Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/617

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briefly in that .‘cpsrt. has been tor the present withheld from publication by the Indian Government, but the map corrected by his surveys is of extreme interest and value. By and by we may hope for the publication of Captain liiddulph’s observations, which will doubless throw much new light on this secludcd’and interesting region.

(h. y.)

GILL, John (1697–1771), a Baptist minister and learned l-rbbinical scholar, was born at Kettering, Northampton- shire, in 1697. On account of the limited means of his parents, he owed his education chiefly to his own perseverance. After receiving baptism in November 1716, he began to preach, and officiated at Higham Ferrers, as well as occasionally at his native place, until the beginning of 1719, when he became pastor of the Baptist congregation at IIorsleydown, in Southwark, where he continued fifty- one years. I11 1748 he received the degree of D.D. from the university of Aberdeen. He died at Camberwell, October 14, 1771.


His principal works are Eryiositiun of the Song of Solomon, 1728 ;T lo Prophet-[rs of the Old Testament respecting the Messiah con.w'v’rrnl, 1728; Treatise on. the Doctrine of the Trinity, 1731; Cause of God and Truth, in 4 vols, 1731; Exposition of the Bible, in 10 vols., in preparing which he formed a large collection of Hebrew and Rabbinical books and 3183.; Dissertation on the Antiquity of the [II-brew Language—Letters, Vowel Points, and Accents, 1767; A Body of Doctrinal Divinity, 1767; A Body of Practical Divinity, 1770; and Sermons and Tracts, with a memoir of his life, 1773. An edition of his LII-position of the Bible appeared in 1816 with a nu-moir by Dr llipon, which has also appeared separately. Various editions of several of his other works have also appeared.

GILLESPIE, George (1613–1648), a prominent member of the presbyterian party in the Westminster Assembly, was born at Kirkcaldy, where his father was parish minister, on the 21st of January 1613, and entered the university of St Andrews as a “ presbytery bursar” in 1629. On the completion of a brilliant student career, he became domestic chaplain to Lord Kcnmure, and afterwards to the earl of Cassilis, his conscience not permitting him to accept the cpisCopal ordination which was at that time in Scotland an indispensable condition of induction to a parish. While with the earl of Cassilis he wrote his first work, A Dispute «If/ainst the English I’ojn'sh Ceremonies obtruded upon the ( 'hurch of Scotland, which, opportunely published (but vithout the author’s name) in the summer of 1637, attracted considerable attention, and within a few months had been found by the privy council to be so damaging that by their orders all available copies were called in and burnt. In April 1638, soon after the authority of the bishops had been set aside by the nation, Gillespie was ordained minister of Wemyss (Fife) by the prcsbytery of Kirkcalt y, and in the same year was a member of the famous Glasgow Assembly, before which he preached a sermon so pronounced against royal interference in matters ecclesiastical as to call for some remonstrance on the part of Argyll, the Lord High Commissioner. In 1642 Gillespie was translated to Edinlmrgh ; but the brief remainder of his life was chiefly spent in the conduct of public business in London. Already, in 1640, he had accompanied the commissioners of the peace to England as one of their chaplains; and in 1643 he was appointed by the Scottish church one of the four commissioners to the Westminster Assembly. Here he took a prominent part in almost all the protracted discussions on church government, discipline, and worship, supporting Presbyterianism by numerous controversial writings, as well as by an unusual fluency and readiness in debate. On the Erastian question, in particular, besides a series of vigorous pamphlets against Coleman (.1 Brotherly Examination of snne Passages in Jlr Coleman’s late printed Sermon, &c.; .Vihil Respondes; Illale Audi's), he published in 1646 a large work entitled Aaron’s Bod Blossominy, or the Divine Ordinance of Ch arch-government vindicated, which is deservedly regarded as a really able statement of the case for an exclusive spiritual jurisdiction of the Church. Shortly after his return to Seotland, Gillespie was elected moderator of the Assembly (1648, 3 but the laborious duties of that office (the court continued to sit from 12th July to the 12th of August) told fatally on a constitution which, at no time very vigorous, had of late years been much overtaxed , and, after many weeks of great weakness, he died at Iiirkcaldy on the 17th of December 1648. In acknowledgment of his great public services, a sum of £1000 Scots was voted, though destined never to be paid, to his vidow and children by the committee of estates. A simple tombstone, which had been erected to his memory in Kirk- caldy parish church, was in 1661 publicly broken at the cross by the hand of the common hangman, but was restored in 1746. Among the other .works of Gillespie may be mentioned the Treatise of JIiscellany Questions, when-in many usrful Questions and cases of Conscience are discussed and resolved, published posthumously (1649); and The Ark of the Testament opened, being a treatise on the covenant of grace, also posthumous (2 vols, 1661—1677).

GILLESPIE, Thomas (1708–1774), one of the founders of the Scottish “Presbytery of Belief,” was born in the parish of Duddingston, Midlothian, in 1708. On the com- pletion of his literary course at the university of Edinburgh, he for a short time attended a small theological seminary at Perth, and afterwards studied divinity under Dr Doddridgo at Northampton, where he received ordination in January 1741. In August of the same year he was admitted minister of the parish of Carnock, Fife, the presbytery of Du nfermline agreeing, not only to sustain as valid the ordina— tion he had received in England, but also to allow a qualifi- cation of his subscription to the church’s doctrinal symbol, so far as it had reference to the sphere of the civil magistrate in matters of religion. Having on conscientious grounds persistently absented himself from the meetings of pl'esby- tery held for the purpose of ordaining an unacceptable presentee as minister of I nverkeithing, he was, after an un- obtrusive but useful ministry of ten years, deposed for con- tumacy by the Assembly of 1752 3 he Continued, however, to preach, first at Carnock, and afterwards in Dunfermline, where a large congregation gathered round him 3 but it was not until 1761, and after repeated efforts to obtain readmission to the church, that, in conjuncticn with Boston of J edburgh and Collier of Colinsburgh, he formed a distinct communion under the name of The Presbytery of Relicf,——relief, that is to say, “from the yoke of patronage and the tyranny of the church courts.” He died on the 19th January 1774. His only literary efforts were an Essay on the Continuation of Immediate Beretta- tions in the Church, and a Treatise on Temptation, charac- terized by considerable laboriousness and some ability. Both' works appeared posthumously (1774). See Lives of Fathers of the United Presbyterian Church (Edin. 1849)

GILLIES, John (1747–1836), the historian of ancient

Greece, was born in 1747 at Brechin, in Forfarshire. He was educated at the university of Glasgow, where he greatly distinguished himself, and where, at the age of twenty, he officiated for a short time as substitute for the professor of ircek. Subsequently he received an engagement as tutor in the family of Lord Hopetoun, who afterwards conferred on him a pension for life. In 1784 he completed his prin~ cipal work, the History of Ancient Greece, its Colonies and Conqucsts, which he published two years later in 2 vols. 4t0. This work gives a clear and generally accurate account of the various states of Greece, and the progress of each in litera- ture and the arts. rI‘he learning it displays is considerable, but its reflexions are generally somewhat trite, and the style is abrupt and frequently diffuse. It enjoyed, however, for some time a great popularity, and was translated into French and German. It was long a favourite text-book for

schools, but is now completely superseded. On the death