RUTHERFORD, a border surname, borne originally by the ancient Teviotdale family of Rutherford of that ilk. The surname is traditionally said to have had its derivation from the circumstance that their ancestor guided Ruther, one of the Scots kings of ‘hoar antiquity,” through a ford in the river Tweed, in an expedition against the Britons, and the lands adjacent being conferred upon him were thereafter called Rutherford, which name his posterity adopted, when surnames became hereditary in Scotland. Another traditionary story, -- which, if correct, must refer to a time preceding the epoch of authentic border history, -- gives a different account of the origin of the name. It says that an English army once occupied for several days a position on a rocky height, overhanging the Tweed, in the parish of Maxton, Roxburghshire, called Ringly Hall, when, finding itself confronted by a Scottish force ensconced on the opposite bank of the river, it forded the Tweed, and was defeated after a severe encounter. The spot was afterwards called Rue-the-ford, on account of the disaster sustained by the English in fording the river, and the name, altered into Rutherford, was transferred to the lands around it, and to a village, now extinct, in its vicinity.

In the frequent border forays into England under the Douglases, the Rutherfords bore a conspicuous part. Among the first of them on record were Robertus dominus de Rutherford, witness to a charter granted by David I. to Jervasius Ridal in 1140, and Hugo de Rutherford, in a grant by Philip de Valoniis of some lands in Northumberland in 1215. Hugo’s son, Sir Nichol de Rutherford, mentioned in a charter of Alexander III., in 1261, is also witness in several donations to the monastery of Kelso, and in 1270 and 1272 is designed Nicholaus de Rutherford, miles. He had two sons, Sir Nichol, who succeeded him, and Aymer de Rutherford, both of whose names are in the Ragman Roll as among the Scots barons who swore a forced fealty to Edward I. of England in 1296. The son of the former, Sir Robert de Rutherford, is particularly mentioned in Barbour’s History as fighting valiantly under Robert the Bruce, for the independence of Scotland. His son, Sir Richard Rutherford of that ilk, was witness in a charter granted to the abbacy of Coupar in 1328. Sir Richard’s grandson, Sir Richard Rutherford, a distinguished favourite of Robert III., was in 1390 witness to a charter granted by William Turnbull to William Stewart, his nephew, of the lands of Minto. IN 1398 he was appointed one of the ambassadors extraordinary to the court of England, and in 1400 he and his sons were made wardens of the marches. By his wife, Jean Douglas, he had three sons, James, who succeeded him; John, who had a grant from Archibald, earl of Douglas, in 1424, of the lands of Chatto, and was ancestor of the Rutherfords of Chatto and Hunthill, of whom were the Lords Rutherford; and Nichol, ancestor of the Rutherfords of Hundalee, which family, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, ended in a female, married to Sir James Ker of Crallinghill. The Rutherfords of Fairnilee were descended from the family of Hundalee.

In 1449, James Rutherford of that ilk, the eldest son, was, with his brother, Nichol, appointed guarantee of a treaty with the English. His son, James Rutherford of that ilk, in 1457 was one of the conservators of a truce with England. In 1459 he was appointed one of the wardens of the marches. In 1484, under the designation of James, Lord Rutherford, he was one of the commissioners for settling the marches on the borders. He afterwards got a charter from James IV., of the barony of Edgerston, 15th January 1492; also another charter from the same monarch of the lands of Rutherford and Wells, to himself and Richard Rutherford, his grandson, whom failing to his second son and apparent heir, and his heirs male, &c. He died in 1493. By his wife, Margaret Erskine, daughter of Lord Erskine, he had Philip; Thomas, who became heir male of the family; three other sons; and a daughter, Christian, wife of Sir Robert Ker, only son and apparent heir of Sir Walter Ker of Cessford. The eldest son, Philip, predeceased his father. By his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Walter Ker of Cessford, he had a son, Richard, who succeeded his grandfather, and two daughters, Helen, married, first, to Sir John Forman of Davine, brother of that artful and avaricious prelate, Andrew Forman, archbishop of St. Andrews; and secondly, to Andrew Rutherford of Hunthill; and Christina, wife of James Stuart of Traquair, ancestor of the earls of Traquair (see TRAQUAIR, earl of).

