[0:00] Well, Samuel Rutherford, I'll work on the assumption that you don't know very much about Samuel Rutherford.
[0:16] ! If you do, then I apologise. I'll aim to speak for just 20 minutes extemporary on the life of Rutherford, and then give you a flavour of his letters.
[0:32] There are 365 extant letters, easy to remember, a number of days in the year. But one of my students last year in Edinburgh discovered 50 as yet unpublished letters of Rutherford.
[0:46] So that takes to over 400. Where were they? In the bowels of New College Library, Faculty of Divinity, where I studied memory.
[1:02] Samuel Rutherford, born in the year 1600, died in the year 1661. He called himself a man of extremes.
[1:14] Extreme internally and extreme externally. Internally, because he could be wonderfully seraphic and pious and devotional, as many of his letters show us.
[1:32] But at the same time, he could be abstrusely theological. There are as yet maybe another eight, nine volumes of Rutherford's theological, philosophical Latin works that have not been translated into English.
[1:48] He's equally at home in scholastic, philosophical, Latin theology. As he is in writing these remarkable, many stunning letters to bereaved mothers.
[2:02] And to men and women struggling with all kinds of difficulties and trials and temptations. So internally, he was seraphic and devotional and godly.
[2:17] But at the same time, densely philosophical and scholastic. He was an unreconstructed supralapsarian, if you know what that means. But externally, too, in terms of church life, he could alternate between being committedly Catholic-spirited.
[2:38] He longed for unity in the cause of Jesus Christ. But at the same time, he was partly responsible for tearing the Church of Scotland asunder by his views.
[2:56] Views which I probably agree with, but the way in which he held them were often bitter and acrimonious. He ended up refusing to come to the same Lord's table as his one-time close and devoted friend, David Dixon.
[3:13] So he was a man of contradictions. He was born in the year 1600 into the Church of Scotland, which was the only face of Jesus Christ in the land.
[3:27] He was born into a church that Rutherford called My Harlot Mother. He said, the Church of Scotland is a whore, but she's my whore. And it was unthinkable that you could secede.
[3:45] That wouldn't be something that would have computed in Rutherford's mind, or anyone's mind for that matter. There was the Church of Scotland, and that was it.
[3:56] So the heady days of the Scottish Reformation of 1560 were 40 years in the past. And during those 40 years, the Reformed Church had initially made great strides.
[4:11] But then John Knox dies in 1572. And James VI, who in 1603 becomes James I of the United Kingdom.
[4:24] Elizabeth dies. You know Elizabeth I dies in 1603. And James VI of Scotland becomes the monarch of the United Kingdom.
[4:34] And James hates Presbyterianism. Why? Well, for two reasons. He believed in the divine right of kings.
[4:46] And Presbyterianism agreed as much with the divine right of kings as the devil did. You can control and manipulate archbishops and bishops, but these pesky Presbyterians, they believe in something called incipient democracy.
[5:09] And so James sought through Kingcraft, really, to impose Episcopal government on the Scottish Church. And by a carrot and stick approach, he basically did that.
[5:25] And so when James dies in 1625, the Church of Scotland is governed by bishops.
[5:38] Rutherford was born in 1600. He's a prodigious young man. He goes to university in Edinburgh. He excels in classics in Latin and Greek.
[5:50] At the age of 23, he's appointed a professor. But then he's dismissed in 1625. He's dismissed, and the records of the town council in Edinburgh say he was dismissed for fornication.
[6:09] With a woman who later became his wife, Euphemia. But there's a problem, I think. Now, the Bible never whitewashes its heroes.
[6:22] Never. In fact, there are times you read the Bible, you want to say, Lord, did we need to know about that in such graphic detail? Yes, you do. I'm not trying to whitewash Rutherford.
[6:32] But there's a problem here. Because about a year or so later, Rutherford is inducted to the charge of Anwath by the Solway.
[6:44] Now, it's unthinkable that within a year of being charged with fornication, that he would have been installed in a congregation in the Church of Scotland.
