This minister, like his blessed Master, could be seen, early and late, “leaping upon the mountains, and skipping upon the hills,” in his eagerness to visit his people who were scattered widely over the country.

As he walked, his head was erect and his face heavenward; his eyes were feasting on the glory above the sky.  His musings cast him into transports of joy in Christ.  His Covenant with God exalted his soul into sweetest familiarity with the Lord.  The Holy Spirit came upon him in great power and with superabundance of gifts.

Rutherford, having a high-keyed voice, was a poor speaker; but that did not prevent him from holding multitudes spell-bound.  They came from afar to hear him tell of the love of Christ.  He gazed upon visions of Christ’s loveliness, arose in raptures of joy as he discoursed on Christ’s glory, and seemed at times as if he would fly out of the pulpit in his animation.  He was so full of life, of power, of heaven, of glory, and of God, that his words and thoughts and teachings were pictures, revelations, inspirations, apocalypses, scenes in the eternal world, glimpses of the glory of Immanuel and Immanuel’s land.

Here are some of his spiritual chromos as they took color and language from his soul: 

“My one joy, next to the flower of my joys, Christ, was to preach my sweetest, sweetest Master, and the glory of His kingdom.

“I would beg lodging, for God’s sake, in hell’s hottest furnace, that I might rub souls with Christ.

“Were my blackness and Christ’s beauty carded through other, His beauty and holiness would eat up my filthiness.

“Christ’s honeycombs drop honey and floods of consolation upon my soul; my chains are gold.”

When Rutherford was on his deathbed, his enemies sent for him to stand trial for treasonable conduct.  His treasonable conduct was his fearless preaching of the Gospel and heralding the royal glory of Christ, which included severest denunciation of the king’s arrogant claim of authority over the Church.  He replied, “Tell them I have got a summons already before a Superior Judge, and I behoove to answer my first summons; and ere your day come, I will be where few kings and great folks come.”  As he lay dying, he opened his eyes, and his familiar vision of Christ and the world of glory breaking upon him with unclouded luster, he exclaimed:  “Glory, glory in Immanuel’s land.”  With this outburst of joy on his lips, he joined the white-robed throng to take up the heavenly song.

The same source of strength is yet available.  Power comes through holy familiarity with God, personal relation to Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  Are we full of power in the Lord’s service?

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Points for the class.

1.  What event intensified the issue between the king and the Covenanters?

2.  Wherein lay the moral strength of the Covenanters?