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1 - Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2009

John Coffey
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

On a hilltop above the tiny hamlet of Anwoth in south-west Scotland there stands a fifty-six foot granite obelisk. Erected in the mid-nineteenth century, its inscription praises the parish's former minister, the Covenanter Samuel Rutherford, for his ‘distinguished public labours in the cause of civil and religious liberty’. Its presence is indicative of Rutherford's posthumous fame, a fame which rested above all on his political treatise Lex, Rex, and on his pious Letters. Rutherford was lionised by Victorian Evangelicals as a towering defender of constitutional freedoms and as one of the greatest devotional writers in the history of the church. His Letters passed through approximately one hundred editions (including at least twenty in foreign languages), formed the basis for a popular hymn, turned Anwoth into a place of pilgrimage, and made Rutherford the subject of numerous popular essays and biographies. Even in the 1980s, his Letters were still in print, and Lex, Rex was being cited by the religious right in the United States as an important influence on the US Constitution and a powerful justification for civil disobedience to liberal abortion laws. One American admirer – as unaware as the obelisk-builders of Rutherford's support for persecution – went so far as to establish an international ‘Rutherford Institute’ to protect religious freedom.

However, Rutherford's Evangelical admirers were not the only ones to stress his historical significance.

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Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions
The Mind of Samuel Rutherford
, pp. 1 - 29
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1997

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  • Introduction
  • John Coffey, University of Cambridge
  • Book: Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions
  • Online publication: 31 October 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511585258.001
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  • Introduction
  • John Coffey, University of Cambridge
  • Book: Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions
  • Online publication: 31 October 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511585258.001
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • John Coffey, University of Cambridge
  • Book: Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions
  • Online publication: 31 October 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511585258.001
Available formats
×