SKETCH OF SAMUEL RUTHERFORD (3)

On leaving Anwoth he directed his steps by Irvine, spending a night there with his beloved friend David Dickson. What a night that must have been! To hear these two in solemn converse! The one could not perhaps handle the harp so well as the other; for David Dickson could express his soul's weary longings and its consoling hopes in such strains as that which has made his name familiar in Scotland, "O mother dear Jerusalem;" but Rutherford, nevertheless, had so much of poetry and sublime enthusiasm in his soul, that any poet could sympathise with him to the full. Many of his letters "from Christ's palace in Aberdeen" are really strains of true poetry. What else is such an effusion as this, when, rising on eagles' wings, he exclaims, "A land that has more than four summers in the year! What a singing life is there! There is not a dumb bird in all that large field, but all sing and breathe out heaven, joy, glory, dominion, to the High Prince of that new-found land. And verily the land is sweeter that He is the glory of that land."[38] "O how sweet to be wholly Christ's, and wholly in Christ; to dwell in Immanuel's high and blessed land, and live in that sweetest air, where no wind bloweth but the breathings of the Holy Ghost, no sea nor floods flow but the pure water of life that floweth from under the throne and from the Lamb, no planting, but the tree of life that yieldeth twelve manner of fruits every month! What do we here but sin and suffer? O when shall the night be gone, the shadows flee away, and the morning of the long, long day, without cloud or night, dawn? The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!' O when shall the Lamb's wife be ready, and the Bridegroom say, 'Come?'"[39] Whoever compares such breathings with David Dickson's hymn will see how congenial were their feelings and their hopes, and even their mode of expressing what they felt and hoped, though the one used prose and the other tried more memorable verse.

We follow Rutherford to Aberdeen, the capital of the North, whither he was accompanied by a deputation of his affectionate parishioners from Anwoth, in whose company he would forget the length and tediousness of the way. He arrived here in September 1636. This town was at that time the stronghold of Episcopacy and Arminianism, and in it the state of religion was very low. "It consisted of Papists, and men of Gallio's naughty faith."[40] The clergy and doctors took the opportunity of Rutherford's arrival to commence a series of attacks on the special doctrines of grace which he held. But in disputation he foiled them; and when many began to feel drawn to him in consequence of his earnest dealings and private exhortations, there was a proposal made to remove him from the town. "So cold," writes he, "is northern love!" But (added he) "Christ and I will bear it;"[41] deeply feeling his union to Him who said to Saul, "Why persecutest thou Me?" Often, on the streets,[42] he was pointed as "the banished minister;" and hearing of this, he remarked, "I am not ashamed of my garland." He had visitors from Orkney, and from Caithness, to the great annoyance of his persecutors.[43] Some blamed him for not being "prudent enough," as we have seen men ready to do in similar cases in our own day; but he replies, "It is ordinary that that should be part of the cross of those who suffer for Him." Still he enjoyed, in his solitude, occasional intercourse with some of the godly ones, among whom were Lady Pitsligo, Lady Burnet of Largs, Andrew Cant, and James Martin. His deepest affliction was separation from his flock at Anwoth. Nothing can exceed his tender sorrow over this flock.[44]

It was a saying of his own, "Gold may be gold, and bear the King's stamp upon it, when it is trampled upon by men." And this was true of himself. But he came out of his trial not only unscorched, but, as his many letters from Aberdeen show, greatly advanced in every grace. The Latin lines prefixed to the early editions of these Letters scarcely exaggerate when they sing—

But we err if we suppose that it was only while there that he experienced that almost ecstatic enjoyment of his Lord. He carried it away with him; for is not this the same strain as pervades his Letters, when, preaching in 1644, before the House of Commons in London, he exclaims, "O for eternity's leisure, to look on Him, to feast upon a sight of His face! O for the long summer day of endless ages to stand beside Him and enjoy Him! O time, O sin, be removed out of the way! O day! O fairest of days, dawn!"

He was, during part of two years, closely confined to that town, though not in prison; but in 1638 public events had taken another turn. The Lord had stirred up the spirit of the people of Scotland, and the covenant was again triumphant in the land. Rutherford hastened back to Anwoth. During his absence, "For six quarters of a year," say his parishioners, "no sound of the Word of God was heard in our kirk." The swallows had made their nests there undisturbed for two summers.

His Letters do not refer to the proceedings of the Glasgow Assembly of 1638. It is well known, however, that he was no mere indifferent spectator to what then took place, but was present, and was member of several committees which at that time sat on the affairs of the church. Presbytery being fully restored by that Assembly, it was thought right that one so gifted should be removed to a more important sphere. He was sent by the church to several districts to promote the cause of Reformation and the Covenant; and at length, in spite of his reluctance, arising chiefly from love to his flock—his rural flock at Anwoth—he was constrained to yield to the united opinion of his brethren, and be removed to the Professor's Chair in St. Andrews in 1639, and become Principal of the New College. He bargained to be allowed to preach regularly every Sabbath in his new sphere; for he could not endure silence when he might speak a word for his Lord. He seems to have preached also, as occasion offered, in the parishes around, especially at Scoonie, in which the village of Leven stands.[45]

His hands were necessarily filled with work in his new sphere; yet still he relaxed nothing of his diligence in study. Nor did he lack anything of former blessing. It was here the English merchant heard him preach so affectingly on the loveliness of Christ; while such was his success as a Professor that "the University became a Lebanon out of which were taken cedars for building the house of God throughout the land."

