Those in this house who have followed all this with that intense and
intelligent sympathy that a somewhat similar experience alone will give,
will not be stumbled to read what Rutherford says in his letter to his
near neighbour, William Glendinning: 'I see nothing in this life but sin,
sin and the sour fruits of sin. O what a miserable bondage it is to be
at the nod and beck of Sin!' Nor will they wonder to read in his letter
to Lady Boyd, that she is to be sorry all her days on account of her
inborn and abiding corruptions. Nor, again, that he himself was sick at
his heart, and at the very yolk of his heart, at sin, dead-sick with
hatred and disgust at sin, and correspondingly sick with love and longing
after Jesus Christ. Nor, again, that he awoke ill every morning to
discover that he had not yet awakened in his Saviour's sinless likeness.
Nor will you wonder, again, at the seraphic flights of love and worship
that Samuel Rutherford, who was so poisoned with sin, takes at the name
and the thought of his divine Physician. For to Rutherford that divine
Physician has promised to come 'the second time without sin unto
salvation.' The first time He came He sucked the poison of sin out of
the souls of sinners with His own lips, and out of all the enjoyments
that He had sanctified and prepared for them in heaven. And He is coming
back--He has now for a long time come back and taken Rutherford home to
that sanctification that seemed to go further and further away from
Rutherford the longer he lived in this sin-poisoned world. And, amongst
all those who are now home in heaven, I cannot think there can be many
who are enjoying heaven with a deeper joy than Samuel Rutherford's sheer,
solid, uninterrupted, unadulterated, and unmitigated joy.




X. JOHN GORDON OF CARDONESS, THE YOUNGER