24 chapters
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Selected Chapters
24 chapters
I. JOSHUA REDIVIVUS
I. JOSHUA REDIVIVUS
‘He sent me as a spy to see the land and to try the ford.’ Rutherford . Samuel Rutherford, the author of the seraphic Letters , was born in the south of Scotland in the year of our Lord 1600. Thomas Goodwin was born in England in the same year, Robert Leighton in 1611, Richard Baxter in 1615, John Owen in 1616, John Bunyan in 1628, and John Howe in 1630. A little vellum-covered volume now lies open before me, the title-page of which runs thus:—‘Joshua Redivivus, or Mr. Rutherford’s Letters, no
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II. SAMUEL RUTHERFORD AND SOME OF HIS EXTREMES
II. SAMUEL RUTHERFORD AND SOME OF HIS EXTREMES
‘I am made of extremes.’— Rutherford . A story is told in Wodrow of an English merchant who had occasion to visit Scotland on business about the year 1650. On his return home his friends asked him what news he had brought with him from the north. ‘Good news,’ he said; ‘for when I went to St. Andrews I heard a sweet, majestic-looking man, and he showed me the majesty of God. After him I heard a little fair man, and he showed me the loveliness of Christ. I then went to Irvine, where I heard a
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III. MARION M’NAUGHT
III. MARION M’NAUGHT
‘O woman beloved of God.’— Rutherford . ‘The world knows nothing of its greatest men,’ says Sir Henry Taylor in his Philip Van Artevelde ; and it knows much less of its greatest women. I have not found Marion M’Naught’s name once mentioned outside of Samuel Rutherford’s Letters. But she holds a great place—indeed, the foremost place—in that noble book, to be written in which is almost as good as to be written in heaven. Rutherford’s first letter to Marion M’Naught was written from the manse of
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IV. LADY KENMURE
IV. LADY KENMURE
‘Build your nest, Madam, upon no tree here, for God hath sold this whole forest to death.’— Rutherford . Lady Kenmure was one of the Campbells of Argyll, a family distinguished for the depth of their piety, their public spirit, and their love for the Presbyterian polity; and Lady Jane was one of the most richly-gifted members of that richly-gifted house. But, with all that, Lady Jane Campbell had her own crosses to carry. She had the sore cross of bad health to carry all her days. Then she ha
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V. LADY CARDONESS
V. LADY CARDONESS
‘Think it not easy.’— Rutherford . What a lasting interest Samuel Rutherford’s pastoral pen has given to the hoary old castle of Cardoness! Those nine so heart-winning letters that Rutherford wrote from Aberdeen to Cardoness Castle will still keep the memory of that old tower green long after its last stone has crumbled into dust. Readers of Rutherford’s letters will long visit Cardoness Castle, and will musingly recall old John Gordon and Lady Cardoness, his wife, who both worked out each the
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VI. LADY CULROSS
VI. LADY CULROSS
‘Grace groweth best in winter.’— Rutherford . Elizabeth Melville was one of the ladies of the Covenant. It was a remarkable feature of a remarkable time in Scotland that so many ladies of birth, intellect and influence were found on the side of the persecuted Covenanters. I do not remember any other period in the history of the Church of Christ, since the day when the women of Galilee ministered of their substance to our Lord Himself, in which noble women took such a noble part as did Lady Cul
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VII. LADY BOYD
VII. LADY BOYD
‘Be sorry at corruption.’— Rutherford . Out of various published and unpublished writings of her day we are able to gather an interesting and impressive picture of Lady Boyd’s life and character. But there was a carefully written volume of manuscript, that I much fear she must have burned when on her death-bed, that would have been invaluable to us to-night. Lady Boyd kept a careful diary for many years of her later life, and it was not a diary of court scandal or of social gossip or even of f
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VIII. LADY ROBERTLAND
VIII. LADY ROBERTLAND
‘That famous saint, the Lady Robertland, and the rare outgates she so often got.’—Livingstone’s Characteristics . The Lady Robertland ranks in the Rutherford sisterhood with Lady Kenmure, Lady Culross, Lady Boyd, Lady Cardoness, Lady Earlston, Marion M’Naught and Grizel Fullarton. Lady Robertland, like so many of the other ladies of the Covenant, was not only a woman of deep personal piety and great patriotism, she was also, like Lady Kenmure, Lady Boyd, and Marion M’Naught, a woman of remarkab
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IX. JEAN BROWN
