1. _All who are sensible of their own, and the Church's decay and
corruptions._--The wound and the cure are therein so fully opened out:
self is exposed, specially _spiritual self_. He will tell you, "There
is as much need to watch over grace, as to watch over sin." He will
show you God in Christ, to fill up the place usurped by self. The
subtleties of sin, idols, snares, temptations, self-deceptions, are
dragged into view from time to time. And what is better still, the
cords of Christ are twined round the roots of these bitter plants,
that they may be plucked up.
Nor is it otherwise in regard to corruption in public, and in the
Church. We do not mean merely the open corruption of error, but also
the secret "grey hairs" of decay. Hear him cry, "There is universal
deadness on all that fear God. O where are the sometime quickening
breathings and influences from heaven that have refreshed His hidden
ones!" And then he laments, in the name of the saints, "We are half
satisfied with our witheredness; nor have we as much of his strain who
doth eight times breathe out that suit (Psalm cxix.), Quicken me!" "We
live far from the well, and complain but dryly of our dryness."
2. _All who delight in the Surety's imputed righteousness._--If
thoroughly aware of the body of sin in ourselves we cannot but feel
that we need a _person_ in our stead--the person of the God-man in the
room of our guilty person. "To us a Son is given;" not salvation only,
but a Saviour. "He gave _Himself_ for _us_."
These letters are ever leading us to the Surety and His righteousness.
The eye never gets time to rest long on anything apart from Him and
His righteousness. We are shown the deluge-waters undried up, in order
to lead us into the ark again: "I had fainted, had not want and penury
chased me to the storehouse of all."
3. _All who rejoice in the Gospel of free grace._--Lord Kenmure having
said to him, "Sin causeth me to be jealous of His love to such a man
as I have been," he replied, "Be jealous of yourself, my Lord, but not
of Jesus Christ." In his "Trial and Triumph of Faith" he remarks, "As
holy walking is a duty coming from us, it is no ground of true peace.
Believers often seek in themselves what they should seek in Christ."
It is to the like effect he says in one of his letters, "Your heart is
not the compass that Christ saileth by,"--turning away his friend
from looking inward, to look upon the heart of Jesus. And this is his
meaning, when he thus lays the whole burden of salvation on the Lord,
and leaves nothing for us but acceptance, "Take ease to thyself, and
let Him bear all."[59] Then, pointing us to the risen Saviour as our
pledge of complete redemption, "Faith may dance, because Christ
singeth;"[60] "Faith _apprehendeth pardon_, but never payeth a penny
for it."[61] On his death-bed he said to his friends, "I disclaim all
that ever God made me will or do, and I look upon it as defiled and
imperfect." And so in his Letters he will admit of no addition, or
intermixture of other things, "The Gospel is like a small hair that
hath no breadth, and will not cleave in two."[62] He exhorts to
_Assurance_ as being the way to be humbled very low before God:
"Complaining is but a humble backbiting and traducing of Christ's new
work in the soul." "Make meikle of assurance, for it keepeth your
anchor fixed."[63] He warns us, in his "Trial and Triumph of Faith,"
"not to be too desirous of keen awakenings to chase us to Christ. Let
Christ tutor me as he thinketh good. He has seven eyes: I have but
one, and that too dim." In a similar strain he writes:--"The law shall
never be my doomster, by Christ's grace; I shall find a sure enough
doom in the Gospel to humble and cast me down. _There cannot be a more
humble soul than a believer. It is no pride in a drowning man to catch
hold of a rock._"[64] How much truth there is here! Naaman never was
humble in any degree, until he felt himself _completely healed_ of his
scaly leprosy; but truly he was humbled and humble then. And what one
word is there that suggests so many humbling thoughts as that word
"_grace_"?
[59] Letter clxxxii.
[60] Letter clxxxiii.
[61] Letter clxxxii.
[62] Letter cclxxix.
[63] Letter cclxxxviii.
[64] Letter ccxxx.
4. _All who seek to grow in holiness._--The Holy Ghost delights to
show us the glorious Godhead, in the face of Jesus. And this is a very
frequent theme in these Letters. "Take Christ for sanctification, as
well as justification," is often his theme. And in him we see a man
who seems to have fought for _holiness_ as unceasingly and as eagerly
as other men seek for _pardon and peace_. In him "_Holiness to the
Lord_" seems written on every affection of the heart, and on every
fresh-springing thought.
Fellowship with the living God is a distinguishing feature in the
holiness given by the Holy Ghost; we get "access by one Spirit to the
Father through Him."[65] Rutherford could sometimes say, "I have been
so near Him that I have said, 'I take instruments that this is the
Lord.'"[66] And he could from experience declare, "I dare avouch, the
saints know not the length and largeness of the sweet Earnest, and of
the sweet green sheaves before the harvest, that might be had on this
side of the water, _if we should take more pains_."[67] "I am every
way in your case, as hard-hearted and dead as any man, but yet I speak
to Christ through my sleep."[68] All this is from the pen of a man who
was a metaphysician, a controversialist, a leader in the church, and
learned in ancient and scholastic lore. Why are there not such
gracious, as well as great men now?
[65] Ephes. ii. 18.
[66] Letter xcix.
[67] Letter ccii.
[68] Letter cclxxxvi.
