Protestation
of care for their souls and for the glory of God
Delights
in his ministry and in his Lord
Warnings
against errors of the day
Words
to the backslider
Intense
admiration for Christ
A loud call to
all
Aberdeen,
13 July 1637
Dearly
beloved and longed-for in the Lord, my crown and my joy in the day of Christ:
Grace be to you and peace, from
God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
I long exceedingly to know if the
oft-spoken-of match betwixt you and Christ holdeth, and if you follow on to
know the Lord. My day-thoughts and my night-thoughts are of you. While you
sleep I am afraid of your souls, that they be off the Rock. Next to my Lord
Jesus and this fallen kirk [church],
you have the greatest share of my sorrow and also of my joy. You are the
matter of tears, care, fear, and daily prayers of an oppressed prisoner of
Christ. As I am in bonds for my high and lofty One, my royal and princely
Master, my Lord Jesus, so I am in bonds for you. For I should have slept in my
warm nest, and kept the fat world in my arms, and the cords of my tabernacle
should have been fastened more strongly; I might have sung an evangel of ease
to my soul and you for a time, with my brethren, the sons of my mother, that
were angry at me and have thrust me out of the vineyard; if I would have been
broken, and drawn on to mire you, the Lord’s flock, and to cause you to eat
pastures trodden upon with men’s feet, and to drink foul and muddy waters.
But truly the Almighty was a terror to me, and His fear made me afraid. O my
Lord, judge if my ministry be not dear to me, but not so dear by many degrees
as Christ my Lord!
God knoweth the sad and heavy
Sabbaths I have had, since I laid down at my Master’s feet my two
shepherd’s staves. I have been often saying, as it is written, ‘My enemies
chased me sore like a bird, without cause: they have cut off my life in the
dungeon, and cast a stone upon me’ [Lam
3. 52, 53]. For, next to Christ, I had but one joy, the apple of the eye
of my delights, to preach Christ my Lord; and they have violently plucked that
away from me. It was to me like the poor man’s one eye; and they have put
out that eye, and quenched my light in the inheritance of the Lord. But my eye
is toward the Lord. I know that I shall see the salvation of God and that my
hope shall not always be forgotten. And my sorrow shall want nothing to
complete it, and to make me say, ‘What availeth it me to live?’, if you
follow the voice of a stranger, of one that cometh into the sheep-fold, not by
Christ the door, but climbeth up another way.
If the man build his hay and
stubble upon the golden foundation, Christ Jesus (already laid among you), and
you follow him, I assure you, the man’s work shall burn and never bide
God’s fire; and you and he both shall be in danger of everlasting burning
except ye repent. Oh, if any pain, any sorrow, any loss that I can suffer for
Christ and for you were laid in pledge to buy Christ’s love to you! and that
I could lay my dearest joys, next to Christ my Lord, in the gap betwixt you
and eternal destruction! O if I had paper as broad as heaven and earth, and
ink as the sea and all the rivers and fountains of the earth, and were able to
write the love, the worth, the excellency, the sweetness and due praises of
our dearest and fairest Well-beloved! and then if you could read and
understand it! What could I want, if my ministry among you should make a
marriage between the little bride in those bounds and the Bridegroom! O how
rich a prisoner were I, if I could obtain of my Lord (before whom I stand for
you) the salvation of you all! O what a prey had I gotten, to have you catched
in Christ’s net! O then, I had cast out my Lord’s lines and his net with a
rich gain! Oh then, well-wared pained breast and sore back and
crazed body, in speaking early and late to you!
