LAST WORDS (5)

[396] Alluding to 2 Thess. ii. 8. "Ἄνομος," that Lawless one.

[397] Stand for.

[398] The tree.

[399] Always.

[400] Will not have got from us all He claims.

[401] Kilmalcolm is a rural parish in Renfrewshire, and one of the most sequestered. It was once a favoured vineyard. Shortly after the Reformation, Knox dispensed the communion there when on a visit to Lord Glencairn, who resided within its bounds. In the days of the Covenant, Porterfield of Duchal, another heritor, exposed himself to much loss in maintaining the cause of truth. And, as is evident from Rutherford's letter, the number of those who feared the Lord, and thought upon His name, must have been considerable. There is nothing in history about them. "Their life was hid," but their names are in "the Lamb's Book of Life."

[402] Halting of any kind.

[403] To anticipate Satan by jealously searching into it yourselves.

[404] Some read "ridges," q.d., their acres of land.

[405] My being transferred to another part of the land.

[406] About this time Rutherford (who, it will be observed from the place whence this letter is dated, was now relieved from confinement at Aberdeen) had received two separate calls, one from Edinburgh, to become one of the city ministers, and the other from St. Andrews, to the theological chair in that University. These competing calls were to come before the Assembly.

[407] John, second Viscount Kenmure who died in 1639.

[408] The brightness of glowing heat.

[409] An opposing party to him.

[410] When the National Covenant had been solemnly renewed throughout almost the whole of Scotland, every means was used to prevent the Presbyterians in Ireland from entering into it. To accomplish this, an oath was imposed in May 1639, known by the name of the Black Oath, from the calamities which it occasioned. The oath is as follows:—"I, ——, do faithfully swear, profess, and promise, that I will honour and obey my sovereign Lord, King Charles, and will bear faith and true allegiance unto him, and defend and maintain his royal power and authority; and that I will not bear arms, or do any rebellious or hostile act against his Majesty, King Charles, or protest against any his royal commands, but submit myself in all due obedience thereunto; and that I will not enter into any covenant, oath, or band of mutual defence and assistance against any person whatsoever by force, without his Majesty's sovereign and legal authority. And I do renounce and abjure all covenants, oaths, and bands whatsoever, contrary to what I have herein sworn, professed, and promised. So help me God, in Jesus Christ." All Scottish residents in Ulster, above the age of sixteen, were required to take this oath; and it was imposed equally on women and on men. Great numbers refusing to take it, the highest penalties of the law, short of death, were inflicted on them, and that, too, under circumstances of great cruelty. Such was the condition of the Presbyterians in Ireland at the date of this letter, which was written to comfort them under persecution, and to encourage their stedfastness (Reid's "History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland").

[411] Wentworth, Earl of Stafford, was at this time Deputy or Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Previous to his appointment to that office, which was in 1632, the Scottish settlers in Ireland were not troubled on account of their nonconformity. After the Black Oath was imposed in this year, he declared that he would prosecute "to the blood" all who refused to take it, and drive them "root and branch" out of the kingdom. His violent and unconstitutional proceedings at length issued in his being arraigned for high treason before the English Parliament, and beheaded on Tower Hill, May 12, 1641, in the forty-ninth year of his age.

[412] See note, Letter CCLXXXVI. The decision of the Commission was, to translate him from Anwoth to the professorship at St. Andrews.

[413] From a copy among the Wodrow MSS., vol. xxix. 4to, No. 13.

[414] Savours of the sect called "Brownists."

[415] While at the same time I may add.

[416] A security of clay or earth. Often, in his sermon on Dan. vi. 26, before the House of Commons, 1644, he uses such expressions as, "Clay triumpheth over angels and hell, through the strength of Jesus" (p. 8); "Men are but pieces of breathing, laughing, and then dying, clay" (p. 41).

[417] Is it not "take?"

[418] Deputy, or Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

[419] The Gospel, the preaching of which men are seeking to hinder.