5. _All afflicted persons._--Here he had the very "tongue of the
learned, to speak a word in season to him that was weary." And with
what tender sympathy does he speak, leading the mourner so gently to
the heart of Jesus! He knew the heart of a stranger, for he had been a
stranger. "Let no man after me slander Christ for His cross."[69] Yes,
says he, His most loved are often His most tried: "The lintel-stone
and pillars of His New Jerusalem suffer more knocks of God's hammer
and tools than the common side-wall stones."[70] Even as to reproach
and calumny, he declares, "I love Christ's worst reproaches."
[69] Letter cvii.
[70] Letter cii.
It was to Hugh M'Kail, uncle of the youthful martyr, that he penned
the words, "Some have written me that I am possibly too joyful of the
cross; but my joy overleapeth the cross--it is bounded and terminated
on Christ."[71] And there it was he found a well of comfort never dry.
[71] Letter ccvi.
6. _All who love the Person of Christ._--We have too often been
satisfied with speculative truth and abstract doctrine. On the one
hand, the orthodox have too often rested in the statements of our
Catechisms and Confessions; and, on the other, the "Election-doubters"
(as Bunyan would have called them) have pressed their favourite dogma,
that Christ died for all men, as if mere assent to a proposition could
save the soul. Rutherford places the truth before us in a more
accurate, and also more savoury way, full of life and warmth. The
Person of Him who gave Himself for His church is held up in all its
attractiveness. With him, it is ever the Person as much as the work
done; or rather, never the one apart from the other. Like Paul, he
would fain know _Him_, as well as the power of His resurrection.[72]
[72] Phil. iii. 10.
Once, when Lord Kenmure asked him, "What will Christ be like when He
cometh?" his reply was, "_All lovely_." And this is everywhere the
favourite theme with him. At times he tells of His love. "His love
surroundeth and surchargeth me."[73] "If His love was not in heaven, I
should be unwilling to go thither."[74] Often he checks his pen to
tell of _Christ Himself_, "Welcome, welcome, sweet, sweet cross of
Christ;"--then correcting his language, "Welcome, fair, lovely, _royal
King, with Thine own cross_."[75] "O if I could doat as much upon
_Himself_ as I do upon His love."[76] "I fear I make more of His love
than of _Himself_."[77] How startling yet how true, is this remark, "I
see that in communion with Christ we may make more gods than
one,"[78]--meaning that we may be tempted to make the enjoyment itself
our god. It was his habitual aim to pass through privileges, joys,
even fellowship, to God Himself: "I have casten this work upon Christ,
to get me _Himself_."[79] "I would be farther in upon Christ than at
His joys; in, where love and mercy lodgeth; beside His heart."[80] "He
who sitteth on the throne is His lone a sufficient heaven."[81] "Sure
I am He is the far best half of heaven."[82]
[73] Letter civ.
[74] Letter civ.
[75] Letter lxi.
[76] Letter clx.
[77] Letter clxxix.
[78] Letter clxviii.
[79] Letter clxxxvii.
[80] Letter cclxxxvi.
[81] Letter ccclii.
[82] Letter cclxxix.
In a word, such was his soul's view of the living Person, that he
writes, "Holiness is not _Christ_, nor the blossoms and flowers of the
tree of life, nor the tree itself."[83] He had found out the true
fountain-head, and would direct all Zion's travellers thither. And let
a man try this; let the Holy Spirit lead a man to this _Person_;--and
surely his experience will be, "None ever came up dry from David's
well."
[83] Letter cccxxxvi.
7. _All who love that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the
great God our Saviour._--The more we love the Person of Christ, the
more ought we to love His appearing; and the more we cherish both
feelings, the holier shall we become. Rutherford abounds in
aspirations for that day; he is one who "looks for and hastens unto
the coming of the day of God!" While in exile at Aberdeen in 1637, he
writes, "O when will we meet! O how long is it to the dawning of the
marriage day! O sweet Jesus, take wide steps! O my Lord, come over
mountains at one stride! O my Beloved, flee as a roe or young hart
upon the fountains of separation." Now and then he utters the
expression of an intense desire for the restoration of Israel to
their Lord, and the fulness of the Gentiles; but far oftener his
desires go forth to his Lord Himself. "O fairest among the sons of
men, why stayest Thou so long away? O heavens, move fast! O time, run,
run, and hasten the marriage day!" To Lady Kenmure his words are, "The
Lord hath told you what you should be doing till He come. 'Wait and
hasten,' saith Peter, 'for the coming of the Lord.' Sigh and long for
the dawning of that morning, and the breaking of that day, of the
coming of the Son of Man, when the shadows shall flee away. Wait with
the wearied night-watch for the breaking of the eastern sky." Those
saints who feel most keenly the world's enmity, and the Church's
imperfection, are those who will most fervently love their Lord's
appearing. It was thus with Daniel on the banks of Ulai, and with John
in Patmos; and Samuel Rutherford's most intense aspirations for that
day are breathed out in Aberdeen.
His description of himself on one occasion is, "A man often borne down
and hungry, and waiting for the marriage supper of the Lamb."[84] He
is now gone to the "mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense;"
and there he no doubt still wonders at the unopened, unsearchable
treasures of Christ. But O for his insatiable desires Christward! O
for ten such men in Scotland to stand in the gap!--men who all day
long find nothing but Christ to rest in, whose very sleep is a
pursuing after Christ in dreams, and who intensely desire to "awake
with His likeness."
[84] Letter lxiii.