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William Guthrie
William Guthrie, one of the holiest and ablest of the
experimental divines of Scotland, was born at Pitforthy, the seat of
his ancestors, in the shire of Angus, in the year 1620. The branch of
the house of Guthrie from which he sprang was ancient and honorable;
and its interest in the cause of truth ad godliness was proved by the
fact that four of the children had early been devoted to the ministry
of the gospel. The only one of these who did not obtain a fixed charge
was Robert, who soon lost health and life by his abundant labors in
the cause of Christ. Alexander was settled at Stracathro, within his
native shire, in 1645, and continued there till his death in 1661;
while John, the youngest of the family, became minister of Tarbolton,
Ayrshire, from which he was ejected for adherence to Presbytery, after
the restoration of Charles II to the throne of Britain, and speedily
sank under the hardships to which he was exposed, dying in the year
1669.
The superior genius of William, the eldest of this
excellent band of brothers, was displayed in his early and successful
attention to learning; but till his entrance into college life, he did
not obtain that intimate and saving acquaintance with Divine Truth
which enabled him at once to stay his own soul upon God as the God of
his salvation, and to prescribe most skillfully for the cases of
spiritual disease that came under his notice. He felt himself greatly
indebted for acquaintance with the way of holiness to the instructions
of a near kinsman. This was his cousin, James Guthrie, then holding
one of the chairs in the New College of St. Andrews, and afterwards
highly esteemed as the faithful minister of Stirling during the period
of the Covenant, for his faithful adherence to which he obtained a
martyr's crown. Samuel Rutherford, who became Professor of Divinity at
St. Andrews in 1639, took the guidance of William Guthrie's
theological studies, confirmed and cherished the principles of piety
already implanted, and brought him, with his whole soul, to devote
himself to the service of Christ. That he might not be entangled in
the network of earthly concerns, he resigned his estate at Pitforthy
to a younger brother, not engaged at that time in the prosecution of
sacred studies. Thus trained in the schools of literature, and
rendered familiar with religion both in theory and practice, William
Guthrie was well fitted for usefulness as a preacher of the gospel. He
was licensed, with the high approbation of the Presbytery, in August
1642. It was fully two years later that he obtained a church in the
newly erected parish of Fenwick; and was ordained minister, in
compliance with the harmonious call of the people, in November 1644.
His success and popularity were soon found to be great; and extended
far beyond the Ayrshire district in which his perish lay - to
Clydesdale, Stirling, and the Lothians. Several calls were addressed
to them, but ineffectually, to quit his beloved people, till, about a
year after his settlement, and very soon after his marriage to an
excellent lady of the noble family of Loudon, he left them for a
season, by appointment of the General Assembly, to attend the Scottish
army as chaplain during the civil war that ended in the execution of
Charles I, and the subjection of Scotland to the Protectorate of
Cromwell.
While the Protector's troops kept possession of
Glasgow about that time, William Guthrie's Christian heroism was
called into exercise on a communion Sabbath in Andrew Gray's church.
"Several of the English officers had formed a design to put in
execution the disorderly principle of a promiscuous admission to the
Lord's table, by coming to it themselves without acquainting the
minister, or being in a due manner found worthy of that privilege. Mr.
Guthrie, to whose share it fell to dispense the sacrament at that
table, spoke to them, when they were leaving their pews in order to
make their attempt, with such gravity, resolution, and zeal, that they
were quite confounded, and sat down again without occasioning any
further disturbance."
The arrangements then made by the church Courts
regarding chaplains in the army, render it probable that he was
relieved by his brethren at several intervals, and thus enjoyed
occasionally the endearments of his home, and opportunities of
pastoral and public usefulness. He was providentially preserved
throughout the was, and returned to his flock with increased ardor and
devotion. They needed his care; for at the commencement of his
ministry, profanation of the Sabbath, desertion of the house of God,
neglect of family religion, and gross ignorance, with a train of
attendant evils, were prevalent among his parishioners. His talents,
natural and acquired, were dexterously applied to check abounding
iniquity. Let one instance suffice for illustration - that of a fowler
in his parish engaged in his sport and deserting public worship on the
Lord's day - a practice in which he had long indulged. "Mr.
Guthrie asked him what was the reason he had for so doing? He told him
that the Sabbath-day was the most fortunate day in all the week. Mr.