[420] A soul that has been put out of order. The edition of 1675, and some others, has "married soul."

[421] Jesus, when He puts us to trial (Gen. xxii.).

[422] The incidental accompaniments.

[423] This is a term of logic, and refers to the fourth kind of categorical proposition, in which some particular point is proved in the negative.

[424] Ps. xcvii. 11.

[425] Favour.

[426] Read "envy not," that is, fret not at His love, which is fully awake to what it is doing.

[427] Dickson's eldest son, who became Clerk to the Exchequer of Scotland.

[428] When we summon Him into our court to explain.

[429] Zech. vi. 1.

[430] Hon. Sir Henry Montgomery of Giffen, her Ladyship's second husband, died about this time. See Letter III.

[431] The Brownists were a sect which owed their origin to Robert Brown, who studied at Cambridge. He maintained that every single congregation ought to have the complete power of jurisdiction within itself. In the year 1581 he organized a sect according to those principles. Yet afterwards he returned to the Church of England, and was presented to a living in Northamptonshire, of which he received the emoluments without discharging the duties. The sect he formed remained; but in process of time the name of Brownists was merged in that of Congregationalists or Independents.

[432] The treatise to which Rutherford here refers is, no doubt, his work entitled, "A Peaceable and Temperate Plea for Paul's Presbytery in Scotland, or a Modest Dispute of the Government of the Church of Scotland, wherein our Discipline is demonstrated to be the true Apostolic way of Divine Truth, and the arguments on the contrary are friendly dissolved, the grounds of separation, and the independency of particular congregations, in defence of Ecclesiastical Presbyteries, Synods, and Assemblies, are examined and tried." It was printed at London in 1642. "This," says Murray, "is one of the most temperate, judicious, and best written works he ever gave to the world. It corresponds in every respect with the promise which its title holds out; with this exception, that it is much more learned, dispassionate, and conclusive than the promise implies. It must have had a very considerable effect on public sentiment, and have served to pave the way for that introduction of the Presbyterian system into England which soon took place."

[433] See notice on this lady prefixed to a subsequent Letter.

[434] Must even here be in possession of a life far superior to the things that at present attract us. "Huge" may mean "vast as to number" (Isa. xlviii. 19), and also, great in other respects.

[435] If we are making this living above the world sure.

[436] On the 18th of August 1643, the General Assembly appointed a committee to proceed to London, to consult, treat, and conclude with the Assembly of Divines then sitting at Westminster, in all matters which might further the union of the churches of Scotland and England in one form of Church Government, one Confession of Faith, one Catechism, and one Directory for the worship of God. Of this committee Rutherford was one. The others were—Mr. Alexander Henderson, Mr. Robert Douglas, Mr. Robert Baillie, and Mr. George Gillespie, ministers; John Earl of Cassillis, John Lord Maitland, and Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston, elders.

[437] A push; but probably we should read "shout."

[438] The Assembly of Divines at Westminster.

[439] The Independents are well known. Their real founder is considered to have been one Mr. John Robinson, who became a Brownist and was admitted pastor of the English church at Leyden. When he died, many of his congregation went from Leyden into New England, whither they carried his opinions, which spread widely there, and then by letters and other means were conveyed back into Old England.

[440] The Anabaptists of England at that time are not to be confounded with the fanatics of the same name who appeared in Germany in 1521, soon after the dawn of the Reformation. The peculiar opinions of English Anabaptists were, that baptism ought to be administered only to adults, and that the mode of it ought to be by immersion, or dipping. They were divided into General and Particular, the former holding Arminian views of Christian doctrine, while the latter were strictly Calvinistic.

[441] The Antinomians professed to hold doctrinal sentiments rigidly Calvinistic; but they deduced from them conclusions deeply injurious to the interests of religion and morality.

