John Guyse (1680-1761) was an English independent minister.
Life
Guyse was born at
Hertford in 1680. He was educated for the ministry at the academy of the Rev. John Payne at
Saffron Walden
Saffron Walden is a market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England, north of Bishop's Stortford, south of Cambridge and north of London. It retains a rural appearance and some buildings of the medieval period. The population was 15, ...
, and began to preach in his twentieth year. He sometimes assisted William Haworth, then minister of a congregation of dissenters in Hertford, and succeeded him in the charge 27 September 1705. His ministry at Hertford was distinguished by the vigour of his attacks on
Arianism.
In 1727 he was invited to become first minister of a congregation which had been formed by a secession from Miles Lane, Cannon Street, and had established itself in New Broad Street. Being advised to leave Hertford, as his health was overtaxed, he complied with the request. From about 1728 he preached the Coward lecture on Fridays at Little St. Helen's, and from 1734 the Merchants' lecture on Tuesdays at Pinners' Hall.
Guyse received the degree of D.D. from Aberdeen in 1733 (Gent. Mag. iii. 48). He was an active member of the
King's Head Society
The King's Head Society was an 18th-century organisation funding dissenting academies in England.
The King's Head Society was a group of laymen named after the pub behind the Royal Exchange at which they met. From 1730 they worked to promote Calv ...
, which was formed for the purpose of assisting young men to obtain academical training for the ministry. In his old age he became lame and blind, but his blindness was thought to have improved his sermons by compelling him to preach without notes, so that it was said that one of his congregation told him she wished he had become blind twenty years earlier. His only son, William Guyse, was his assistant at New Broad Street from 1728 till his death in 1758. He himself died on 22 November 1761, and was buried in
Bunhill Fields burial ground.
Works
Two Coward lectures, which he published in 1729 under the title of 'Christ the Son of God,' were attacked by
Samuel Chandler
Samuel Chandler (1693 – 8 May 1766) was an English Nonconformist minister and pamphleteer. He has been called the "uncrowned patriarch of Dissent" in the latter part of George II's reign.
Early life
Samuel Chandler was born at Hungerford in ...
in 'A Letter to the Rev. John Guyse.' Guyse replied with 'The Scripture Notion of preaching Christ further cleared and vindicated in a letter to the Rev. Mr. Samuel Chandler,' 1730. Chandler then wrote 'A Second Letter' to Guyse, which the latter answered in an appendix to a 'Sermon on the Death of
John Asty.' A complaint against him seems to have been the fact that he had accused ministers generally of not preaching Christ. The disputants treated each other badly, but were afterwards reconciled.
Besides the works mentioned above he wrote the following:
* 'Jesus Christ God-Man, several sermons,' 1719.
* 'A Sermon on the Plague of Marseilles,' 1720.
* 'The Holy Spirit a Divine Person, several sermons,' 1721.
* 'The Standing Use of the Scripture, several sermons,' 1724.
* 'Remarks on a Catechism' (written by
James Strong of
Ilminster
Ilminster is a minster town and civil parish in the South Somerset district of Somerset, England, with a population of 5,808. Bypassed in 1988, the town now lies just east of the junction of the A303 (London to Exeter) and the A358 (Taunton to C ...
).
* 'A Present Remembrance of God.' 1730.
* Nine sermons in the Berry Street collection.
* 'Youth's Monitor, six annual sermons,' 1736.
* 'An Exposition of the New Testament in the form of a paraphrase,' 3 vols. 1739–52.
* With
Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts (17 July 1674 – 25 November 1748) was an English Congregational minister, hymn writer, theologian, and logician. He was a prolific and popular hymn writer and is credited with some 750 hymns. His works include "When I Survey the ...
, the preface to
Jonathan Edwards' ''
A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton'' 1737.
* 'A Collection of Seventeen Practical Sermons, to which is added an exhortation' (all originally published separately), 1756.
Influence
John Wesley
John Wesley (; 2 March 1791) was an English people, English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The soci ...
stated in the Preface to his Notes on the New Testament that he was indebted to Dr. Guyse for many 'useful observations'.
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guyse, John
1680 births
1761 deaths
17th-century English writers
17th-century English male writers
18th-century English people
English Christian religious leaders
People from Hertford
English religious writers
18th-century English non-fiction writers
18th-century English male writers
Burials at Bunhill Fields
English male non-fiction writers