MUCH HONORED SIR, -- Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. -- I long to hear
how your soul prospereth. I have that confidence that your soul mindeth
Christ and salvation. I beseech you, in the Lord, to give more pains
and diligence to fetch heaven than the country-sort of lazy professors,
who think their own faith and their own godliness, because it is their
own, best; and content themselves with a cold rife custom and course,
with a resolution to summer and winter in that sort of profession which
the multitude and the times favor most; and are still shaping and
clipping and carving their faith, according as it may best stand with
their summer sun and a whole skin; and so breathe out hot and cold in
God's matters, according to the course of the times. This is their
compass which they sail towards heaven by, instead of a better. Worthy
and dear Sir, separate yourself from such, and bend yourself to the
utmost of your strength and breath, in running fast for salvation; and,
in taking Christ's kingdom, use violence. It cost Christ and all His
followers sharp showers and hot sweats, see they won to the top of the
mountain; but still our soft nature would have heaven coming to our
bedside when we are sleeping, and lying down with us that we might go
to heaven in warm clothes. But all that came there found wet feet by
the way, and sharp storms that did take the hide off their face, and
found tos and fros and ups and downs, and many enemies by the way.
It is impossible that a man can take his lusts to heaven with him;
such wares as these will not be welcome there. Oh, how loath are we to
forego our packalds and burdens, that hinder us to run our race with
patience! It is no small work to displease and anger nature, that we
may please God. Oh, if it be hard to win one foot, or half an inch, out
of our own will, out of our own wit, out of our own ease and worldly
lusts (and so to deny ourself, and to say, 'It is not I but Christ, not
I but grace, not I but God's glory, not I but God's love constraining
me, not I but the Lord's word, not I but Christ's commanding power as
King in me!'), oh, what pains, and what a death it is to nature, to
turn me, myself, my lust, my ease, my credit, over into, 'My Lord, my
Savior, my King, and my God, my Lord's will, my Lord's grace!' But,
alas! that idol, myself, is the master idol we all bow to. What made
Eve miscarry? And what hurried her headlong upon the forbidden fruit,
but that wretched thing herself? What drew that brother-murderer to
kill Abel? That wild himself. What drove the old world on to corrupt
their ways? Who, but themselves, and their own pleasure? What was the
cause of Solomon's falling into idolatry and multiplying of strange
wives? What, but himself, whom he would rather pleasure than God? What
was the hook that took David and snared him first in adultery, but his
self-lust? and then in murder, but his self-credit and self-honour?
What led Peter on to deny his Lord? Was it not a piece of himself, and
self-love to a whole skin? What made Judas sell his Master for thirty
pieces of money, but a piece of self-love, idolizing of avaricious
self? What made Demas to go off the way of the Gospel, to embrace this
present world? Even self-love and love of gain for himself. Every man
blameth the devil for his sins; but the great devil, the house-devil of
every man, that lieth and eateth in every man's bosom, is that idol
that killeth all, himself. Blessed are they who can deny themselves,
and put Christ in the room of themselves. O sweet word! (Gal. 2.1O) 'I
live no more, but Christ liveth in me!' Worthy Sir, pardon this my
freedom of love. God is my witness, that it is out of an earnest desire
after your soul's eternal welfare, that I use this freedom of speech.
Your sun, I know, is lower, and your sun-setting and evening sky
nearer, than when I saw you last: strive to end your task before night,
and to make Christ yourself, and to acquaint your heart and your love
with the Lord. Sir, I remember you in my prayers to the Lord, according
to my promise: help me with your prayers, that our Lord would be
pleased to bring me amongst you again, with the Gospel of Christ.
Grace, grace, be with you.
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.