GUTHRIE, HENRY, afterwards bishop of
Dunkeld, was born at the manse of Coupar-Angus, of which his father, Mr
John Guthrie, a cadet of the family of Guthrie of that ilk, was minister.
At an early age he made considerable progress in the acquisition of the
Greek and Latin languages, and was soon afterwards transferred to the
university of St Andrews, where he continued to study with the same
success, and took his degrees in arts. After finishing the philosophical
part of his education, he became a student of divinity in the New College
at the same time.
The qualifications of Mr Guthrie,
added to the great respectability of his family, easily procured for him
the appointment of a chaplain, which was then considered as a sure step to
promotion in the church. The family of the earl of Marr, with whom he
remained in that capacity for several years, treated him with much
respect; and on leaving them, he obtained through the earl’s
recommendation, a presentation to the church of Stirling, to which he was
episcopally ordained. [Account of Guthrie by Crawford, preface to his
Memoirs, edit. 1738, pp. 3-5.]
"Being now a minister in
the church," says his biographer, Mr Crawford, "he was diligent in the
pastoral care of all the parts of his function, and was well affected to
the government in church and state." Unfortunately for Mr Guthrie,
however, the minds of the Scottish people had become impatient under the
innovations begun by king James, and obtruded upon them with less caution
by his son. But in justice to the moderate Episcopalians, it must be
mentioned, that they disapproved of the introduction of a liturgy by
force.
At length the call for a
General Assembly became so urgent, that its "induction" was consented to
by the king, and it accordingly took place at Glasgow in 1638. Guthrie,
with many of his colleagues, took the covenant required by it, but does
not seem to have obtained much credit with his brethren in the ministry;
nor was his conduct viewed in the most favorable light, conciliating. Upon
the establishment of Episcopacy in Ireland, some of the Scottish
inhabitants had determined to emigrate to New England, where liberty of
conscience was permitted, but were driven back by storm, and as conformity
was rigidly insisted upon, many of them returned to Scotland, where they
obtained a favourable reception. The "errors of Brownism," had, in the
meantime, crept in among them, but their remarkable piety procured the
good will of the people, till they reached our author’s parish of
Stirling. The laird of Leckie, a gentleman who is said to have
suffered much at the hands of the bishops, was at this time much esteemed
for his intelligence and seriousness, and many who could not
conscientiously acquiesce in the services of the church, had been in the
habit of assembling with him for the exercise of private worship. In these
meetings, it had been alleged, but whether with truth we are not informed,
that he had in prayer used some expressions prejudicial to Mr Guthrie. The
holders of such meetings were therefore "delated" before the presbytery,
and expelled their bounds, but Guthrie was not willing to dismiss them so
easily—he left no means untried to injure their character, and the name of
"sectarian" was at this time too powerful a weapon in the hands of a
merciless enemy. In the assembly of 1639, he tried to obtain an act
against private meetings; but some of the leading clergymen, fearing more
injury to the cause of religion from his injudicious seal than from the
meetings he attempted to suppress, prevented the matter from being
publicly brought before the assembly. He was still, however, determined to
have some stronger weapon in his hand than that of argument—a weapon it
need hardly be said the assembly allowed him,—and in order to prepare for
a decisive conclusion at the next session, he roused the northern
ministers, "putting them in great vehemency," to use Baillie’s expression,
"against all these things he complained of." Accordingly, in the assembly
of 1640, after much debate, an act anent the ordering of family worship,
was passed. By this act it was ordained, that not more than the members of
one family should join in private devotion—that reading prayers is lawful
where no one can express themselves extemporaneously—that no one should be
permitted to expound the Scriptures but ministers or expectants approved
of by the presbytery—and, lastly, that no innovation should be permitted
without the express concurrence of the assembly. But this decision rather
widened than appeased their differences, and the subject was again
investigated in 1641, when an act against impiety and schism was drawn up
by Mr Alexander Henderson.