My witness is above; your heaven
would be two heavens to me, and the salvation of you all as two salvations to
me. I would subscribe a suspension, and a fristing of my heaven for many hundred years (according to God’s good pleasure) if ye
were sure in the upper lodging, in our Father’s house, before me. I take to
witness heaven and earth against you, I take instrumentsin the
hands of that sun and daylight that beheld us, and in the hands of the timber
and walls of that kirk, if I drew not up a fair contract of marriage betwixt
you and Christ, if I went not with offers betwixt the Bridegroom and you; and
your conscience did bear you witness, your mouths confessed, that there were
many fair trysts and meetings drawn on betwixt Christ and you at communion
feasts and other occasions. There were bracelets, jewels, rings and
love-letters sent to you by the Bridegroom. It was told you what a fair dowry
you should have, and what a house your Husband and you should dwell in, and
what was the Bridegroom’s excellency, sweetness, might, power, the eternity
and glory of his kingdom, the exceeding deepness of his love, who sought his
black wife through pain, fires, shame, death and the grave, and swimmed the
salt sea for her, undergoing the curse of the law, and thenwas
made a curse for you. And you then consented and said, ‘Even so I take
him’.
I counsel you to beware of the
new and strange leaven of men’s inventions beside and against the Word of
God, contrary to the oath of this Kirk, now coming among you. I instructed you
of the superstition and idolatry in kneeling in the instant of receiving the
Lord’s Supper, and of crossingin baptism, and of the observing
of men’s days, without any warrant of Christ our perfect Lawgiver.
Countenance not the surplice, the attire of the mass-priest, the garment of
Baal’s priests. The abominable bowing to altars of tree (wood) is coming
upon you. Hate and keep yourselves from idols. Forbear in any case to hear the
reading of the new fatherless Service-Book,full of
gross heresies, popish and superstitious errors, without any warrant of
Christ, tending to the overthrow of preaching. You owe no obedience to the
bastard canons; they are unlawful, blasphemous, and superstitious. All the
ceremonies that lie in Antichrist’s foul womb, the wares of that great
mother of fornications, the Kirk of Rome, are to be refused. You see whither
they lead you. Continue still in the doctrine which you have received. You
heard of me the whole counsel of God. Sew no clouts upon Christ’s robe. Take
Christ, in His rags and losses, and as persecuted by men, and be content to
sigh and pant up the mountain, with Christ’s cross on your back. Let me be
reputed a false prophet (and your conscience once said the contrary) if your
Lord Jesus will not stand by you and maintain you, and maintain your cause
against your enemies.
I have heard, and my soul is
grieved for it, that since my departure from you, many among you are turned
back from the good old way, to the dog’s vomit again. Let me speak to these
men. It was not without God’s special direction that the first sentence that
ever my mouth uttered to you was that: ‘And Jesus said, For judgement I am
come into this world, that they which see might not see; and that they which
see might be made blind’ [John 9. 39].
Is it possible that my first meeting and yours may be when we shall both stand
before the dreadful Judge of the world; and in the name and authority of the
Son of God, my great King and Master, I write, by these presents, summonses to
those men. I arrest their souls and bodies to the day of our compearance.Their eternal damnation standeth subscribed, and sealed in heaven, by
the hand-writing of the great Judge of quick and dead; and I am ready to stand
up, as a preaching witness against such to their face, on that day, and to say
‘Amen’ to their condemnation, except they repent. The vengeance of the
Gospel is heavier than the vengeance of the Law. The Mediator’s malediction
and vengeance is twice vengeance, and that vengeance is the due portion of
such men. And there I leave them as bond men, aye and until they repent and
amend.
Ye were witnesses how the
Lord’s day was spent while I was among you. O sacrilegious robber of God’s
day, what wilt thou answer the Almighty when he seeketh so many Sabbaths back
again from thee? What will the curser, swearer and blasphemer do when his
tongue shall be roasted in that broad and burning lake of fire and brimstone?
And what will the drunkard do when tongue, lungs and liver, bones and all
shall boil and shall fry in a torturing fire? He shall be far from his barrels
of strong drink then; and there is not a cold well of water for him in hell.
What shall be the case of the wretch, the covetous man, the oppressor, the
deceiver, the earth-worm, who can never get his wombful of clay [Ps
17. 14], when, in the day of Christ, gold and silver must lie burnt in
ashes, and he must compear and answer his Judge, and quit his
clayey and noughty
heaven!
