This chapter will explore the furniture of Rutherford's mind, and (to mix metaphors) the mental tools with which he hammered out his ideas. In particular, it will draw attention to the catholicity of his intellectual taste in the hope that this will do something to dispel the stereotype of the bigoted, narrow-minded Presbyterian cleric drawn by Buckle and Trevor-Roper. Rutherford was certainly an intolerant advocate of religious persecution and divine-right Presbyterianism, but he was also a writer with a genuine appreciation for the learning and eloquence of Spanish Jesuits, Roman orators and medieval scholastics. He may have been a passionate revivalist preacher, but we ought not to forget that for over twenty years he was a university professor. This chapter aims to evoke something of the richness, complexity and sophistication of his mental world. We shall begin by examining the formative role played by his education, and then go on to examine the intellectual sources mined by his books.

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

Something has been said in the previous chapter of the personal influences on Rutherford as a young man. Those of David Calderwood and the Edinburgh privy kirk were the most formative. But Rutherford was also a conscientious and clever student, and the Melvillians had never been averse to learning; indeed Melville himself was an educational pioneer who promoted humanism and Ramism in Scottish universities.