THE LIFE OF SAMUEL RUTHERFORD

(Continued from October)

A few months after his translation to St. Andrews, Mr. Rutherford entered a second time into marriage, after a widowhood of nearly ten years. Having thus made provision for his domestic comfort, he continued to discharge his public duties, both in teaching and preaching, with unwearied vigor and conscientiousness. For some time his situation was one of unusual happiness and tranquility, and it would have continued so, had not both he and his colleague felt themselves called upon to join their brethren in resisting the wishes of their people, who were exceedingly desirous that Andrew Affleck, the minister of Largo, should be chosen one of the ministers of St. Andrews. The people, being disappointed in their object, began to cool in their attachment to both Mr. Rutherford and Mr. Blair, who, feeling that their usefulness would be injured by this alienation of the affections of their flock, applied to the Assembly for an act of transportability, as it was called, or the privilege of accepting a call to another charge, if such a call should be given them. The request was granted, and in a few weeks Mr. Rutherford was invited to become minister of West Calder, in the Presbytery of Linlithgow. This call he gladly accepted, and his acceptance was ratified by the Supreme Court; but in consequence of the resistance of the University of St. Andrews, the matter was prosecuted no farther, and he still remained both in his professorship and ministerial charge.

In the public concerns of the Church and the country Mr. Rutherford was deeply interested. Himself a conscientious admirer of Presbyterianism, he rejoiced in the complete establishment of the system in Scotland, and the increasing attachment to it which was manifested in England. To his principles he firmly adhered, and such was the confidence reposed in him by his brethren that he was appointed by the Assembly one of the Scots Commissioners to the General Assembly of Divines, held at Westminster. On this important mission he remained in London four years, and by his talents and learning he proved no small acquisition to the venerable Synod. In their discussions he and his fellow commissioners took an ample share, and the result of their important deliberations was both gratifying to himself personally, and satisfactory to those over whose interests he had been deputed to watch. The Directory for Public Worship, the Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and the Form of Church Government, were all of them framed by the Westminster Assembly, and in drawing up these valuable and important documents, Mr. Rutherford was actively employed along with the other members of the Synod.

While in London, however, he did not limit his labours to the business of the Synod of Divines; he was also engaged in the preparation of various controversial as well as practical works, of a theological kind, which he published during that period. The only publication, not strictly in accordance with his profession as a divine, which he produced on this occasion, was one entitled “Lex Rex,” The Law and the King, which was intended as a reply to a book which had been published in support of absolute monarchy. Though thus busily occupied, however, he longed to return to his important duties at St. Andrews, and the more so as his own declining health, as well as that of his wife, seemed to call for a removal to his native country. His distress, besides, had been still farther aggravated by the death of two of his children, in addition to two which he had lost a short time before leaving Scotland. In these circumstances he had made frequent applications to be released from his attendance in London. But, for a considerable time, it was not deemed expedient to comply with his request, his presence at the Westminster Assembly being regarded as too important to be dispensed with. At length, however, the Assembly of 1647 permitted him to return home.

The able and efficient manner in which Mr. Rutherford discharged the high trust reposed in him, as one of the commissioners to the Synod of Divines at Westminster, raised him higher than ever in the estimation of his countrymen; and accordingly, a few months after he had resumed his duties at St. Andrews, he was appointed Principal of the New College. The honour thus conferred on him brought him very little, if any, additional labour; it was a gratifying proof to him, however, that his merits, both as an author and a divine, were duly appreciated. In 1649, an attempt was made in the General Assembly to procure his transference to the Divinity Chair at Edinburgh, but this attention being “thought absurd,” was laid aside. About the same time a university having been established at Har-derwyck, in Holland, he was invited to occupy the chair of Divinity and Hebrew in that seminary. This invitation, as well as a similar application shortly after from Utrecht, he respectfully declined, being unwilling to abandon the Church of Scotland, at a period when her services were so much required.

In prosecuting his laborious engagements at St. Andrews, he still found time to publish several important works. The year after his return from London he produced a controversial work against the Antinomians, and in the year following a Treatise in Reply to Jeremy Taylor’s “Liberty of Prophesying.” In 1651 appeared his large work “On Providence,” in opposition to the Jesuits, the Arminians, and the Socinians.

