of ecclesiastical comprehension
and conformity. And among the many things we have to be thankful for in
our more emancipated and more catholic day, it is not the least that
Rutherford and Hooker lie in peace and in complemental fulness beside one
another on the tables of all our students of divinity.

Coming still closer home to himself, our divinity student puts this acute
difficulty to his spiritual casuist: Whether a man of God, and especially
a minister of Christ, can be right who does not love God for Himself, for
His nature and for His character solely and purely, and apart altogether
from all His benefactions both in nature and in grace. James Beattie had
been brought up with such a love for the Kirk of Scotland, and for her
ministers and her people; he had of late grown into such a love for his
books also, and for the work of the ministry, that in examining himself
in prospect of his approaching licence he had felt afraid that he loved
the thought of a study, and a pulpit, and a manse, and its inhabitants,
and, indeed, the whole prospective life of a minister, with more keenness
of affection than he loved the souls of men, or even his Master Himself.
And he put that most distressing difficulty also before Rutherford. Now
there was an expression on that matter that was common in the pulpits of
Rutherford's school in that day that Rutherford would be sure to quote in
his second letter to Beattie, if not in his first. It was a Latin
proverb, but all the common people of that day quite well understood it,
not to speak of a student like Beattie. _Aliquid in Christo formosius
Salvatore_, wrote Rutherford to distressed Beattie; that is to say, There
is that in Christ which is far more fair and sweet than merely His being
a Saviour. Never be content, that is, till you can rise up above manses
and pulpits and books and sermons, and even above your own salvation, to
see the pure and infinite loveliness of Christ Himself. Dost thou, O my
soul, love Jesus Christ for Himself alone, and not only as thy Redeemer?
though to love Him as such He doth allow thee, yet there is that in
Christ that is far more amiable than merely in His being thy Saviour. And
yet the two kinds of love may quite well stand together, writes
Rutherford, just as a child loves his mother because she is his mother,
and yet his love leaps the more out when she gives him an apple. At the
same time, to love Christ for Himself alone is the last end of a