Samuel Rutherford and Some of His CorrespondentsWhyte, Alexander
Religion
Samuel Rutherford and Some of His Correspondents
Whyte, Alexander
Church of Scotland -- Clergy -- Biography; Rutherford, Samuel, 1600?-1661; Rutherford, Samuel, 1600?-1661 -- Correspondence
It was all this, and nothing other and nothing less than all this, that
made Marion M'Naught Rutherford's favourite correspondent. Her mind and
her heart together early and often drew her across the country to
Rutherford's preaching. Marion M'Naught had a good minister of her own
at home; but Rutherford was Rutherford, and he made Anwoth Anwoth. I
think I can understand something of her delight on Communion forenoons,
when his text was Christ Dying, in John xii. 32, or the Syro-Phoenician
woman, in Matt. xv. 28. And then the feasts on the fast-days at
Kirkcudbright, over the cloud of witnesses, in Heb. xii. 1, and all tears
wiped away, in Rev. xxi. 4, and the marriage of the Lamb, in xix. 7. And
then, on the other hand, Rutherford is not surely to be blamed for loving
such a hearer. His Master loved a Mary also of His day, for that also
among other good reasons. If a good hearer likes a good preacher, why
should a good preacher not like a good hearer? Take a holiday, and give
us another day soon of such and such a preacher, our people sometimes say
to us. And why should that preacher not also say to us, Give me a day
soon again of your good hearers? As a matter of fact, our good preaching
friends do say that to us. And why not? Fine hearers, deep hearers,
thoroughly well-prepared hearers, hearers of genius are almost as scarce
as fine, deep, thoroughly well-prepared preachers and preachers of
genius. And who shall blame Rutherford for liking to see Marion M'Naught
coming into the church on a Sabbath morning as well as she liked to see
him coming into the pulpit? 'I go to Anwoth so often,' she said,
'because, though other ministers show me the majesty of God and the
plague of my own heart, Mr. Samuel does both these things, but he also
shows me, as no other minister ever does, the loveliness of Christ.' It
is as great a mistake to think that all our Christian people are able to
take in a sermon on the loveliness of Christ as it is that all ordained
men can preach such a sermon. There are diversities of gifts among
hearers as well as among preachers; and when the gifts of the pulpit meet
the corresponding graces in the pew, you need not wonder that they
recognise and delight in one another. Jesus Christ was Rutherford's
favourite subject in the pulpit, and thus it was that he was Marion
M'Naught's favourite preacher, as she, again, was his favourite hearer in
the church and his favourite correspondent in the Letters. To how many
in this house to-night could a preacher say that he wished them all to be
'over head and ears in love to Christ'? What preacher could say a thing
like that in truth and soberness? And how many could hear it? Only a
preacher of the holy passion of Rutherford, and only a hearer of the
intellect and heart and rare experience of Marion M'Naught. 'O the fair
face of the man Jesus Christ!' he cries out. And again: 'O time, time,
why dost thou move so slowly! Come hither, O love of Christ! What
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