Richard Rutherford of that ilk died without issue. Helen, his elder sister, succeeded him in the lands of Rutherford and Wells, while the barony of Edgerston went to the heir male, her cousin, Robert Rutherfurd, the son of Thomas, above mentioned. On Helen’s death, without issue by either of her husbands, her sister, Christian, Lady Stuart, as heir of line, got the lands of Rutherford and Wells, which thenceforth remained in possession of the Traquair family (Nisbet’s Heraldry, vol. ii. App. P. 22).

Robert Rutherfurd of Edgerston was engaged in constant feuds with the Stuarts of Traquair and their allies, the Kers of Cessford. His son, Thomas Rutherfurd, commonly styled the “black laird” of Edgerston, was the terror of the borders, his exploits against the English being numerous and daring. At the battle of the Red Swire, 7th July 1575, -- the last skirmish of any consequence fought on the borders, -- at the head of his followers and the men of Jedburgh, he was mainly the cause of the victory being secured to the Scots. It was fought on a part of Carterfell, and was called the Raid or battle of the Red Swire, from the colour of the heath and the form of the hill at the place, the word “swire” denoting in Scottish topography the swelling descent of a hill or the neck of a mountain. The occasion of the battle was as follows: At a border gathering held by both wardens of the marches, agreeably to border usage, for hearing complaints and redressing wrongs, an accusation of theft was brought by a Scotsman against an English freebooter of the name of Farnstein, and on the latter being demanded to be delivered up, Sir John Forster, governor of Berwick, the English warden, alleged that he had fled from justice, and could not be found. Sir John Carmichael, the Scots warden, suspecting this to be a mere pretence to screen the offender, bade the English functionary “play fair.” Forster retorted by some injurious expressions regarding Carmichael’s family, and gave other open signs of resentment. The Tynedale and Reesdale men, the most ferocious of the English borderers, glad of any occasion for a fight, discharged a flight of arrows among the Scots. A general skirmish immediately ensued. Sir John Carmichael was beaten down and made prisoner, and the Scots, taken by surprise, were at first driven from the field. But, reinforced by the Rutherfords and the Jedburgh men, whom they met coming to the tryst, they turned back upon the English, and put them to flight, taking their warden and a number of the English border chiefs prisoners. The old ballad says,

“The Rutherfoords, with grit renown,
Convoyit the town of Jeddart out.”

Amongst the Rutherfords engaged on this occasion were the lairds of Hundalee and Hunthill:

“Bonjethart, Hundlie and Hunthill,
Three, on they laid weel at the last.”

The “black laird” of Edgerston was father of Richard Rutherfurd, who succeeded him, but dying young, left a son, Robert, a minor. The latter had numerous issue.

His eldest son, John Rutherfurd of Edgerston, distinguished himself during the civil wars in the 17th century. In 1639 he raised a troop of horse, and the following year he was at the capture of Newcastle. He continued with the army until the king’s surrender in 1646. In 1648 he joined the “Engagement,” under the duke of Hamilton, for the deliverance of the king from his captivity in the Isle of Wight, and was in the battle of Preston, where the Scots army was defeated. Subsequently he became a principal officer in the army raised for the support of Charles II. after his arrival in Scotland in 1650, and in the battle of Dunbar that year, he was severely wounded and his whole troop slain, with the exception of five men. After the Restoration, he commanded an independent troop of horse for keeping good order on the borders, and was always one of the chief commissioners of the crown for trying thieves and other offenders in a summary way. With twelve daughters, he had four sons, viz., John, who predeceased his father; Andrew, who succeeded in 1682, and entailed Edgerston; Thomas, who succeeded his brother, Andrew, in 1718; and Robert Rutherfurd of Bowland.