[6:57] But David Wright, the eminent professor of ecclesiastical history at Edinburgh University, he actually believes that Rutherford's opposition to episcopacy was behind this charge.
[7:14] That there were men who were out to get Rutherford by hook or by crook. Now, we don't really know, but 1625, he's dismissed.
[7:27] 1626, he goes to the church that he is always associated with, Anwath by the Solway, southwest of Scotland.
[7:40] He's there from 1626 to 1636. Interestingly, Rutherford is installed into the church, now notice this phrase, without giving engagement to the bishop.
[7:55] Which means that Rutherford refuses episcopal ordination. He will not, he's a de juri divino presbyterian, a divine right presbyterian.
[8:09] That's what the Bible teaches, episcopacy is of the devil. Because episcopacy isn't just a church government. It's hand in glove with a king who is out to dominate the life of the church.
[8:26] So it's political as well as ecclesiastical. Rutherford refuses to give engagement to the bishop. And some bishops were very compliant. They didn't want trouble, they didn't want fuss, and his bishop just turned a blind eye.
[8:39] And so Rutherford begins in Anwath, and he begins to write his letters. 1636, a new bishop is appointed, Thomas Sitzer.
[8:55] And he is of a different cut from the previous compliant bishop. He insists that Rutherford submit to episcopal authority.
[9:08] Rutherford refuses, and he's exiled to Aberdeen. To Aberdeen in the northeast of Scotland. It was an episcopal stronghold. And for the next two years, Rutherford is in exile.
[9:23] And during those two years of exile, he writes 220 of his 365 extant letters. So what Satan intended for evil, God in his mercy and grace turned for good.
[9:41] 1638, everything changes. Charles I tries to impose a liturgical prayer book on the Scottish church.
[9:51] And there's rebellion. The Scots have had enough. And the National Covenant is signed by nobles and commoners alike. Charles finds himself at the same time embroiled with difficulties in the English Parliament in Westminster.
[10:12] And the long and the short of it is that the Scots join up with the parliamentarians in opposition to Charles. Rutherford leaves his exile in Aberdeen.
[10:27] Returns to Anwath for a year. And then the newly reconstituted Presbyterian Church, having thrown off the shackles of episcopacy, appoint Rutherford to be professor of theology at St. Andrews.
[10:44] From 1643 to 1647, Rutherford is one of the six non-voting Scottish commissioners at the Westminster Assembly.
[11:00] Why non-voting? Because they belong to the General Assembly. And they will not acknowledge any superior judicatory above the General Assembly.
[11:14] They are answerable to the General Assembly in Edinburgh, not to any other body. But Rutherford has a significant influence during those four years.
[11:25] He only returns to Scotland twice. And during those four years, he's very much involved in the cut and thrust, the debates of the Westminster Assembly.
[11:37] Robert Bailey, the great commissioner who had a journal whereby he recounted, as much as he was able to, the events of the Assembly, said, No gathering of divines were in greater need of a presbytery than that of Westminster.
[12:02] And Master Rutherford was God's answer to the need of the hour. Rutherford could be dogmatic, acerbic, generous, warm-hearted, engaging.
[12:22] Richard Baxter said of Samuel Rutherford's letters later, Hold off the Bible. No book is of greater spiritual value than Mr. Rutherford's letters.
[12:39] But his work on Arminianism is the worst book ever published. John Milton said of Samuel Rutherford, New Presbyter is Old Priest Ripped Large.
[12:54] These pesky Scots, they want to impose Presbyterianism. They were divine right Presbyterians. They believed the Bible taught Presbyterian church government.
[13:04] Government by presbyters and by presbyteries. And they were not for accommodating anything less. Rutherford returns to Scotland.
[13:18] His first wife had died prior to going to the Assembly. His two children had died. He married again. Had two children. They died.
[13:29] He wrote a letter to a lady he knew whose child had died. And he sympathised with her. He said, Madam, God may pluck his roses when he will.
[13:45] Often times in the full bloom of summer. But sometimes, even the summer begins. Rutherford returns to Scotland.
