Minister of the Church of Scotland
James Guthrie (c. 1612 – 1 June 1661), was a Scottish Presbyterian minister. Cromwell called him "the short man who would not bow." He was theologically and politically aligned with Archibald Johnston, whose illuminating 3 volume diaries were lost until 1896, and not fully published until 1940. He was exempted from the general pardon at the restoration of the monarchy, tried on 6 charges, and hanged in Edinburgh.
James Guthrie was born about 1612 and said to be son of Guthrie of that ilk. He graduated with an M.A. from St. Andrew's University. He subsequently became a regent in St Leonard's College, St Andrews. He was one of those whom the Assembly, 16 December 1638, found ready to supply vacancies. He was not ordained until a few years later when he was called to Lauder in 1642, where he stayed for 7 years. He was selected with three others to wait upon Charles I at Newcastle in 1646 with a letter from the Assembly. He preached before Parliament on 10 January 1649, and was thanked by it. He was appointed a commissioner for visiting the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh that year. He was translated and admitted to the Church of the Holy Rude in Stirling in November 1650. He took an active and leading part in the business of the Church, and by a small majority in the Assembly got General John Middleton, afterwards the Earl of Middleton, excommunicated, announcing the sentence from his own pulpit, notwithstanding an appeal by the King. He and Bennett, his colleague, were required by His Majesty and the Committee of Estates to repair to Perth, 19 February 1651, to answer for preaching against the Public Resolutions agreed to by Church and State in order to a levy, but they refused.
He was deposed by the Assembly, 30 July following, for having joined in the Protestation against the lawfulness of that Assembly. He and others holding similar views thereupon formed a separate Church under the protection of Cromwell. Along with others of the Protesting brethren, having met in Edinburgh to draw up a congratulatory address and supplication to Charles II, he was seized and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle 23 August 1660. His stipend was sequestrated 25 September, and he was removed to the prison of Dundee 20 October, from thence to Stirling and again to Edinburgh, where he was tried before Parliament, 25 May 1661, found guilty of treason, sentenced to death 28th, hanged at the Cross of Edinburgh on 1 June 1661. His head was placed on the Netherbow Port. The sentence of forfeiture was rescinded by Parliament 22 July 1690, and his skull, after being a public spectacle for about twenty-eight years, was removed by Alexander Hamilton, then a student at the university, who afterwards succeeded the Holy Rude Church in Stirling. From his determined support of Presbyterian principles, Guthrie was named siccar foot (the Scots term for a sure-footed person), the avowed leader of the Protesters, and their secretary and champion. He married Jane (buried in Greyfriars, 15 March 1673), who was the daughter of Ramsay of Sheilhill, and had issue – William, died on the eve of being licensed at Edinburgh April 1674; Sophia, who, along with her mother, was in 1666 banished to a lonely prison in Shetland for having in their possession a copy of John Brown's Apologeticall Relation of the Particular Sufferings of the Faithful Ministers and Professors of the Church of Scotland.
Early life and education.
Guthrie, the eldest son of the laird of Guthrie, Forfarshire, was born about 1612. He was educated at St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, where he graduated with an MA, and became one of the regents, distinguished for his lectures on philosophy.
At this time Guthrie was an episcopalian, and is said to have been zealous for prelacy and the ceremonies. Yet on 16 December 1638 the strongly antiprelatic assembly at Glasgow put him in the list of those ready for ecclesiastical vacancies. In January 1639 Samuel Rutherford was made divinity professor at the University of St Andrews, and under his influence Guthrie became a Presbyterian.
First charge at Lauder.
In 1642 he was ordained minister of Lauder, Berwickshire, and soon distinguished himself in the cause of the National Covenant. He was a member of the General Assembly from 1644 to 1651; in the first year he received (15 May) £15 towards the expenses of his attendance from the Kirk session of Stow, Midlothian. In 1646 he was one of seven commissioners appointed by the Committee of Estates to wait on Charles I at Newcastle-on-Tyne with a letter from the general assembly whose purport was, according to Kilpatrick, to press on Charles Presbyterianism and the Solemn League and Covenant. He preached before the Scottish Parliament on 10 January 1649, and on 16 January before the parliamentary commission for the visitation of the University of St. Andrews. Next month a movement was made for his removal to Edinburgh. He preached on 13 July before the parliamentary commission for the visitation of the University of Edinburgh. In November he was translated to the Church of the Holy Rude in Stirling where he remained for ten years.
Political background.
Engagers versus Remonstrants.
The origin of the dispute goes back to the year 1647, when, after difficult and intricate negotiations, Charles was delivered up to the English Parliament, and after an attempt to escape from Hampton Court was taken and committed as a prisoner to Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight. While there, a secret treaty was framed between him and representatives from Scotland, in which he agreed under certain conditions to accept the Solemn League and Covenant, and to establish Presbyterianism for three years in England. This treaty, known as the "Engagement," though approved by the Scottish Parliament, was rejected and condemned by the Commission of Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which instructed every minister to preach against it, and to use his utmost influence to prevent the Marquis of Hamilton's expedition for the relief of the King from proving successful. The defeat of his army at Preston, while it extinguished the hopes of his party, widened the breach which had now been made in the once united ranks of the Covenanters. Two parties were formed, which regarded one another with unconcealed hostility: the Engagers, so called from the Engagement which Hamilton had made with the King; and the Remonstrants or strict Covenanters who were under the leadership of Warriston and Argyll. James Guthrie wanted the full force of the Covenants in national life in all parts of the kingdoms and opposed the Engagement and supporting the army which backed it; he became a Remonstrator.