[442] Of the Seekers or Expecters, Pagitt has given the following account:—"They deny that there is any true church, or any true minister, or any ordinances: some of them affirm the church to be in the wilderness, and they are asking for it there; others say that it is in the smoke of the temple, and that they are groping for it there" ("Heresiography," p. 141).

[443] Thomas Edwards, in his "Gangræna," enumerates sixteen sorts of sectaries of that time. 1. Independents; 2. Brownists; 3. Chiliasts, or Millennaries; 4. Antinomians; 5. Anabaptists; 6. Manifestarians, or Arminians; 7. Libertines; 8. Familists; 9. Enthusiasts; 10. Seekers and Waiters; 11. Perfectists; 12. Socinians; 13. Arians; 14. Antitrinitarians; 15. Antiscripturists; 16. Sceptics and Questionists, who question everything in matters of religion. In these different sects there were many subdivisions.

[444] In the contest between Charles I. and his English Parliament, Charles was induced to make proposals of a treaty to the Parliament. Uxbridge was fixed on as the place for conducting the treaty; and commissioners from the King, the Parliament, and Scotland, were appointed. But they found it impracticable to come to any agreement. He alludes to this in his sermon before the House of Lords.

[445] Thomas Goodwin, a distinguished Puritan divine, and latterly pastor of a church in London, styled by Anthony Wood "one of the Atlasses and patriarchs of Independency." He was in high favour with Cromwell. He was born at Rolesby, in Norfolk, in 1600, and died in 1679. His works extended to five volumes folio, and are invaluable. In his exposition of the first and part of the second chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, there is an admirable defence of Calvinism.

[446] Jeremiah Burroughs, another eminent Puritan divine, was also a minister in London. He was born in 1599, and died in 1646. He is the author of numerous theological works, which, if not important, are useful. It is said that the divisions of the times broke his heart.

[447] The sect of the Familists or Family of Love, have been associated with one David George of Delft, who, in 1544, fled out of Holland to Basle, giving it out that he was banished from the Low Countries, and changed his name, calling himself John of Brugg. He affirmed that he was the true David whom God had promised to send to restore again the kingdom of Israel, and wrote various books in support of his pretensions. He died on the 16th of September 1556. After him rose up one Henry Nicholas, born in Amsterdam, who maintained the same doctrine, but applied it to himself and not to David George. (See Works of Greenham, p. 219, H. N.) One Christopher Vivet, a joiner dwelling in Southwark, who had been in Queen Mary's days an Arian, translated out of Dutch into English several of the books of Henry Nicholas, among which was his "Evangelium Regni." The claims of Nicholas were those of a fanatic, and his system was a lie. (Pagitt's "Heresiography," pp. 81-91.)

[448] The "Separatists" were a kind of Anabaptists, so called because they pretended to be separate from the rest of the world. They condemned fine clothes. To them that laughed they would cry, "Woe be to you that laugh, for hereafter ye shall mourn." They did look sadly, and fetched deep sighs; they avoided marriage meetings, feasts, music; and condemned the bearing of arms and Covenants. (Pagitt's "Heresiography," p. 30.)

[449] Strange.

[450] In the end of the year 1643, the Scottish army raised by the Convention of Estates for the assistance of the English Parliament marched into England, and, having joined the Parliamentary forces, blockaded Newcastle, as Rutherford here describes.

[451] Afterwards Earl of Crawford. See notice of, Letter CCXXXI.

[452] He had lost two children before going to London, and the above is in reference to the death of other two after he came thither.

[453] "Ease" in older editions.

[454] Q.d., You need this advice, as too often even believers make haste.

[455] The allusion is to Jer. vi. 29, and in that passage "daylight" is a variation from our common version. Could Rutherford have been reading Jeremiah in the Septuagint Greek version? There the word is φυσητὴρ, "blowpipe," or "bellows;" but we might suppose that his eye mistook the word for φωστὴρφωστὴρ, "lightgiver," "window-light." The Scotch phrase, "to burn daylight," means to waste time and opportunity.