Letters of Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661), Letters of Samuel Rutherford
Reprint of the 1891 edition; Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 744 pgs.
Summary: The letters of the pious, devoted, lover of Christ, Samuel Rutherford. Rutherford was entranced by Christ and had a moral imagination capable of allowing him to exhaustively incorporate the language of the Song of Solomon to describe his devotion for Christ:
I would desire no more for my heaven beneath the moon, while I am sighing in this house of clay, but daily renewed feast of love with Christ, and liberty now and then to feed my hunger with a kiss of that fairest face. . . . have no other exercise than to lie on a love-bed with Christ, and fill this hungered and famished soul with kissing, embracing, and real enjoying of the Son of God (341-342).
Yet, the reader cannot be distracted either by our eroticized imaginations or Rutherford’s stretched allegories. He writes with devotional power:
“They lose nothing who gain Christ” (42).
“I have received many and divers dashes and heavy strokes since the Lord called me to the ministry; but indeed I esteem your departure from us the weightiest. But I perceive God will have us to be deprived of whatsoever we idolize, that He may have His own room. I see exceeding small fruit of my ministry, and would be glad to know of one soul to be my crown and rejoicing in the day of Christ” (43)
“[T]he King of kings also hath servants in His court that for the present get little or nothing but the heavy cross of Christ, troubles without and terrors within; but they live upon hope; and when it cometh to the parting of the inheritance, they remain in the house as heirs” (86).
“If contentment were here, heaven were not heaven. Whoever seek the world to be their bed, shall at best find it short, and ill-made, and a stone under their side to hold them waking, rather than a soft pillow to sleep upon” (129).
“Say, ‘I shall rather spill twenty prayers, than not to pray at all.’ Let my broken words go up to heaven: when they come up into the Great Angel’s golden censer, that compassionate Advocate will put together my broken prayers, and perfume them’” (590).
“I desire to desire, and purpose by strength from above, to own that cause. . . .” (686).
The letters essentially span the convulsions in Britain as the House of Stuart under Charles I (reigned 1625-1649) and Charles II attempted to establish an absolute monarchy in the face of popular uprisings, religious dissension, and common law.
The letters begin in the parish of Anwoth (1627), Scotland, continue into the years of exile as a “prisoner hope” in Aberdeen (1636-1638), his translation to professorship (1639) and principal at St. Andrews (1647), in London (1643) working on what will become the “Westminster Standards,” and then back to Scotland as the Proctorship collapses and Charles the II returns (1660). Rutherford was summoned back to London to stand trial for sedition by Charles, but died before his arrest (1661). His last words were, “Glory! Glory, dwellth in Emanuel’s land.”
Detriments/Benefits: Rutherford is an example, perhaps the best, of high Presbyterianism. He taught that the national church ought to be Presbyterian and that the government and its agents must submit to the Presbytery in areas of churchly authority (cf. review of Light in the North).
Further, Rutherford was a scholastic theologian and political theorist, writing Lex Rex for the secular realm, Plea for Presbytery for a national Presbyterianism, and A Free Disputation against the Pretended Liberty of Conscience, defending state persecution of non-Presbyterians.
Rutherford developed a hermeneutic of Scripture that essentially allowed Scotland to become an Israel, and Presbyterian pastors to become the prophets of Scotland. He freely appropriated Old Testament passages directly to Scotland without considering the differences between the old and new covenant. Such an interpretation allowed him to publicly desire and pray for God’s judgment on other born again Christians who disagreed with him on secondary matters (651), reprobate those who disagreed with him, and to command in contradiction to Scripture, “whosover would keep their garments clean are under that command, ‘Touch not, taste not, handle not’” (703). (Rutherford’s application of Colossians 2:21 is exactly opposite the Apostle Paul.)
The Banner of Truth reprint contains excellent notes by Andrew Bonar (1810-1892) and a glossary of Scottish and archaic terms (i.e. barins=children, horolouge=watch).
Having said so much, his letters are a balm and succor to my soul and the majority of Christians who have read them. The overheated language must not be allowed to mask his loyalty and fervency for Christ and a holiness of enormous depth and devotion. The Letters and their historical context are also a reminder of 1 John 4:11, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
Recommended for all.