Samuel Rutherford
c. 1600–1661
Author of *Lex Rex*; fierce presbyterian, supralapsarian, mystical letter-writer.
Biography
Professor of Divinity at St Andrews from 1639, Rutherford was the Assembly's most prolific Scottish theological pen — *Lex, Rex* (1644) gave Reformed political resistance theory its enduring statement; *The Due Right of Presbyteries* (1644) and *The Divine Right of Church Government* (1646) argued the polity case. His pastoral *Letters* (printed 1664) became one of the most beloved devotional books of the Reformed tradition. At the Restoration he was charged with treason but died before trial.
Principal works
- Lex, Rex (1644)
- The Due Right of Presbyteries (1644)
- The Trial and Triumph of Faith (1645)
- The Covenant of Life Opened (1655)
- Letters (1664)
Scottish Commissioner
Under the Solemn League and Covenant (1643) the Church of Scotland sent commissioners — ministers and ruling elders — to sit with the Assembly. They had voice in debate but no formal vote, yet their influence on the Standards, especially on worship and presbyterian polity, was decisive. Alexander Henderson, Samuel Rutherford, George Gillespie, and Robert Baillie were the leading ministerial commissioners.
Party in 20 cruxes
- The Order of the Decrees
- The Extent of the Atonement
- The Decree of Reprobation
- The Covenant of Redemption
- The Children of Believers and the Sign of the Covenant
- The Imputation of Christ's Active Obedience
- Assurance: Of the Essence of Saving Faith?
- The Perseverance of the Saints
- The Third Use of the Moral Law
- The Strict Sabbath
- The Grand Debate over Polity
- The Erastian Question
- The Regulative Principle of Worship
- Sacramental Efficacy: Signs and Seals
- The Magistrate and the Two Tables
- The Pope as Antichrist
- Grounds of Divorce: Adultery and Wilful Desertion
- The Conscious Intermediate State
- The Final Judgment and the Last Things
- The Solemn League and Covenant