of the king, he never abjured his lawful prince. He wished the
royal prerogative to be limited by law, as it afterwards was at the
Revolution, but he did not wish it to be abolished. At great personal
hazard, Guthrie maintained a public disputation on the subject of the
royal authority, in the church of Stirling, with the noted Hugh Peters one
of Cromwell's chaplains, and in the presence of a number of the
parliamentary officers. And in the same place, and near the same period,
he showed himself to be a staunch presbyterian, by engaging in a public
discussion(25) with Mr. J. Brown, an Anabaptist, who was chaplain to
Colonel Fairfax's regiment. In his speech at his trial, he declared his
loyalty in the strongest possible terms, and made the following touching,
though unavailing, appeal to his judges.--"Albeit, it does become me to
adore God in the holiness and wisdom of his dispensations, yet I can
hardly refrain from expressing some grief of spirit, that my house and
family should not only be so many months together cessed, by a number of
English soldiers, and myself kept from the pulpit, for preaching and
speaking against the Tender, and incorporating this nation in one
commonwealth with England, and that I should thereafter, in time of Oliver
Cromwell his usurping the government to himself, under the name of
Protector, be delated by some, and challenged by sundry of his council in
this nation, for a paper published by me, wherein he was declared to be an
usurper, and his government to be usurpation, that I should have been
threatened to have been sent to the court, for writing a paper against
Oliver Cromwell his usurping the crown of these kingdoms, that I should
have been threatened with banishment for concurring in offering a large
testimony, against the evil of the times, to Richard Cromwell his council,
immediately after his usurping the government, I say, my lord, it grieves
me, that, notwithstanding of all those things, I should now stand indicted
before your lordships as intending the eradicating and subverting of the
ancient civil government of this nation, and being subservient to that
usurper in his designs. The God of heaven knows that I am free of this
charge, and I do defy all the world, allowing me justice and fair
proceeding, which I hope your lordships will, to make out the same against
me."(26)

From the Case of Conscience and from some expressions which Binning
uttered under strong excitement, and whi