Resolutioners versus Protestors.
This breach was still further widened by an Act of the Scottish Parliament, known as the Act of Classes, which was passed on 23 January 1649, a week before Charles was beheaded. According to the act, the various ranks of Malignants or Engagers were declared incapable of holding any office of public trust or employment, whether in Church or in State. The first result of this Act was to throw the management of public affairs into the hands of those who were afterwards defeated by Cromwell at Dunbar in September 1650. Following Dunbar there was some soul-searching to determine what had gone wrong. This led to the Western Remonstrance which was read before the government on 22 October 1650 at Stirling. The Remonstrance was also considered by the Commission of Assembly starting on 25 November 1650. Essentially God was considered to have withdrawn his favour due to Achan-like sin at a personal and a national level. They did not shy away from listing even the king's sins. The proposed remedy was repentance and purification.
Others took a different view and blamed the defeat at Dunbar on the purging of some 5000 able men from the army and therefore wanted the conditions for entry into the army relaxed. On 14 December 1650, the Commission of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland at Perth replied to a question from the government as to who would be allowed to fight in the army. Following this reply the Parliament on 23 December 1650 passed its "Act of Levy" which in a contra-Gideon-like manner, expanded the list of those who would be allowed to fight.
By and by, when the Engagers returned to power, the Act of Classes was repealed, and a new army was levied which, to a large extent, was officered and filled by men who were regarded as unfaithful to the Covenant. In favour of this proceeding, however, the Church, forsaking the higher sphere, issued certain Resolutions, which were strenuously protested against by a large and influential minority. Such was the origin of the controversy between the Resolutioners and Protesters, which raged with unabated animosity for many years.
Those in favour of the loosening of the conditions for fighting were known as Resolutioners, a name derived from their approval of the resolutions of Commission and Parliament for the levy of 23 December.
The Church of Scotland was now unhappily split into two contending sections. Old friends who had fought side by side in earlier days became opponents, and there was much bitterness and occasionally misrepresentations, due in some cases to misunderstandings, exaggerated reports or false rumours. Of the Resolutioners, Robert Douglas was, by head and shoulders, the acknowledged leader. His ministerial supporters included David Dickson, Robert Baillie, and James Wood. Among the Protesters the most outstanding ministers were James Guthrie, Samuel Rutherfurd, Andrew Cant, Patrick Gillespie, and John Livingstone; and, of the elders, Wariston and Sir John Cheisly; the two most strenuous fighters being Guthrie and Wariston. Samuel Rutherford is known to have stayed with Guthrie in Stirling.
Guthrie's political and theological views.
From the first, Guthrie ranged himself amongst the Protesters, and, indeed, was generally regarded as one of their principal leaders. By this time he had been translated to Stirling, where he had, as his colleague, Mr. Bennett, a man of kindred spirit, with whom, on the questions of the day, he was generally in agreement. Hew Scott's later edition says Guthrie came to Stirling around November 1650 although Kilpatrick discusses 1649. Not satisfied with expressing in a letter to the Commission of Assembly their dissatisfaction with the aforesaid Resolutions, they continued to preach against them and to denounce them as involving the nation in sin. For this they were cited to appear before the Committee of Estates at Perth, where Charles II was now holding his Court, and, having done so, they refused to acknowledge the King's right to interfere with them in the discharge of their ministerial functions.
"This our protestation' they said, "we make, not from any disrespect to the King's Majesty or your Lordships' authority, nor from any purpose to decline or disobey the same in anything civil, but from the tender regard which we have and owe unto the liberties and privileges of the Church of Jesus Christ, which both the King's Majesty and your Lordships and we are in so solemn a way bound to maintain and preserve inviolable."
In 1650 Guthrie treated General John Middleton with a high-handedness which sealed his own fate. Middleton, who joined Charles II immediately on his landing on 23 June, took the lead in a project for a royalist army in the north. On 17 October Guthrie, by the "Western Remonstrance", withdrew from the royalist cause; on 14 December he sent a letter to the general assembly at Perth denouncing Middleton as an enemy of the Covenant, and proposing his excommunication. Guthrie was appointed to pronounce the sentence next Sunday, and, despite a letter from the assembly bidding him delay the act, carried out the original order. At the next meeting of the commission (2 January 1651) Middleton was loosed from the sentence after public penance. He never forgave the affront.
The same meeting of commission which ordered Middleton's excommunication had passed a unanimous resolution authorising the acceptance of the military services of all but "obstinate" enemies of the covenant. Guthrie and his colleague, David Bennett, preached against this resolution. Summoned (19 February and 28 February) to Perth by the Committee of Estates to answer to the king for their conduct, they appeared, but, while acknowledging the king's civil authority, protested against his ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and declined to submit to what they called