[16]. “He was the son of the Laird of Guthrie, and so a gentleman. When he was regent in St Andrew’s, he was very episcopal, and was with difficulty persuaded to take the covenant. There goes a story, that, when he first yielded to join with the covenanters in Mr Samuel Rutherford’s chamber, as he came out at his door, he mett the executioner in the way, which troubled him; and the next visit he made thither, he mett him in the same manner again, which made him apprehend he might be a sufferer for the covenant, as indeed he was.” Kirkton’s Hist. p. 109.
On the 20th of February, he received his indictment, the general charges of which were—his accession to the remonstrance—his writing and publishing that abominable pamphlet, “The Causes of God’s Wrath”[[17]]—his contriving, and writing, and subscribing “The humble Supplication of 23d August last”—but, chiefly, his declining, in the year 1650, his majesty’s power in matters purely ecclesiastical, which branch of the royal prerogative the present managers were determined to assert, as they traced, and justly, the chief, if not the whole, of the misery the nation had endured under the king’s father and grandfather, to the opposition made by the ministry to this anti-scriptural jurisdiction, or, in the language of Sir George M’Kenzie, “because this principle had not only vexed King James, but was the occasion of much rebellion.” The indictment, framed upon certain obsolete or repealed acts in favour of popery, prelacy, or the kingly power, passed before the last full establishment of Presbytery, charged him with convoking the lieges without warrant or authority to the disturbance of the state and church. After it had been read, he addressed the Lord Chancellor—
[17]. “The Causes of God’s Wrath,” printed after the fatal defeat at Worcester, which ruined the hopes of the Presbyterians and their covenanted king, contained a faithful and pungent enumeration of the sins of all ranks, public and personal, in which the misconduct of the royal family and of the nobles—their defections from duty and the oaths of the covenant in public, and the immorality and ungodliness of their conduct in private—were treated with great plainness and particularity, accompanied with strong exhortations to repentance as the only way to avert the judgments of an offended God. Nor were the sins of the ministry or the people slightly passed over; it was an earnest, deep call upon the nation to consider their ways at a time of great public suffering, when the land had been scourged by the presence of two armies, of which their own had not been the least oppressive, and when a threatened famine and an actual scarcity was afflicting them. Its truth was its treason—it had the honour of being burned.
“He was glad,” he said, for he pled his own cause, “that the law of God was named first as being indeed the only supreme law, to which all other laws ought to be subordinate; and there being an act of the first parliament of James VI., by which all clauses of laws or acts of parliament repugnant to the word of God were repealed, he hoped their lordships would give most respect to this, that he might be judged by the law of God especially, and by other laws in subordination thereto. As to the acts of parliament upon which he was arraigned, he asserted the legal maxim, that where any difference between acts occurs, the last is that only which is to be considered obligatory; and he farther affirmed, what almost all his judges had previously, repeatedly, and upon oath allowed, that it must also be granted that laws and acts of parliament were to be understood and expounded by those solemn public vows and covenants contracted with God by his majesty and subjects, which were not only declared by the laws of the land to have the strength of acts of parliament, but, both by the law of God and common law and light of all the nations in the world, are more binding and indispensable than any municipal law and statute whatever.”
The general charge of abetting Cromwell, he defied all the world to prove if he had justice allowed him; nor was it attempted. His approval of the remonstrance he did not deny, but this he only did in a legal manner, as a member of a legal assembly. His participation in the authorship of “The Causes of God’s Wrath,” he avowed and defended. But in this he said he acted merely and singly from a constraining power of conscience to be found faithful as a minister of the gospel, in the discovering of sin and guiltiness, that it being acknowledged and repented of, wrath might be taken away from the house of the king and from these kingdoms. “Your lordship knows,” continued he, “what charge is laid upon ministers of the gospel, to give faithful warning to all sorts of persons, and how they expose their own souls to the hazard of eternal damnation, and the guilt of the blood of those with whom they have to do, if they do not this. And you do also know, that the prophets and apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ himself did faithfully warn all men, though it was their lot, because of the same, to be reckoned traitors and seditious persons. My lord, I wish it seriously to be pondered, that nothing is asserted in these “Causes” as matter of sin and duty, but what hath been the common received doctrine of the church of Scotland, the truth of which is confirmed from the word of God; and as to matters of fact, as far as regards the royal family, they are no other than are mentioned in the solemn public causes of humiliation condescended upon and kept by the whole church jointly, and his majesty and family, with the commission of the General Assembly and committee of estates, before his coronation at Perth.”