[13:56] He becomes principal of the Theological College in St. Andrews. And at the end of the 1640s, you'll remember those were turbulent times in England.
[14:11] Charles I has been imprisoned. 1649 he's executed. And for the Scots, this was a bridge too far. The Scots were against the imposition of episcopacy.
[14:22] That Charles, through Archbishop Laud, was seeking to impose on the Scottish Church. But the thought of killing a king regicide. Plus, the English.
[14:35] Cromwell, they were independents. And for the Scots, that was tantamount to anarchy. Theological anarchy. And societal anarchy.
[14:45] You see, everything was intermeshed. There wasn't the church and society. It was all of a piece. It was holistic. So, yeah.
[14:56] Like at the Reformation. Anabaptists. They shouldn't really call them. But Baptists. You know, Zwingli wickedly drowned some of them. But what you need to understand is, he didn't drown them.
[15:09] Because they were Baptists. But because he sought, he thought that they were undermining the cohesion of the social fabric.
[15:20] Many of them were anarchists. So, you know, society is very mixed up. It's enmeshed. It's intermeshed. But for the Scots, killing a king.
[15:33] And so what the Scots, at least some of the nobles did, was to do something that was unthinkable, I think, looking back.
[15:45] They entered into an engagement with the son, who would later become Charles II. In 1660, Charles II is crowned.
[15:55] But in 1649, after Charles I was executed, the Scottish nobles, some of them, entered into an engagement with the man who would become Charles II.
[16:09] Charles II, who would be promised he would support the National Covenant, support the Solemn League and Covenant, stand by Presbyterianism, subscribe the Westminster Standards.
[16:22] Never in a million years would he do that. But the Scots somehow took him at his word. They were crazy. But what happened was it divided the Scottish church into engagers, those who would engage with Charles, or resolutioners, and those who were protesters.
[16:50] And Rutherford was a protester. So the Scottish covenanting movement, covenanting church, was split asunder. And was therefore ill-prepared to confront Cromwell, who came north in 1650 and smashed the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar.
[17:08] And were ill-prepared to confront Cromwell.
[17:38] And the Scottish covenanting, whose name escapes me, from London. And has him debate church government with the Scottish church in Glasgow.
[17:51] And the Englishman, the independent, makes his case eruditely.
[18:02] And the Scottish commissioners have noticed a young minister, aged 27, I think, called Hugh Binning, writing all the time that the English independent theologian has been speaking.
[18:18] And so one of them says, Brother Binning, stand and defend the cause of Christ and his Kirk.
[18:28] And Hugh Binning stands. And by all accounts, I'm a little biased, but by all accounts, he slays the arguments of the English independent.
[18:43] And Cromwell is watching and listening. And two things happen at the end of the debate. Cromwell stands and says, Master Binning hath bound well, that my sword shall bind better.
[19:01] And then after the debate, someone picks up the piece of paper that Binning had been writing. And there were two words in Latin.
[19:17] They wrote in Latin. Again and again and again. Only two words. Lord, give light. Deus Lumina. Lord, give light.
[19:27] Lord. I don't know how many times he said, Lord. And they thought he'd been writing notes. Lord, give light. Give light. Throughout the 1650s, the Scottish church is divided between the Engators and the protesters.
[19:46] Brotherford writes, continues his letters, not as many. The 220 written in the two-year period, 1636-38.
[19:57] And then the remainder, in the years following. He wrote the most trenchant treatise against the divine right of kings called Lex Rex.
[20:14] Law is king. That monarchs have a position only by virtue of the people. They do not reign by divine right.
[20:28] But by the will of the people. And the people can overthrow tyrants. And he wrote many other theological and devotional works.
[20:39] Charles II comes to the throne in 1660. And Rutherford's days are numbered. The following year, he summoned to Edinburgh, where he would be executed.
[20:52] But when the summons came, and they had been publicly burning Rutherford's books at the command of the king. How quickly things can change.
[21:07] And as Rutherford lay dying, he received the summons to go to Edinburgh. And he said, ere this day ends, I will stand before a superior judge and superior judicatory.
