SKETCH OF SAMUEL RUTHERFORD (4)

Milton sings—

It is mentioned in "Lamont's Diary," 27th Sept. 1653, that at the Provincial Synod of Fyfe, which met at St. Andrews, Mr. Samuel Rutherford presented a paper to the Moderator, relating to the sins of the ministry, which was not accepted. Upon the refusal of it, some words passed between Rutherford and Mr. Robert Blair, the Moderator, anent the public business. At the close of that meeting, two English officers entered; upon which they were asked, "If they had come to sit and voice with them?" They said, "No; only to see that they ruled nothing in prejudice to the Commonwealth." The days were evil, and Rutherford was longing now for such quiet service. He sometimes refers to this desire; he wishes for a harbour in his latter days; only (adds he), "failing is serving"—and he did delight in serving his Lord to the last.[51] His friend M'Ward, in an advertisement prefixed to the earlier editions of the Letters, bitterly laments the loss of a Commentary on Isaiah, on which "this true Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God,"[52] employed his leisure time during the closing years of his life.[53] "His heart travailed more," says he, "in birth of this piece than ever I knew him of any; neither was there ever anything he put his hand to that would have so powerfully persuaded this panter after the enjoyment of his Master's company, to have had his heaven and the immediate fruition of God suspended for a season, as the eager desire he had to finish this work before he finished his course." But all these papers were carried off, and never recovered. So true is it, that of the seed we sow, we "know not whether shall prosper, either this or that" (Eccles. xi. 6).

When Charles II. was fully restored, and had begun to adopt arbitrary measures, Rutherford's work, "Lex Rex," was taken notice of by the Government; for, reasonable as are its principles in defence of the liberty of subjects, its spirit of freedom was intolerable to rulers, who were, step by step, advancing to acts of cruelty and death. Indeed, it was so hateful to them, that they burnt it, in 1661, first at Edinburgh, by the hands of the hangman; and then, some days after, by the hands of the infamous Sharpe, under the windows of its author's College in St. Andrews. He was next deposed from all his offices; and, last of all, was summoned to answer at next Parliament a charge of high treason. But the citation came too late. He was already on his deathbed, and on hearing of it, calmly remarked, that he had got another summons before a superior Judge and judicatory, and sent the message, "I behove to answer my first summons; and, ere your day arrive, I will be where few kings and great folks come."

We have no account of the nature of his last sickness, except that it was a lingering disease. He had a daughter who died a few weeks before himself. All that is told us of his deathbed is characteristic of the man. At one time he spoke much of "the white stone" and "the new name." When he was on the threshold of glory, ready to receive the immortal crown, he said, "Now my tabernacle is weak, and I would think it a more glorious way of going home to lay down my life for the cause, at the Cross of Edinburgh or St. Andrews; but I submit to my Master's will." Some days before his death, after a fainting fit, he said, "Now I feel, I believe, I enjoy, I rejoice." And turning to Mr. Blair, "I feed on manna: I have angels' food. My eyes shall see my Redeemer. I know that He shall stand on earth at the latter day, and I shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Him in the air."[54] When asked, "What think ye now of Christ?" he replied, "I shall live and adore Him. Glory, glory to my Creator and Redeemer for ever. Glory shineth in Immanuel's land." The same afternoon he said, "I shall sleep in Christ; and when I awake, I shall be satisfied with His likeness. O for arms to embrace Him!" Then he cried aloud, "O for a well-tuned harp!" This last expression he used more than once, as if already stretching out his hand to get his golden harp, and join the redeemed in their new song. He also said on another occasion, "I hear Him saying to me, 'Come up hither.'" His little daughter Agnes (the only survivor of six children), eleven years of age, stood by his bedside; he looked on her, and said, "I have left her upon the Lord." Well might the man say so, who could so fully testify of his portion in the Lord, as a goodly heritage. To four of his brethren, who came to see him, he said, "My Lord and Master is chief of ten thousands of thousands. None is comparable to Him, in heaven or in earth. Dear brethren, do all for Him. Pray for Christ. Preach for Christ. Do all for Christ; beware of men-pleasing. The Chief Shepherd will shortly appear." He often called Christ "His Kingly King." While he spoke even rapturously, "I shall shine! I shall see Him as He is! I shall see Him reign, and all His fair company with Him, and I shall have my large share"—he at the same time would protest, "I renounce all that ever He made me will or do as defiled or imperfect as coming from myself. I betake myself to Christ for sanctification as well as justification." Repeating 1 Cor. i. 30, he said, "I close with it! Let Him be so. He is my all and all." "If He should slay me ten thousand times I will trust." He spoke as if he knew the hour of his departure; not perhaps as Paul (2 Tim. iv. 6) or Peter (2 Peter i. 14), yet still in a manner that seems to indicate that the Lord draws very near His servants in that hour, and gives glimpses of what He is doing. On the last day of his life, in the afternoon, he said, "This night will close the door, and fasten my anchor within the veil, and I shall go away in a sleep by five o'clock in the morning." And so it was. He entered Immanuel's land at that very hour, and is now (as himself would have said) "sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty," till the Lord come.

We may add his latest words. "There is nothing now between me and the Resurrection but 'This day thou shalt be with Me in paradise.'" He interrupted one speaking in praise of his painfulness in the ministry, "I disclaim all. The port I would be in at is redemption and forgiveness of sin through His blood." Two of his biographers record that his last words were, "Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel's land!" as if he had caught a glimpse of its mountain-tops.