The third son, Thomas Rutherfurd of Edgerston, got assigned to him by Robert, Lord Rutherford, that peerage, with the estates attached to it, but he did not assume the title; neither did his son, Sir John Rutherfurd. The latter was knighted in 1706, when young, in his father’s lifetime, by an order from Queen Anne, to the duke of Queensberry, then her majesty’s commissioner to the parliament of Scotland. He succeeded his father in 1720. He was twice married, first, to Elizabeth Cairncross, heiress of the ancient and honourable house of Colmslie, Fifeshire, and had by her 19 children; and, secondly, in 1741, to Sarah, sister of Sir Alexander Nisbet, baronet, and by her had, with one daughter, a son, who inherited Hunthill.

The eldest son, John Rutherfurd of Edgerston, advocate, born 12th June 1712, was for some time M.P. for Roxburghshire. During the first American war, he accepted an independent company at New York, and was killed at the unsuccessful attack on Ticonderoga in 1758. By his wife, Eleanor, daughter of Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto, a lord of session, he had eleven children. Three of his sons were, John, his heir; Robert, killed in a mutiny of the Sepoys at Vellore, East Indies, about 1770; and Archibald, a captain in the army. James, a younger daughter, married William Oliver of Dinlabyre, sheriff-depute of Roxburghshire, and died in June 1820. One of her sons, William Oliver, born in 1781, succeeded, in 1834, his uncle John Rutherfurd of Edgerston, M.P., when he assumed the surname and arms of Rutherfurd. William Oliver-Rutherfurd of Edgerston, married in 1804, Agnes, daughter of Alexander Chatto, Esq., with issue.

His eldest son, William Alexander Rutherfurd, Esq., married in Sept. 1861, Margaret Jane, only daughter of Edward Young, Esq., deceased, and grand-daughter of Henry Young, Esq., M.D. of Devonshire Place, London, also deceased.

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RUTHERFORD, Baron, a title in the peerage of Scotland, conferred in 1661, on Lieutenant-general Andrew Rutherford, son of William Rutherford of Quarrelholes, a branch of the Rutherfords of Chatto and Hunthill, by his wife, Isabel, daughter of the above, named Sir James Stuart of Traquair. His lordship acquired great honour in the French service, and at the Restoration was particularly recommended by the king of France, to Charles II., by whom he was created Lord Rutherford, by patent, dated at Whitehall, Jan. 10, 1661, to himself and “to his heirs and assignees whatsoever, and that under what provisions, restrictions, and conditions the said Lord Rutherford should think fit.” Soon after he was appointed governor of Dunkirk, which had been captured from the Spanish in 1658, by the French and English combined, and taken possession of by the English. On the sale of that place in 1662 to Louis VIX., for £400,000, Lord Rutherford returned to England, but while in that trust, he had given so much satisfaction to Charles II., that the latter farther advanced him to be earl of Teviot, by patent, dated 2d February 1663, with limitation to the heirs male of his body. He was appointed colonel of the 2d, or Tangier regiment of foot, 6th April 1663, and the same year was sent out as governor of Tangier. This seaport, which is in the province of Fez in Morocco, situated on the straits of Gibraltar, had been ceded to England as a marriage portion with the princess Catherine of Portugal, queen of Charles II. He was killed in a sally against the Moors, 4th May 1664. In his last will he ordered eight chambers to be built in the college of Edinburgh, where he was educated, and an inscription placed therein, announcing that he had done so. Dying without issue, the earldom of Teviot became extinct, but the title of Lord Rutherford devolved on Sir Thomas Rutherford of Hunthill, in virtue of a general settlement executed by the first Lord Rutherford at Portsmouth, 23, December 1663.

The second Lord Rutherford died, without issue, in April 1668, when his brother, Archibald, became third Lord Rutherford, and sat in parliament as a peer. He died, without male issue, in 1685, and was succeeded by his brother, Robert, fourth Lord Rutherford. The latter sat as a peer in parliament in 1698, and after the Union voted for the representatives of the Scottish peerage. He died without issue in 1724, when the peerage became dormant.