At this period, in consequence of the death of Charles I, who, though he had been obliged to make concessions, was still at heart the inveterate enemy of Presbyterianism, considerable fears were entertained by the Scottish people that under the government of his son, who, it was thought, would succeed him, their ecclesiastical privileges might be again curtailed. Charles II was crowned at Scone, and in passing through Fifeshire, before his coronation, the young king visited St. Andrews, when Mr. Rutherford delivered before him an oration in Latin, dwelling chiefly upon the duty of kings. In the meantime, however, the Independents had acquired the ascendancy, and England had become a republic. The events which following during the usurpation of Cromwell, and onwards to the Restoration, it is impossible in our limited space minutely to detail. Suffice it to say that in the proceedings of that stormy period Mr. Rutherford acted a very conspicuous part; and from the unflinching tenacity with which he maintained the opinions he had adopted, he was regarded by many of his brethren, more especially of the Presbytery of St. Andrews and the Synod of Fife, as actuated too strongly by party-spirit.

Amid all the commotions, however, in which he found himself involved, he published several valuable works on Practical Theology, as well as some productions of a controversial nature. The last work of which he lived to direct the publication appeared in 1659, under the title of “Influences of the Life of Grace.” With this piece of practical theology terminated the literary labours of a most learned divine and accomplished scholar.

Though the life of Mr. Rutherford was now verging to its close, he lived long enough to see the commencement of one of the darkest periods in Scotland’s ecclesiastical, and even her civil, history. No sooner had the Second Charles been restored to his kingdom, than steps were taken for the overthrow of Presbyterianism in his northern dominions. This design he was not long in finding means of accomplishing, and that too in a quarter where it might have been least of all expected. The Scottish Parliament, which convened on the 1st of January, 1661, invested the king with arbitrary power, recalled the Covenant, and abolished Presbyterianism; and by one deed, “the act recissory,” as it was termed, they annulled the decrees of all the Parliaments which, since 1638, had sanctioned the Presbyterian system, or ratified the Solem League and Covenant.

In such a state of things Mr. Rutherford could not expect to escape persecution in one shape or other. His work which he had published in London, called “Lex Rex,” was ordered to be burned by the hands of the common hangman: he was deprived of his offices both in the University and the Church, his salary was confiscated, he himself was ordered to be confined to his own house, and cited to appear before the ensuing Parliament on a charge of treason. Thus far they were permitted to harass this eminent servant of God; but their power could extend no further. His health, which had been rapidly declining, was now such, that he was quite incapable of obeying the citation to appear before the Parliament.

Knowing well that death could not be far distant, he proceeded to arrange all his affairs, that he might leave nothing undone which his friends or the Church expected from him. In his last sickness he bore ample testimony to the saving efficacy of that Gospel which it had always been his delight to preach.

“One morning, as he recovered from fainting, in which they who looked on expected his death, he said, ‘I feel—I feel— I believe—I joy and rejoice— I feed on manna!’ A little after he said, ‘I have been a wicked sinful man, but I stand at the best pass that ever a man did; Christ is mine, and I am his.’ And then spoke much of the white stone, and the new name. Mr. Blair, who loved to hear Christ commended with all his heart, said to him again, ‘What think ye now of Christ?’ To which he replied, ‘I shall live and adore him. Glory, glory to my Creator, and to my Redeemer for ever! Glory shines in Im-manuel’s land!’

“In the afternoon of that day he said, ‘Oh, that all my brethren in the public may know what a Master I have served, and what peace I have this day: I shall sleep in Christ,’ and ‘when I awake I shall

be satisfied with his likeness.’ And he said, ‘This night shall close the door, and put my anchor within the vail, and I shall go away in a sleep, by five o’clock in the morning.’ Though he was very weak, he had often this expression, ‘Oh, for arms to embrace him! oh, for a well-tuned harp!’

“Afterwards, when some spoke to Mr. Rutherford of his former painfulness, and faithfulness in the work of God, he said, ‘I disclaim all that; the port I would be at is redemption and forgiveness, through his blood. “Thou shalt shew me the path of life, in thy sight is fulness of joy.” There is nothing now betwixt me and the Resurrection; but “today thou shalt be with me in paradise.” ‘ Mr. Blair saying, ‘Shall I praise the Lord for all the mercies he hath done for you, and is to do?’ He answered, ‘Oh, for a well-tuned harp!’ To his child he said, ‘I have again left you upon the Lord, it may be you will tell this to others: that the lines are fallen to be in pleasant places, I have a goodly heritage: I bless the Lord that gave me counsel.’”

In such a devotional frame of spirit died Mr. Samuel Rutherford, on the 19th of March, 1661, about five o’clock in the morning, as he himself had foretold. His praise for learning and piety, and true Christian worth, has long been, and still is, in all the Churches.

The End

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