The congregants of Anwoth in the south-west of Scotland were deprived for a time of the services of their beloved pastor, Samuel Rutherford. He had refused to pledge allegiance to an episcopalian order in the land and was banished to house arrest in Aberdeen in the far north-east.
No longer able to preach, he devoted his shepherd energies to correspondence with the flock, the famous “Letters of Samuel Rutherford”.
In one letter to Lady Ardross dated February 24, 1646, he gave a foreshadowing of the conditions in Heaven. For me it poses a more desirable promise of happiness than any of the pictures drawn by today’s prophecy teachers concerning future glory:
“A very considerable land, which hath more than four summers in the year. Oh, what spring-time is there! Even the smelling of the odours of that great and eternally blooming Rose of Sharon for ever and ever! What a singing life is there! There is not a dumb bird in all that large field; but all sing and breathe out Heaven, joy, glory, dominion to the High Prince of that new-found land. And, verily, the land is the sweeter that Jesus Christ paid so dear a rent for it. And He is the glory of the land.”