The title of Lord Rutherford was assumed by George Durie of Grange, grand-nephew of the first lord, earl of Teviot, whose sister Christian married Robert Durie of Grange, in Fifeshire. This George Durie voted as Lord Rutherford at the election of a representative peer in 1733, and at the general election the following year. On the latter occasion, however, his vote was protested against by the procurator of Captain or Lieutenant John Rutherford, who also claimed the title and voted as Lord Rutherford at several elections. At the election of 1739, as well as at the general election of 1741, and at an election in 1742, both gentlemen voted as Lord Rutherford. At an election in 1744, George Durie’s vote was protested against, on behalf of his rival. Captain Rutherford died 15th February 1745, but his son, Alexander, took up his claim. At the general election of 1747 George Durie, styling himself Lord Rutherford, addressed the assembled peers and voted without challenge, and in March 1748 he printed ‘Memorial of George Lord Rutherford, setting forth his title and claim to the peerage of Rutherford, and for defeating the chimerical pretensions one Lieutenant Rutherford did set up to that dignity, as now dies his son, Alexander, who represents him.’ At an election in 1750, Alexander, claiming to be Lord Rutherford, protested against the vote of George Durie of Grange, as Lord Rutherford, which was, nevertheless, received. At an election in 1752, and again at the general election in 1754, they both voted as Lord Rutherford. George Durie died at Grange, near Burntisland, 18th June 1759, leaving a son, David, who also claimed to be Lord Rutherford. To put an end to the pretensions of both claimants, the House of Lords, on 16th March 1761, issued an order that Alexander Rutherford and David Durie should attend the house and show by what authority they assumed the title. At the general election of 1761, the former voted as Lord Rutherford. He also presented a petition to the king, setting forth his right to the title, which, in accordance with the usual practice, was laid before the House of Lords, 14th December 1761. The Lords’ committee of privileges resolved, 15th March 1762, that neither claimant should be considered as having right to the title until they should have made out their claim, and until the same is allowed, they should not be admitted to vote at elections of peers, in virtue of said title. Of these parties we hear no more, but on 11th January 1788, John Anderson in Goland, a cousin of David Durie, voted as Lord Rutherford, for Lord Cathcart. On the 21st April, however, his vote was rejected by the House of Lords. No one has claimed the title since. (See Douglas’ Peerage, Wood’s edition, vol. ii. p. 460.)

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Of this surname was a distinguished lord of session, the Right Hon. Andrew Rutherford, born in 1791. He passed advocate in 1812, and early came into extensive practice, being remarkable for his masterly power of analysis, his vast legal erudition, and his eloquence in forensic debate. As a scholar and critic he also attained to considerable eminence. From an early period he associated himself with the Whig party, and in 1837, he was appointed solicitor-general for Scotland, under the Melbourne administration. In 1839, he became lord-advocate, and was elected M.P. for the Leith burghs. He held the office of lord-advocate until the accession of Sir Robert Peel to power in 1841, and was reinstated in it on the dissolution of the Peel administration in 1846. In 1851, he was promoted to the bench of the court of session, when he assumed the judicial title of Lord Rutherford, and was sworn a member of the privy council. He died at Edinburgh, 13th December 1854, in his 63d year. To his services in parliament Scotland owes the Court of Session Act, the Entail Reform Act, and other most valuable measures of forensic reform. His wife, Sophia, a daughter of Sir James Stewart of Fort Stewart, county Donegal, Ireland, baronet, predeceased him in 1852. A splendid mausoleum was erected by him in the Dean cemetery, Edinburgh, to her memory and his own.

