In 1644 a book was published in Scotland that would have gotten its author hanged for high treason in 1661 had he not died of natural causes before he could be tried in the Edinburgh courts. The man was the Rev. Samuel Rutherford, a Scottish theologian and pastor. I recently stood by his grave in the cemetery at the ruins of St. Andrews Cathedral and reflected on how powerful a book can be and that a man laid in his grave some 347 years ago still speaks to us today.

Samuel Rutherford taught philosophy at the University of Edinburgh but found his real calling as pastor of the Kirk of Anwoth. He rose at 3:00 every morning for prayer, reading, writing, catechizing, visiting the sick, and all the duties and privileges of a faithful minister. He was threatened with prosecution by the ecclesiastical establishment in 1630, 1634, and 1636 when he was banished to Aberdeen for teaching against episcopacy and arguing that Christ was the king over the Kirk. With the coming of the English Civil War, he was sent as a commissioner to the great Westminster Assembly in England. He published his most famous book at that time, Lex Rex.

The title, Lex Rex, means “The Law is King,” and refutes the notion then held by many monarchs of Europe, especially the Stuarts of England that the word of the king is law. Using numerous Scripture passages, Rutherford argued that the king is obliged to rule and command justly and religiously for the good of his people. If he disobeys the law and rules as a tyrant, the people are under no obligation to continued obedience. In a very real way, Rutherford stood in the traditions of an ancient Scottish declaration made in Arboath three hundred years earlier but now with the biblical framework established by the Reformation and sealed with the National Covenants.

At the core of Rutherford’s arguments was the desire for liberty under law, with the king just as accountable as the peasant. Rutherford was a loyal subject of the king and was not calling for revolution but he was reminding the magistrates that their offices came from God and their responsibility to adhere to His law, a prerequisite for continued allegiance.

Rutherford’s book became a best-seller and was widely read before the Restoration of the English monarchy under Charles II. When the despot did return to the throne, he had Rutherford’s book burned by the hangman in Edinburgh. The wording of the American Declaration of Independence and some of the ideas behind the Constitution of the United States reflect the wording and the concepts of Arboath and Lex Rex. In fact, the Scottish president of Princeton College and a firm believer in Lex Rex,  John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration, directly influenced about a third of the signers and was the mentor of James Madison. Tyranny and despotism were unable to quench the Gaelic and Christian fire that Rutherford and other Scots ignited in their homeland, for it crossed the Atlantic and lodged in the minds of that unique generation that secured liberty and independence for Americans.

Bill Potter