He also avowed the “Supplication” at Edinburgh, which he vindicated as containing nothing more than a humble petition concerning those things to which his majesty and all his subjects were engaged by the solemn irreversible oath of the covenant, with a serious representation of the dangers threatening religion, and the duties of that sacred obligation, and did only put his majesty in remembrance of holding fast the oaths of the covenant. The meeting was presbyterial, and therefore legal; and was, besides, a quiet, orderly convocation, without tumult, and requiring no particular warrant.
Respecting his declining the king’s authority in things sacred, he unhesitatingly acknowledged that he did decline the civil magistrate as a competent judge of ministers’ doctrine in the first instance.[[18]] His authority in all things civil, he said he did with all his heart allow; but such declinations were agreeable to the word of God, which clearly holds forth that Christ hath a visible kingdom, which he exercises in or over his visible members by his spiritual officers, which is wholly distinct from the civil power and government of the world—to the Confession of Faith and doctrine of the church of Scotland, which acknowledge no head over the church of Christ but himself, nor any judgment or power in or over his church, but that which he hath committed to the spiritual office-bearers thereof under him, and had been the ordinary practice of that kirk since the time of the reformation from Popery; and were also agreeable to, and founded on, the National Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant, by which the king’s majesty himself, and all the subjects of that kingdom, were bound to maintain the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of that church, with solemn vows and public oaths of God. “Upon these grounds, therefore,” said he, “it is that I gave in and do assert that declination for vindicating the cause, dignity, and royal prerogative of Jesus Christ, who is King of kings and Lord of lords, but with all due respect to his majesty, his greatness, and authority.” Then, after discussing the several acts of parliament that had been quoted, he thus concluded an able and argumentative speech:—
[18]. The error of these good men was, in allowing the civil magistrate the right of judging of a minister’s doctrine in any case whatever, so long as he kept within the proper bounds of his pastoral duty, and inculcated only religious tenets, and did not meddle with seditious or treasonable matters.
“That I did never purpose or intend to speak or act any thing disloyal, seditious, or treasonable against his majesty’s person, authority, or government, God is my witness; and that what I have written, spoken, or acted, in any of those things wherewith I am charged, hath been merely and singly from a principle of conscience; that, according to the weak measure of light given me of God, I might do my duty in my station and calling as a minister of the gospel. But because the plea of conscience alone, although it may extenuate, cannot wholly excuse, I do assert that I have founded my speeches, writings, and actings, in these matters, on the word of God, and on the doctrine, Confession of Faith, and laws of this church and kingdom—upon the National Covenant of Scotland, and the Solemn League and Covenant between these three kingdoms. If these foundations fall, I must fall with them; but if these sustain and stand in judgment, as I hope they will, I cannot acknowledge myself, neither I hope will his majesty’s commissioner and the honourable court of parliament judge me, guilty either of sedition or treason.”
This trial lasted from the 20th of February till the 15th of April; and the most strenuous efforts were made to induce Mr Guthrie to submit and plead for mercy. He was even offered a bishopric; but he deemed the object for which he contended too important to be yielded up for any consideration of temporal aggrandizement. When the protracted proceedings were drawing to a close, on the 11th of April, after his defences, which were very elaborate, had been read, he finished his pleading by a pointed and solemn appeal, which was heard with the most profound attention, and induced a number to withdraw, declaring, in the language of Scripture, “They would have nothing to do with the blood of that righteous man.”