IX. JEAN BROWN
‘Sin poisons all our enjoyments.’— Rutherford . Jean Brown was one of the selectest associates of the famous Rutherford circle. We do not know so much of Jean Brown outside of the Rutherford Letters as we would like to know, but her son, John Brown of Wamphray, is very well known to every student of the theology and ecclesiastical history of Scotland in the second half of the seventeenth century. ‘I rejoice to hear about your son John. I had always a great love to dear John Brown. Remember m
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X. JOHN GORDON OF CARDONESS, THE YOUNGER
X. JOHN GORDON OF CARDONESS, THE YOUNGER
‘Put off a sin or a piece of a sin every day.’— Rutherford . If that gaunt old tower of Cardoness Castle could speak, and would tell us all that went on within its walls, what a treasure to us that story would be! Even the sighs and the meanings that visit us from among its mouldering stones tell us things that we shall not soon forget. They tell us how hard a task old John Gordon found salvation to be in that old house; and they tell us still, to deep sobs, how hard it was to him to see the s
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XI. ALEXANDER GORDON OF EARLSTON
XI. ALEXANDER GORDON OF EARLSTON
‘A man of great spirit, but much subdued by inward exercise.’ Livingstone’s Characteristics . The Gordons of Airds and Earlston could set their family seal to the truth of the promise that the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children. For the life of grace entered the Gordon house three long generations before it came to our Alexander of to-night, and it still descended upon his son and his son’s son. His great-
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XII. EARLSTON THE YOUNGER
XII. EARLSTON THE YOUNGER
‘A renowned Gordon, a patriot, a good Christian, a confessor, and, I may add, a martyr of Jesus Christ.’—Livingstone’s Characteristics . Thomas Boston in his most interesting autobiography tells us about one of his elders who, though a poor man, had always ‘a brow for a good cause.’ Now nothing could better describe the Gordons of Earlston than just that saying. For old Alexander Gordon, the founder of the family, lifted up his brow for the cause of the Bible and the Sabbath-day when his brow
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XIII. ROBERT GORDON OF KNOCKBREX
XIII. ROBERT GORDON OF KNOCKBREX
‘A single-hearted and painful Christian, much employed in parliaments and public meetings after the year 1638.’— Livingstone . ‘Hall-binks are slippery.’— Gordon to Rutherford . Robert Gordon of Knockbrex, in his religious character, was a combination of Old Honest and Mr. Fearing in the Pilgrim’s Progress . He was as single-hearted and straightforward as that worthy old gentleman was who early trysted one Good-Conscience to meet him and give him his hand over the river which has no bridge; and
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XIV. JOHN GORDON OF RUSCO
XIV. JOHN GORDON OF RUSCO
‘Remember these seven things.’— Rutherford . There were plenty of cold Covenanters, as they were called, in Kirkcudbright in John Gordon’s day, but the laird of Rusco was not one of them. Rusco Castle was too near Anwoth Kirk and Anwoth Manse, and its owner had had Samuel Rutherford too long for his minister and his near neighbour to make it possible for him to be ‘ane cold covenanter quha did not do his dewtie in everything committed to his charge thankfullie and willinglie.’ We find Gordon o
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XV. BAILIE JOHN KENNEDY
XV. BAILIE JOHN KENNEDY
‘Die well.’— Rutherford . Bailie John Kennedy, of Ayr, was the remarkable son of a remarkable father. Old Hugh Kennedy’s death-bed was for long a glorious tradition among the godly in the West of Scotland. The old saint was visited in his last hours on earth with a joy that was unspeakable and full of glory: the mere report of it made an immense impression both on the Church and the world. And his son John, who stood entranced beside his father’s chariot of fire, never forgot the transporting
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XVI. JAMES GUTHRIE
XVI. JAMES GUTHRIE
‘The short man who could not bow.’— Cromwell . James Guthrie was the son of the laird of that ilk in the county of Angus. St. Andrews was his alma mater , and under her excellent nurture young Guthrie soon became a student of no common name. His father had destined him for the Episcopal Church, and, what with his descent from an ancient and influential family, his remarkable talents, and his excellent scholarship, it is not to be wondered at that a bishop’s mitre sometimes dangled before his a
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XVII. WILLIAM GUTHRIE
XVII. WILLIAM GUTHRIE
