Memoir of the Author
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 and
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
labours in the cause of Christ; Alexander was settled at Strickathrow, 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 Presbyters, 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 he did not, till his entrance
into college life, 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 skilfully 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 Mr.
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 entangles 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; and received
license, 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 parish
lays--to Clydesdale, Stirling, and the Lothians. Several calls were addressed
to him, 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 London, 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, Mr. Guthrie's Christian heroism was called into
exercise on a communion Sabbath in Mr. 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 had been 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 war, and returned to his flock with
increased ardour 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 attending
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 engaging 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 sermon was over, Mr. Guthrie asked if he would come back the
next Sabbath-day, and he would give him the same? which he did, and from that
time afterwards never failed to keep the church. He afterwards became a member
of his session.' The stated calls made by him 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
accenting 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 judicatories. He seems to have been a member of the general Assembly
of 1649, and stands in the lists of its Commission, along with such illustrious
names as James Guthrie, the Marquis of Argyle, Dickson, 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. Ere long he published 'The Christian's Great
Interest.' This work had 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, Mr Guthrie made one of his last efforts 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 Aye, 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 'contain 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, Mr. James Guthrie, who sealed his
testimony with his blood, in June 1661, at the cross of Edinburgh. His
deference to the warm 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, Mr.
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.' His own words to the person who ejected him, thus 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 both respected him
as a man of worth, and recollected with gratitude Mr. 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. Mr. Guthrie found an appropriate text for
the occasion in these words of Hosea 13: 9, 'O Israel, thou hast destroyed
thyself;' 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 latter clause of his Wednesday's text, "but in Me is thine help,'
and 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 presence of a congregation of soldiers and children. In the manse he
was courteously received by Mr. Guthrie, who declared, in 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 give 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 Presbyters; 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 after retired to his
paternal estate at Pitforthy, now become his possession in consequence of the
decease 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 but 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 his 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
cryeth after us.'--'Is it so that sympathy 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 ye would make meikle use of Christ's
intercession. These prayers are little worth that flow not from sympathy; and,
3. Reckon all your receipts to be free favour, and neither the return of your
own or other folks' prayers. I do not forbid yow to pray yourself;-nor to seek
the help of other folks' prayers, nor do I judge yow or them void of sympathy;
but I would have yow lippening less to them, and making more use of Christ and
His intercession.' His theological tutor and bosom friend, Samuel
Rutherford, thus expresses his regard for Mr. Guthrie 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. Owen, who, on one occasion, drawing a little
gilded copy of Mr. 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 Vademecum, 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.' Many years after the author's death,
this work, with others of a similar nature, was instrumental in arousing to
deeper concern for his soul's salvation, John Brow then a shepherd boy in the
neighbourhood of Abernethy, and afterwards highly distinguished as a minister
of the gospel, and Professor of Divinity for nearly twenty years in one of the
branches of the Secession Church. How more may be the cases in which it has
been blessed to the conviction, conversion, and edification of those whom it
might enable to teach others also, the great day alone shall declare. The
following references to it, in the interesting Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers, prove
the high opinion he had formed of the genius it displays:--'Would you inquire
for 'Guthrie's Trial of a Saving Interest in Christ?' It is a small duodecimo;
and has been long the favourite author of our peasantry in Scotland. He wrote
about a hundred and fifty years ago; and one admirable property of his work is,
that while it guides it purifies. It males known all our defects, but ministers
the highest comfort in the presence of a feeling of our defects. To find mercy
we need only to feel misery. ... I am on the eve of finishing Guthrie, which I
think is the best book I ever read. I shall leave it as a present to the Anster
folks, and pass from it to 'Brook on Religious Experience, ... I should like to
know how the little book I left was relished among you. I still think it the
best composition I ever read relating to a subject in which we are all deeply
interested, and about which it is my earnest prayer, that we may all be found
on the right side of the question.' Having given the opinions of these
eminent divines regarding the 'Christian's Great Interest', we presume not to
attempt a delineation of the merits of its excellent Author. The wise and the
good of his own day, as well as of subsequent times, have held him in grateful
remembrance, and his works continue to praise him in the gates.
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