Letters of Samuel Rutherford VIII: Make Your Choice

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:11]Welcome to the whole council podcast.

[00:00:13]I'm John Snyder and we're looking at some of the great letter writers uh in the last 500 years in Christian history, particularly those that write, you know, with a pastoral concern. We've been looking at the letters of Samuel Rutherford, one of my favorite Scottish authors. And uh Rutherford was born in the year 1600. He died in 1661 under house arrest uh as he was waiting to be taken to London to stand trial for crimes uh against uh the the court there, James I, James V 6th of Scotland.

[00:00:50]Um, I want to give kind of just a quick overview again of Rutherford's life because it can be a a little uh confusing, but it's very helpful to realize all the things he went through.

[00:01:02]At age 27, 1627, he becomes a pastor of a small rural community church uh in southern um Scotland, the lands. It's a beautiful little place. I've been there.

[00:01:16]uh the name of the little town uh but it's really not a town more like a little community is Anworth and he is pastor there for nine years and that's really he's pretty famous for that but he wasn't there that long because in 1636 he was arrested and put under uh what we would call a house arrest in Aberdine northern Scotland far from his church he's only 36 years old at this time. He had to appear before the court of high commission in July of 1636 for opposing the Perth articles is what they were called. Now there were five Perth articles and they were they were a set of controversial religious uh rulings by James V 6th of Scotland or James the 1, King James in 1618 where he basically is forcing the Scottish church to come under the Episcopalian uh English church, the the church of England and to kind of you know unify them all under the rule of the crown.

[00:02:26]Rotherford and other faithful ministers in Scotland said that this was usurping the rights of Christ and they refused and he preached against the king's overreach in this religious matter. And uh as a result of that and other things that he preached that the king didn't like uh Rutherford was put in prison or under house arrest forbidden to preach confined to the city of Aberdine for about 17 months. Now during these 17 months um there were a number of things that really weighed heavily on the heart of Rutherford. One was that he was not able to pastor his church. Second, someone else was pastoring his church, a person that um that the authorities, the bishops had uh in England had placed into that church. And so he considered that man a hirling. And the people in his church did as well. I doubt that the man had a very good pastor there. Um so Rutherford was concerned that a man was in the pulpit saying things that that really didn't reflect scripture.

[00:03:32]Also, um Rutherford not being able to preach. He describes not being able to preach at this time after um so many sorrows he's already gone through. And I mentioned that in in previous episodes about losing his his uh mother, then uh his wife dies, his all of his children from that first marriage die, then remarrying, losing the children from the first marriage, then he remarries and he loses all but one of the children in that. So Rutherford has gone through a series of great sorrows and now he's in prison and he can't preach. He describes it in his in his letters like this. He said that it he he said his life was like a beautiful garden. Think English garden. So not vegetable garden. All right. You walk out back and you know and and there's this or Scottish garden.

[00:04:21]So you know there the flowers and things there. And he said God sent a wintry blast into his life and it killed all the flowers in his garden. All the joys of life except one. The one flower that remained that brought him joy, that made him get out of bed in the morning was that he was still able to preach Christ.

[00:04:43]But then he was arrested and not able to preach. And he said it was as if Christ came into the garden and clipped the last rose and took it away.

[00:04:54]from these 17 months of um house arrest, Rutherford writes most of his letters that we still have today and they are just wonderful, wonderful descriptions of the fullness of Christ, of the comforts that come in the hardest times of life. Uh you know uh he he describes the nearness of God in ways during these months that make some people call Rutherford a mystic. And I think if he's a mystic, he's the best kind of mystic.

[00:05:23]He's a Pauline mystic, you know, yearning to know the depths, the heights, the breadth and the length of the love of God experientially and unmbarrassed by his statements of the love and loveliness of Christ at this time.

[00:05:42]Now 16 uh 37 he's released and he goes back to Anworth and he's allowed to pastor there a little over a year and then uh the authorities in the Presbyterian denomination they meet up and they say listen you're too valuable to be stuck in this small country church. Rutherford does not agree but they pray about it and they say they feel like it's the Lord's will for Rutherford to go to St. Andrews and to work at St. Mary's College to be the head uh systematic theological teacher there. And this is a St. Mary's College is one of three colleges in the St. Andrews University system at that time.

[00:06:22]It's the college where ministerial students would go. So they want him to train pastors because of his keen mind and his um his you know his consecration and his willingness to suffer for the cause of Christ. While he was there, there are a lot of interesting accounts.

[00:06:40]But one of my favorite is uh as he was teaching systematic theology, one of the students asked him, "How do you become a great theologian?"

[00:06:50]Well, actually what he said was a deep divine. So deep thinking, divine meaning theologian. We don't use the word that way anymore. So how do you how do you become a deep thinking theologian, a really great theologian? And Rutherford's answer is just golden. He says, "If you would be a deep divine, a great theologian, I recommend to you sanctification."

