Samuel Rutherford Answers the Divine Summons (March 29, 1661)

When the English monarchy was restored in 1660, King Charles II betrayed the Scottish Presbyterians who had supported him and had crowned him as their king in 1651. All those years Charles had hated Reformation principles, and at the Restoration he began his efforts to turn England and Scotland back to pre-Reformation times. A tidal wave of suffering was about to break over the land for those who didn’t conform to the king’s religious and governmental principles. One of the first nonconformists to receive the king’s attention was Samuel Rutherford, who in early 1661 lay dying at the college at St. Andrews, where he was professor of divinity.

Rutherford (1600–1661) had worked for decades to ensure the continuance of the Reformation in England and Scotland. He was well-known in his own time as a faithful pastor, author, professor, and member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. The letters he wrote to friends throughout his public ministry and, especially, during his exile in Aberdeen form the legacy by which he is mainly known today. Such a leader Charles II summoned to appear before him for high treason.

Rutherford’s response and Parliament’s reaction are reported by John Howie in his book The Scots Worthies:

It is commonly said that, when the summons came, he spoke out of his bed and said, “Tell them I have got a summons already before a superior Judge and judicatory, and I behove to answer my first summons, and ere your day come I will be where few kings and great folks come.” When they returned and told he was a-dying, the parliament was put to a vote, whether or not to let him die in the college. It was carried, “put him out,” only a few dissenting. My Lord Burleigh said, “Ye have voted that honest man out of the college, but ye cannot vote him out of heaven.” Some said, He would never win there, hell was too good for him. Burleigh said, “I wish I were as sure of heaven as he is, I would think myself happy to get a grip of his sleeve to haul me in.”

(John Howie, The Scots Worthies. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2001. p. 236)

The Lord spared Rutherford from seeing all the horror that was about to descend upon England and Scotland. But he “lived to see all he had striven for over thirty years crumbling before his eyes…. [T]he Drunken Parliament of 1661, as it was called, gleefully rescinded each act on the statute book that safeguarded Reformation principles” (Faith Cook, Samuel Rutherford and His Friends. Banner of Truth, 1992. p. 28).

With so much seemingly going against him, Rutherford was not gloomy, but rather joyful, in answering his “first summons.” Those gathered around his deathbed heard him say many things about Christ, as though he were already in Heaven with his Lord. He was not glorying in work accomplished or grieving over work undone by the government; He was glorying in Jesus Christ and in Him alone. His friends and daughter Agnes heard him utter memorable statements of a long-held faith. When asked by one, “What think ye now of Christ?” he replied,

“I shall live and adore Him. Glory! Glory to my Creator and my Redeemer for ever!” …. Oh! That all my brethren in the land may know what a Master I have served, and what peace I have this day. I shall sleep in Christ, and when I awake I shall be satisfied with His likeness. This night shall close the door, and put my anchor within the vail; and I shall go away in a sleep by five of the clock in the morning…. Oh! For arms to embrace Him! Oh! For a well-tuned harp!” (Howie, The Scots Worthies, p. 239)

By 5:00 on the morning of March 29, 1661 Samuel Rutherford had answered the divine summons, “Come up hither.” His last words were, “Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.”

About 200 years later many of Rutherford’s sayings were memorialized in a lengthy poem by Anne Ross Cousin, “The Sands of Time Are Sinking.” Mrs. Cousin was the wife of a Scottish Presbyterian minister. She was inspired by Rutherford’s biography and wrote 19 stanzas, only a few of which appear in most hymnals. Reading the entire poem is like glimpsing into the heart of Samuel Rutherford and seeing his devotion to the Lord and his outlook on life. The last stanza relates Rutherford’s reply to those sent to summon him.

They’ve summoned me before them, but there I may not come,

My Lord says “Come up hither,” My Lord says “Welcome home!”

My King, at His white throne, my presence doth command

Where glory—glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

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For further reading:

Letters of Samuel Rutherford (Bonar edition. Banner of Truth, 2006). 365 letters prefaced by Andrew Bonar's biographical sketch of Rutherford.

Alexander Smellie, Men of the Covenant (Banner of Truth, 1962 reprint). An account of the Scottish Covenanters of the 17^th Century.

Faith Cook, Samuel Rutherford and His Friends (Banner of Truth, 1992). Biographical vignettes that show the man and his ministry to people through his letters.

Faith Cook, Grace in Winter: Rutherford in Verse (Banner of Truth, 1989). Poetic forms of some of Rutherford’s best letters.

John Howie, The Scots Worthies (Banner of Truth, 2001). Biographical vignettes of the Scottish Covenanters.

Samuel Rutherford Answers the Divine Summons (March 29, 1661)