Quotes from Samuel Rutherford

He cutteth off your love to the creature, that ye might learn that God only is the right owner of your love, sorrow, loss, sadness, death or the worst things that are, except sin:

It is our Lord's wisdom, that His kirk should ever hang by a thread; and yet the thread breaketh not, being hanged upon Him who is the sure Nail in David's house (Isa. xxii. 23), upon whom all the vessels, great and small, do hang; and the Nail (God be thanked) neither crooketh nor can be broken. Jesus,

Not one ounce, not one grain-weight more is laid on me than He hath enabled me to bear . . . Faith hath cause to take courage from our very afflictions; the devil is but a whetstone to sharpen the faith and patience of the saints. I know He but heweth and polisheth stones for the new Jerusalem.

The supreme and absolute Former of all things giveth not an account of any of His matters.

His cross is the sweetest burden that ever I bare: it is such a burden as wings are to a bird, or sails to a ship, to carry me forward to my harbour.

When the sun riseth first, the beams over-gild the tops of green mountains that look toward the east, and the world cannot hinder the sun to rise: some are so near heaven, that the everlasting Sun hath begun to make an everlasting day of glory on them; the rays that come from his face that sits on the throne, so over-goldeth the soul, that there is no possibility of clouding peace, or of hindering daylight in the souls of such.

I am most gladly content that Christ breaketh all my idols in pieces: it hath put a new edge upon my blunted love to Christ. I see He is jealous of my love, and will have all to Himself.

It were a well-spent journey, to creep hands and feet, through seven deaths and seven hells, to enjoy Him up at the well-head. Only let us not weary: the miles to that land are fewer and shorter than when we first believed; strangers are not wise to quarrel with their host, and complain of their lodging; it is a foul way, but a fair home.

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.

There is none like Him; I would not exchange one smile of His lovely face with kingdoms.

To live on Christ's love is a king's life.

O! for the long day, and the high sun, and the fair garden, and the King's great city up above these visible heavens!