[21:22] Where few great men and very few kings will ever come. And his last recorded words were, glory, glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's land.
[21:37] He dies, I think, March 21st, 1661. On the very day that the Act of Recissory was passed.
[21:50] Which annulled all the covenanting legislation in the previous 25 years. And so, March 1661, Rutherford goes to Emmanuel's land.
[22:05] Born 1660, dies 1661. For most Christians, Rutherford's legacy is a devotional legacy.
[22:17] I would guess that not many of you have read the trial and triumph of faith. Maybe one or two have. I doubt many of you have read his Latin aphorisms on Arminianism.
[22:29] Or Lex Rex, which is a very interesting title. It's got 144 words in the title. I gave a lecture last year for an hour on Lex Rex.
[22:40] But if you're not into constitutional church polity and ecclesiastical law. Someone once said, it's as exciting as reciting multiplication tables.
[22:54] That's a bit harsh. But Rutherford's legacy is really a devotional legacy. And his letters give the lie that Calvinism is cold or clinical.
[23:11] Whatever else, Samuel Rutherford's letters are. And he was an unreconstructed Calvinist. His letters are warm, evangelical, and deeply affectionate.
[23:26] And throughout his letters, a number of themes surface again and again and again. I want to just mention seven of them in the time left. And quote extensively from Rutherford's letters.
[23:41] Hopefully to make you think, goodness, I'm going to go away and buy a number of copies from the banner of Truth First. Let me mention seven.
[23:53] Number one. Rutherford's letters are supremely Christocentric. Jesus Christ is everything to Samuel Rutherford.
[24:05] Listen to this letter to David Dixon, whom he later would not even sit down with at the Lord's table. 1637. My sorrow is that I cannot get Christ lifted off the dust in Scotland and set on high above all the skies and heaven of heavens.
[24:29] Give Christ your virgin love. You cannot put your loving heart into a better hand. Oh, if ye knew him and saw his beauty, your love, your liking, your heart, your desires would close with him and cleave to him.
[24:45] Oh, fair sun and fair moon and fair stars and fair flowers and fair roses and fair lilies and fair creatures.
[24:57] But oh, ten thousand, thousand times fairer, Lord Jesus. Another letter, the same time, he wrote, Christ is a well of life, but who knoweth how deep it is to the bottom?
[25:15] And oh, what a fair one. And oh, what a fair one. What an only one. What an excellent, lovely, ravishing one is Jesus. Put the beauty of ten thousand, thousand worlds of paradises into one.
[25:31] It would be less to that fair and well beloved Christ. The majesty and loveliness of Jesus Christ is the outstanding theme of his letters.
[25:50] When you read Samuel Rutherford, you think you're reading the Song of Songs. Only Rutherford can be a little more erotic, actually, than the Song of Songs.
[26:01] Some of his letters, you think, oh my, I'm not going to read that to my children. But he's simply reflecting the ardency and the passion that perhaps, maybe it says more about me and my age, we feel something of an existential distance from that passion and that ardency.
[26:29] Another letter. Oh, but Christ is heaven's wonder and earth's wonder. What marvel that his bride saith he is altogether loving.
[26:42] Oh, pity forevermore that there should be such a one as Christ Jesus, so boundless, so bottomless, and so incomparable in infinite excellency and sweetness, and so few to take him.
[27:06] The Lord Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came, he would come to bring glory to me. And that's what Rutherford is doing in many of his letters.
[27:16] He's seeking to show troubled, discouraged, disheartened, perplexed, bereaved saints the loveliness of their Saviour.
[27:30] He wants to minister to them in their struggles and sufferings and trials and troubles, but he sees that the best and most significant way to do that is to help them to see how incomparably glorious and desirable their Saviour is.
[27:55] He has this conviction that if you love Christ better, you will cope with struggles and trials better.
[28:06] Secondly, Rutherford's letters reveal a deep concern for the souls of his people. He saw people very much in the light of eternity.
[28:21] He had a passionate care for their eternal well-being. And that, of course, wasn't simply a mark of Rutherford's life. It was a predominating mark in Puritan piety as a whole.
