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.