intellectual extremes that met in Rutherford are there set forth by
Rutherford's acute and sympathetic critic at some length. For one thing,
the greatest speculative freedom and theological breadth met in
Rutherford with the greatest ecclesiastical hardness and narrowness. I
do not know any author of that day, either in England or in Scotland,
either Prelatist or Puritan, who shows more imaginative freedom and
speculative power than Rutherford does in his _Christ Dying_, unless it
is his still greater contemporary, Thomas Goodwin. And it is with
corresponding distress that we read some of Rutherford's polemical works,
and even the polemical parts of his heavenly Letters. There is a
remarkable passage in one of his controversial books that reminds us of
some of Shakespeare's own tributes to England: 'I judge that in England
the Lord hath many names and a fair company that shall stand at the side
of Christ when He shall render up the kingdom to the Father; and that in
that renowned land there be men of all ranks, wise, valorous, generous,
noble, heroic, faithful, religious, gracious, learned.' Rutherford's
whole passage is worthy to stand beside Shakespeare's great passage on
'this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.' But
persecution from England and controversy at home so embittered
Rutherford's sweet and gracious spirit that passages like that are but
few and far between. But let him away out into pure theology, and,
especially, let him get his wings on the person, and the work, and the
glory of Christ, and few theologians of any age or any school rise to a
larger air, or command a wider scope, or discover a clearer eye of
speculation than Rutherford, till we feel exactly like the laird of
Glanderston, who, when Rutherford left a controversial passage in a
sermon and went on to speak of Christ, cried out in the church--'Ay, hold
you there, minister; you are all right there!' A domestic controversy
that arose in the Church of Scotland towards the end of Rutherford's life
so separated Rutherford from Dickson and Blair that Rutherford would not