[28:36] He wrote to Gordon of Cardinus. And when you get a name like Gordon of Cardinus, that means he's a laird. He belongs to the landed gentry.
[28:47] Thoughts of your soul depart not from me in my sleep. Oh, if I could buy your soul salvation with any suffering whatsoever, that ye and I might meet with joy up in the rainbow, when we shall stand before our judge.
[29:07] That's just beautiful. We shall meet before the rainbow. He wrote to one of his parishioners early on in his time in Anwath, my witnesses above.
[29:20] Your heaven would be two heavens to me, and your salvation two salvationists. Rutherford was passionate about the eternal well-being of his parishioners.
[29:41] One of the hallmarks of men like Rutherford, Thomas Boston was another generation on, they visited assiduously. One contemporary of Rutherford, somewhat eulogistically, I think, when you read it, says, Mr. Rutherford seems always to be preaching, always to be praying, always to be catechizing, always to be writing, always to be visitor.
[30:14] Thirdly, Rutherford's letters reveal a deep sense of the sinfulness of sin. Rutherford was deeply conscious of what he called my abominable vileness.
[30:33] He wrote, only my loathsome wretchedness and my wants have qualified me for Christ. It's interesting that Rutherford, very like Calvin, almost never speaks of his conversion.
[30:49] In fact, in the 365 letters, and in the 12 or 13 volumes of his works in English and Latin, there's only two little references that refer to his conversion.
[31:09] he wrote in 1636, to, I forget who, it might be Gordon or Cardenas again, he wrote, you came to Christ when the sun was beginning to rise.
[31:28] Fool as I was, I did not come till the sun was at its height. And you're left wondering, 1636, well he's 36 at that time.
[31:39] He's been in Anglots since 1626. He's dismissed from Edinburgh the previous year for this so-called charge of fornication. And in another letter, actually, to a lady, he says, 1636, these 16 years I have sought to be faithful to my covenant king.
[32:02] So, it would seem about the year 1620, when he's studying at Edinburgh University, perhaps he's beginning to transition into being a professor of classics, that Rutherford comes to faith.
[32:19] He almost, because how someone is converted wasn't a big deal for actually the reformers of the Puritans. What was a big deal that you were converted?
[32:33] Whether you came quietly, suddenly, dramatically, whether you were regenerate in your mother's womb, or whatever it may be, the significant thing was, where does your hope lie?
[32:47] Where is your trust now? Does your life show that you have closed with Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ? It troubled Rutherford very deeply, actually, that someone who speaks about his abominable vileness and loathsome wretchedness, that he should be admired as a master of the spiritual life.
[33:11] He knew what people said about him. He wasn't stupid. But I think the truth, surely, is that only those who have such a deep, spirit-persuaded sense of their own sinfulness before God can be effective ministers of God's truth to other people.
[33:33] only someone who knows in measure at least their own heart before God can begin to understand someone else's heart.
[33:48] And I think that's part of the appeal of Rutherford's letters, because when you read them, you're aware you're in the presence of someone who has a spirituality that humbles you and makes you think, goodness me, he's living in a plane far above me.
[34:08] But then, as you read, you begin to realize, you know, he's just like me. A man of like passions. A man who is deeply aware of his own sinfulness.
[34:26] I think that's one of the big differences between men like Rutherford and so-called masters of the spiritual life today. Not many masters of the spiritual life speak about their abominable vileness or their loathsome wretchedness.
[34:45] Rutherford wrote, ye are as near heaven as ye are far from yourself. Isn't that true? You're as near heaven as you are far from yourself.
[34:55] Rutherford's piety, as puritan piety in general, it wasn't an expression of low self-esteem.
[35:08] I think people would say to Rutherford today, you know, get a life, you know, come on, you're not as bad as that. But I think it's because Rutherford lived so closely to the Lord Jesus Christ.
[35:27] the closer you get to the light, the more you see the darkness in your own heart. I quoted, I think, those words of Thomas Goodwin at the weekend, if thou wouldst know what sin is, go to Mount Calvary.
