Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford was a Scottish minister who was born about 1600. After teaching humanities at the University of Edinburgh for a season, he took a theology degree and became the pastor at Anworth in 1627. When the Episcopalians gained the power over the Scottish Church, Rutherford was imprisoned two years in Aberdeen for non-conformity. He survived to preach again and to serve on the Counsel that wrote the famous Westminster Confession.
While Rutherford was in prison, he was not silent. About 220 letters are preserved from the two years in Aberdeen, and they are perhaps, of all his writings, the most enduring. The spirit of them is radiant with the glory and all-sufficiency of Christ. On his way to prison he had said, “I go to my King’s palace at Aberdeen; tongue, pen, and wit cannot express my joy” (Covenant, p.53). This joy overflowed. Taylor Innes said that Rutherford was “impatient of earth, intolerant of sin, rapt into the continual contemplation of one unseen Face, finding his … happiness in its returning smile” (Covenant, p. 50). His glory was his absorption in Christ. “He went to sleep with Christ as his pillow; he awoke in Christ” (p. 56).