RUTHERFORD, SAMUEL, a celebrated reformer and divine, was born about 1600 in the parish of Nisbet, now annexed to Crailing, in the presbytery of Jedburgh. Of his parentage there is no certain information, but his father is believed to have been a farmer. The editor of the first edition of his Letters, which appeared in 1664, states, that he was “a gentleman by extraction;” while Wodrow says, that he was sprung of mean but honest parents in Teviotdale. He is supposed to have received his early education in the school of Jedburgh. IN 1617 he was sent to the university of Edinburgh, where, four years later, he took the degree of M.A. His attainments at college, particularly in classical literature, were so great that, in 1623, after a comparative trial, he was elected professor of humanity there, in preference to three other candidates. Two years afterwards, however, some reports connected with his marriage having been raised to his prejudice, for which there does not appear to have been any foundation, he resigned his professorship, and devoted himself to the study of theology. Where or when he obtained license to preach is not known, but about 1627 he was settled as parish minister of Anwoth, in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, an appointment which he obtained through Gordon of Kenmure, who was soon after raised to the peerage. Prelacy being at that period in the ascendant in Scotland, no minister could be inducted into a parish without declaring his submission to the bishop of the diocese. Mr. Rutherford, however, was allowed to enter upon his charge “without coming under any engagement to the bishop.” While he was at Anwoth, we are told, it was his custom to rise every morning at three o’clock, and after dedicating the early part of the day to study or private devotion, he spent the remainder of it in visiting and instructing his people. His reputation being soon spread throughout the country, multitudes came from all quarters to hear him preach. His unwearied zeal in the discharge of his ministerial duties was the occasion of his being summoned, in June 1630, before the high court of commission of Edinburgh; but the archbishop of St. Andrews was prevented by tempestuous weather from attending, and the diet against him was in consequence deserted. About the same time he lost his first wife, Eupham Hamilton, after a protracted illness of thirteen months, while he himself suffered severely for thirteen weeks under a tertian fever. About ten years afterwards he married a second wife, by whom he had only one child alive at the time of his own death.

Rutherford’s elaborate works in Latin on the Arminian controversy, entitled ‘Exercitationes Apologeticae pro Divina Gratia,’ was first published at Amsterdam in 1636. In consequence of this publication, he was accused by Thomas Sydserff, bishop of Galloway, of non-conformity, before a high commission court held the same year at Wigton, and deprived of his ministerial office. To obtain a confirmation of this sentence, Sydserff cited him before a similar court at Edinburgh.; On his appearance he declined the jurisdiction of the court; but after a lengthened examination of the charges against him, which lasted for three days, he was, July 27, 1636, deposed from his pastoral charge, and sentenced to confine himself to the town of Aberdeen, there to remain during the king’s pleasure.

During his residence in that city, which was then noted for its strong attachment to episcopacy, he wrote most of his celebrated Letters, of which there have been numerous edition; the latest of which, in two vols., with a life of the author annexed, appeared at London in 1836, edited by the Rev. Charles Thomson of North Shields, who has judiciously modernized the language. These Letters have long formed one of the most cherished books of the peasantry of Scotland, especially in the southern districts.

In February 1638, when the king’s arbitrary enforcement of prelacy had roused the people of Scotland to the most determined resistance, Rutherford ventured to return to his flock at Anwoth. He was a member of the famous Assembly which met at Glasgow in November of that year, and which has become memorable in the ecclesiastical annals of Scotland for the abolition of episcopacy, and the re-establishment of Presbyterianism. Two months after he was elected one of the ministers of Edinburgh, but the commission of the Assembly appointed him, in preference, professor of divinity in the New college of St. Andrews, and colleague to Mr. Robert Blair, the minister of that town. In 1642 he published his ‘Peaceable Plea for Paul’s Presbytery.’ In 1643 he was chosen one of the commissioners from the Church of Scotland to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster. On this occasion he remained in London for four years. By his talents and learning he acquired considerable influence in that venerable synod, and took an important share in the business before them.

While in London he preached several times before the parliament, and published various theological treatises, some of them controversial, and others of a practical nature, and also his celebrated ‘Lex Rex,’ or, the Law and the King, which appeared in 1644, intended as a reply to a book published by John Maxwell, the excommunicated bishop of Ross, in support of absolute monarchy. At length, in October 1647, the principal business of the Westminster Assembly being concluded, he returned to St. Andrews, and, in January 1649, he was appointed principal of the New college; and, a few months thereafter, rector of the university. From the following letter it would appear that in the summer of this year he received a call to Edinburgh; but whether it was to be one of the ordinary ministers or a professor in the university does not appear. We think, however, from the terms, “that worthie societie,” as well as from the fact of Rutherford’s being at that period a professor at St. Andrews, that it was to fill the latter situation.

