Samuel Rutherford famous quotes

They lose nothing who gain Christ.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Gains #Christ

Christ chargeth me to believe His daylight at midnight.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Believe #Daylight #Midnight

Believe God's love and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your rock is Christ, and it is not the rock that ebbs and flows but the sea.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Spiritual #Believe #Rocks

Grace grows best in winter.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Winter #Grace #Grows

In our fluctuations of feelings, it is well to remember that Jesus admits no change in His affections; your heart is not the compass Jesus saileth by.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Jesus #Heart #Feelings

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.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Morning #Prayer #Night

Set no time to the Lord the creator of time, for His time is always best.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Time #Lord #Creator

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

#Prayer #Errands #Praying

No pen, no words, no image can express to you the loveliness of my only, only Lord Jesus.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Jesus #Lord #Pens

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.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Soul #Lord #Crops

Jesus Christ came into my prison cell last night, and every stone flashed like a ruby.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Jesus #Night #Cells

There is no sweeter fellowship with Christ than to bring our wounds and our sores to him.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Fellowship #Christ #Wounds

I find it most true that the greatest temptation outside of hell is to live without temptations; if water stands, it rots; faith is the better for the sharp winter storm in its face and grace withers without adversity. The devil is but God's master fencer to teach us to handle our weapons.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Adversity #Winter #Water

Howbeit your faith seeth but the black side of Providence, yet it hath a better side, and God shall let you see it. We know that all things work together for good to them that love God; hence I infer that losses, disappointments, ill tongues, loss of friends, houses or country, are God's workmen, set on work to work out good to you, out of everything that befalleth you.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Country #Disappointment #Loss

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

#Self #Heaven #World

The cross of Christ is the sweetest burden that I ever bore; it is such a burden as wings are to a bird, or sails to a ship, to carry me forward to my harbor.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Wings #Bird #Ships

To believe Christ's cross to be a friend, as he himself is a friend, is also a special act of faith
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Believe #Special #Christ

O my Lord Jesus Christ, if I could be in heaven without Thee, it would be hell; and if I could be in hell, and have Thee still, it would be heaven to me, for Thou are all the heaven I want.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Jesus #Heaven #Would Be

My faith has no bed to sleep upon but omnipotence.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Sleep #Omnipotence #Bed

Our little time of suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome home to Heaven.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Christian #Home #Night

After winter comes the summer. After night comes the dawn. And after every storm, there comes clear, open skies.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Summer #Winter #Night

The secret formula of the saints: When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord's choicest wines.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Wine #Secret #Looks

Desires going before conversion are not such as can calm a storming conscience.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Desire #Calm #Conscience

Faith's speculations to the worst and hardest, in point of resolution, are sweet.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Sweet #Resolution #Worst

He who duly esteemeth Christ, is a noble bidder, and so a noble and liberal buyer.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Noble #Christ #Buyers

It is comfort to the believer that all things are possible.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Comfort #Believer

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.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Stars #Children #Sight

I desire now to make no more pleas with Christ; verily, he hath not put me to a loss by what I suffer; he oweth me nothing; for in my bonds, how sweet and comfortable have the thoughts of him been to me, wherein I find a sufficient recompense of reward!.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Sweet #Loss #Suffering

Make not Christ a liar in distrusting His promise.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Jesus #Liars #Promise

I perceive we postpone all our joys of Christ, till He and we be in our own house above, thinking that there is nothing of it here to be sought or found, but only hope and fair promises; and that Christ will give us nothing here but tears, sadness, crosses; and that we shall never feel the smell of the flowers of that high garden of paradise above, till we come there. Nay, but I find it possible to find young glory, and a young green paradise of joy even here. We dream of hunger in Christ's house, while we are here, although He alloweth feasts to all the bairns within God's household.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Christian #Dream #Flower

Verily, we know not what an evil it is to indulge ourselves, and to make an idol of our will.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Idols #Evil #Indulge

There is nothing that will make you a Christian indeed, but a taste of the sweetness of Christ.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Christian #Taste #Christ

Heaven is a house full of miracles; yea, of spectacles and images of free grace.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Miracle #Heaven #House