It was at St. Andrews he died, on 30th March 1661, and there he was buried. "Lamont's Diary," p. 133, says: "He was interred on the 30th of March, in the ordinary burial place." Had he lived a few weeks his might have been the cruel death endured by his friend James Guthrie, whom he had encouraged, by his letters, in stedfastness to the end. The sentence which the Parliament passed, when told that he was dying, did him no dishonour. When they had voted that he should not die in the College, Lord Burleigh rose and said, "Ye cannot vote him out of heaven."

His death was lamented throughout the land; and to this day few names are so well known and honoured. So great was the reverence which some of the godly had for this man of God, that they requested to be buried where his body was laid. This was Thomas Halyburton's dying request.[55] An old man in the parish of Crailing (in which Nisbet, his birthplace, is situated) remembers the veneration entertained for him by the great-grandfather of the present Marquis of Lothian. This good Marquis used to lift his hat, as often as he passed the spot where stood the cottage in which Samuel Rutherford was born. He was twice married. His widow survived him fourteen years.

If ever there was any portrait of him, it is not now known. The portraits sometimes given of him are all imaginary. We are most familiar with the likeness of his soul. There is one expressive line in the epitaph on his tombstone, in the churchyard at the boundary wall opposite the door of St Regulus' Tower—

A monument to his memory was erected in 1842, by subscription, on the Boreland Hill, in the parish of Anwoth. It is sixty feet in height, and thus, seen all around, it seems to remind the inhabitants of that region how God once visited His people there.

His letters have long been famous among the godly. The present edition of them has several things to recommend it. 1. The Letters are chronologically arranged. 2. They have biographical notices prefixed to a large number of them. Most of these are from the pen of the Rev. James Anderson. The present editor has added, here and there, topographical notes that seemed to have some interest, most of them gleaned on the spot. The explanatory notes in the edition by the Rev. C. Thomson, 1836, have often been consulted with much advantage. 3. There are contents prefixed to each Letter, describing generally what are the main subjects of each. 4. There are some new letters inserted in this collection; and there is a facsimile of an unpublished letter directed to the Provost of Edinburgh, at the time when there was an attempt made to call Rutherford to that city. The letter, which is preserved in the Records of the Edinburgh Town Council, entreats them to drop the matter. It is written in a very small hand, as was usual with him, and the seal on it has the armorial bearing of the Rutherford family.

If it be asked how it came about that these letters should have been at first printed in an order entirely unchronological, the explanation is simple: The first edition appeared in 1664, and in it there were only two hundred and eighty-four of his letters gathered and published; but many being edified thereby, an edition soon appeared with sixty-eight more letters appended. All these seem to have been printed very much in the order in which they came to hand, and the additional sixty-eight, more especially, disturbed all arrangement. The collector was Mr. M'Ward,[56] who, as a student, being much beloved by Rutherford, went to the Westminster Assembly with him as his amanuensis or secretary. He was afterwards successor to Andrew Gray in Glasgow, and finally minister in Rotterdam. He gave them to the public with an enthusiastic recommendation, under the title, "Joshua Redivivus;[57] published for the use of all the people of God, but more particularly for those who are now, or afterwards may be, put to suffering for Christ and His cause; by a well-wisher to the work and people of God. John xvi. 2; 2 Thessal. i. 6." The edition was in duodecimo, and was printed at Rotterdam. Not only were the Letters first published in Holland, but also, in 1674, there appeared a Dutch translation of them at Flushing.

It will be noticed, in reading the Letters as they stand chronologically, that at times the pen of the ready writer ran on with amazing rapidity. He has written many in one day when his heart was overflowing. It was easy to write when the Lord was pouring on him the unction that teacheth all things. He would have written still more, but he had heard that people looked up to him and overpraised his Letters. During his confinement at Aberdeen, he wrote about two hundred and twenty of these letters.

There are a few distasteful expressions in these epistolary effusions, the sparks of a fancy that sought to appropriate everything to spiritual purposes; but as to extravagance in the thoughts conveyed, there is none. An old Memoir of Richard Cameron, the martyr, mentions at the close that it had become a fashion among "profane preachers and expectants" to say of these Letters, "They are fit only for old wives." Dr. Love, on the other hand, protests, "The haughty contempt of that book which is in the heart of many will be ground for condemnation when the Lord cometh to make inquisition after such things" (Letter xiv.). The extravagance in sentiment alleged against them by some is just that of Paul, when he spoke of knowing "the height and depth, length and breadth," of the love of Christ; or that of Solomon, when the Holy Ghost inspired him to write "The Song of Songs." Rather would we say of these Letters, what Livingstone in a letter says of John Welsh's dying words, "O for a sweet fill of this fanatic humour!" In modern days, Richard Cecil has said of Rutherford, "He is one of my classics; he is a real original;" and, in older times, Richard Baxter, some of whose theological leanings might have prejudiced him, if anything could, said of his Letters, "Hold off the Bible, such a book the world never saw." They were long ago translated into Dutch, and of late years they have been translated into German. Both in these, and in his other writings, we see sufficient proof that had he cultivated literature as a pursuit, he might have stood high in the admiration of men.[58]