Ellis was an Irish Presbyterian serving as a captain in the Scottish
army.
WORTHY AND MUCH HONOURED IN OUR LORD, -- Grace, mercy, and peace be to
you.
1. I am glad of our more than paper acquaintance. Seeing we have one
Father, it reckoneth the less, though we never see one another's face.
I profess myself most unworthy to follow the camp of such a worthy and
renowned Captain as Christ.
2. As for our lovely and beloved church in Ireland, my heart bleedeth
for her desolation; but I believe that our Lord is only lopping the
vine-trees, but not intending to cut them down, or root them out. It is
but folly to measure the Gospel by summer or winter weather: the
summer-sun of the saints shineth not on them in this life. How should
we have complained, if the Lord had turned the same providence that we
now stomach at upside down, and had ordered matters thus, that first
the saints should have enjoyed heaven, glory, and ease, and then
Methuselah's days of sorrow and daily miseries? We would think a short
heaven no heaven. Certainly His ways pass finding out.
3. Ye complain of the evil of heart-atheism: but it is to a greater
atheist than any man can be, that ye write of that. Oh, light findeth
not that reverence and fear which a plant of God's setting should find
in our soul! How do we by nature, as others, detain and hold captive
the truth of God in unrighteousness, and so make God's light a bound
prisoner? Certainly there cometh great mist and clouds from the lower
part of our souls, our earthly affections, to the higher part, which is
our conscience, either natural or renewed: as smoke in a lower house
breaketh up, and defileth the house above. If we had more practice of
obedience, we should have more sound light. I think, lay aside all
other guiltiness, that this one, the violence done to God's candle in
our soul, were a sufficient ditty against us. There is no helping of
this but by striving to stand in awe of God's light. I see there is a
necessity that we protest against the doings of the Old Man, and raise
up a party against our worst half, to accuse, condemn, sentence, and
with sorrow bemoan, the dominion of sin's kingdom; and withal make law,
in the New Covenant, against our guiltiness. For Christ once condemned
sin in the flesh, and we are to condemn it over again. And if there had
not been such a thing as the grace of Jesus, I should have long since
given up with heaven, and with the expectation to see God. But grace,
grace, free grace, the merits of Christ for nothing, white and fair,
and large Saviour-mercy, have been, and must be, the rock that we
drowned souls must swim to. New washing, renewed application of
purchased redemption, by that sacred blood that sealeth the free
Covenant, is a thing of daily and hourly use to a poor sinner. And even
when we have won the castle, then must we eternally sing, 'Worthy,
worthy is the Lamb, who has saved us, and washed us in His own blood.'
ABERDEEN, Sept. 7, 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.