I think it is possible on earth to build a young, new Jerusalem, a little, new heaven of this surpassing love. God, either send me more of this love, or take me quickly over the water, where I may be filled with his love.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Thinking #Water #Heaven

Let us be faithful and care for our own part, which is to do and suffer for Him, and lay Christ's part on Himself, and leave it there; duties are ours, events are the Lord's.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Faithful #Suffering #Care

I hang by a thread, but it is (if I may so speak) of Christ's spinning
-- Samuel Rutherford

#May #Spinning #Speak

I had but one joy, the apple of the eye of my delights , to preach Christ my Lord
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Eye #Apples #Joy

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.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Heaven #Steps #Done

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.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#God #Soul #Weight

How soon would faith freeze without a cross!
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Crosses

Welcome, welcome, cross of Christ, if Christ be with it.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Welcome #Christ #Crosses

You must take a house beside the Physician. It will be a miracle if ye be the first sick that Christ hath put away uncured.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Sick #House #Miracle

Take Christ in with you under your yoke, and let patience have her perfect work.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Perfect #Yoke #Christ

It is in some respect greater love in Jesus to sanctify than to justify, for He maketh us most like Himself, in His own essential portraiture and image in sanctifying us.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Jesus #Portraiture #Essentials

If ye never had a sick night and a pained soul for sin, ye have not yet lighted upon Christ.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Night #Sick #Soul

My desire is that my Lord would give me broader and deeper thoughts, to feed myself with wondering at His love.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Giving #Desire #His Love

The night will close the door & fasten my anchor within the veil and I shall go away to sleep.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Sleep #Night #Anchors

The good Husbandman may pluck His rose & gather in His lily.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Rose #May #Lilies

I seldom made an errand to God for another but I got something for myself.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Errands #Made

The bloom fell off my branches and joy did cast off its flower
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Flower #Joy #Branches

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.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Feet #May #Praying

Every man by nature is a freeman born; by nature no man cometh out of the womb under any civil subjection to king, prince, or judge.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Kings #Men #Judging

Faint not; the miles to heaven are but few and short.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Heaven #Miles

When I look to my guiltiness, I see that my salvation is one of our Saviour's greatest miracles, either in heaven or earth.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Miracle #Heaven #Earth

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.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Thinking #Delight #This Life

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.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Summer #Children #Flower

Many are friends to the success of reformation, not to reformation.
-- Samuel Rutherford

Oh thrice fools are we who like new-born princes weeping in the cradle know not that there is a kingdom before them then let our Lord's sweet hand square us and hammer us and strike off the knots of pride self-love and world-worship and infidelity that He may make us stones and pillars in His Father's house.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Sweet #Father #Pride

Your heart is not the compass that God steers by.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Heart #Compass

Live on Christ's love while ye are here, and all the way.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Love #True Love #Way

Show yourself a Christian by suffering without murmuring. In patience possess your soul - they lose nothing who gain Christ.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Christian #Patience #Soul

Grace tried is better than grace, and more than grace; it is glory in its infancy
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Grace #Glory #Infancy

I exhort you and beseech you in the bowels of Christ, faint not, weary not. There is a great necessity of heaven; you must have it. All other things, as houses, lands, children, husband, friends, country, credit, health, wealth, honour, may be let go; but heaven is your one thing necessary, the good part that shall not be taken from you. 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, that were slain with security.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Letting Go #Country #Children

If so be that freewill were our tutor, and we had our heaven in our own keeping, then we would lose all. But because we have Christ for our tutor, and He has our heaven in His hand, therefore the covenant it must be perpetual.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Hands #Heaven #Covenant

When the race is ended, and the play is either won or lost, and ye are in the utmost circle and border of time, and shall put your foot within the march of eternity, all the good things of your short nightdream shall seem to you like ashes of a blaze of thorns or straw.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Christian #Blessing #Race

Well's them who are under crosses, and Christ says to them, "Half Mine."
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Adversity #Half #Christ

Keep God's covenant in your trials; hold you by His blessed word, and sin not; flee anger, wrath, grudging, envying, fretting; forgive a hundred pence to your fellow-servant, because your Lord hath forgiven you ten thousand talents: for, I assure you by the Lord, your adversaries shall get no advantage against you, except you sin, and offend your Lord, in your sufferings.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Blessed #Wrath #Forgiving

