Name: Samuel Rutherford
Born: c. 1600, Nisbet, Scotland
Died: March 20, 1661, St. Andrews, Scotland
Bio: Samuel Rutherford was appointed minister in 1627 of the parish church of Anwoth, a village near Galloway in southwestern Scotland. He worked hard at that obscure rural post and maintained several active correspondences. He quickly landed in legal trouble for defying the Articles of Perth, which codified the high church theological and ritualistic policies of James VI/I of Scotland and England, and his son Charles I. Rutherford’s first wife died in 1630; he remarried in 1638. He was removed from his post for nonconformity in Anwoth in 1636, banished to Aberdeen, and forbidden from exercising Christian ministry. Two years later, after a rogue General Assembly rejected the king’s religious policy, Rutherford returned to Anwoth. That same year, he was appointed Professor of Divinity at St. Andrews. In 1643 he was appointed one of the Scottish commissioners to the Westminster Assembly. (He was not involved in the execution of King Charles; the English Parliament did not consult the Scots when they executed the king shared by both kingdoms.) Rutherford kept his position at St. Andrews through that tumultuous period, until removed in 1660 after Charles II returned to the throne. In contrast to Charles’ policy in England, the restored king offered no amnesty to Scottish rebels. In 1661, Rutherford was charged with treason for his book Lex Rex, but died before he could stand trial.
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