[35:45] It's face to face with our crucified and now risen Redeemer that we see and begin to sense our vileness.
[35:57] and say with Paul, O wretched man that I am. Yes, redeemed, forgiven, loved, cherished, bound for glory. But we're walking contradictions.
[36:12] We're walking contradictions. Number four, Rutherford's letters are full of counsel to afflicted saints. Tender compassion allied to strong counsel is one of the distinguishing features of Rutherford's letters.
[36:33] To Viscountess Kenmure, who was suffering from spiritual depression, Rutherford wrote, never believe that your tended hearted saviour, who knows the strength of your stomach, will mix that cup with one dram weight of poison.
[36:56] Drink then with the patience of the saints, and the God of patience bless your medicine. In another letter he wrote, our crosses are like puffs of wind to blow our ship home.
[37:13] They convey us to heaven's gate, but they cannot follow us into heaven. Rutherford wrote, not abstractly, he wrote out of deep personal sufferings and anguish.
[37:33] His first wife died, their two children died, he remarried, the two children he had by his second wife died, and his second wife suffered great mental turmoil.
[37:49] He wrote, my wife is so tormented night and day, that I have wondered why the Lord tarries so long. my life is bitter to me, it is hard to keep sight of God in a storm.
[38:09] I think that's why many people when they read Rutherford, they're taken out of their comfort zones by his glorying in Christ, but then they read this and they think, yeah, this man knows the human heart.
[38:32] He had a fellow feeling with afflicted Christians. A spiritual council was not formed in the study, it was forged in the sore trials that a sovereign and loving Lord brought into his life.
[38:48] life. And you know, that's a reminder to us. Do you think as Rutherford lost his first wife and lost their children, married again and then lost two more children, do you think Rutherford was saying that?
[39:06] God's going to use that to bless people throughout the centuries. I'm going to write letters and people are going to pass those letters on. Do you think he remotely thought that in 2019 in Ealing, some half-witted Scotsman would be talking to equally half-witted English folk and others.
[39:25] But, you see, God works all things together for good. Maybe, I don't know your trials tonight. I don't know your troubles.
[39:38] I've heard a little over the past ten or so days, some dear people in hospital going through sore and difficult times. God works all things for the good of those who love him.
[39:55] And, through your trials and troubles, who knows what blessing. I think that Jonathan Edwards said, heaven will be a world of revelations. There will be people coming up to us and saying, I need to tell you what God did through you.
[40:11] Maybe you've got a little taste of it just now. Occasionally, isn't the Lord just give us little glimpses, tokens of encouragement. You think, are you serious?
[40:26] Number five, Rutherford's letters reflect a biblical realism and spiritual sanity. I still remember the first time I heard and read these words.
[40:41] I find it most true, wrote Rutherford, that the greatest temptation out of hell is to live without temptations. If my waters would stand, they would rot.
[40:55] Faith is the better for the free air and the sharp winter storm in its face. Grace withereth without adversity. Rutherford understood that the life of faith, the authentic life of faith, was a life of adversity.
[41:18] In this world you will have tribulations. He was always counselling people to be realistic, not to buy into what was the equivalent in those days of the health, wealth, prosperity gospel.
[41:32] As it was with the master, so it will be with the master's servants. Some of you know of Amy Carmichael. You know Amy Carmichael? She wrote, do you know her poem, Hast thou no scar?
[41:47] Anyone know that poem? Hast thou no scar? No scar on hand or foot? or side? I hear thee sung as mighty in the land.
[41:59] I hear them hail thy bright ascendant star. Hast thou no scar? No wound, no scar? But as the master shall the servant be, and pierced are the feet that follow me.
[42:19] But thine are whole. Can he have followed far? Who has no wound, no scar? Brother Ford's letters reflect that biblical realism and spiritual sanity.
[42:39] Remember, people would come to Jesus and they would say, you know, master, I'll follow you wherever you go. Wonderful.
[42:50] join the bandwagon. Foxes and holes, birds of the air have nests, the son of man's got nowhere to lay his head.
