hese, either as to style
or strain, co-here with the other works of the laborious Mr. Durham,
must be left to the impartial and unbiased reader.

_The Life of Mr. SAMUEL RUTHERFORD._

Mr. Samuel Rutherford a gentleman by extraction, having spent sometime
at the grammar-school, went to the university of Edinburgh, where he was
so much admired for his pregnancy of parts, and deservedly looked upon
as one from whom some great things might be expected, that in a short
time (though then but very young) he was made professor of philosophy in
that university.

Sometime after this he was called to be minister at Anwoth, in the shire
of Galloway, unto which charge he entered by means of the then viscount
of Kenmuir, without any acknowledgment or engagement to the bishops.
There he laboured with great diligence and success, both night and day,
rising usually by three o'clock in the morning, spending the whole time
in reading, praying, writing, catechising, visiting, and other duties
belonging to the ministerial profession and employment.

Here he wrote his _exercitationes de gratia_, &c. for which he was
summoned (as early as June 1630) before the high commission court, but
the weather was so tempestuous as to obstruct the passage of the
arch-bishop of St. Andrews hither, and Mr. Colvil one of the judges
having befriended him, the diet was deserted. About the same time his
first wife died after a sore sickness of thirteen months, and he himself
being so ill of a tertian fever for thirteen weeks, that then he could
not preach on the Sabbath day, without great difficulty.

Again in April 1634, he was threatened with another prosecution at the
instance of the bishop of Galloway, before the high commission court,
and neither were these threatenings all the reasons Mr. Rutherford had
to lay his account with suffering, and as the Lord would not hide from
his faithful servant Abraham the things he was about to do, neither
would he conceal from this son of Abraham what his purposes were
concerning him; for in a letter to the provost's wife of Kirkcudbright,
dated April 20, 1633, he says, "That upon the 17th and 18th of August he
got a full answer of his Lord to be a graced minister, and a chosen
arrow hid in his quiver[83]." Accordingly the thing he looked for came
upon him, for he was again summoned before the high commission court for
his non-conformity, his preaching against the five articles of Perth,
and the foremention