Seeing Sorrow in Light of Eternity
“In Samuel Rutherford, we find a rare combination of the precise mind of a theologian but also the passionate heart of a poet. When you read his descriptions of Christ, when you read his descriptions of the love of Christ for His Church and His Church for Him, his imagery reminds me of the Song of Solomon.”
― Dr. John Snyder, PURITAN: All of Life to the Glory of God
Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661) was a seventeenth century Puritan pastor, theologian, author, and thinker.
Samuel Rutherford wrote hundreds of personal letters throughout his lifetime in which he speaks tenderly, warmly, and devotionally of Christ and of the Christian life.
In The Letters of Samuel Rutherford, he comforts a discouraged believer with the hope of heaven one day and the earnest of our inheritance now.
Sure I am, if ye knew what were before you, or if ye saw but some glances of it, ye would with gladness swim through the present floods of sorrow, spreading forth your arms out of desire to be at land.
I know ye are in grief and heaviness; and if it were not so, ye might be afraid, because then your way should not be so like the way that (our Lord saith) leadeth to the New Jerusalem. Sure I am, if ye knew what were before you, or if ye saw but some glances of it, ye would with gladness swim through the present floods of sorrow, spreading forth your arms out of desire to be at land. If God have given you the Earnest of the Spirit, as part of payment of God's principal sum, ye have to rejoice; for our Lord will not lose His earnest, neither will He go back or repent Him of the bargain. If ye find at some time a longing to see God, joy in the assurance of that sight, howbeit that feast be but like the Passover, that cometh about only once a year. Peace of conscience, liberty of prayer, the doors of God's treasure cast up to the soul, and a clear sight of Himself looking out, and saying, with a smiling countenance, "Welcome to Me, afflicted soul;" this is the earnest that He giveth sometimes, and which maketh glad the heart, and is an evidence that the bargain will hold. But to the end ye may get this earnest, it were good to come oft into terms of speech with God, both in prayer and hearing of the word. For this is the house of wine, where ye meet with your Well-Beloved. Here it is where He kisseth you with the kisses of His mouth, and where ye feel the smell of His garments; and they have indeed a most fragrant and glorious smell. Ye must, I say, wait upon Him, and be often communing with Him, whose lips are as lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh, and by the moving thereof He will assuage your grief; for the Christ that saveth you is a speaking Christ; the church knoweth Him by His voice (Song ii. 8), and can discern His tongue amongst a thousand. I say this to the end ye should not love those dumb masks of antichristian ceremonies, that the church where ye are for a time hath cast over the Christ whom your soul loveth. This is to set before you a dumb Christ. But when our Lord cometh, He speaketh to the heart in the simplicity of the Gospel.
I have neither tongue nor pen to express to you the happiness of such as are in Christ.
I have neither tongue nor pen to express to you the happiness of such as are in Christ. When ye have sold all that ye have, and bought the field wherein this pearl is, ye will think it no bad market; for if ye be in Him, all His is yours, and ye are in Him; therefore, "because He liveth, ye shall live also" (John xiv. 19). And what is that else, but as if the Son had said, "I will not have heaven except My redeemed ones be with Me: they and I cannot live asunder. Abide in Me, and I in you." O sweet communion, when Christ and we are through-other, and are no longer two! "Father, I will that those whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am, to behold My glory that Thou hast given Me" (John xvii. 24). Amen, dear Jesus, let it be according to that word. I wonder that ever your heart should be cast down, if ye believe this truth. I and they are not worthy of Jesus Christ, who will not suffer forty years' trouble for Him, since they have such glorious promises. But we fools believe those promises as the man that read Plato's writings concerning the immortality of the soul: so long as the book was in his hand he believed all was true, and that the soul could not die; but so soon as he laid by the book, he began to imagine that the soul is but a smoke or airy vapour, that perisheth with the expiring of the breath. So we at starts do assent to the sweet and precious promises; but, laying aside God's book, we begin to call all in question.
Believe, then, believe and be saved; think not hard if ye get not your will, nor your delights in this life; God will have you to rejoice in nothing but Himself.
It is faith indeed to believe without a pledge, and to hold the heart constant at this work; and when we doubt, to run to the Law and to the Testimony, and stay there. Madam, hold you here: here is your Father's testament,—read it; in it He hath left to you remission of sins and life everlasting. If all that ye have here be crosses and troubles, down-castings, frequent desertions, and departure of the Lord, who is suiting you in marriage, courage! He who is wooer and suitor should not be an household man with you till ye and He come up to His Father's house together. He purposeth to do you good at your latter end (Deut. viii. 16), and to give you rest from the days of adversity (Ps. xciv. 13). "It is good to bear the yoke of God in your youth" (Lam. iii. 27). "Turn in to your stronghold as a prisoner of hope" (Zech. ix. 12). "For the vision is for an appointed time; but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry" (Hab. ii. 3). Hear Himself saying, "Come, My people" (rejoice, He calleth on you!), "enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee; hide thyself, as it were for a little moment, till the indignation be past" (Isa. xxvi. 20). Believe, then, believe and be saved; think not hard if ye get not your will, nor your delights in this life; God will have you to rejoice in nothing but Himself. God forbid that ye should rejoice in anything but in the cross of Christ (Gal. vi. 14).