James Guthrie. Covenanter.
How many of us bow at the slightest discomfort and trouble? How our faith is revealed in the smallest of all affliction? When in fact, if we take time to reflect on it, our lives are not enough to give back for what has been graciously given us. I am afraid that even in our so-called present zeal, we have yet hidden one of both hands from the Lord, though he gave us his all, and that it would take the blood of present-days martyrs for revival to yet come to our land. May God have mercy on us.
~D
With hands tied together, James Guthrie walked slowly up the High Street to the city cross. Broad-shouldered William Govan kept pace beside him. The one was nearly fifty, the other not yet out of his thirties. Greatheart and Valiant for Truth were to be seen once again upon the human scene. Soon they were upon the scaffold above the serried rows of glittering steel, and Sickerfoot, who had been offered a bishopric and had refused it, stepped forward with loving zeal to give his last message. The great crowd stood hushed to hear him say, 'I take God to record upon my soul, I would not exchange this scaffold with the palace and mitre of the greatest prelate in Britain. Blessed be God who has shown mercy to me, such a wretch, and has revealed his Son in me, and made me a minister of the everlasting gospel, and that he hath deigned, in the midst of much contradiction from Satan, and the world, to seal my ministry upon the hearts of not a few of his people, and especially in the station where I was last, I mean the congregation and presbytery of Sterling. Jesus Christ is my Life and my Light, my Righteousness, my strength, and my Salvation and all my desire. Him! O him, I do with all the strength of my soul commend to you. Bless him, O my soul, and from henceforth even forever. Lord, let now thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation .'
Then further up the ladder of death he went, exclaiming, "Art not thou from everlasting , O Lord my God. I shall not die but live." And in the last seconds before he was with Christ, Mr. Sickerfoot, as sure as foot and as full of faith as Joshua, lifted the napkin from his face, crying, 'The Covenants! The Covenants! They shall yet be Scotland's reviving!'
Captain William Govan, intently watching, stood by. His martial shoulders were squared. Gazing lovingly at the dangling dead minister of Christ, he thought of Calvary's Tree. 'It is sweet! It is sweet!' he cried, 'Otherwise how durst I look with courage upon the corpse of him who hangs there, and smile upon these sticks and that gibbet as the very Gates of Heaven.' The hangman had him prepared. The brave soldier taking a ring from his finger, gave it to a friend, asking him to carry it to his wife, and to tell her he died in humble confidence and found the Cross of Christ sweet, and that Christ had done all for him, and that it was by Him alone that he was justified. Someone from the crowd called to him to look up to the Lord Jesus, and he smilingly said, 'He looks down and smiles at me.'
As he ascended the ladder he addressed the crowd with these words: 'Dear friends, pledge this cup of suffering as I have done before you sin, for sin and suffering have been presented to me and I have chosen the suffering part.' The rope adjusted, he ended his witness with, 'Praise and glory be to Christ forever.' A little pause, a little prayer, the signal given, and all was over, and he too swung in the fresh summer air. Another who had magnified Christ in life, magnified him also in death.
Later, friends came for the bodies from which the heads had been removed. They were lovingly arranged and laid out for burial, while the heads were put up in grisly fashion above the Netherbow and West ports. And so it was. That unbending, sure-footed, non-ducking soldier of God held his head high until it was taken from him, and shamefully set aloft upon a pike above the thronging Netherbow Port of Edinburgh. There it bleached for twenty-seven years, till lover of the free Gospel Sandie Hamilton, a student for the Covenanting ministry, climbed the sombre Port at the risk of his life, and taking down the skull, buried it reverently away.
excerpt from Fair Sunshine - Character Studies of the Scottish Covenanters by Jock Purves.
Banner of Truth.
~D
With hands tied together, James Guthrie walked slowly up the High Street to the city cross. Broad-shouldered William Govan kept pace beside him. The one was nearly fifty, the other not yet out of his thirties. Greatheart and Valiant for Truth were to be seen once again upon the human scene. Soon they were upon the scaffold above the serried rows of glittering steel, and Sickerfoot, who had been offered a bishopric and had refused it, stepped forward with loving zeal to give his last message. The great crowd stood hushed to hear him say, 'I take God to record upon my soul, I would not exchange this scaffold with the palace and mitre of the greatest prelate in Britain. Blessed be God who has shown mercy to me, such a wretch, and has revealed his Son in me, and made me a minister of the everlasting gospel, and that he hath deigned, in the midst of much contradiction from Satan, and the world, to seal my ministry upon the hearts of not a few of his people, and especially in the station where I was last, I mean the congregation and presbytery of Sterling. Jesus Christ is my Life and my Light, my Righteousness, my strength, and my Salvation and all my desire. Him! O him, I do with all the strength of my soul commend to you. Bless him, O my soul, and from henceforth even forever. Lord, let now thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation .'
Then further up the ladder of death he went, exclaiming, "Art not thou from everlasting , O Lord my God. I shall not die but live." And in the last seconds before he was with Christ, Mr. Sickerfoot, as sure as foot and as full of faith as Joshua, lifted the napkin from his face, crying, 'The Covenants! The Covenants! They shall yet be Scotland's reviving!'
Captain William Govan, intently watching, stood by. His martial shoulders were squared. Gazing lovingly at the dangling dead minister of Christ, he thought of Calvary's Tree. 'It is sweet! It is sweet!' he cried, 'Otherwise how durst I look with courage upon the corpse of him who hangs there, and smile upon these sticks and that gibbet as the very Gates of Heaven.' The hangman had him prepared. The brave soldier taking a ring from his finger, gave it to a friend, asking him to carry it to his wife, and to tell her he died in humble confidence and found the Cross of Christ sweet, and that Christ had done all for him, and that it was by Him alone that he was justified. Someone from the crowd called to him to look up to the Lord Jesus, and he smilingly said, 'He looks down and smiles at me.'
As he ascended the ladder he addressed the crowd with these words: 'Dear friends, pledge this cup of suffering as I have done before you sin, for sin and suffering have been presented to me and I have chosen the suffering part.' The rope adjusted, he ended his witness with, 'Praise and glory be to Christ forever.' A little pause, a little prayer, the signal given, and all was over, and he too swung in the fresh summer air. Another who had magnified Christ in life, magnified him also in death.
Later, friends came for the bodies from which the heads had been removed. They were lovingly arranged and laid out for burial, while the heads were put up in grisly fashion above the Netherbow and West ports. And so it was. That unbending, sure-footed, non-ducking soldier of God held his head high until it was taken from him, and shamefully set aloft upon a pike above the thronging Netherbow Port of Edinburgh. There it bleached for twenty-seven years, till lover of the free Gospel Sandie Hamilton, a student for the Covenanting ministry, climbed the sombre Port at the risk of his life, and taking down the skull, buried it reverently away.
excerpt from Fair Sunshine - Character Studies of the Scottish Covenanters by Jock Purves.
Banner of Truth.
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