Robert Brown of Carsluth owned considerable property in Galloway.
WORTHY SIR, -- I beseech you in the Lord to give your soul no rest till
ye have real assurance, and Christ's rights confirmed and sealed to
your soul. Take pains for your salvation; for in that day when ye shall
see many men's labours and conquests and idol-riches lying in ashes,
when the earth and all the works thereof shall be burnt with fire, oh
how dear a price would your soul give for God's favor in Christ! It
will not be time to cry for a lamp when the Bridegroom is entered into
His chamber and the door shut. Look into those depths (without a
bottom) of loveliness, sweetness, beauty, excellency, glory, goodness,
grace, and mercy, that are in Christ; and ye shall then cry down the
whole world, and all the glory of it, even when it is come to the
summer-bloom; and ye shall cry, 'Up with Christ, up with Christ's
Father, up with eternity of glory!' Sir, there is a great deal less
sand in your glass than when I saw you, and your afternoon is nearer
even-tide now than it was. As a flood carried back to the sea, so does
the Lord's swift post, Time, carry you and your life with wings to the
grave. Ye eat and drink, but time standeth not still; ye laugh, but
your day fleeth away; ye sleep, but your hours are reckoned and put by
hand. Oh how soon will time shut you out of the poor, and cold, and
hungry inn of this life! And then what will yesterday's short-born
pleasures do to you, but be as a snow-ball melted away many years
since? O blessed conquest, to lose all things, and to gain Christ! I
know not what ye have, if ye want Christ! Alas! How poor is your gain,
if the earth were all yours in free heritage, holding it of no man of
clay, if Christ be not yours!
I recommend Christ and His love to your seeking; and yourself to the
tender mercy and rich grace of our Lord. Remember my love in Christ to
your wife. I desire her to learn to make her soul's anchor fast upon
Christ Himself. Few are saved.
Your soul's eternal well-wisher.
ABERDEEN, 1637
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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.