MADAM, -- Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. It has seemed good (as I
hear) to Him, who has appointed bounds for the number of our months, to
gather in a sheaf of ripe corn (in the death of your Christian mother)
into His garner. She is now above the winter, with a little change of
place, not of a Savior; only she enjoyeth Him now without messages, and
in His own immediate presence, from whom she heard by letters and
messengers before.
I grant, death to her is a very new thing, but heaven was prepared of
old. And Christ (as enjoyed in His highest throne, and as loaded with
glory, and incomparably exalted above men and angels, having such a
heavenly circle of glorified spirits above, compassing the throne with
a song) is to her a new thing; but so new as the first summer rose, or
the first-fruits of that heavenly field, or as a new paradise to a
traveler, broken and worn out of breath with the sad occurrences of a
long and dirty way.
You easily judge, Madam, what a large recompense is made to all her
service, her walking with God, and her sorrows, with the first cast of
the soul's eye upon the shining and admirably beautiful face of the
Lamb, that is in the midst of that fair and white army that is there;
and with the first draught and taste of the fountain of life, fresh and
new at the well-head.
And now she sitteth for eternity mail-free, in a very considerable
land, which has more than four summers in the year. Oh, what
spring-time is there! Even the smelling of the odors of that great and
eternally blooming Rose of Sharon for ever and ever! What a singing
life is there! There is not a dumb bird in all that large field; but
all sing and breathe out heaven, joy, glory, dominion to the high
Prince of that new-found land. And, verily, the land is the sweeter
that Jesus Christ paid so dear a rent for it. And He is the glory of
the land: all which, I hope, does not so much mitigate and allay your
grief for her part (though truly this should seem sufficient), as the
unerring expectation of the dawning of that day upon yourself, and the
hope you have of the fruition of that same King and kingdom to your own
soul. Certainly the hope of it, when things look so dark-like on both
kingdoms, must be an exceedingly great quickening to languishing
spirits, who are far from home while we are here. What misery, to have
both a bad way all the day, and no hope of lodging at night! But He has
taken up your lodging for you.
I can say no more now; but I pray that the very God of peace may
establish your heart to the end.
LONDON, Feb. 24, 1646
Be the first to react on this!
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.