Samuel Rutherford Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

Many are friends to the success of reformation, not to reformation.

My faith has no bed to sleep upon but omnipotence.

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.

I live no more, but Christ liveth in me!

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

Grace grows best in winter.

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.

I assure you by the Lord, your adversaries shall get no advantage against you, except you sin, and offend your Lord, in your sufferings.

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

Build your nest in no tree here...for the Lord of the forest has condemned the whole woods to be demolished.

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

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.

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.

I see Christ's love is so kingly, that it will not abide a marrow it must have a throne all alone in the soul.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

They lose nothing who gain Christ.

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.

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.

After every storm, there comes clear open skies.

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

I bless the Lord that all our troubles come through Christ's fingers, and that He casteth sugar among them and casteth in some ounce withts of heaven and of the spirit of glory in our cup.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

The weightiest end of the cross of Christ that is laid upon you, lieth upon your strong Savior.

There is as much in our Lord's pantry as will satisfy all his children and as much wine in his cellar as will quench all their thirst. Hunger on, for there is meat in hungering for Christ; go never from him, but seek him who is yet pleased with the importunity of hungry souls until he fills you; if he delays, yet do not go away, even if you faint at his feet.

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.

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.

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