Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/90

436 pression of the rebellion, expressly under the characters cf an unnatural and anti-christian rebellion, headed by a popish pretender." What is most surprising of all, to pursue Mr Gib's own relation of the circumstances, "while I was doing so, I ordinarily had a party of the rebel guard from Collington, who understood English, standing before me on the outside of the multitude. * * * * * * Though they then attended with signs of great displeasure, they were restrained from using any violence : yet, about that time, as I was passing on the road near Collington, one of them, who seemed to be in some command, fired at me ; but, for any thing that appeared, it might be only with a design to fright me."

In a subsequent part of the campaign, when the Seceders re-appeared in arms along with the English army, Mr Gib seems to have accompanied them to Falkirk, where, a few hours before the battle of the 17th January, he distinguished himself by his activity in seizing a rebel spy. When the rebels in the evening took possession of Falkirk, they found that person in prison, and, being in formed of what Mr Gib had done, made search for him through the town, with the intention, no doubt, of taking some measure of vengeance for his hostility.

Referring the reader to the article Ebenezer Erskine for an account of the schism which took place in 1747, in the Associated Presbytery, respecting the burgess oath, we shall only mention here that Mr Gib took a conspicuous part at the head of the more rigid party, termed Antiburghers, and continued during the rest of his life to be their ablest advocate and leader. A new meeting-house was opened by him, November 4, 1753, in Nicholson Street, in which he regularly preached for many years to about two thousand persons. His eminence in the public affairs of his sect at last obtained for him the popular epithet of Pope Gib, by which he was long remembered. In 1765, when the general assembly took the subject of the Secession into consideration, as a thing that "threatened the peace of the country," Mr Gib wrote a spirited remonstrance against that injurious imputation; and, as a proof of the attachment of the Seceders to the existing laws and government, detailed all those circumstances respecting the rebellion in 1745, which we have already embodied in this notice. In 1774, Mr Gib published "A Display of the Secession Testimony," in two volumes 8vo; and in 1784, his "Sacred Contemplations," at the end of which was "An Essay on Liberty and Necessity," in answer to lord Kames's essay on that subject. Mr Gib died, June 18, 1788, in the 75th year of his age, and 48th of his ministry, and was interred in the Grey Friars' church-yard, where an elegant monument was erected to his memory, at the expense of his grateful congregation.

GIBBS,, a celebrated architect, was born in Aberdeen, according to the most approved authority, in the year 1674, though Walpole and others place the date of his birth so late as 1683, a period which by no means accords with that of his advancement to fame in his profession. He was the only son (by his second wife) of Peter Gibbs of Footdeesmire, a merchant, and, as it would appear from his designation, a proprietor or feuar of a piece of ground along the shore at the mouth of the Dee, where his house, called "the white house in the Links," remains an evidence of the respectability and comparative wealth of the family. Old Gibbs retained during the stormy period in which he lived, the religion of his ancestors, and was a staunch non-juror. An anecdote is preserved by his fellow townsmen characteristic of the man, and of the times. The conflicting religious doctrines of presbyterian and episcopalian, and of