[00:07:14]If that were to come from a man that despised reading uh the the reformers and the Puritans, a man who despised, you know, institutional education or seminaries, then it wouldn't mean that much. But coming from a man whose life at this point is is dedicated to educating ministers in an institution at a college uh I think that answer just really shows the heart and the clarity of Samuel Rutherford. Rutherford is there um for from about 1639 to 7 to 1643. So about four years he's appeased there and then he's called to go with I believe seven other Scottish ministers or theologians and they're called to go as the Scottish commissioners to the Westminster Assembly. Now this is the famous assembly of the Puritans. That that would be um basically the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists who while still within the Church of England uh they wanted to see the Church of England continue to purify itself of unbiblical remnants of the pre-reformation Roman Catholicism that they felt were still hanging on to the church because of the Elizabeth and compromise.

[00:08:35]Now, Wales and England were able to send delegates to this. Uh, but Scotland's delegates were commissioners, and they're different because they could only advise. But because they were part of the Church of Scotland, which was separate under the Reformation, you know, that was led by John Knox, they don't have the right to vote.

[00:08:58]the these uh eight men and really particularly about three of them, Rutherford being one of them, their influence at the Westminster Assembly as they're coming up with the the Westminster standards which included the Westminster confession of faith, the directory for worship and the form of government for the church. Um particularly the confession of faith which has been so significantly impactful in in the last 400 years.

[00:09:27]these Scottish commissioners, their impact was far greater than than their numbers would suggest.

[00:09:34]So he was there from 43 to 47 and then he goes back to St. Andrews and he while he is there he says that he will teach at St. Andrews when he was first invited only if only on the condition that he could he could still work as a pastor.

[00:09:50]So he co-pastors the church there in St. Andrews while he is the theological main theological teacher at St. Mary's. But when he returns after being down in London for an extended period of time working with the Westminster Assembly in 1647, he's made the principal of St. Mary's College, not just the theological teacher of the college. So he's the he's the principal of the main theological uh college in St. Andrews.

[00:10:23]He serves there and he eventually becomes the director of St. Andrews University as a whole and and in multiple times 1643 44 50 and 51 his final years he continues his duties there until in 1661 he is again put under house arrest. Um this follows the restoration of the monarchy. So the Puritans and Cromwell are out of power. Now Charles II has now come to power promising religious freedom to the Puritans which as soon as he assumes the throne he breaks his word and a terrible persecution especially in Scotland begins.

[00:11:12]Rutherford wrote a books a book while in um while working with the Westminster assembly along with all the work he had to do down there. He was writing his famous book Lex Rex uh you know where it deals with the rule of law and the king is not above the law and how does the Bible guide us and thinking about that and well that was burned publicly in 1661 at his university. He was charged with treason because he wrote that book.

[00:11:41]uh he was removed from his position, put under house arrest. He died in custody.

[00:11:46]He was supposed to travel down to London to stand trial before James the uh before Charles II, but he um but he doesn't because his health it it's not that good and he dies before he can make the trip. One of his famous statements uh toward the end of his life was he told his um the the the men who were guarding him under house arrest and who were supposed to escort him down to London. He said to them that he wasn't going to make the trip that he would soon be where few earthly kings would be. Uh that was, you know, with Christ.

[00:12:24]Well, in light of all of that, I want us to look at a section in this little book that has excerpts from his letters. The book, if you remember, is The Life of Samuel Rutherford by Andrew Thompson.

[00:12:37]This is a an edition, I think, that's out of print now. It was published by Free Presbyterian Publications. It's my all-time favorite book about Samuel Rotherford because it's really well written. But the last third of the book, the last quarter of the book is uh is made up of selections from his letters.

[00:12:57]And they're not just little quippy, you know, uh oneliners. They're they're paragraphs. And so you get more substance. So I want to read from a section in the back that is called Make Your Choice. It's basically a collection of of uh of sections of his letters where Rutherford calls on his reader to choose will you choose Christ or will you choose the world? You know, will you choose Christ or will you choose self?

[00:13:27]Because the cost was high especially at at certain times in Rutherford's life.

[00:13:32]It was a cost he was willing to pay. And so often times he speaks of the value that he sees in Christ in comparison with what he's given up for Christ. And I I find some of these statements just really stirring for us today.

[00:13:48]So the first is a paragraph where he describes God at work in every believer and he he's telling us what is the aim of God even when he brings us through very difficult times.

[00:14:05]Here's what Rutherford writes. You will find in Christianity that God aims in all his dealings with his children to bring them to a high contempt of and deadly feud with the world.

[00:14:22]To set a high price upon Christ and to thank him one who cannot be bought for gold and well worthy the fighting for.

[00:14:33]And for no other cause does the Lord withdraw from you, he writes, the childish toys and the earthly delights that he gives to others, but that he may have you holy to himself.

[00:14:48]So great statement really doesn't require much explanation. But let me just call your attention to a couple of things there. That in everything God is doing providentially, every circumstance in the life of the Christian, understand that he intends to do two things here to bring you to a feud with the world with the world's way of doing things.

