Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/101

Rh reck? the comfort of believing is not suspended.' He said, 'Noe.' Speaking further to his condition, he said, ' Although that I should never more see any light of comfort, that I do see, yet I shall adhere, and do believe that He is mine and that I am His.' "

Mr Gillespie lingered two days longer, and expired almost imperceptibly, December 16, 1646. On the preceding day he had written and signed a paper, in which " he gave faithful and clear testimony to the work and cause of God, and against the enemies thereof, to stop the mouths of calumniators, and confirm his children." The object of the paper was to prevent, if possible, any union of the friends of the church of Scotland with the loyalists, in behalf of an uncovenanted monarch. The Committee of Estates testified the public gratitude to Mr Gillespie by voting his widow and children a thousand pounds, which, however, from the speedily ensuing troubles of the times, was never paid.

GILLESPIE,, was the first relief minister, and founder of the Synod of Relief. He was born in the year 1708, at Clearburn, in the parish of Duddingstone near Edinburgh, of parents distinguished for their piety. He lost his father, who was a farmer and brewer, when he was very young. His mother, who seems to have been a woman of decided piety, and at the same time of active business habits, continued her husband's business as farmer arid brewer after his death. Gillespie, who was of delicate constitution and melancholy temperament, seems throughout life to have been marked by the shyness of disposition, the reserved manners, the fondness for retirement, and the tenderness, yet conscientiousness of feeling, which usually distinguish the boy brought up in a retired domestic way, under a fond and widowed mother. His mother was accustomed to attend the services, at the dispensation of the Lord's supper, by Mr Wilson of Maxton, Mr Boston of Ettrick, Mr Davidson of Galashiels, and other eminent evangelical ministers, with whom the south of Scotland was at that time favoured. On these occasions she commonly took with her, her son Thomas, in whom the anxious mother had not yet traced those satisfactory evidences of decisive piety which her maternal regard for his best interests so earnestly desired; on one of these occasions she mentioned her distress on account of her son to Mr Boston, who, at her request, spoke to him in private on his eternal interests. His counsels made a decisive impression upon the mind of Gillespie, at that time a young man about twenty years of age, and led him soon after to commence his studies, as preparatory to the ministry, which he prosecuted at the university of Edinburgh.

After the origin of the Secession, his mother became attached to that body; and through her advice and influence, Gillespie went to Perth to study under Mr Wilson, their first theological professor. In this step he seems to have been influenced more by a desire to comply with the wishes of a fond and pious mother, than by personal attachment to the peculiarities of the Secession. His whole stay at Perth was ten days; for as soon as from conversations with Mr Wilson, he fully comprehended the principles on which the Secession were proceeding, he withdrew. He proceeded to England, where he pursued his studies at the Theological Academy in Northampton, at that time superintended by the celebrated Dr Philip Doddridge. When he thus went to England, DrErskine states (in his preface to his Essay on Temptations,) that he had attended the humanity, philosophy, and divinity classes in the college of Edinburgh, and that he carried with him attestations of his personal piety, and acquirements in philosophical and theological literature, from several ministers of the church of Scotland: viz. Rev. Messrs Davidson of Galashiels, Wilson of Maxton, Wardlaw of Duniermline, Smith of Newburn, Gusthart, Webster, and Hepburn, of Edinburgh, James Walker of Canongate, M'Vicar of West Kirk, Kid of Queensferry, Bonnar of Torphichen,