‘A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.’— Solomon . William Guthrie was a great humorist, a great sportsman, a great preacher, and a great writer. The true Guthrie blood has always had a drop of humour in it, and the first minister of Fenwick was a genuine Guthrie in this respect. The finest humour springs up out of a wide and a deep heart, and it always has its roots watered at a wellhead of tears. ‘William Guthrie was a great melancholian,’ says Wodrow, and as we read that we are reminde
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XVIII. GEORGE GILLESPIE
XVIII. GEORGE GILLESPIE
‘Our apprehensions are not canonical.’— Rutherford . George Gillespie was one of that remarkable band of statesmanlike ministers that God gave to Scotland in the seventeenth century. Gillespie died while yet a young man, but before he died, as Rutherford wrote to him on his deathbed, he had done more work for his Master than many a hundred grey-headed and godly ministers. Gillespie and Rutherford got acquainted with one another when Rutherford was beginning his work at Anwoth. In the good pro
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XIX. JOHN FERGUSHILL
XIX. JOHN FERGUSHILL
‘Ho, ye that have no money, come and buy in the poor man’s market.’— Rutherford . It makes us think when we find two such men as Samuel Rutherford and John Fergushill falling back for their own souls on a Scripture like this. We naturally think of Scriptures like this as specially sent out to the chief of sinners; to those men who have sold themselves for naught, or, at least, to new beginners in the divine life. We do not readily think of great divines and famous preachers like Rutherford, or
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XX. JAMES BAUTIE, STUDENT OF DIVINITY
XX. JAMES BAUTIE, STUDENT OF DIVINITY
‘You crave my mind.’— Rutherford . As a rule the difficulties of a divinity student are not at all the difficulties of the best of his future people. A divinity student’s difficulties are usually academic and speculative, whereas the difficulties of the best people in his coming congregation will be difficulties of the most intensely real and practical kind. And thus it is that we so often hear lately-ordained ministers confessing that they have come to the end of their resources and experienc
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XXI. JOHN MEINE, JUNR., STUDENT OF DIVINITY
XXI. JOHN MEINE, JUNR., STUDENT OF DIVINITY
‘If you would be a deep divine I recommend you to sanctification.’— Rutherford . Old John Meine’s shop was a great howf of Samuel Rutherford’s all the time of his student life in Edinburgh. Young Rutherford had got an introduction to the Canongate shopkeeper from one of the elders of Jedburgh, and the old shopkeeper and the young student at once took to one another, and remained fast friends all their days. John Meine’s shop was so situated at a corner of the Canongate that Rutherford could se
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XXII. ALEXANDER BRODIE OF BRODIE
XXII. ALEXANDER BRODIE OF BRODIE
‘Mr. Rutherford’s letter desiring me to deny myself.’—Brodie’s Diary . Alexander Brodie was born at Brodie in the north country in the year 1617. That was the same year that saw Samuel Rutherford matriculate in the College of Edinburgh. Of young Brodie’s early days we know nothing; for, though he has left behind him a full and faithful diary both of his personal and family life, yet, unfortunately, Brodie did not begin to keep that diary till he was well advanced in middle age. Young Brodie’s
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XXIII. JOHN FLEMING, BAILIE OF LEITH
XXIII. JOHN FLEMING, BAILIE OF LEITH
‘I wish that I could satisfy your desire in drawing up and framing for you a Christian Directory.’— Rutherford . Samuel Rutherford and John Fleming, Bailie of Leith, were old and fast friends. Away back in the happy days when Rutherford was still a student, and was still haunting the back-shop of old John Meine in the Canongate of Edinburgh, he had formed a fast friendship with the young wood-merchant of Leith. And all the trials and separations of life, instead of deadening their love for one
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XXIV. THE PARISHIONERS OF KILMACOLM
XXIV. THE PARISHIONERS OF KILMACOLM
‘For want of time I have put you all in one letter.’— Rutherford . There is a well-known passage in Lycidas that exactly describes the religious condition of the parish of Kilmacolm in the year 1639. For the shepherd of that unhappy sheepfold also had climbed up some other way before he knew how to hold a sheephook, till, week after week, the hungry sheep looked up and were not fed. The parishioners of Kilmacolm must have been fed to some purpose at one time, for the two letters they write to
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