Guthrie The Christian's Great Interest

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5183-8159-1
Verlag: Charles River Editors
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 237 Seiten

William Guthrie was a Scottish minister in the 17th century who is best known for writing The Christian's Great Interest.  This edition includes a table of contents.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Guthrie, William

Leseproben

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 honourable; 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...