Samuel Rutherford

Life

Rutherford was born around 1600 at Nisbet in Roxburghshire, in southern Scotland. He entered the University of Edinburgh in 1617, received his Master of Arts degree in 1621, and from 1623 taught Latin at the same university. He then studied theology, and in 1627 he became minister of the parish of Anwoth in southwestern Scotland. During his nine years of ministry at Anwoth, he lost his first wife and his children.

At the time, the king was imposing episcopacy, a system of church government through bishops, on the Church of Scotland. Rutherford refused to conform. In 1636 he published a Latin work refuting Arminianism and defending the Calvinist doctrine of grace. That same year he was summoned before the Court of High Commission, a religious tribunal established by the king, and deprived of his ministry. He was subsequently forbidden to preach and exiled to Aberdeen. When the National Covenant was signed in 1638 and the Presbyterian system was restored, he returned to Anwoth. He later became professor of divinity at St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, and in 1647 he became principal of the college. He is also reported to have served as rector of the university in 1651.

With the Restoration of 1660, when Charles II returned to the throne, Rutherford lost all of his positions. In 1661 he was summoned before Parliament on a charge of treason, but he was already gravely ill and unable to appear. He died at St. Andrews in March of that year, before he could be tried.

Ministry and Work

• Westminster Assembly: In 1643 he was sent to London as a commissioner of the Church of Scotland to the Westminster Assembly. He remained there for four years, until 1647, taking an active part in debates on theology and church government, and he preached several times before Parliament. Some scholars also credit him with influencing the drafting of the Shorter Catechism.
• Lex, Rex (1644): Rutherford argued that royal power is limited and that the king, too, is subject to the law. Because royal authority is conferred by the voluntary consent of the people, he held, the people may resist a tyrant. Written during the English Civil War in response to arguments defending the king's absolute power, the book applies covenant theology to the political sphere.
• Defense of Presbyterian polity: In works such as The Due Right of Presbyteries (1644) and The Divine Right of Church Government (1646), he defended Presbyterian church government and criticized the Independents (Congregationalist in orientation), who emphasized the autonomy of the local congregation.
• Letters: Most of his surviving letters were written during his exile in Aberdeen. They were first published in 1664, after his death, in an edition compiled by Robert McWard, and the 1891 edition edited by Andrew Bonar contains 365 letters. The collection is reported to have been reissued more than forty times since. Anne Cousin based her hymn "The Sands of Time Are Sinking" on words he spoke on his deathbed: "Glory shines in Immanuel's land."
• He also wrote devotional works such as The Trial and Triumph of Faith (1645) and Christ Dying and Drawing Sinners to Himself (1647).

Influence on the Korean Church

Many Korean Presbyterian denominations accept the Westminster Confession of Faith as their doctrinal standard. As a theologian who took part in the assembly that produced this confession, Rutherford has been introduced to Korea chiefly through Reformed theological circles. Korean translations of his works include The Covenant of Life, Part 2: The Covenant of Redemption (Hapdong Theological Seminary Press, 2020) and Samuel Rutherford's Catechism (Daham, 2022). Korean theological journals have published articles on topics such as the doctrine of the covenant of redemption, which concerns the covenant made between the Father and the Son; the political covenant theology of Lex, Rex; and the pastoral character of his letters.

Assessment

The Church of Scotland counts Rutherford among its foremost classic figures. His letters continue to be read today as devotional literature dealing with communion with Christ and comfort in suffering. Lex, Rex is regarded as a pioneering work of political theory that limits royal power and upholds constitutional order.

He has also drawn criticism. His contemporary, the poet John Milton, criticized Rutherford for his attacks on the Independents, naming him explicitly in a sonnet. The Restoration government ordered Lex, Rex to be publicly burned in Edinburgh and St. Andrews. The nineteenth-century British Dictionary of National Biography, while praising his gifts, judged that as a church leader he was narrow-minded and in fact harmed the Presbyterian cause, and that he was excessively bitter in controversy.