MADAM, -- Grace, mercy and peace be to you. I received your Ladyship's
letter. It refreshed me in my heaviness. The blessing and prayer of a
prisoner of Christ come upon you. Nothing grieveth me but that I eat my
feasts my lone, and that I cannot edify His saints. My silence eats me
up, but He has told me He thanketh me no less than if I were preaching
daily.
Your Ladyship wrote to me that ye are yet an ill scholar. Madam, ye
must go in at heaven's gates, and your book in your hand, still
learning. You have had your own large share of troubles, and a double
portion; but it saith your Father counteth you not a bastard;
full-begotten bairns are nurtured (Heb. 12.8). I long to hear of the
child. I write the blessings of Christ's prisoner and the mercies of
God to him.
Madam, it is not long since I did write to your Ladyship that Christ
is keeping mercy for you; and I bide by it still, and now I write it
under my hand. Love Him dearly. Win in to see Him; there is in Him that
which you never saw. He is aye nigh; He is a tree of life, green and
blossoming, both summer and winter. There is a nick in Christianity, to
the which whosoever cometh, they see and feel more than others can do.
Now the blessing of our dearest Lord Jesus, and the blessing of him
that is 'separate from his brethren', come upon you.
Yours, at Aberdeen, the prisoner of Christ.
ABERDEEN
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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.