ is
made to serve men's ends.
Know, secondly, except men martyr and slay the body of sin in
sanctified self-denial, they shall never be Christ's martyrs and
faithful witnesses. Oh if I could be master of that house-idol myself,
my own mind, my own will, wit, credit, and ease, how blessed were I!
Oh, but we have need to be redeemed from ourselves, rather than from
the devil and the world! O wretched idol, myself! when shall I see thee
wholly decourted, and Christ wholly put in thy room? Oh, if Christ,
Christ had the full place and room of myself, that all my aims,
purposes, thoughts, and desires would coast and land upon Christ, and
not upon myself! And howbeit we cannot attain to this denial of me and
mine, that we can say, 'I am not myself, myself is not myself, mine own
is no longer mine own', yet our aiming at this in all we do shall be
accepted: for alas! I think I shall die but minting and aiming to be a
Christian. Is it not our comfort, that Christ, the Mediator of the New
Covenant, is come betwixt us and God in the business, so that green and
young heirs, the like of sinners, have now a Tutor that is God! And
now, God be thanked, our salvation is bottomed on Christ. Sure I am,
the bottom shall never fall out of heaven and happiness to us. I would
give over the bargain a thousand times, were it not that Christ's free
grace has taken our salvation in hand.
Pray, pray and contend with the Lord, for your sister church; for it
would appear that the Lord is about to speer for His scattered sheep,
in the dark and cloudy day. Oh that it would please our Lord to set up
again David's old wasted and fallen tabernacle in Scotland, that we
might see the glory of the second temple in this land! And, howbeit He
has caused the blossom to fall off my one poor joy, that was on this
side of heaven, even my liberty to preach Christ to His people, yet I
am dead to that now, so that He would hew and carve glory, glory for
evermore, to my royal King out of my silence and sufferings.
I entreat you earnestly for the aid of your prayers, for I forget not
you; and I salute, with my soul in Christ, the faithful pastors, and
honorable and worthy professors in that land. Now the God of peace,
that brought again our Lord Jesus from the dead, the great Shepherd of
the sheep, by the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect
in every good work, to do His will, working in you that which is
well-pleasing in His sight. Grace, grace be with you.
ABERDEEN, Feb. 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.