Guthrie asked him what he could make by that day's exercise? He
replied that he could make half-a-crown. Mr. Guthrie told him if he
would go to church on Sabbath, he would give him as much; and by that
means got his promise. After the sermon was over, Mr. Guthrie asked if
would come back the next Sabbath-day, and he would give him the same?
He did this, and from that time afterwards never failed to keep the
church. He afterwards became a member of his session."
The stated calls made by Guthrie at the houses of his
people were very acceptable and profitable. The visitation of the sick
and the dying, whom he never neglected, the instruction of the young
in the doctrine that is according to godliness, and the ministrations
of the pulpit, declared him a workman who needed not to be ashamed. As
a consistent office-bearer, he duly attended to the government and
discipline of the Church, in the session and superior judicators. He
seems to have been a member of the General Assembly of 1649, and stand
in the lists of its Commission, along with such illustrious names as
James Guthrie, the Marquis of Argyle, David Dickson, James Durham, and
Samuel Rutherford.
During the unhappy division of the Church of Scotland
into the parties of Resolutioners and Protesters or Remonstrants, the
two Guthries, Samuel Rutherford, and several of the most pious and
zealous Presbyterians, adhered to the latter; and Baillie mentions in
his Letters, that at the meeting of their western synod, in 1654,
"The Remonstrants chose Mr. William Guthrie for their
Moderator." His forbearance towards brethren taking the opposite
side in that fatal schism has been acknowledged by his biographers;
and his pastoral care was fully exercised. Before long he published
"The Christian's Great Interest." This work has gone
through numerous editions, been translated into various languages, and
continues to embalm his memory in the estimation of intelligent
Christians of every name. The first edition of it appeared shortly
before the restoration of Charles II. Not long after
the commencement of the persecution, Guthrie made one of his last
effort for the preservation of ecclesiastical freedom in the courts of
the Church. This stand he took at a meeting of the Synod of Glasgow
and Ayr, in April 1661, when he framed an address, designed for
presentation to Parliament had the troubles of the time permitted,
which the Synod approved of, as "containing a faithful testimony
of the purity of our reformation in worship, doctrine, discipline, and
government, in terms equally remarkable for their prudence and their
courage." Two months later his zeal for the same cause was
manifested by his earnest desire to attend, on the scaffold, his
illustrious kinsman, James Guthrie, who sealed his testimony with his
blood, in June 1661, at the cross of Edinburgh. His deference to the
urgent entreaties of his session alone prevented him from engaging in
so perilous a service. The respect which his affable deportment and
able performance of pastoral duty gained for him from high and low
screened him from persecution, and he persevered in preaching to his
flock the truth as it is in Jesus. his intellectual powers and
Christian experience were conspicuous in his discourses, and many, we
believe, were the imperishable seals of his ministry, for it is
averred by one of his contemporaries, Matthew Crawford, minister at
Eastwood, that "he converted and confirmed many thousand souls,
and was esteemed the greatest practical preacher in Scotland."
