Samuel Rutherford

Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford
Born	c. 1600 Nisbet, Roxburghshire, Scotland
Died	29 March 1661 London, England
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh

Rev Prof Samuel Rutherford (or Samuell Rutherfoord; c. 1600 – 29 March 1661) was a Scottish Presbyterian pastor, theologian and author, and one of the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly.

Samuel Rutherford was born in the village of Nisbet, Roxburghshire, in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland. Rutherford was educated at Jedburgh Grammar School and Edinburgh University, where he became Regent of Humanity (Professor of Latin) in 1623. In 1627 he was settled as minister of Anwoth in Kirkcudbrightshire, Galloway, where it was said of him 'he was always praying, always preaching, always visiting the sick, always catechising, always writing and studying', and from where he was banished to Aberdeen for nonconformity, 'being very powerful on the side of the Reformed faith and of God living', there in Aberdeen; 'his writing desk' was said to be 'perhaps the most effective and widely resounding pulpit then in Christendom'. His patron in Galloway was John Gordon, 1st Viscount of Kenmure. On the re-establishment of Presbyterianism in 1638, he was made Professor of Divinity at St. Andrews.

Rutherford was chosen as one of the four main Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly of Divines in London taking part in formulating the Westminster Confession of Faith completed in 1647, and after his return to Scotland he became Rector of St. Mary's College at St. Andrews in 1651. Rutherford was a staunch Protester during the controversy in the Scottish Presbyterian church between the Resolutioners and Protesters in the 1650s; at the Restoration of Charles II, his book Lex, Rex was burnt by the hand of the common hangman, and the "Drunken Parliament" deprived him of all his offices and voted that he not be permitted to die in the college.