ways.’ On the other hand he was at war with those of his own house; his colleagues in the college were all against him, and one of them, ‘weary of his place exceedingly’ because of ‘his daily contentions’ with the principal, removed to another college. He preached and prayed against the resolutioners, and would not take part with Blair in the holy communion, which because of strife was not celebrated at St. Andrews for six years. In 1655 Rutherford published ‘The Covenant of Life opened,’ and in 1658 ‘A Survey of the Survey of Church Discipline,’ by Mr. Thomas Hooker, New England. In the preface to this work he attacks the resolutioners, and says of his own party ‘we go under the name of protesters, troubled on every side, in the streets, pulpits, in divers synods and presbyteries, more than under prelacy.’ The last work he gave to the press was a practical treatise free from controversy, ‘Influences of the Life of Grace,’ 1659.
After the Restoration the committee of estates ordered Rutherford's ‘Lex Rex’ to be burnt at the crosses of Edinburgh and St. Andrews, deprived him of his offices, and summoned him to appear before parliament on a charge of treason; but he was in his last illness, and unable to obey the citation. In February 1661 he emitted ‘a testimony to the covenanting work of reformation,’ and in March following he died, in raptures, testifying at intervals in favour of the ‘protesters,’ but forgiving his enemies. His last words were ‘Glory, Glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's land.’ He was buried in St. Andrews. In 1842 a fine monument was erected to his memory on a conspicuous site in ‘Sweet Anwoth by the Solway.’ Rutherford was much annoyed when he heard that collections of his letters were being made, and copies circulated. They were published by Mr. Ward, his secretary, in 1664, were translated into Dutch in 1674, and have since appeared with additions and expurgations in many English editions. His favourite topic in these letters is the union of Christ and his people as illustrated by courtship and marriage, and the language is sometimes coarse and indelicate. He left in manuscript ‘Examen Arminianismi,’ which was published at Utrecht in 1668, also a catechism printed in Mitchell's ‘Collection of Catechisms.’ He was best known during life by his books against Arminianism, and his reputation since has rested chiefly on his letters. He was a ‘little fair man,’ and is said to have been ‘naturally of a hot and fiery temper.’ He was certainly one of the most perfervid of Scotsmen, but seems to have had little of that humour which was seldom wanting in the grimmest of his contemporaries. ‘In the pulpit he had’ (says a friend) ‘a strange utterance, a kind of skreigh that I never heard the like. Many a time I thought he would have flown out of the pulpit when he came to speak of Jesus Christ.’ His abilities were of a high order, but as a church leader by his narrowness he helped to degrade and destroy presbyterianism which he loved so well, and in controversy he was too often bitter and scurrilous (see e.g. his Preface to Lex Rex). With all his faults, his honesty, his steadfast zeal, and his freedom from personal ambition give him some claim to the title that has been given him of the ‘saint of the covenant.’
In 1630 his first wife died. In 1640 he married Jean M'Math, who, with a daughter Agnes, survived him. All his children by the first marriage, and six of the second, predeceased him. Agnes married W. Chiesly, W.S., and left issue.
[Lamont's Diary; Baillie's Letters; Blair's Autobiogr. (Wod. Soc.); Crawford's Hist. of Univ. of Edin.; Life by Murray; Records of the Kirk; Bonar's edition of Rutherford's Letters.]
RUTHERFORD, WILLIAM (1798?–1871), mathematician, was born about 1798. He was a master at a school at Woodburn from 1822 to 1825, when he went to Hawick, Roxburghshire, and he was afterwards (1832–1837) a master at Corporation Academy, Berwick. In 1838 he obtained a mathematical post at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, where he was popular with his pupils. His mode of instruction was practical and clear. Rutherford was a member of the council of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1844 to 1847, and honorary secretary in 1845 and 1846. He is said to have been well versed in both theoretical and practical astronomy, and interested in the proceedings of the society, but did not contribute to its ‘Transactions.’ He sent many problems and solutions and occasional papers to the ‘Lady's Diary’ from 1822 to 1869, and also contributed to the ‘Gentlemen's Diary.’ He always delighted in a ‘pretty problem,’ although his mathematical studies were quite of the old north-country type. He was a friend of Woolhouse. He retired from his post at Woolwich about 1864, and died on 16 Sept. 1871, at his residence, Tweed Cottage, Maryon Road, Charlton, at the age of seventy-three.
Rutherford was the editor, in conjunction with Stephen Fenwick and (for the first