Another of them declares his diligence and success among the people of
Fenwick to have been so great, that almost all of them "were
brought to make a fair profession of godliness, and had the worship of
God in their families. And it was well known that many of them were
sincere, and not a few of them eminent Christians." To the person
who ejected him, he humbly yet boldly ascribed his great success to
God: "I thank Him for it; yea, I look upon it as a door which God
opened to me for preaching this gospel, which neither you nor any man
else was able to shut, till it was given you of God." He was now
called to experience those trials which had been delayed longer in his
case than in that of most of his faithful brethren through the
influence of the Earl of Glencairn, then Chancellor of Scotland, who
respected him as a man of worth, and recollected with gratitude
Guthrie's kindness to him during an imprisonment to which the Earl had
been subjected for his loyalty to the King during the sway of
Cromwell. Sabbath, the 24th of July, was fixed as the
day for enforcing the decree. The people of Fenwick, greatly grieved
at the prospect of losing so faithful a minister, observed the
Wednesday preceding as a day of humiliation and prayer. Guthrie found
an appropriate text for the occasion in these words of Hosea 13:9,
"O Israel, you have destroyed yourself;" solemnly
inculcated on his flock patience and perseverance in the way of
holiness, and appointed an early meeting of the congregation for the
following Sabbath. The light of that day of the Son of Man ushered in
a sorrowful morning for the people who then met to listen for the last
time to the welcome voice of their beloved pastor. His theme, most
suitable for the day, was the clause which followed his Wednesday's
text, "But in Me is your help." At the close of his
sermon every countenance was suffused with tears, while he directed
his hearers to the "Fountain of help, when the gospel and
ministers were taken from them; and took his leave of them, commending
them to this great God, who was able to build them up, and help them
in the time of their need." Before nine o'clock
the congregation had dispersed, sorrowing exceedingly that they should
listen to his persuasive discourses no more. No sound occurred to
disturb the quiet of the hallowed day, till the tramp of horses was
heard in the distance, and the troop soon appeared headed by a rider
in black, the curate of Calder, whom a fee of five pounds had induced
to give formal notice of the sentence of suspension. He observed the
ceremony of preaching the church vacant in the presence of a
congregation of soldiers and children. In the manse he was courteously
received by Guthrie, who declared, in the presence of the officers of
the party, his reason for submission to the sentence as not arising
from respect to the prelate's authority, which had no weight with him,
adding "Were it not for the reverence I owe to the civil
magistrate, I would not cease from the exercise of my ministry for all
that sentence." The following passage formed part of his solemn
reply to the Archbishop's message: "I here declare, I think
myself called by the Lord to the work of the ministry, and did forsake
my nearest relations in the world, and gave up myself to the service
of the gospel in this place, having received A unanimous call from
this parish, and being tried and ordained by the Presbytery; and I
bless the Lord He has given me some success, and a seal of my ministry
upon the souls and consciences of not a few that are gone to heaven,
and of some that are yet in the way to it." His bodily health,
but indifferent before, suffered a severe shock on this occasion; he
preached no more in the parish; and about two months later retired to
his paternal estate at Pitforthy, now become his possession in
consequence of the death of a surviving brother. It was his but for a
year of pain and sorrow, caused by a complication of diseases, and by
the calamities that were befalling the Church and nation. He was
attended during his last illness by visitors belonging to all parties,
received kindly and faithfully the Episcopalian clergy who came to
converse with him, and died full of faith in the glorious gospel he
had preached, with the confident hope of complete redemption. His
death occurred on the afternoon of Wednesday, the 10th of October
1665. Two daughters of a family of six children survived him, one of
whom became the wife of the Rev. Patrick Warner, of Irvine, and mother
of Margaret Warner, who was afterwards married to the Rev. Robert
Wodrow, of Eastwood, the faithful chronicler of the sufferings of the
Church of Scotland. None of Guthrie's sermons appear to
have been published during his lifetime. As a specimen of the faithful
and practical character of his preaching, we give an extract from a
discourse long preserved among the Wodrow MSS, and recently printed,
entitled "A Sermon on Sympathie." The text is Matthew
15:23, "Send her away, for she cries after us." -
"Is it so that sympathie is so cold and weak among God's people
at this time, when so much of it is called for? Then I would have yow
drawing these three conclusions from it: 1. When any thing ails yow,
pray much for yourself; I assure yow ye will get little help of
others. 2. As yow, would lippen little to other folk's prayers, so you
would make meikle use of Christ's intercession. These prayers are
little worth that flow not from sympathie; and, 3. Reckon all your
receipts to be free favour, and neither the return of your own or
other folk's prayers. I do not forbid yow to pray yourself, not to
seek the help of other folk's prayers, not do I judge yow or them void
of sympathie; but I would have yow lippening less to them, and making
more use of Christ and His intercession." Guthrie's
theological tutor and bosom friend, Samuel Rutherford, this expresses
his regard for him and his flock during a season of public
agitation" "Dear Brother, help me, and get me the help of
their prayers who are with you, in whom is my delight." The
author of "The Christian's Great Interest" was also
very highly esteemed by another of his illustrious contemporaries, Dr.
John Owen, who, on one occasion, drawing a little gilded copy of
Guthrie's treatise from his pocket, said to a minister of the Church
of Scotland, "That author I take to have been one of the greatest
divines that ever wrote; it is my Vade-mecum, and I carry it
and the Sedan New Testament, still about with me. I have written
several folios, but there is more divinity in it than in them
all." Books by William Guthrie
The Christian's
Great Interest
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