The Loveliness of Christ: Selections from the Letters of Samuel Rutherford

by Samuel Rutherford

The great Master Gardener, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in a wonderful providence,2 with His own hand, planted me here, where by His grace, in this part of His vineyard, I grow; and here I will abide till the great Master of the vineyard think fit to transplant me.

If your Lord call you to suffering, be not dismayed; there shall be a new allowance of the King for you when ye come to it. One of the softest pillows Christ hath is laid under His witnesses’ head, though often they must set down their bare feet among thorns.

There is no sweeter fellowship with Christ than to bring our wounds and our sores to Him.

Grace withereth without adversity. The devil is but God’s master fencer, to teach us to handle our weapons.

Ye will not get leave to steal quietly to heaven, in Christ’s company, without a conflict and a cross.

Why should I start at10 the plough of my Lord, that maketh deep furrows on my soul? I know He is no idle husbandman; He purposeth a crop.

My shallow and ebb thoughts are not the compass Christ saileth by. I leave His ways to Himself, for they are far, far above me . . . There are windings and to’s and fro’s in His ways, which blind bodies like us cannot see.

Let Him make anything out of me, so being He be glorified in my salvation: for I know I am made for Him.

Every day we may see some new thing in Christ. His love hath neither brim nor bottom.

There are many heads lying in Christ’s bosom, but here is room for yours among the rest.

Go on, and faint not, something of yours is in heaven, beside the flesh of your exalted Saviour, and ye go on after your own.

I wonder many times that ever a child of God should have a sad heart, considering what their Lord is preparing for them.

Send a heavy heart up to Christ, it shall be welcome.

Glorify the Lord in your sufferings, and take His banner of love, and spread it over you. Others will follow you, if they see you strong in the Lord; their courage shall take life from your Christian carriage.

Ye may yourself ebb and flow, rise and fall, wax and wane; but your Lord is this day as He was yesterday; and it is your comfort that your salvation is not rolled upon wheels of your own making, neither have ye to do with a Christ of your own shaping.

How soon will some few years pass away, and then when the day is ended, and this life’s lease expired, what have men of the world’s glory, but dreams and thoughts? O happy soul for evermore, who can rightly compare this life with that long-lasting life to come, and can balance the weighty glory of the one with the light golden vanity of the other.

If Christ Jesus be the period, the end and lodging-home, at the end of your journey, there is no fear, ye go to a friend . . . . Ye may look death in the face with joy.

Let us be glad and rejoice in the salvation of our Lord, for faith had never yet cause to have wet cheeks and hanging-down brows, or to droop or die; what can ail faith, seeing Christ suffereth Himself (with reverence to Him be it spoken) to be commanded by it; and Christ commandeth all things. Faith may dance because Christ sings; and we may come in the quire39 and lift our hoarse and rough voices, and chirp, and sing, and shout for joy with our Lord Jesus.

This soul of ours hath love, and cannot but love some fair one; and O, what a fair One, what an only One, what an excellent, lovely, ravishing One is Jesus.

Learn to believe Christ better than His strokes; Himself and His promises better than His glooms . . . . “For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,” ergo, shipwreck, losses, disappointments, ill tongues, loss of friends, houses or country, are God’s workmen, set on work, to work out good to you, out of everything that befalleth you.

Alas, that we should love by measure and weight, and not rather have floods and feasts of Christ’s love! O, that Christ would break down the old narrow vessels of these narrow and ebb souls, and make fair, deep, wide, and broad souls, to hold a sea and a full tide, flowing over all its banks of Christ’s love.

Christ should be our night song and our morning song.

Because I am His own (God be thanked) He may use me as He pleaseth.

Now I will bless the Lord that ever there was such a thing as the free grace of God, and a free ransom given for sold souls; only, alas! guiltiness maketh me ashamed to apply to Christ, and to think it pride in me to put out my unclean and withered hand to such a Saviour!

But it is neither shame nor pride for a drowning man to swim to a rock, nor for a ship-broken soul to run himself ashore upon Christ.

Dear brother, come further in on Christ, and see a new treasure in Him: come in, and look down, and see angel’s wonder, and heaven and earth’s wonder of love, sweetness, majesty, and excellency in Him.