[43:02] If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me. love. And Jesus wasn't saying, wasn't he, Luke 9, 23, isn't it?
[43:13] He wasn't saying, unless you take up your cross, that is to say, unless you're willing to endure the, you know, the troubles and the difficulties of life, he's saying, unless you're ready to die every day, you can't be my disciple.
[43:30] number six, Rutherford's letters are full of eagerness for heaven. Love, he wrote, is sick to hear tell of tomorrow.
[43:45] Oh, when will we meet? Oh, how long is it to the dawning of the marriage day? Oh, sweet Jesus, take wide steps. Oh, my Lord, come over the mountain at one's stride.
[44:01] Another letter, O fairest among sons of men, why stayest thou so long away? Oh, heaven, move fast. Oh, time, run, run, and hasten the marriage day.
[44:15] Rutherford once described himself as a man often born down and hungry, waiting for the marriage supper of the Lamb.
[44:29] there almost isn't a day I don't bewail and bemoan how earth-bound my Christian life is, how little I am taken up with the glory that lies before me, and that even now, because of my Lord Jesus Christ is mine.
[44:59] Some people will say, you know, they're too heavenly-minded to be of any earthly use. Well, you know what you mean by that, but actually the reverse is true. The more heavenly-minded you are, the more earthly-used you're going to be.
[45:15] As I said, Rutherford's piety was not even. He could be extraordinarily generous. He wrote in one letter, I judge that in England the Lord hath many names and a fair company that shall stand at the side of Christ when he shall render up the kingdom to the Father.
[45:37] And in that renowned nation there shall be men of all ranks, wise, valorous, generous, gracious, and learned. Now that's for a Scotsman, not very.
[45:49] It's very much an encomium of the English. But Rutherford could be a bitter controversialist. And I mentioned that the protesters, the resolutioners, or the engagers.
[46:05] But he wrote to Lady Ken Ewer, and this highlights the sense of contradiction in Rutherford. He called himself a man of extremes.
[46:18] He wrote to Lady Ken Ewer, We are now shouldering and casting down one another in the dark, and the godly are hidden from the godly.
[46:34] Let me read that again. We are now shouldering and casting down one another in the dark, and the godly are hidden from the godly.
[46:46] too often in Rutherford's days, as in our days, good men could not see beyond themselves and their own convictions.
[47:02] But at his best, Rutherford knew better. In a sermon to the House of Commons in 1644, he said, Will there be Presbyterians and independence in heaven?
[47:13] No. Why then do we have parties now? Now, Rutherford was a divine right Presbyterian.
[47:26] He wasn't saying, let's go into some kind of amorphous blanc-mange. At his best, he knew that God's people were to present to the world unity and peace and love and concord.
[47:51] But sometimes we just can't see beyond ourselves and our own convictions. John Owen wrote somewhere, I know he wrote this, so I remember it well, but I can't remember where he wrote it.
[48:07] He says, when someone you are disputing with disagrees with the conclusions you draw from his premises, believe him.
[48:20] I find that very hard. I tend to have quite a logical thought through mind. When someone you're disputing with disagrees with the conclusions that you're drawing from his premises, believe him.
[48:40] Rutherford was an extraordinary Christian. A devotional writer, powerful preacher, one English merchant visiting Scotland said, I came to Irvine and I heard a little man show me my heart.
[49:01] I came to Edinburgh and I heard another preacher and he showed me what it was to be a follower of Jesus Christ.
[49:14] And I came to St. Andrews and I heard Mr. Rutherford and he showed me the loveliness of Jesus Christ. Powerful preacher, passionate apologist, skilled dogmatician.
[49:31] But I suppose if we want to know what really made Rutherford tick, we should perhaps try to see him through the lens of his near dying words.
[49:44] Dear brethren, do all for him. Pray for Christ, preach for Christ, do all for Christ, beware of man-pleasing, the chief shepherd will shortly appear.
[50:06] He died March 1661 and went to Emmanuel's land. now, you may or may not have heard of you.