Samuel Rutherford
Scottish minister and professor of divinity at St Andrews who was one of the commissioners sent by the Church of Scotland to the Westminster Assembly. His Lex, Rex was printed in London in 1644.
The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland named “Master Samuel Rutherfoord” in August 1643 as one of five ministers commissioned to go to England and treat with the Assembly of Divines at Westminster on a common form of church government, confession of faith, catechism and directory of worship (Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 19 August 1643, commission (pp. 93–94)). The Assembly’s minutes record him speaking in its debates: on 22 October 1645, in the debate on whether Christ intended to redeem the elect only, he argued against Edmund Calamy that the universal offer of the gospel does not require that Christ died in some sense for all (Minutes of the Westminster Assembly, Session 522, 22 October 1645 (pp. 152–154)).
His Lex, Rex was printed in London in October 1644; its title page presents it as a defence of the Scots’ “defensive wars” and of the just prerogative of king and people, and the edition used here styles him “sometime Professor of Divinity in the University of St. Andrews” (Rutherford, Lex, Rex, title page). See the Westminster Confession.
In the timeline
- 1643 to 1649, firm dateThe Westminster Confession
An assembly of divines called by the English Parliament in 1643, joined by commissioners from Scotland, draws up a confession of faith and catechisms. The Church of Scotland approves the Confession in 1647, and the Scottish Parliament ratifies it in 1690.