Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Samuel Rutherford

Scottish Presbyterian Pastor, Theologian and Author, Scottish Commisioner to the Westminster Assembly

"I wonder many times that ever a child of God should have a sad heart, considering what the Lord is preparing for him."

"Set not your heart upon the world, since God hath not made it your portion."

"Come all crosses, welcome, welcome! so I may get my heart full of my Lord Jesus."

"Commemoration of George Augustus Selwyn, first Bishop of New Zealand, 1878 Come all crosses, welcome, welcome! so I may get my heart full of my Lord Jesus."

"Every man thinketh he is rich enough in grace, till he take out his purse, and... then he findeth it but poor and light in the day of a heavy trial. I found I had not enough to bear my expenses, and should have fainted, if want and penury had not chased me to the storehouse of all."

"Faint not; the miles to heaven are but few and short."

"Grace tried is better than grace, and it is more than grace, it is glory in its infancy. I now see godliness is more than the outside and this world's passments and their buskings [i.e., ornaments and fine dress]. Who knoweth the truth of grace without a trial?"

"Alas, we but chase feathers flying in the air, and tire our own spirits, for the froth and over-gilded clay of a dying life. One sight of what my Lord hath let me see within this short time, is worth a world of worlds."

"Be not cast down. If ye saw Him who is standing on the shore, holding out His arms to welcome you to land, ye would wade, not only through a sea of wrongs, but through hell itself to be with Him."

"After winter comes the summer. After night comes the dawn. After every storm, there comes clear, open skies."

"But the way to overcome is by patience, forgiving and praying for your enemies, in doing whereof you heap coals upon their heads, and your Lord shall open a door to you in your trouble: wait upon Him, as the night watch waiteth for the morning. He will not tarry. Go up to your watch-tower, and come not down, but by prayer, and faith, and hope, wait on."

"Grace will ever speak for itself and be fruitful in well-doing; the sanctified, cross is a fruitful tree."

"How soon would faith freeze without a cross!"

"Humility is a strange flower; it grows best in winter weather, and under storms of affliction."

"I am glad that you have been acquainted, from your youth, with the wrestlings of God, being cast from furnace to furnace; knowing, if you were not dear to God, and if your health did not require so much of him, he would not spend as much physic upon you. All the brethren and sisters of Christ must be conformed to his image in suffering, and some do more fully resemble the copy than others."

"I seldom made an errand to God for another but I got something for myself."

"I will charge my soul to believe and wait for Him, and will follow His providence, and not go before it, nor stay behind it."

"If ye were not strangers here, the dogs of the world would not bark at you."

"I have been benefited by praying for others; for by making an errand to God for them I have gotten something for myself."

"I shall think it mercy to my soul, if my faith shall out-watch all this winter-night, and not nod or slumber, till my Lord's summer-day dawn upon me."

"Let your children be as so many flowers, borrowed from God. If the flowers die or wither, thank God for a summer loan of them."

"Millions of hells of sinners cannot come near to exhaust infinite grace."

"Oh my debt of praise, how weighty is it, and how far run up! Oh that others would lend me to pay, and teach me to praise!"

"My faith has no bed to sleep upon but omnipotence."

"Of all created comforts, God is the lender; you are the borrower, not the owner"

"The hope of heaven under troubles is like wind and sails to the soul."

"One reason God created time was so that there would be a place to bury the failures of the past."

"See that you buy the field where the Pearl is; sell all, and make a purchase of salvation. Think it not easy: for it is a steep ascent to eternal glory: many are lying dead by the way, slain with security."

"Verily, we know not what an evil it is to indulge ourselves, and to make an idol of our will... Once I would make much ado, if I saw not the world carved and set in order to my liking; now I am silent, when I see God... is fattening and feeding the children of perdition. I pray God, I may never find my will again."

"Think it not hard if you get not your will, nor your delights in this life; God will have you to rejoice in nothing but himself."

"There is nothing left to us but to see how we may be approved of Him, and how we may roll the weight of our weak souls in well-doing upon Him, who is God omnipotent."

"Why should I tremble at the plough of my Lord, that maketh deep furrows on my soul? I know He is no idle husbandman, He purposeth a crop."

"We are as near to heaven as we are far from self, and far from the love of a sinful world."

"We never with our eyes saw our own soul; yet we have a soul. We see many rivers, but we know not their first spring and original fountain; yet they have a beginning. ...When ye are come to the other side...set down your foot on the shore of glorious eternity, and look back again to the waters and to your wearisome journey, and shall see, in that clear glass of endless glory, nearer to the bottom of God's wisdom, ye shall then be forced to say, 'If God had done otherwise with me than He hath done, I had never come to the enjoying of this crown of glory.' It is your part now to believe, and suffer, and hope, and wait on..."

"Ye have lost a child--nay, she is not lost to you, who is found to Christ; she is not sent away, but only sent before; like unto a star, which going out of our sight, doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another hemisphere."

"You shall by faith sustain yourself and comfort yourself in your Lord, and be strong in His power; for you are in the beaten and common way to heaven, when you are under our Lord’s crosses. You have reason to rejoice in it, more than in a crown of gold; and rejoice and be glad to bear the reproaches of Christ."

"We take nothing to the grave with us, but a good or evil conscience... It is true, terrors of conscience cast us down; and yet without terrors of conscience we cannot be raised up again."

"You will not be carried to Heaven lying at ease upon a feather bed."

"Your afflictions are not eternal, time will end them, and so shall ye at length see the Lord’s salvation; His love sleepeth not, is still in working for you; His salvation will not tarry nor linger; and suffering for Him is the noblest cross out of heaven. Your Lord hath the choice of ten thousand other crosses, beside this, to exercise you withal; but His wisdom and His love choosed out this for you, beside them all; and take it as a choice one, and make use of it. Let the Lord absolutely have the ordering of your evils and troubles, and put them off you, by recommending your cross and your furnace to Him, who hath skill to melt His own metal, and knoweth well what to do with His furnace."

"Build your nest upon no tree here, for ye see that God hath sold the forest to death."

"Believe God's love and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences."

"Grace tried is better than grace, and more than grace; it is glory in its infancy."

"Dearest wife, let us go on and faint not; something of ours is in heaven besides the flesh of our exalted Savior, and we go on after our own."

"Grow as a palm-tree on God's Mount Zion; howbeit shaken with winds, yet the root is fast."

"I find my Lord Jesus cometh not in the precise way that I lay wait for Him. He hath a manner of His own. Oh, how high are His ways above my ways"

"I see grace growth best in winter"

"I pray God that I may never find my will again. Oh, that Christ would subject my will to His, and trample it under His feet."

"I know that as night and shadows are good for flowers, and moonlight and dews are better than a continual sun? and that it hath some nourishing virtue in it, and giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on hunger, and furnisheth a fair field for faith to put forth itself."

"If you should see a man shut up in a closed room, idolizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you wished to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all his lamps; and then throw open the shutters to let in the light of heaven."

"It is certain that this is not only good which the Almighty has done, but that it is best; He hath reckoned all your steps to heaven."