RYGT HONORABLE
The master of my transportation is so poor a controversie, I truly not being desirous to be the subject of any dinn in the General Assemblie of the Kirk of Scotland who have greater bussieness to doe, and having suffered once the paine of transportation, most humbly intreat yor Lo) that favour as to cast yor thoughts upon some fitter man, for as it is unbeseeming me to lie or dissemble so I must friely shew you it will but mak me the subject of suffering and passive obedience. And I trust yor Lo) intends not that hurt to me. And I am persuaded it is not yor mind. It shal be my prayer to God to send that worthie societie an hable and pious man. Grace be with you.
Yours at all humble
Observance in the Lord
SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.

St. Andrews the last of June 1649.
The Rygt honourable my verie good Lord, Sir James Stewart,
Provost of Edinburgh and remanent Magistrates of the citie.

About the same time he received an invitation to fill the chair of divinity and Hebrew in the then newly established university of Harderwyck, in Holland, which he declined, having no desire to leave his native land in the midst of her troubles.

The Dutch, however, appear to have been very anxious that he should accept of a chair in one of their universities, for on May 20, 1651, he was elected professor of divinity in the University of Utrecht. Rutherford’s brother, Mr. James Rutherford, then an officer in the Dutch service, was intrusted with the charge of conveying the appointment to Scotland, but on the voyage, the ship on board of which he had embarked, was taken by an English cruiser. James Rutherford, stripped and plundered of everything, including the notification of his brother’s appointment, was carried a prisoner into Leith, and it was only by the intervention of the States that he obtained his release. Rutherford being made aware of his election as Utrecht divinity professor, and having no other voucher of the same than his brother’s word, did not feel himself at liberty to accept it. Thereupon, James Rutherford returned to Holland, and in the end of the same year, the magistrates of Utrecht, the patrons of the University, sent him back to Scotland with his brother’s appointment, cordially inviting him to become a professor in their college.

In 1648 he had published a controversial work against the Antomonians, entitled ‘Survey of the spiritual antichrist;’ and, the year following, he produced his ‘Free Disputation against Pretended Liberty of Conscience,’ directed against the Independents. On the death of his patron, Lord Kenmure, he wrote, in Latin, an elegiac poem to his memory, and, in 1649, he published ‘The Last and Heavenly Speeches, and Glorious Departure of John, Viscount Kenmure,’ a work in which he gives a detailed account of the spiritual conferences which he had held with that nobleman. With Lady Kenmure he continued to maintain a frequent correspondence on religious subjects throughout the whole of his life, and one of the last letters he ever wrote was to that lady. At the Restoration, he was one of the first marked out for persecution by the government. His work ‘Lex Rex’ was ordered to be burnt at the cross of Edinburgh by the hands of the common hangman, an indignity to which it was also subjected at the gates of the New college of St. Andrews. He himself was deprived of his stipend and his offices both in the university and the church, and cited to appear before the ensuing parliament on a charge of high treason, a summons which he did not live to obey. His health had long been declining, and, when he received the citation, he was on his deathbed. Sensible that he was dying, he emitted, in February 1661, a Testimony to the Truth of Jesus Christ, and to the Covenanted Work of Reformation in Great Britain and Ireland. He died March 19, 1661, about five o’clock in the morning, the exact hour which he himself had foretold. His works are:

