We want a religion that, not dressed for Sundays and walking on stilts, descends into common and everyday life; is friendly, not selfish; courteous, not boorish; generous, not miserly; sanctified, not sour; that loves justice more than gain; and fears God more than man; to quote another's words - "a religion that keeps husbands from being spiteful, or wives fretful; that keeps mothers patient, an...d children pleasant; that bears heavily not only on the 'exceeding sinfulness of sin,' but on the exceeding rascality of lying and stealing; that banishes small measures from counters, sand from sugar, and water from milk-cans" - the faith, in short, whose root is in Christ, and whose fruit is works Thomas Guthrie, Faith and Works, Man and the Gospel.
“Separate the atoms that form a hammer, and in that state of minute division they would fall on a stone with no more effect than snowflakes. Weld them into a solid mass, and swung round by the quarryman’s brawny arm, they descend on the rock like a thunderbolt”
Thomas Guthrie, Seed-Time and Harvest (Edinburgh, 1860, p 117).
"In these old Scotch manners there might be, and indeed was, a strictness which gave an air of severity to the observance of Sunday, but in the duties we owe either to God and man, it is even better to lean to the side of scrupulousness than laxity: and I may remark here, that Scotland and her children owe much to the manner in which they were taught to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy."
Thomas Guthrie and Sons, Autobiography and Memoirs, (London, 1896,
p 16-17)
...he (Guthrie) emphatically disapproved any attempt to square Scripture with the supposed requirements of a doctrinal system; "John," to quote a sentence from one of his discources, "uses a very broad expression. 'Jesus Christ,' he says, '...is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.' 'The whole world' - 'ah!' some would say, 'that is dangerous language.' It is God's language: John speaking as he was moved by the Holy Ghost. It throws a zone of mercy around the world. Perish the hand that would narrow it by a hair's breadth!"
Thomas Guthrie and Sons, Autobiography and Memoirs, (London, 1896, p 510)
Courted by the great, Chalmers' sympathies lay with the masses. Their oppression roused him like a lion; their neglect stirred his indignation; their sufferings touched his soul with such tender pity that the horrors of the Irish and Highland famines were like to break his heart. He loved mankind. His aspirations were not to drag the upper classes down to the level of the lower, but to improve the economic, educational, moral and religious condition of the lowest stratum of society; and so, as when the base of the pyramid is raised, to raise all the courses of the superstructure up to the royalty - sitting high on the throne
Out of Harness, Dr Thomas Guthrie, 1883.
For some years after coming to Edinburgh, I rose, summer and winter, at five o'clock. By six, I had got through my dressing and private devotions, had kindled my fire, and prepared and enjoyed a cup of coffee, and was set down at my desk; having, till nine o'clock when we breakfasted, three unbroken hours before me. This, being my daily practice, gave me as much as eighteen hours in each week, and instead of Friday or Saturday - the whole six days to ruminate on and digest and do the utmost justice in my power to my sermon. A practice this, I would recommend to all ministers whether in town or country (Autobiography and Memoirs, 1896, p 154).
t was at my mothers knees that I first learned to pray; that I learned to form a reverence for the Bible as the inspired word of God; that I learned to hold the sanctity of the Sabbath; that I learned the peculiarities of the Scottish religion; that I learned to regard the principles of civil and religious liberty, which have made me hate oppression, and whether it be a pope, or a prelate, or a patron, or an ecclesiastical demagogue, resist the oppressor (Thomas Guthrie).
Paris is the best place in the world for pursuing any science, saving those of morality and religion. Thomas Guthrie, diary entry during his time in Paris 1827
As an ambassador for Christ, I regard a preacher of the gospel as filling the most responsible office any mortal can occupy. His pulpit is, in my eyes, loftier than a throne; and of all his professions, learned or unlearned, though usually in point of wealth the poorest, I esteem the most honourable. That office is one angels themselves might covet.
Thomas Guthrie
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