THE CHRISTIAN’S GREAT INTEREST, by the Rev. William Guthrie, of Fenwick, is one of the great classics of Scottish religious literature. The author was the eldest son of the Laird of Pitforth, in the shire of Angus, and was born in the year 1620. His father had five sons, four of whom became ministers. He was an M.A. of Aberdeen University, and studied there when Samuel Rutherford was one of the Professors; as was also James Guthrie, to whom he was related, and who became one of the earliest victims to the blood-thirsty cruelty of Charles II. Fenwick, in Ayrshire, was his first and only ministerial charge, though he had calls from Renfrew, Linlithgow, Stirling, Glasgow, and Edinburgh.
His gifts as a preacher drew multitudes of hearers from Glasgow, Paisley, and other distant places, crowding his large church. His strong and clear voice was heard by hundreds who were obliged to stand outside. These were the days when persecuting prelates ruled supreme in Scotland, and faithful ministers and people “of whom the world was not worthy—had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea moreover of bonds and imprisonment.” In spite of every effort to retain this distinguished and greatly loved minister in the parish, the renegade Archbishop of Glasgow forced him out, and he narrowly escaped with his life. It is interesting to learn that his grand-daughter became the wife of the Rev. Robert Wodrow, of Eastwood, who wrote one of our best histories of the “Sufferings of the Church of Scotland.” Guthrie’s work was read by thousands at home and abroad. It was translated into foreign languages, and largely appreciated in England. A minister of the Church of Scotland relates that in conversation with the well-known Dr John Owen, he thus expressed to him his opinion of it:—”You have men of great spirits in Scotland, and as for divines,” said he—pulling out of his pocket a little gilded copy of this treatise of Mr Guthrie’s—”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.” It is related also that Queen Anne of England expressed the same sentiments about it.
A few of its closing sentences, which follow, will give intelligent and devout readers some idea of its merits:—
O blessed bargain of the New Covenant, and thrice blessed Mediator of the same! Let Him ride prosperously, and subdue nations and languages, and gather in all his jewels, that honourable company of the first-born, that stately troop of kings and priests whose glory it shall be to have washed their garments in the blood of that spotless Lamb, and whose happiness shall continuously flourish in following him whither so ever he goeth; and in being in the immediate company of the Ancient of days, one sight of whose face shall make them in a manner forget that they were ever in the earth. Oh, if I could persuade men to believe that these things are not yea and nay, and to make haste towards Him, who hasteth to judge the world, and to call men to an account, especially avert their improvement of this gospel. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
R. R.
Christ would not entrust our redemption to angels—to millions of angels—but He would come Himself, and in person suffer. He would not give a low and base price for us clay. He would buy us with a great ransom, so as He might over-buy us, and none could over-bid Him in His market for souls.—Rutherford.
They [the saints] know two different parties within themselves that until once grace came, they could not understand; which at the same time, in the very same action, do act oppositely one to the other; yea, there is no spiritual duty, wherein the flesh (though not always in such prevalent degree) doth not show some active resistance.—Fleming.