Exercitationes Apologeticae pro Divina Gratia, contra Arminium, &c. Amst. 1636, 8vo. Franck. 1660, 12mo.
A Peaceable and Temperate Plea for Paul’s Presbyterie in Scotland; or, a modest and brotherly Dispute of the Government of the Church of Scotland. Lond. 1642, 4to.
Sermon on Dan. Vi. 26. Lond. 1643, 4to.
Fast Sermon; preached before the House of Commons, Jan. 31, 1643. Lond. 1644, 4to.
The due Right of Presbyteries; or, a peaceable Plea for the Government of the Church of Scotland. London, 1644, 1645, 4to.
Lex Rex: the Law and the Prince; a Dispute for the just Prerogative of King and People, containing the Reasons and Causes of the most necessary defensive Wars of the Kingdom of Scotland, and of their Expedition for the ayd and help of their dear brethren of England; in which their innocency is asserted, and a full Answer is given to a seditious Pamphlet intituled, Sacrosancta Regum Majestas, under the name of J. A. but penned by Jo. Maxwell, the excommunicate P. Prelate. Lond. 1644, 1657, 4to. (Anon.)
The Tryal and Triumph of Faith. Lond. 1645, 4to.
Fast Sermon, before the House of Lords, 25th June 1645. Lond. 1645, 4to.
Sermon on Luke viii, 22, 23, 24, 25. Lond. 1645, 4to.
The Divine Right of Church Government and Excommunication; wherein the removal of the Service-Book is justified; also, a brief Tractate of Scandal; with an Answer to the Doctors of Aberdeen. Lond. 1646, 4to.
Christ’s Dying and drawing Sinners to himself; delivered in Sermons upon John xii. 27, 28, &c. Lond. 1647, 4to. Edin. 1727, 12mo.
Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist; opening the Secrets of Familisme and Antinomianism. In 2 Parts. Lond. 1648, 4to
A free Disputation against pretended Liberty of Conscience, tending to resolve Doubts moved by Mr. Jo. Goodwin, Jo. Baptist, Dr. Jor. Taylor, the Belgick Arminians, Socinians, &c. contending for lawlesse Liberty, or licentious Toleration of Sects and Heresies. Lond. 1649, 4to.
Disputatio Scholastica de Divina Prividentia, variis praelectionibus tradita. Edin. 1649, 1650, 4to.
The Covenant of Life opened; or, a Treatise of the covenant of Grace. Edin. 1655, 4to.
Treatise of Civil Policy. Lond. 1657, 4to.
Influences of the Life of Grace, &c. Lond. 1659, 4to.
A Survey of Mr. Thomas Hooker’s Survey of the Church Discipline of New England. Lond. 1658, 4to.
A Testimony to the Truth of Jesus Christ, or to the Doctrine, Worship, Discipline, and Government of the Kirk of Scotland, against the Errors and Heresies of the Times; by him and others. Edin. 1660, 23mo. 1803, 4to.
Joshua Redivivus; or, (Religious) Letters, divided into 2 parts. 1664, 12mo. Religious Letters, in 2 parts, written during his Confinement in Aberdeen. 1671, 8vo. 1675, 8vo. 1692, 12mo. Glasg. 1765, 8vo. Numerous editions; the 13th, Edin. 1809, 12mo.
Examen Arminianismi recensitum et editum a Matthia Netheno. Ultraj. 1668. 8vo.
Discourse on Prayer. 8vo.
Several Sermons; Sacramental Discourses, &c., have likewise been published in his name.
Among his posthumous works are, his Letters, and several Discourse and occasional Sermons.

