SAMUEL RUTHERFORD, the author of the famous Letters, was born at the village of Nisbet in Roxburghshire in 1600, seven years after the birth of George Herbert, and eight years before that of John Milton, and was contemporary with Shakespeare. He was educated at Jedburgh, and entered Edinburgh University in 1617. There he took his degree of Master of Arts in 1621, and obtained the appointment of Professor of Humanity soon after. Little is known of him till, at the age of twenty-seven, he became minister of the small parish of Anwoth, on the Solway. Here he labored diligently for nine years, among a poor and ignorant people, ‘the whole country coming to him and accounting themselves as his particular flock’.
A contemporary minister said of him, ‘He seemed to be always praying, always visiting the sick, always catechizing, always writing and studying. He had two quick eyes, and when he walked it was observed that he held aye his face upward. He had a strange utterance in the pulpit—a kind of skreigh (screech) that I never heard the like. Many times I thought he would have flown out of the pulpit when he came to speak of Jesus Christ. He was never in his right element but when he was commending him.’
The oft-told story of the visit paid him by Archbishop Ussher belongs to this period of his life.
The Archbishop, when passing through Galloway, was anxious to meet with Rutherford, of whose piety he heard much, and better to accomplish this purpose, he appeared at the manse, on a Saturday evening, in the disguise of a mendicant. Mrs. Rutherford, according to custom, called the servants together for examination preparatory to the solemnities of the Sabbath, and the stranger took his place among them. In the course of examination he was asked, “How many commandments are there?” “Eleven”, was the reply. On receiving this answer, the good lady replied, “What a shame is it for you, a man with gray hairs, in a Christian country, not to know how many commandments there are! There is not a child of six years old in the parish but could answer this question properly.” She troubled the poor man no more, thinking him so very ignorant, but lamented his condition to the servants, and after giving him some supper, desired a servant to show him upstairs to a bed in the garret.
‘Rutherford repaired early in the morning, as usual, to a favorite walk near the manse for meditation, and was startled on hearing the voice of prayer, proceeding from a thicket, earnestly imploring a blessing on behalf of the people that day to assemble. Rutherford began to think that he had ‘entertained angels unawares’. An explanation followed, and Rutherford requested him to preach that day to his people, which the Archbishop agreed to do, on condition that he would not discover him to any other. Mrs. Rutherford found that the poor man had gone away before any of the family were out of bed.
‘Rutherford presented him with a suit of his own clothes, and introduced him as a strange minister passing by, who had promised to preach for him. After domestic worship and breakfast the family went to church; and Ussher had for his text, John 13:3434A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. (John 13:34): “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.” In the course of his sermon, he observed that that might be reckoned the eleventh commandment, upon which Mrs. Rutherford said to herself, “That is the answer the poor man gave me last night”; and looking up to the pulpit said, “It cannot be possible that this is he!”
‘He returned with Rutherford to the manse, and the evening was spent together with mutual pleasure and profit.’
In July 1636 Rutherford was summoned to appear before the High Commission Court to answer for his Nonconformity to the Acts of Episcopacy, and also on account of his treatise against the Arminians; and as a consequence was forbidden to exercise his ministry anywhere in the kingdom of Scotland, and to confine himself to the city of Aberdeen. It was while confined to this place that the greater portion of his Letters were written. Richard Baxter’s opinion of them is well worth quoting: ‘Hold off the Bible; such a book the world never saw.’
In 1638 events had taken a more favorable turn for the cause of the Reformation in Scotland, and Rutherford returned to his people at Anwoth for a time; but in 1639 he was removed to the Professor’s Chair and made Principal of New College in St Andrews. At the same time he was colleague in the ministry with Mr Blair in that city. Of the fruit of his labors there McWard, his old editor, who knew him well says: ‘God did so singularly second his servant’s indefatigable pains, both in teaching in the school and preaching in the congregation, that it became forthwith a Lebanon out of which were taken cedars for building the house of the Lord through the whole land.’
An English merchant who heard him preach in St Andrews says, ‘I went to St Andrews, where I heard a sweet majestic-looking man [Blair], and he showed me the majesty of God. After him I heard a little fair man [Rutherford], and he showed me the loveliness of Christ.’
Rutherford was one of the commissioners sent up by the Church of Scotland to the Westminster Assembly in 1643, and he took a prominent part.
His celebrated work, Lex Rex, was so hate-fill to the Government that shortly before his death they ordered it to be burned in Edinburgh by the common hangman. When on his deathbed he was summoned to appear at Edinburgh on a charge of high treason, and had it been his Master’s will, he would joyfully have met a martyr’s death. On 20. March 1661, he entered into rest at St Andrews, and was buried there.
From a well-marked, much-loved copy of his Letters these selections have been made. Strong and quaint and bracing are the words of this saint of olden time, very unlike the feeble wails we often hear in these days. People seem now to consider it more than unfair to have to bear the weakest cross, and certainly not to ‘count it all joy’ with St James (James 1:22My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; (James 1:2)).
With prayer and hope this little book goes forth to carry the message which has come down to us through the centuries concerning ‘the loveliness of Christ’.
ELLEN S. LISTER 1909