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 Kenmure, and afterwards to the earl of Cassilis, his conscience not permitting him to accept the episcopal 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 against the English Popish Ceremonies obtruded upon the Church of Scotland, which, opportunely published (but without 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 presbytery of Kirkcaldy, 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 Edinburgh; 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 (A Brotherly Examination of some Passages in Mr Colemaujs late printed Sermon, &c.; Fihil Respondes -, Male Audis), he published in 1646 a large work entitled Aaron’s Rod Blossoming, or the Divine Ordinance of Church-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 Scotland, Gillespie was elected moderator of the Assembly (1648 z ; 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 Kirkcaldy 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 widow and children by the committee of estates. A simple tombstone, which had been erected to his memory in Kirkcaldy 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 miscellany Questions, τνherein many useful 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 Relief,” was born in the parish of Duddingston, Midlothian, in 1708. On the completion 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 Doddridge 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 Dunfermline agreeing, not only to sustain as valid the ordination he had received in England, but also to allow a qualification 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 presbytery held for the purpose of ordaining an unacceptable presentee as minister of Inverkeithing, he was, after an unobtrusive but useful ministry of ten years, deposed for contumacy by the Assembly of 1752; he continued, however, to preach, first at Carnock, and afterwards in Dunfermline, where a large congregation gathered round him; but it was not until 1761, and after repeated efforts to obtain readmission to the church, that, in conjunction with Boston of Jedburgh and Collier of Colinsburgh, he formed a distinct communion under the name of The Presbytery of Relief,—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 Revelations in the Church, and a Treatise on Temptation, characterized by considerable laboriousness and some ability. Both works appeared posthumously (1774). See Lives of Fathers of the United Presbyterian Church (Edin. 1849).
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