Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Guild, William

by James Cooper

GUILD, WILLIAM (1586–1657), Scottish divine, son of Matthew Guild, a wealthy armourer of Aberdeen, who figures in the burgh records as a stout and rather troublesome defender of the ancient sports suppressed at the Reformation, was born at Aberdeen in 1586, and was educated at Marischal College. He received license to preach in 1605, and in 1608 was ordained minister of the parish of King Edward in his native county. Two years later his wealth was increased by his marriage with Katherine Rolland or Rowen of Disblair, Aberdeenshire. In 1617, during the visit of James I to his ancestral kingdom, Guild was in Edinburgh, and was a member of the ‘mutinous assemblie’ which met in the music school of that city, and protested for the liberties of the kirk. Although the temper of the king was thought to make it dangerous to sign the protestation, Guild was one of the fifty-five who subscribed the ‘roll’ warranting its signature by their scribe. While in Edinburgh he made the acquaintance of Bishop Lancelot Andrewes [q. v.], then with the king, and to him (in 1620) he gratefully dedicated his best-known work, ‘Moses Unvailed.’ Through the influence of a countryman of his own, Peter Young, dean of Winchester, he was made a chaplain to Charles I. Soon afterwards he received the degree of D.D., then almost unknown in Scotland. He was translated to the second charge at Aberdeen in 1631, where he joined the clergy in supporting episcopacy, and in 1635 he was one of the preachers at the funeral of Bishop Patrick Forbes, his diocesan. The covenant was viewed at Aberdeen with disfavour, and the commissioners sent to press its acceptance on the city were met by the doctors of the university and the town ministers with a series of questions disputing its lawfulness. Guild signed these questions, but was soon persuaded or frightened by the covenanters, and subscribed the covenant, though with three limitations—he would not condemn the Articles of Perth, though agreeing for the peace of the church to forbear the practice of them; he would not condemn episcopal government absolutely; and he reserved his duty to the king. Guild went as commissioner to the Glasgow assembly of 1638, which deposed the Scottish bishops. In March 1640 an army approached Aberdeen to enforce unconditional subscription of the covenant. Guild for a time took refuge in Holland, but soon returned, and administered the communion according to the presbyterian form on 3 Nov. In August 1640 the covenanters expelled Dr. William Leslie, and appointed Guild principal of King's College, Aberdeen, in preference to Robert Baillie, D.D. [q. v.] He now retired from his position as minister, preaching for the last time on 27 June 1641. With a zeal probably sharpened by his private disinclination he helped in the dismantling of the bishop's palace at Old Aberdeen and the purging of the cathedral and the college chapel of ornaments which had stood in them since the Reformation. Nevertheless Andrew Cant [q. v.], then all powerful at Aberdeen, thought him lukewarm, and at the visitation of King's College by Cromwell's military commissioners in 1651 he was deprived. A story that he received from Charles II in March 1652 a grant of a house in Aberdeen in return for a basin full of gold pieces is disproved by the fact that the house was already his property. Guild was a benevolent man; he purchased the convent of the Trinity Friars at Aberdeen and endowed it as a hospital, for which he received a royal charter in 1633. His widow left an endowment to maintain poor students, and for other charitable purposes. Guild died at Aberdeen in August 1657.

Guild wrote:

1. ‘The New Sacrifice of Christian Incense, or the True Entrie to the Tree of Life, and Gracious Gate of Glorious Paradise,’ London, 1608.
2. ‘The Only Way to Salvation, or the Life and Soul of True Religion,’ London, 1608.
3. ‘Moses Vnuailed … whereunto is added the Harmony of All the Prophets’ (the latter, with separate title-page dated 1619, dedicated to Dean Young), London, 1620, 1626, 1658, Glasgow 1701, and Edinburgh, 1755, 1839.
4. ‘Issachar's Asse … or the Uniting of hurches,’ Aberdeen, 1622.
5. ‘Three Rare Monuments of Antiquitie, or Bertram, a Frenchman, Ælfricus, an Englishman, and Maurus, a Scotsman: all stronglie convincing that grosse errour of transubstantiation. Translated and compacted by W. Guild,’ Aberdeen, 1624.
6. ‘Ignis Fatuus, or the Elf-fire of Purgatorie, with a latter Annex,’ London, 1625.
7. ‘Popish Glorying in Antiquity turned to their Shame,’ Aberdeen, 1626.
8. ‘A Compend of the Controversies of Religion,’ Aberdeen, 1629.
9. ‘Limbo's Battery, or an Answer to a Popish Pamphlet concerning Christ's Descent into Hell,’ Aberdeen, 1630.
10. ‘The Humble Addresse both of Church and Poore … for the Vniting of Churches and the Ruine of Hospitalls,’ Aberdeen, 1633. The first part is a reprint of ‘Issachar's Asse.’
11. ‘Sermon at the Funeral of Bishop Forbes,’ 1635.
12. ‘Trueth Triumphant, or the conversion of … F. Cupif from Poperie. … Faithfully translated into English by W. Guild,’ Aberdeen, 1637.
13. ‘An Antidote against Poperie;’ one of three treatises printed together at Aberdeen, 1639; its ascription to Guild is doubtful.
14. ‘The Christian's Passover,’ Aberdeen, 1639.
15. ‘The Old … in opposition to the New Roman Catholik,’ Aberdeen, 1649.
16. ‘Antichrist … in his true Colours, or the Pope of Rome proven to bee that Man of Sinne,’ &c., Aberdeen, 1655.
17. ‘The Sealed Book opened, being an explication of the Revelations,’ Aberdeen, 1656.
18. ‘Answer to “The Touchstone of the Reformed Gospel,”’ Aberdeen, 1656.
19. ‘The Noveltie of Poperie discovered and chieflie proved by Romanists out of themselves,’ Aberdeen, 1656.
20. ‘Love's Entercours between the Lamb and his Bride, or A Clear Explication … of the Song of Solomon,’ London, 1658.
21. ‘The Throne of David, an Exposition of II Samuel,’ published at Oxford, 1659, by John Owen, to whom it was to have been dedicated, and to whom the manuscript was sent by Guild's widow.

Guild was ‘a weak, time-serving man’ (Grub); his literary works are forgotten, but his memory is kept fresh in his native city by his large benefactions to its public institutions, many of which he gave during his lifetime. ‘To this day at the annual gatherings the loving cup circulates in solemn silence to his grateful memory.’ A fine portrait of Guild (a copy by Mossman of a lost original by Jamesone) and a portrait of his father (copied by Jamesone from an older picture) are in the Trinity Hall, Aberdeen.

[Spalding's ‘Trubles;’ tombstone; Burgh, University, Presbytery, and Session Records of Aberdeen; Calderwood's Hist.; Bishop Forbes's Funerals; Inquiry into the Life of Dr. Guild, by Dr. James Shirrefs, Aberdeen, 1799; Book of Bon-Accord (Joseph Robertson); Anderson's Scottish Nation, ii. 384; Grub's Eccl. Hist.; Scott's Fasti, vi. 466, 622; Bulloch's George Jamesone, &c.; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]

J. C.