Woe, woe, for evermore, be to the
time-turning atheist, who hath one god and one religion for summer, and
another god and another religion for winter, and the day of fanning, when
Christ fanneth all that is in his barn-floor; who hath a conscience for every
fair and market, and the soul of him runneth upon these oiled wheels, time,
custom, the world, and command of men. O, if the careless atheist, and
sleeping man, who edgeth by all with, ‘God forgive our pastors if they lead
us wrong, we must do as they command’, and layeth down his head upon
time’s bosom, and giveth his conscience to a deputy, and sleepeth so, till
the smoke of hell-fire fly up in his throat, and cause him to start out of his
doleful bed! O if such a man would awake! Many woes are for the over-guilded
and gold-plastered hypocrite. A heavy doom is for the liar and white-tongued
flatterer; and the flying book of God’s fearful vengeance, twenty cubits
long and ten cubits broad, that goeth out from the face of God, shall enter
into the house, and in upon the soul of him that stealeth and sweareth falsely
by God’s name [Zech 5. 2, 3].
I denounce eternal burning,
hotter than Sodom’s flames, upon the men that boil in filthy lusts of
fornication, adultery, incest, and the like wickedness. No room, no, not a
foot-breadth, for such vile dogs within the clean Jerusalem. Many of you put
off all with this, ‘God forgive us, we know no better’. I renew my old
answer: the Judge is coming in flaming fire, with all his mighty angels to
render vengeance to all those who know not God, and believe not [2
Thess I. 8]. I have often told you that security will slay you. All men
say they have faith: as many men and women now, as many saints in heaven. And
all believe (say you), so that every foul dog is clean enough, and good
enough, for the clean and new Jerusalem above. Every man hath conversion and
the new birth; but it is not lealcome. They had never a sick
night for sin; conversion came to them in a night-dream. In a word, hell will
be empty at the day of judgement, and heaven pangfull! Alas! it
is neither easy nor ordinary to believe and to be saved. Many must stand, in
the end, at heaven’s gates [Luke 13.
25]. When they go to take out their faith, they take out a fair nothing,
or (as ye use to speak) a blafume.O lamentable disappointment! I
pray you, I charge you in the name of Christ, make fast work of Christ and
salvation.
I know there are some
believers among you, and I write to you, O poor broken-hearted believers. All
the comforts of Christ in the Old and New Testaments are yours. O what a
Father and Husband you have! O, if I had pen and ink, and engine
to write of him! Let heaven and earth be consolidated into massy and pure
gold, it will not weigh the thousandth part of Christ’s love to a soul, even
to me a poor prisoner. O that is a massy and marvelous love! Men and angels!
unite your force and strength in one, you shall not heave nor poise it off the
ground. Ten thousand worlds, as many worlds as angels can number, and then as
a new world of angels can multiply, would not all be the balk of
a balance to weigh Christ’s excellency, sweetness and love. Put ten earths
into one, and let a rose grow greater than ten whole earths, or whole worlds,
O what beauty would be in it, and what a smell it would cast! But a blast of
the breath of that fairest Rose in all God’s paradise, even of Christ Jesus
our Lord, one look of that fairest face would be indefinitely in beauty and
smell above all imaginable and created glory!
I wonder that men can
bide offChrist. I would esteem myself blessed if I could make an
open proclamation, and gather all the world that are living upon the earth,
Jew and Gentile, and all that shall be born till the blowing of the last
trump, to flock round about Christ, and to stand looking, wondering, admiring,
and adoring his beauty and sweetness. For his fire is hotter than any other
fire, his love sweeter than common love, his beauty surpasseth all other
beauty. When I am heavy and sad, one of his love-looks would do me meikle [many]
worlds’ good. O if you would fall in love with him, how blessed were I! How
glad would my soul be to help you to love him! But amongst us all, we could
not love him enough. He is the Son of the Father’s love, and God’s
delight. The Father’s love lieth all upon him. O if all mankind would fetch
all their love and lay it upon him! Invite him, and take him home to your
houses, in the exercise of prayer morning and evening, as I often desired you;
especially now, let him not want lodging in your houses, nor lie in the fields
when he is shut out of pulpits and kirks. If you will be content to take
heaven by violence and the wind on your face for Christ and his cross, I am
here one who hath some trial for Christ’s cross, and I can say, that Christ
was ever kind to me, but he overcometh himself (if I may speak so) in kindness
while I suffer for him. I give you my word for it, Christ’s cross is not so
evil as they call it; it is sweet, light, and comfortable. I would not want
the visitations of love, and the very breathings of Christ’s mouth when he
kisseth, and my Lord’s delightsome smiles and love-embracements under my
sufferings for him, for a mountain of gold, or for all the honours, court, and
grandeur of velvet kirkmen. Christ hath the yolk and heart of my love. ‘I am
my Beloved’s and my Well-beloved is mine’.
