The Short Man Who Could Not Bow


James Guthrie was a Presbyterian minister in Scotland in the mid-1600s. During these years there was a terrible power struggle between King Charles I (and later his son Charles II) and the parliamentary army under Oliver Cromwell. (It was Cromwell who, after a frustrating encounter with Guthrie, gave him the epithet above.) For twenty years Guthrie preached the Gospel in his parish churches, but, as recorded in Alexander Smellie's Men of the Covenant, that was a dangerous thing to do in those days: he was finally indicted for treason in "denying the King's power over the Church."

"In February 1661, and again in April, he spoke in his defence before the Drunken Parliament. . . . Not merely did he outwit [his enemies] in questions of divinity, but he surpassed them in their own fields; he might almost have been President of the Court. But better than his cleverness was his courage. . . . 'My conscience I cannot submit; but this old crazy body and mortal flesh I do submit, to do with it whatsoever you will, whether by death or banishment or imprisonment or anything else.'"

While Guthrie was in prison in between the February and April hearings, he received a letter from his close friend Samuel Rutherford, dated Feb. 15, 1661:

Dear Brother,

We are very oft comforted with the word of promise; though we stumble not a little at the work of holy providence. Some "earthly men flourishing as a green herb, and the people of God counted as sheep for the slaughter, and killed all the day long;" and yet both word of promise, and works of providence, are from Him whose ways are equal, straight, holy, and spotless. As for me, when I think of God's dispensations, he might justly have brought to the market-cross, and to the light, my unseen and secret abominations, which would have been no small reproach to the holy name and precious truths of Christ; but in mercy he hath covered these, and shapen and carved out more honourable causes of suffering, of which we are unworthy.

And now, dear brother, much depends upon the way and manner of suffering; especially, that his precious truths be owned, with all heavenly boldness; and a reason of our hope given in meekness and fear; and the royal crown, and absolute supremacy of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of the kings of the earth, avouched, as becometh. For certain it is, Christ will reign the Father's King in Mount Zion; and his sworn covenant will not be buried. . . .

Think it not strange that men devise against you, whether it be to exile (the earth is the Lord's) or perpetual imprisonment (the Lord is your light and liberty); or a violent and public death, for the kingdom of heaven consists in a fair company of glorified martyrs and witnesses, of whom Jesus Christ is the chief witness, who for that cause was born, and came into the world. Happy are you, if you give testimony to the world of your preferring Jesus Christ to all powers; and the Lord will make the innocency and christian loyalty of his defamed and despised witnesses in this land, to shine to after-generations. . .

Be not terrified; fret not; forgive your enemies; bless and curse not; for though both you and I should be silent, sad and heavy is the judgment and indignation from the Lord that is abiding the unfaithful watchmen of the church of Scotland. The souls under the altar are crying for justice, and there is an answer returned already: the Lord's salvation will not tarry. Cast the burden of wife and children on the Lord Christ, he cares for you and them. Your blood is precious in his sight. The everlasting consolations of the Lord bear you up, and give you hope; for your salvation, if not deliverance, is concluded.

Following the April hearing, "In a thin house sentence was pronounced; for, after they heard him, members slipped away, unwilling to be responsible for his bloodshedding. He was to be hanged at the Cross on Saturday, the 1st of June; his head was to be fixed on the Netherbow; his estate was to be confiscated: so the decision ran. . . .

"On the Friday evening . . . he supped heartily, and then he slept an unbroken sleep, until four o'clock in the morning, when he sat up, and poured out his longings in prayer. The sunlight came streaming in, and James Cowie asked how he did. 'Very well,' he answered; 'this is the day which the Lord hath made; let us be glad and rejoice in it.' . . .

"He would have walked unbound to the gallows; but they tied his hands, as if he were a common thief. Along with him, to share his death, went Captain William Govan, the blunt Protester soldier. Two or three steps up the ladder, where he could be seen easily by the crowd, Guthrie halted to make his last speech. 'I durst not redeem my life with the loss of my integrity,' he said; 'I did judge it better to suffer than to sin.' And, again: 'My corruptions have been strong and many, and have made me a sinner in all things, yea, even in following my duty; and therefore righteousness have I none of my own. But I do believe that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, whereof I am chief. I take God to record, I would not exchange this scaffold with the palace or mitre of the greatest prelate in Britain.'

"When at last the executioner was ready, James Guthrie's voice was heard once more. "Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? I shall not die.' Then, just before the end, he lifted the napkin from his face, and cried, 'The Covenants, the Covenants shall yet be Scotland's reviving!'

"The mutilated body was piously cared for. . . . As for the head up on the arch between the High Street and the Canongate . . . little William Guthrie, the martyr's four-year-old boy, in later years 'a most serious seeker of God,' must run to stand and study his father's face high on the city port, and then return and tell his mother what he had been doing, and forthwith would lock himself into a room from which all her efforts could not draw him for many hours. It was a sore and heavy thing to be a Covenanter's child; but for Willie, there was no head in the wide world so wreathed with beauty as the head which the soldiers had fastened on the netherbow." (Men of the Covenant, pp. 77-80)

See more on Men of the Covenant here.

Posted May 19, 2006


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