Letters of Samuel Rutherford

Most justly does the old Preface to the earlier Editions begin by telling the Reader that “These Letters have no need of any man’s epistle commendatory, the great Master having given them one, written by His own hand on the hearts of all who favour the things of God.” Every one who knows these “Letters” at all, is aware of their most peculiar characteristic, namely, the discovery they present of the marvellous intercourse carried on between the writer’s soul and his God.

This Edition will be found to be the most complete that has hitherto appeared. It is the same as that of 1863, in two vols., with two slight alterations, viz. the footnotes are for the most part removed to the Glossary, and a few of the notices are condensed, but nothing omitted of any importance. On the other hand, one or two slight additions have been made. Attending carefully to the chronological arrangement, the Editor has sought, by biographical, topographical, and historical notices, to put the Reader in possession of all that was needed to enable him to enter into the circumstances in which each Letter was written, so far as that could be done. The appended Glossary of Scottish words and expressions (many of them in reality old English), the Index of Places and Persons, the Index of Special Subjects, and the prefixed Contents of Each Letter, will, it is confidently believed, be found both interesting and useful. The Sketch of Rutherford’s Life may be thought too brief; but the limits within which such a Sketch must necessarily be confined, when occupying the place of a mere Introduction, rendered brevity inevitable.

Every Letter hitherto published is to be found in this Edition. The ten additional Letters of the Edition 1848, along with two more, added since that time, are all inserted in their chronological place. The publishers have taken great pains with the typography.

“W herever the palm-tree is, there is water,” says the Eastern proverb; and so, wherever the godly flourish, there, we are sure, must the Word of God be found. In the history of the Reformation we read of Brother Martin, a poor monk at Basle, whose hope of salvation rested solely on the Lord Jesus, long before Luther sounded the silver trumpet that summoned sin-convinced souls to the One Sacrifice. Having written out his confession of faith, his statement of reliance on the righteousness of Christ alone, the monk placed the parchment in a wooden box, and shut up the wooden box in a hole of the wall of his cell. It was not till last century that this box, with its interesting contents, was discovered: it was brought to light only when the old wall of the monastery was taken down. The palm-tree speaks of the existence of water at its root; the pure Word of God taught this man his simple faith. And herein we learn how it was that Basle so early became a peculiar centre of light in that region; the prayer and the faith of that hidden one, and others like-minded, and the Word on which they fed, may explain it all.

There is a fact not unlike the above in the history of the district where Samuel Rutherford laboured so lovingly. The people of that shire tell that there was found, some generations ago, in the wall of the old castle of Earlston, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, a copy of “Wickliffe’s Bible.” It was deposited in that receptacle in order to be hid from the view of enemies; but from time to time it was the lamp of light to a few souls, who, perhaps in the silence of night, found opportunity to draw it out of its ark, and peruse its pages. It seems that the Lollards of Kyle (the adjoining district) had brought it to Earlston. We know that there were friends and members of the family of Earlston who embraced the Gospel even in those days. In the sixteenth century, some of the ancestors of Viscount Kenmure are found holding the doctrines of Wickliffe, which had been handed down to them. May we not believe that the Gordons of Earlston, in after days, were not a little indebted to the faith and prayers of these ancient witnesses who hid the sacred treasure in the castle wall? As in the case of the monk of Basle, their faith and patience were acknowledged in after days by the blessing sent down on that quarter, when the Lord, in remembrance of His hidden ones, both raised up the Gordons of Earlston, with many others of a like spirit, and also sent thither His servant Samuel Rutherford, to sound forth the Word of Life, and make the lamp of truth blaze, like a torch, over all that region.

Samuel Rutherford was born about the year 1600. His father is understood to have been a respectable farmer. He had two brothers, James and George. But the place of his birth was not near the scene of his after labours. It is almost certain that Nisbet, a village of Roxburghshire close to the Teviot, in the parish of Crailing, was his birthplace; the name Rutherford frequently occurs in the churchyard. Not long ago, there were some old people in that parish who remembered the gable-end of the house in which it was said that he was born, and which, from respect to his memory, was permitted to stand as long as it could keep together. And there was there a village well where, when very young, Samuel nearly lost his life. He had been amusing himself with some companions, when he fell in, and was left there till they ran and procured assistance; but on returning to the spot they found him seated on a knoll, cold and dripping, yet uninjured. He told them that “A bonnie white man came and drew him out of the well!” Whether or not he really fancied that an angel had delivered him, we cannot tell; but it is plain that, at all events, his boyish thoughts were already wandering in the region of the sky.

He owed little to his native place. There was not so much of Christ known in that parish then as there is now; for in after days he writes, “My soul’s desire is, that the place to which I owe my first birth — in which, I fear, Christ was scarcely named, as touching any reality of the power of godliness — may blossom as the rose” (Letter cccxxxiv.). We have no account of his revisiting these scenes of his early life, though he thus wrote to his friend, Mr. Scott, minister of the adjoining parish of Oxnam. Like Donald Cargill, born in Perthshire yet never known to preach there even once, Rutherford had his labours in other parts of the land, distant from his native place. In this arrangement we see the Master’s sovereignty. The sphere is evidently one of God’s choosing for the man, instead of being the result of the man’s gratifying his natural predilections. It accords, too, with the example of the Master, who never returned to Bethlehem, where He was born, to do any of His works.

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