In the year 1640, he married his second wife, Jean M'Math, "a woman," says one, "of such worth, that I never knew any among men exceed him, nor any among women exceed her. He who heard either of them pray or speak, might have learnt to bemoan his own ignorance. Oh how many times I have been convinced, by observing them, of the evil of unseriousness unto God, and unsavouriness in discourse." They had seven children; but only one survived the father, a little daughter, Agnes, who does not seem to have been a comfort to her godly mother.[46]

In July 1643, the Westminster Assembly began their sittings; and to it he was sent up as one of the Commissioners from the Church of Scotland. A sketch of a "Shorter Catechism" exists in MS., in the library of the Edinburgh University, in Rutherford's handwriting, very much resembling the Catechism as it now stands, from which it has been inferred that he had the principal hand in drawing it up for the Assembly. He continued four years attending the sittings of this famous synod, and was of much use in their deliberations. So prominent a part did he take, that the great Milton has singled him out for attack in his lines, "On the new forcers of conscience, under the Long Parliament." Milton knew him only as an opponent of his sectarian and independent principles, and so could scorn measures proposed by "Mere A. S.[47] and Rutherford." But had he known the soul of the man, would not even Milton have found a sublimity of thought and feeling in his adversary, that at times approached his own lofty poesy? How interesting, in any point of view, to find the devoted pastor of Anwoth, on the streets of London, crossing the path of England's greatest poet.

During his residence in London he was tried with many afflictions. Several of his family died; and his own health began to give way, so that he and his brother minister, Mr. G. Gillespie, visited Epsom to drink the waters. Yet such was the amazing spirit of the man, under a sense of duty, that amid the trials and bustle of that time he wrote, "The Due Right of Presbyteries," "Lex Rex," i.e. "The Law, The King," and "Trial and Triumph of Faith." Nor was he soured by controversy. In the preface to one of his controversial works, he discovers his large-hearted charity and manly impartiality in regard to what he saw in these parts. He writes: "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; and that in that renowned nation there be men of all ranks, wise, valorous, generous, noble, heroic, faithful, religious, gracious, learned."[48]

Returning home to St. Andrews, he resumed his labours both in the college and in the pulpit with all his former zeal. In 1644, it appears from the old minutes of Lanark Presbytery, a vacancy having occurred, Rutherford was unanimously called to Lanark. He was inclined to go, but the Presbytery of St. Andrews refused to loose him. He had often preached at Lanark. He declined two invitations to the professorship in Holland; one from Harderwyck in 1648, the other from Utrecht in 1651; though the former offered the chair both of Divinity and of Hebrew. He joined the Protestors in determinedly opposing the proceedings of the Commission of Assembly, who had censured such as protested against the admission to power of persons in the class of malignants. His friend David Dickson keenly opposed him, and Mr. Blair also, though less violently.[49] It was this controversy that made John Livingstone say, in a letter to Blair, "Your and Mr. D. Dickson's accession to these resolutions is the saddest thing I have seen in my time. My wife and I have had more bitterness in this respect, these several months, than ever we had since we knew what bitterness meant." Rutherford wrote too violently on this matter.[50] Some say he was naturally hot and fiery; but at this time all parties were greatly excited. Still he did not lose his brotherly love—the same brotherly love that led him so fervently to embrace Archbishop Usher as a fellow-believer. We may get a lesson for our times from his remarks on occasion of these bitter controversies. "It is hard when saints rejoice in the sufferings of saints, and redeemed ones hurt, and go nigh to hate, redeemed ones. For contempt of the communion of saints, we have need of new-born crosses, scarce ever heard of before.—Our star-light hideth us from ourselves, and hideth us from one another, and Christ from us all." And then he subjoins (and is he not borne out by the words of the Lord in John xvii. 22?): "A doubt it is if we shall have fully one heart till we shall enjoy one heaven." The state of things lay heavy on his mind: "I am broken and wasted by the wrath that is upon this land."

It was in 1651 that he published his work "De Divinâ Providentiâ," a work in which he assailed Jesuits, Socinians, and Arminians. Richard Baxter (tinged as he was with the Arminian theology), in referring to this treatise, remarked (says Wodrow), that "His Letters were the best piece, and this work the worst, he had ever read." Of course, this was the language of controversy, for the book is one of great ability. It was this work, indeed, that drew forth several invitations from foreign Universities. The ten years that followed were times of much distraction, being the times of Cromwell and the Commonwealth, as well as of the Protesters and Resolutioners. In 1651 the Scottish nation resolved to crown Charles II., as lawful king, at Scone; and when the young king was at St. Andrews, in prospect of that event, he visited the colleges. It fell to Rutherford to deliver, on that occasion, an oration in Latin before His Majesty, on a subject which he could handle well, both as a patriot and a Christian, "The Duty of Kings."