[00:15:14]uh to to hold the world's values in contempt because they're they're dominated by a godless view but at the same time to show us the value of Christ that he is so valuable he could not be bought no matter how much gold you brought to the table and he is well worth fighting for.

[00:15:34]That's why God sometimes removes the the the pleasures, the comforts, the security of a believer and lets us go through a hard time so as to wean us from that so that he may have all our heart.

[00:15:52]In another selection, he compares Christ to the sorrows that he's endured. And he finds Christ well worth any sorrow he's passed through. Some of the language is a bit old. Uh so listen closely. This is what he says. Put Christ's love to the trial and put upon it our burdens and then it will appear love indeed.

[00:16:19]We employ not his love and therefore we know it not. In other words, you know, we don't really grab hold of it and make use of it in our in our thinking. So we don't really know it very much.

[00:16:30]I truly count the sufferings of my Lord more than this world's lustrous and overguilded glory.

[00:16:39]I dare not say, "But my Jesus hath fully recompensed my sadness with his joys, my losses with his own presence. I find it a sweet and rich thing to exchange my sorrows with Christ's joys, my afflictions for that sweet peace I have with himself.

[00:17:05]So again, Rutherford calling uh the the reader of the letter and us today, put Christ's love to the test. You know, put it put it on one side of the scale. put the costs, the sufferings of following this Christ on the other side and see if he is not worthy of every cost.

[00:17:27]In another selection he writes uh that even in the most difficult times in the saddest conditions that a Christian can find themselves in and as we know he was there often even when we feel our weakness and our work our unworthiness of Christ.

[00:17:45]Rutherford says he still prefers Christ and Christ will not refuse Rutherford or he will not be ashamed of his people. He says it in a wonderful way here. He will not refuse my knock at his door. Here's how it goes. He writes, "I'm still welcome to Christ's house. He knows my knock and lets in his poor friend under this black rough tree of the cross of Christ under the present suffering he has. Christ has ravished me with his love and taken my heart to heaven with him. Well and long may he enjoy it. I would not exchange Christ with all the joys that man or angel can devise outside of Christ.

[00:18:37]Who has such calls to speak honorably of Christ as I do? Christ is king of all crosses and he has made his saints little kings under him. and he can ride and triumph upon weaker bodies than I am, if any can be weaker. And his horse will neither fall nor stumble. So even though Christ uses weak believers who feel their weakness, that in the great conquests of Christ in our present day, as in Rutherford's day, we know that his warhorse does not stumble.

[00:19:18]One of my favorite selections from Rutherford's letters is in this section and it speaks of the the unbeliever or perhaps the believer even at times but particularly it distinguishes the behavior of the unbeliever that the unbeliever is is fascinated with sin's lies and plays with sin in a way you know it comes up to the edge of it.

[00:19:45]plays with it thinking that sin is, you know, is a pleasant pastime, not realizing that it is the very thing that will destroy you.

[00:19:58]He uses an illustration of children on a on a ship playing with the sea that is crashing against the side of the ship and a storm is coming. The children don't know enough to be afraid. They don't know that this that the waves they're playing with as you know as the foam crashes up and over the edge of the of you know onto the ship's deck. They don't realize that those very waves will drown all of them. So he says this,"I think the men of this world like children in a dangerous storm in the sea that play and make sport of the white foam of the waves coming in to sink and drown them. So are men making fools sport with the white pleasures of a stormy world that will sink them."

[00:20:54]Well, if I can read you just one more before we close the podcast. There is one more selection where Rutherford speaks of valuing Christ more than any other thing. Choosing Christ and he gives a specific direction here. Value Christ, he says in light of eternity and not just the temporary things that are right in front of us. So he writes, "Christ is worth more than all the world's springtime flowers and the withering riches and honors that will go away like smoke and vanish in a night vision and will in one half hour after the blast of the archangel's trumpet speaking of the judgment.

[00:21:48]this world, everything it offers will in a half within a half hour of that trumpet blast, he says it will lie in white ashes.

[00:21:57]Let me beg you, draw aside time's curtain. Pull it back and look in through the window to great and endless eternity and consider if a worldly price, suppose this round clay globe were all yours. If you owned all the world, could it be given for one smile of Christ's godlike, soul ravishing countenance on that judgment day when so many joints and knees of thousands are shaking and thousands of thousands are wailing, trembling, shouting, making their prayers to the hills and the mountains, begging them to fall on them and to hide them from the face of the lamb.

[00:22:49]Quite a a shocking question.

[00:22:54]Would this whole world would you not give it all up if you own the entire world for one smile from Christ when he's on his throne at the moment that he is damning everyone who's rejected him?

[00:23:10]So choose Christ, Rutherford says, and don't let the fear of the cost dissuade you. Because if you put Christ and his love in the scales and put all the suffering that might come to you as you follow him on the other side of the scales, it's no comparison. Just calculate carefully or as Christ said, count the cost. The cost of following him, the cost of not following him.

[00:23:38]Well, next week we'll pick back up with more selections from the letters of Samuel Rutherford. Uh, borrowing help from Andrew Thompson's little book, The Life of Samuel Rutherford.