For several years after
this period, little is mentioned by our historians relative to Mr
Guthrie. On Sunday the 3d of October, 1641, he had the honour of preaching
before his majesty in the abbey church of Edinburgh, but Sir James Balfour
does not give us any outline of this sermon—a circumstance the more to be
regretted as none of his theological works have come down to us. In his
memoirs he mentions having addressed the assembly of 1643, when the
English divines presented a letter from the Westminster Assembly, and the
declaration of the English parliament, in which we are told they proposed
"to extirpate episcopacy root and branch." It is remarkable that principal
Baillie, the most minute of all our ecclesiastical historians of that
period, and who has left behind him a journal of the proceedings of that
very assembly, takes no notice of this speech; but it is evident from what
he says elsewhere, that the presbyterians found it necessary to overawe Mr
Guthrie. He had, in name of the presbytery of Stirling, written "a most
bitter letter" to Mr Robert Douglas, "concerning the commissioners of the
General Assembly’s declaration against the cross petition;" and though it
was afterwards recalled, it seems to have been used in terrorem,
for, to quote the expressive words of Mr Baillie, "Mr Harry Guthrie made
no din" in that assembly. The last public appearance he made while
minister of Stirling was in 1647, when the king was delivered by the Scots
to the English parliament. He was among the number of those who exonerated
themselves of any share or approval of that transaction; "and as for the
body of the ministry throughout the kingdom," says he, "the far greater
part disallowed it; howbeit, loathness to be deprived of their function
and livelihood restrained them from giving a testimony." [Memoirs, edit.
1748, p. 239.]
It has been already stated,
that the Scottish clergy do not appear to have placed much confidence in
Mr Guthrie; and from his opposition to many of their favourite, measures,
this is little to be wondered at. In 1647, when the parliament declared
for "the engagement," the ministers declaimed against it, as containing no
provision for the support of their religion; but Guthrie and some others
preached up the lawfulness of the design, and although no notice was taken
of this at the time, no sooner was the Scottish army defeated, than they
were considered proper subjects of discipline. "Upon November fourteenth,
came to Stirling that commission which the General Assembly had appointed,
to depose ministers: in the presbyteries of Stirling and Dumblane, for
their malignancy, who thrust out Mr Henry Guthrie and Mr John Allan,
ministers of the town of Stirling,"&c. [Guthrie’s Memoirs, p. 299.]
From the period of his
dismissal from his charge, till after the Restoration, Guthrie lived in
retirement. He is mentioned by Lamont of Newton, as "minister of
Kilspindie in the Carse of Gowrie; [Lemont’s Diary, edit, 1830, p.181.]
but the Rev. Mr Macgregor Stirling, in his edition of Nimmo’s History
of Stirlingshire, merely says that he lived there. In 1661, when Mr James
Guthrie was executed on account of his writings, Henry Guthrie became
entitled by law, and was indeed invited by the town council, to resume his
duties at Stirling, but he declined on account of bad health. [Mr
Stirling’s Nimmo’s Stirlingshire, p. 376, note.] He was well
known to the earl of Lauderdale, and was recommended by him to the diocese
of Dumblane, then void by the death of bishop Halyburton. He had during
his retirement devoted his attention to the study of church government,
and had become convinced, "that a parity in the church could not possibly
be maintained, so as to preserve unity and order among them, and that a
superior authority must be brought in to settle them in unity and peace."
With this conviction, and with a sufficient portion of good health for
this appointment, he accepted the diocese, and remained in it till his
death, which happened in 1676.
The only work which bishop
Guthrie is known to have left behind him, is his "Memoirs, containing an
Impartial Relation of the affairs of Scotland, Civil and Ecclesiastical,
from the year 1637 to the Death of King Charles I."—written, it is
believed, at Kilspindie. The impartiality of his "Relation" is often
questionable,—nor could we expect that it should be otherwise, at a period
when both civil and ecclesiastical dissensions ran so high. In point of
style it forms a striking contrast to most of the other histories of that
time, which, however valuable otherwise, are often tedious and
uninteresting. |