Samuel Rutherford

Make meikle of assurance, for it keepeth your anchor fixed.

I hope, when a change cometh, to cast anchor at midnight upon the Rock which He hath taught me to know in this daylight; whither I may run, when I must say my lesson without book, and believe in the dark.

Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel's land!

This night will close the door, and fasten my anchor within the veil, and I shall go away to sleep.

This water was in your way to heaven, and written in your Lord's book; ye behoved to cross it: and therefore, kiss His wise and unerring providence. Let not the censures of men, who see but the outside of things (and sca…

I find it most true, that the greatest temptation out of hell, is to live without temptations; if my waters should stand, they would rot. Faith is the better of the free air, and of the sharp winter storm in its face. Gr…

Nevertheless, I think it the Lord's wise love that feeds us with hunger, and makes us fat with wants and desertion.

Ye will not get leave to steal quietly to heaven, in Christ's company, without a conflict and a cross. I find crosses Christ's carved work that He marketh out for us, and that with crosses He figureth and portrayeth us t…

The supreme and absolute Former of all things giveth not an account of any of His matters.

I am most gladly content that Christ breaketh all my idols in pieces: it hath put a new edge upon my blunted love to Christ. I see He is jealous of my love, and will have all to Himself.

Be content, ye are His wheat growing in our Lord's field. And if wheat, ye must go under our Lord's threshing instrument, in His barn-floor, and through His sieve, and through His mill to be bruised, as the Prince of you…

I find Christ to be Christ, and that He is far, far, even infinite heaven's height above man. And that is all our happiness. Sinners can do nothing but make wounds that Christ may heal them; and make debts, that He may p…

Ye would not go to heaven but with company, and ye may perceive that the way of those who went before you was through blood, suffering, and many afflictions; nay, Christ, the Captain, went in over the door-threshold of p…

Give Him leave to take His own way of dispensation with you; and though it be rough, forgive Him; He defieth you to have as much patience to Him, as He hath borne to you .

There is no goodness in our will now, but what it hath from grace.

The thorn is one of the most cursed and angryand crabbed weeds that the earth yields, and yet out of it springs the rose, one of the sweetest smelled flowers, and most delightful to the eye.

The worst things of Christ, His reproaches, His cross, are better than Egypt's treasures.

[T]hose who can take that crabbed tree handsomely upon their back, and fasten it on cannily, shall find it such a burden as wings unto a bird, or sails to a ship.

No man getteth Christ with ill-will [on Christ's part]; no man cometh and is not welcome. No man cometh and rueth [regrets] his voyage. Letter 226

I find my Lord Jesus cometh not in that precise way that I lay wait for him; he hath a gate [road] of his own.

My shallow and ebb thoughts are not the compass Christ saileth by. I leave His ways to Himself, for they are far, far above me . . . There are windings and to's and fro's in His ways, which blind bodies like us cannot se…

When I look over beyond the line and beyond death, to the laughing side of the world, I triumph, and ride upon the high places of Jacob: howbeit, otherways I am a faint, deadhearted, cowardly man, oft borne down and hung…

O, that we could put our treasure in Christ's hand, and give Him our gold to keep, and our crown.

Faith is exceeding charitable, and believeth no evil of God.

Christ hath come, and run away to heaven with my heart and my love, so that neither heart nor love is mine.

To live on Christ's love is a king's life.

We love to carry heaven to heaven with us, and would have two summers in one year, and no less than two heavens; but this will not be for us: one, and such an one, may suffice us well enough. The Man Christ got but one o…

I think the sense of our wants, when withal we have a restlessness and a sort of spiritual impatience under them, and can make a din, because we want Him whom our soul loveth, is that which maketh an open door to Christ:…

There is as much in our Lord's pantry as will satisfy all His bairns, and as much wine in His cellar as will quench all their thirst. Hunger on; for there is meat in hunger for Christ: go never from Him, but fash6 Him (w…

find it most true, that the greatest temptation out of hell is to live without temptations; if my waters should stand, they would rot. Faith is the better of the free air, and of the sharp winter storm in its face. Grace…

Ye will not get leave to steal quietly to heaven, in Christ's company, without a conflict and a cross.

Our best fare here is hunger.

O! for the long day, and the high sun, and the fair garden, and the King's great city up above these visible heavens!

I thought it had been an easy thing to be a Christian, and that to seek God had been at the next door, but oh, the windings, the turnings, the ups and the downs that He hath led me through! and I see yet much way to the…

However matters go, it is our happiness to win new ground daily in Christ's love, and to purchase a new piece of it daily, and to add conquest to conquest, till our Lord Jesus and we be so near each other, that Satan sha…

Every day we may see some new thing in Christ. His love hath neither brim nor bottom.

urge upon you . . . a nearer communion with Christ and a growing communion. There are curtains to be drawn by in Christ that we never saw, and new foldings of love in Him. I despair that ever I shall win to the far end o…

Your rock doth not ebb and flow, but your sea.

Go on, and faint not, something of yours is in heaven, beside the flesh of your exalted Saviour, and ye go on after your own.

I never thought there had been need of so much wrestling to win to the top of that steep mountain as now I find.

Christ all the seasons of the year, is dropping sweetness; if I had vessels I might fill them, but my old riven, holey, and running-out dish, even when I am at the well, can bring little away. Nothing but glory will make…

O, we love an unknown lover when we love Christ.

Be not afraid for little grace. Christ soweth His living seed, and He will not lose His seed; if He have the guiding of my stock and state it shall not miscarry. Our spilt works, losses, deadness, coldness, wretchedness,…

I verily judge, we know not how much may be had in this life: there is yet something beyond all we see, that seeking would light upon.

He cutteth off your love to the creature, that ye might learn that God only is the right owner of your love, sorrow, loss, sadness, death or the worst things that are, except sin:

Let not the Lord's dealings seem harsh, rough or unfatherly, because it is unpleasant. When the Lord's blessed will bloweth cross your desires, it is best in humility to strike sail to Him and to be willing to be laid an…

God knoweth that ye are His own. Wrestle, fight, go forward, watch, fear, believe, pray; and then ye have all the infallible symptoms of one of the elect of Christ within you.

I am just like a man who hath nothing to pay his thousands of debt; all that can be gotten of him, is to seize upon his person. Except Christ would seize upon myself, and make the readiest payment that can be of my heart…

dare not thank myself, but I dare thank God's depth of wise providence, that I have an errand in me, while I live, for Christ to come and visit me, and bring with Him His drugs and His balm.

Blessed be my rich Lord Jesus, who sendeth not away beggars from His house with a toom dish. He filleth the vessels of such as will come and seek. We might beg ourselves rich (if we were wise), if we could but hold out o…