When the soldiers came for Revd Samuel Rutherford to arrest him for treason, which would have led to his execution, they found him weak and dying of natural causes, so he was left. It was 1661 and King Charles II was determined to remove all opposition to his desire for absolute rule, and Rutherford was seen as a key agitator and enemy of the State. Rutherford, a Presbyterian pastor, Covenanter, and the Professor of Divinity at the University of St Andrews, had been one of the four main Commissioners representing the Church of Scotland at the Westminster Assembly.
Now, as he lay dying, he reflected on his revolutionary book, Lex Rex, or the Law and the Prince, which he had published in London in 1644. In those heady days of Presbyterianism, which had not only transformed Scotland, but had hugely impacted London too, he was recognized as a hero, a Christian celebrity, because of his preaching and his book, Lex Rex. Copies of his book had flown off the printing press and had been devoured by intellectuals everywhere, even in the colonies of America. Now, he was a criminal, and copies of his book were being publicly burnt by the hangman at Mercat Cross in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, at St Andrews, and in London.
Lex Rex is a tyrant’s nightmare. In this extraordinary book, Rutherford outlined his main points: 1. The legal enforcement of a monarch to be stripped of his absolutism and to become a constitutional monarch; 2. The government to consist of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, but with the voice of the people to be properly represented; 3. The democratic constitution of the Presbyterian Church governance should become standard practice, because he believed it was the most biblical, and that Christ is the Head of his Church; 4. The right of the people to arm themselves and defend their rights and freedom against a tyrant.
Although other intellectuals disagreed with him over the issue of a Presbyterian Church governance, his book was dynamic. In the preface he wrote, ‘Truth to Christ cannot be treason to Caesar’. He believed that a biblical view of our constitution would bring the best form of government, even though this might also be tarnished by people’s sinfulness. Rutherford promoted what he called ‘a sweet mixture’for the best possible government in Britain: a constitutional monarchy, an aristocracy represented by the House of Lords, and a democracy in the House of Commons that fairly represented the voice of the whole nation. All of this he believed should be under Christ’s authority and be based on biblical values.
It was this very structure that Britain eventually came to develop, something which would be envied by much of the world for centuries. Lex Rex had a direct influence on such political activists as the Levellers in the 1640s in London. The leaders of this Christian movement pressed for free elections, influenced by the Presbyterian ideal, but also, in reaction to a more rigid Presbyterian stance, they called for more religious tolerance. What had begun with the Covenanters was being taken by other Christians who would develop a national movement towards democracy and human rights. It was this movement that would in turn influence the philosopher John Locke, who in turn would influence many of the key thinkers of the Enlightenment in Europe, such as Rousseau with his Social Contract, Voltaire, Kant, Hume, Adam Smith, and key movers for the American Constitution, such as Thomas Jefferson.
‘Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people’ (Proverbs 14:34, NKJV).
Image: Samuel Rutherford, unidentified painter, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.