RUTHERFORD, JOHN, a learned physician, and one of the founders of the medical school of Edinburgh, the son of the Rev. Mr. Rutherford, minister of Yarrow, Selkirkshire, was born August 1, 1695. He received his classical education at the school of Selkirk, and after going through the usual course of literary and philosophical study at the university of Edinburgh, he became apprentice to Mr. Alexander Nesbit, a respectable surgeon of that city. In 1716 he repaired to London, where he “walked the hospitals,” and attended lectures on anatomy, surgery, and materia medica. He next proceeded to Leyden, where he became a pupil of the celebrated Boerhaave. In 1719 he went to France, and, about the end of July of that year, he was admitted to the degree of M.D. in the university of Rheims. In 1721 he returned to Edinburgh, and commenced practicing there as a physician. As Edinburgh in those days had no botanical garden, In November 1724, he and Drs. Sinclair, Plummer, and Innes presented a memorial to the town council of that city, stating that having purchased a house for a chemical laboratory, adjoining to the college garden, they desired “that they might be allo3wed the use of that ground for the better furnishing the apothecary shops with chemical medicines, and instructing the students of medicine in that part of the science,” which the town council granted. At a meeting of the town council on 9th February, 1726, in accordance with a petition from “John Rutherford, Andrew Sinclair, Andrew Plummer, and John Innes, fellows of the royal college of physicians at Edinburgh,” these gentlemen were appointed joint medical professors in that university, “with full power to them to examine candidates, and to do every other thing requisite and necessary to the graduation of doctors of medicine, as amply and fully, and with all the solemnities, that the same is practiced and done by the professors of medicine in any college or university whatever.” On the death of Dr. Innes, soon after, Dr. Plummer was appointed professor of chemistry and materia medica, Dr. Sinclair of the institutes of physic, and Dr. Rutherford of the practice of medicine. As long as he continued in that chair, he lectured to his class in Latin, using as a text-book a work of his old master, Boerhaave. About 1748 he began to deliver clinical lectures in the Infirmary, being the first to introduce a practice which is now an essential part of medical education. In 1765 he resigned his professorship, and was succeeded by Dr. John Gregory.

Dr. Rutherford died at Edinburgh in 1779, in the 84th year of his age. He was twice married, first to a daughter of Sir John Swinton of Swinton, and secondly to Miss Mackay, and had children by both his wives. His daughter by his first marriage, Anne Rutherford, became the wife of Mr. Walter Scott, writer to the signet, and was the mother of the author of Waverley.

RUTHERFORD, DANIEL, an eminent chemical philosopher, and professor of botany, the son of the preceding, by his second wife, was born at Edinburgh, November 3, 1749. He studied at the university of his native place for the medical profession, and in 1772 took the degree of M.D. For his thesis on this occasion he chose a chemical subject, being ‘De Aere Mephitico,’ which, from the originality of its views, obtained the highest encomiums of Dr. Black and other distinguished chemists of the time. In this dissertation he demonstrated the existence, though without explaining its properties, of a peculiar air, or new gaseous fluid, to which some eminent modern philosophers have given the name of azote, and others of nitrogen. That Dr. Rutherford first discovered this gas is now generally admitted, and, as has been remarked, the reputation of his discovery being speedily spread through Europe, his character as a chemist of the first eminence was firmly established.

On completing his academical course, Dr. Rutherford visited London, France, and Italy, with the view of prosecuting his professional studies. After passing about three years abroad, he returned to Edinburgh, and immediately entered upon practice as a physician. In 1776 he became a licentiate, and, in May 1777, was admitted a fellow of the royal college of Physicians there. He was also elected a member of the Philosophical Society, afterwards incorporated by charter under the name of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; and to that body he furnished, in 1778, an interesting paper, containing some valuable and original suggestions on nitre or nitrate of potass. In December 1786, on the death of Dr. John Hope, Dr. Rutherford was elected his successor as professor of botany in the university of Edinburgh, and nominated a member of the faculty of medicine in that institution. He was, at the same time, appointed king’s botanist for Scotland, in consequence of which he was intrusted with the charge of the royal botanical garden at Edinburgh. In 1791 he succeeded Dr. Henry Cullen as one of the physicians in ordinary to the royal infirmary. From his boyhood he had been afflicted with hereditary gout, both his father and grandfather being subject to this disease at very early periods of life; and he died suddenly, December 15, 1819, in the 71st year of his age. It is somewhat remarkable that one of his sisters died two days after him, on the 17th, and another, the excellent mother of Sir Walter Scott, expired on the 24th of the same month, and that none of the three knew of the death of the other. Dr. Rutherford married, in December 1786, Harriet, youngest daughter of John Mitchelson, Esq. of Middleton, by whom he had several children.