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
We do not grudge Viscount Kenmure all the grace he got from God; we shall
need as much grace and more ourselves; but we do somewhat grudge such a
man a place of honour among the Scots worthies. We are tempted to throw
down the book and to demand what right John Gordon has to stand beside
such men as Patrick Hamilton, and John Knox, and John Wishart, and
Archibald Campbell, and Hugh M'Kail, and Richard Cameron, and Alexander
Shields? But Lochgoin answers us that God sometimes accepts the late
will for the whole timeous deed, and the bravery and loyalty of the wife
for the meanness and poltroonery of the husband. 'Have you a present
sense of God's love?' 'I have, I have,' said the dying Viscount. As
Rutherford continued in prayer, Kenmure was observed to smile and look
upwards. About sunset Lord Kenmure died, at the same instant that
Rutherford said Amen to his prayer. _The Last and Heavenly Speeches_ is
a rare pamphlet that will well repay its price to him who will seek it
out and read it.
This was the correspondent, then, to whom Samuel Rutherford wrote such
counsels and encouragements as these: 'Therefore, madam, herein have
comfort, that He who seeth perfectly through all your evils, and who
knoweth the frame and constitution of your nature, and what is most
healthful for your soul, holdeth every cup of affliction to your head
with his own gracious hand. Never believe that your tender-hearted
Saviour will mix your cup with one drachm-weight of poison. Drink, then,
with the patience of the saints: wrestle, fight, go forward, watch, fear,
believe, pray, and then you have all the infallible symptoms of one of
the elect of Christ within you' (_Letter_ III.). On the death of her
infant daughter, Rutherford writes to the elect lady: 'She is only sent
on before, like unto a star, which, going out of our sight, doth not die
and vanish, but still shineth in another hemisphere. What she wanted of
time she hath gotten of eternity, and you have now some plenishing up in
heaven. Build your nest upon no tree here, for God hath sold the whole
forest to death' (_Letter_ IV.). 'Madam, when you are come to the other
side of the water and have set down your foot on the shore of glorious
eternity, and look back to the water and to your wearisome journey, and
shall see in that clear glass of endless glory nearer to the bottom of
God's wisdom, you shall then be forced to say, "If God had done otherwise
with me than He hath done, I had never come to the enjoying of this crown
of glory"' (_Letter_ XL). 'Madam, tire not, weary not; for I dare find
you the Son of God caution that when you are got up thither and have cast
your eyes to view the golden city and the fair and never-withering Tree
of Life that beareth twelve manner of fruits every month, you shall then
say, "Four-and-twenty hours' abode in this place is worth threescore and
ten years' sorrow upon earth"' (_Letter_ XIX.). 'Your ladyship goeth on
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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