Millions of hells of sinners cannot come near to exhaust infinite grace.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Grace #Infinite #Hell

I know that, as night and shadows are good for flowers, and moonlight and dews are better than a continual sun, so is Christ's absence of special use, and that it hath some nourishing virtue in it, and giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on hunger, and funisheth a fairfield to faith to put forth itself, and to exercise its fingers in gripping it seeth not what.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Flower #Humility #Exercise

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

#Tree #Grace #Speak

After every storm, there comes clear open skies.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Sky #Storm #Clear

Those who can take that crabbed tree handsomely upon their back, and fasten it on cannily, shall find it such a burden as wings unto a bird, or sails to a ship.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Wings #Bird #Tree

You will not be carried to Heaven lying at ease upon a feather bed.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Lying #Heaven #Ease

Praise God for the hammer, the file, and the furnace. The hammer molds us, the file sharpens us, and the fire tempers us.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Fire #Hammers #Mold

Every day we may see some new thing in Christ. His love hath neither brim nor bottom.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#May #His Love #Christ

My Lord Jesus has fully recompensed my sadness with his joys, my losses with his own presence.  I find it a sweet and rich thing to exchange my sorrows with Christ's joys, my afflictions with that sweet peace I have with himself.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Sweet #Jesus #Sadness

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.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Courage #Sea #Land

The great Master Gardener, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in a wonderful providence, with his own hand, planted me here, where by his grace, in this part of his vineyard, I grow; and here I will abide till the great Master of the vineyard think fit to transplant me.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Jesus #Father #Thinking

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.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Lying #Thinking #Ascent

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

#Children #Heart #Wonder

I live no more, but Christ liveth in me!
-- Samuel Rutherford

#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.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Evil #Down And #Graves

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.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Strong #Heaven #Gold

Set not your heart upon the world, since God hath not made it your portion.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Heart #World #Made

It is impossible to be submissive and religiously patient, if ye stay your thoughts down among the confused rollings and wheels of second causes, as, O, the place! O, the time! O, if this had been, this had not followed! O, the linking of this accident with this time and place! Look up to the master motion and the first wheel.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Confused #Looks #Firsts

My dear brother, let God make of you what He will, He will end all with consolation, and shall make glory out of your suffering.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Letting Go #Brother #Suffering

Christ seeketh your help in your place; give Him your hand.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Hands #Giving #Helping

Christ and His cross are not separable in this life, howbeit Christ and His cross part at heaven's door, for there is no house-room for crosses in heaven. One tear, one sigh, one sad heart, one fear, one loss, one thought of trouble cannot find lodging there.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Heart #Loss #Doors

When the supreme magistrate will not execute the judgment of the Lord, those who made him supreme magistrate, under God, who have under God, sovereighn liberty to dispose of crowns and kingdoms, are to execute the judgment of the Lord, when wicked men make the law of God of none effect.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Men #Law #Liberty

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

#Wind #Roots #Zion

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
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Jesus #Waiting #Way

Through many afflictions we must enter into the kingdom of God ... It is folly to think to steal to heaven with a whole skin.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Thinking #Heaven #Skins

Christ's enemies are but breaking their own heads in pieces, upon the Rock laid in Zion; and the stone is not removed out of its place. 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 that he but heweth and polisheth stones, all this time, for the new Jerusalem.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Rocks #Zion #Enemy

It is no small comfort that God hath written some Scriptures to you which He hath not to others. Read these, and think God is like a friend who sendeth a letter to a whole house and family, but who speaketh in His letter to some by name that are dearest to Him in the house.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Thinking #Names #House

No created powers can mar our Lord Jesus' music, nor spill our song of joy. Let us then be glad and rejoice in the salvation of our Lord
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Inspiring #Music #Christian

Since He looked upon me my heart is not my own. He hath runaway to heaven with it.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Jesus #Heart #Heaven

My dear friend, venture to take the wind on your face for Christ.
-- Samuel Rutherford

#Courage #Wind #Venture