Samuel Rutherford was a remarkable Scottish Presbyterian in the 17^th Century. Those of us who admire our great Westminster Confession of Faith will be glad to know that he was one of the few Scottish Divines at the Westminster Assembly during its drafting.

He had a passionate heart and was ceaseless in his work for the church. It was said of him that, "He was always praying, always preaching, always visiting the sick, always catechising, always writing and studying." His life was not without sorrow though, and his first years of being a pastor saw the death of his wife and two of his children. Furthermore, he was punished for his Presbyterian faith when he refused to conform to the episcopacy favored by the crown. But God sovereignly ordained these things for, among other effects, the advancement of his ministry; when one reads his letters to his flock comforting them in their suffering, it is easy to see the authentic heartbreak behind the pen and the genuine lessons that he learned and then applied to their lives.

What’s more, this giant of faith left us a remarkable treasury of true religious expression. His collected letters have been lauded with exceptionally uncommon praises by some other incredible Christians. Here are just two:

C.H. Spurgeon considered Rutherford’s letters to be “the nearest thing to inspiration which can be found in all the writings of mere men.” And Richard Baxter explained: “Hold off the Bible, such a book the world never saw.”

Here are some excerpts from The Letters of Samuel Rutherford:

I doubt not but that, if hell were betwixt you and Christ, as a river which ye behoved to cross ere you could come at Him, but ye would willingly put in your foot, and make through to be at Him, upon hope that He would come in Himself, in the deepest of the river, and lend you His hand… and ye have also a promise that Christ shall do more than meet you, even that He shall come Himself, and go with you foot for foot, yea and bear you in His arms.

Build your nest upon no tree here; for ye see God hath sold the forest to death; and every tree whereupon we would rest is ready to be cut down, to the end that we may fly and mount up, and build upon the Rock, and dwell in the holes of the Rock. What ye love besides Jesus, your husband, is an adulterous lover. Now it is God’s special blessing to Judah, that He will not let her find her paths in following her strange lovers. “Therefore, behold I will hedge up her way with thorns, and make a wall that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow her lovers, but she shall not overtake them” (Hos. 2:6-7). O thrice happy Judah, when God buildeth a double stone wall betwixt her and the fire of hell!

Duties are ours, and events [outcomes] are God’s.

His reproaches are sweet, His cross perfumed, the walls of my prison fair and large, my losses gain.

Yet Christ hath another sea-compass which He saileth by, than my short and raw thoughts. I leave His part of it to Himself. I dare not expound His dealing as sorrow and misbelieve often dictate to me.

Wants are my best riches, for I have these supplied by Christ. Dry wells send us to the fountain.

I rejoice that he is come and hath chosen you in the furnace; it is even there where ye and he set tryst; that is an old gate of Christ’s. He keepeth the good old fashion with you, that was in Hosea’s days: ‘Therefore, behold I will allure her, and bring her to the wilderness and speak to her heart’ (Hos. 2:14). There was no talking to her heart while he and she were in the fair and flourishing city and at ease; but only in the cold, hungry, waste wilderness, he allureth her, and whispered in news into her ear there, and said, ‘Thou art mine.’

I’ll leave you with an excerpt from one of his letters to a youth (like us) in his congregation in 1637:

I entreat you now, in the morning of your life, to seek the Lord and His face. Beware of the follies of dangerous youth, a perilous time for your soul. Love not the world. Keep faith and truth with all men in your covenants and bargains. Walk with God, for He seeth you. Do nothing but that which ye may and would do if your eye-strings were breaking, and your breath growing cold. Prize Christ and salvation above all the world.