O that you were
hand-fasted to Christ! O my dearly-beloved in the Lord, I would I could change
my voice, and had a tongue tuned by the hands of my Lord, and had the art of
speaking of Christ, that I might point out to you the worth and highness and
greatness and excellency of that fairest and renowned Bridegroom! I beseech
you by the mercies of the Lord, by the sighs, tears, and heart’s-blood of
our Lord Jesus, by the salvation of your poor and precious souls, set up the
mountain, that you and I may meet before the Lamb’s throne amongst the
congregation of the first-born. The Lord grant that that may be the
trysting-place! that you and I may put up our hands together, and pluck and
eat the apples off the tree of life, and that we may feast together and drink
together of that pure river of the water of life that cometh out from the
throne of God and of the Lamb!
O how little is your
hand-breadth and span-length of days here! Your inch of time is less that when
you and I parted. Eternity, eternity is coming, posting on with wings; then
shall every man’s blacks and whites be brought to light. O how low will your
thoughts be of this fair-skinned but heart-rotten apple, the vain, vain,
fecklessworld, when the worms shall make them houses in your
eye-holes, and shall eat off the flesh from the balls of your cheeks, and
shall make that body a number of dry bones! Think not that the common gateof serving God, as neighbours and others do, will bring you to heaven.
Few, few are saved. The devil’s court is thick and many. He hath the
greatest number of mankind for his vassals. I know this world is a forest of
thorns in your way to heaven; but
you must go through it. Acquaint yourselves with the Lord; hold fast Christ;
hear his voice only. Bless his name; sanctify and keep holy his day; keep the
new commandment, ‘Love one another’; let the Holy Spirit dwell in your
bodies; and be clean and holy.
Love not the world;
lie not; love and follow the truth. Learn to know God. Keep in mind what I
taught you, for God will seek an account of it when I am far from you. Abstain
from all evil and all appearance of evil. Follow good carefully, and seek
peace and follow after it. Honour your king and pray for him. Remember me to
God in your prayers; I cannot forget you.
I told you often
while I was with you, and now I write it again; heavy, sad and sore is that
stroke of the Lord’s wrath that is coming upon
Scotland. Woe,
woe, woe to this harlot-land! for they shall take the cup of God’s wrath
from his hands, and drink and fall and spue and not rise again. In, in, in
with speed to your stronghold, you prisoners of hope, and hide you there till
the anger of the Lord pass! Follow not the pastors of this land, for the sun
is gone down upon them. As the Lord liveth, they lead you from Christ, and
from the good old way. Yet the Lord will keep the holy city, and make this
withered Kirk to bud again like a rose and a field blessed of the Lord.
The grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ be with you all. The prayers and blessings of a prisoner in
Christ, in bonds for him, and for you, be with you all. Amen.
Your lawful and
loving pastor,
S.R.
Deserved.
An act in law postponing the
carrying out of a decision.
To postpone possession.
Documents, furnishing proof.
Thus.
Making the sign of the cross.
Without the author’s name.
It was the reading of ‘Laud’s
Liturgy’ in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, that caused Jenny Geddes the
herb-stall woman to throw her stool at the Dean’s head. The attempt to foist
Episcopacy on
Scotland
led to the signing of the National
Covenant in 1638 and to the two Bishops’ wars 1639-40.
Appearance in court.
Worthless.
Honest, genuine.
Crammed.
A sham, an air-bubble.
Ability.
Beam.
Abide
(stay) away from.
Way,
manner.
Reference
“Letters of Samuel
Rutherford,” published by The Banner of Truth Trust, 1996. pp 109-118.
