after 1649, and did not receive collation from their bishop, were banished, soon followed; but it did not affect Mr Guthrie.
Through the good offices of the earl of Glencairn, (to whom Mr Guthrie had some opportunity of doing a favour during his imprisonment before the Restoration,) he had hitherto escaped many of the evils which had visited so large a majority of his brethren. Dr Alexander Burnet, archbishop of Glasgow, now began to act with great severity towards the nonconforming clergy of his diocese. To the in treaty of lord Glencairn and of other noblemen, that he would in the meantime overlook Mr Guthrie, the haughty prelate only replied "That cannot be done,—it shall not: he is a ringleader and a keeper up of schism in my diocese." With much difficulty he prevailed upon the curate of Calder, for the paltry bribe of five pounds, to intimate his suspension. The parishioners of Fenwick had determined to oppose such an intimation even at the risk of rebellion, but were prevailed upon to desist from an attempt which would have drawn undoubted ruin upon themselves. The paltry curate, therefore, proceeded upon his errand with a party of twelve soldiers, and intimated to Mr Guthrie, and afterwards in the parish church, his commission from archbishop Burnet to suspend him. Wodrow mentions that when he wrote his history it was still confidently asserted "that Mr Guthrie, at parting, did signify to the curate that he apprehended some evident mark of the Lord's displeasure was abiding him for what he was now doing,"—but that this report rested on very doubtful authority. "Whatever be in this," he continues, "I am well assured the curate never preached more after he left Fenwick. He came to Glasgow, and whether he reached Calder—but four miles beyond it—I know not: but in four days he died in great torment of an iliac passion, and his wife and children died all in a year or thereby. So hazardous a thing is it to meddle with Christ's sent servants."
Mr Guthrie remained in the parish of Fenwick for a year after this time without preaching. In the autumn of 1665, he went to Pitforthy, where his brother's affairs required his presence. He had only been there a few days when a complaint which had preyed upon his constitution for many years, a threatening of stone, returned with great violence, accompanied by internal ulceration. After some days of extreme pain, in the intervals of which he often cheered his friends by his prospects of happiness in a sinless state, he died in the house of his brother-in-law, the Rev. Lewis Skinner, at Brechin on the 10th of October, 1665.
Mr Guthrie would in all probability never have appeared before the world as an author, had it not been requisite in his own defence. In 1656 or 1657, a volume was published, containing imperfect notes of sermons preached by him on the 55th chapter of Isaiah. Although it had a considerable circulation, he was not less displeased with its contents than the pomposity of its title. It was true, indeed, that it was not brought forward as his production, yet Mr Guthrie "was reputed the author through the whole country," and therefore bound to disclaim it in his own vindication. He accordingly revised the notes which he had preserved of these sermons; and from thence wrote his only genuine work "The Christian's Great Interest," now better known by the title of the First Part, "The Trial of a Saving Interest in Christ." Any praise that could here be bestowed upon the work would be superfluous. It has gained for itself the best proof of its merits,—a circulation almost unparalleled among that class of readers for which it was perhaps chiefly intended, the intelligent Scottish peasantry.
John Howie mentions, in his Scots Worthies, that "there were also some discourses of Mr Guthrie's in manuscript," out of which he transcribed seventeen
