A Sketch of His Life and Times
By Rev John Colquhoun, Glendale.
The Church of God in Scotland had many bright ornaments among her ministers, who, though young in years when they were transplanted to the Church triumphant, were burning and shining lights in their day and generation. Among such men were George Gillespie, Andrew Gray, Hugh Binning, James Durham, James Renwick, and in later times, Robert Murray McCheyne. Each had his own peculiar gift, but in that way each one was fitted to fill a particular niche by himself in the Church. In writing a sketch of the life and times of George Gillespie we see that he lived at a time when Zion had many troubles, and that he seemed to have been raised up on purpose, by Him who gave diverse gifts to His Church, in order to be a polished shaft in His hand for discomfiting the enemies of the Church, not only at that time but also through subsequent generations.
His early days.
Very little seems to be known of his early days beyond the fact that he was born in Kirkcaldy, early in 1613. He was the son of the Rev John Gillespie, minister of the parish there.
Of his father we do not know much beyond a short note which Rev. John Livingstone supplies of him in his Memorable Characteristics, in which he describes him as “a thundering preacher.” His mother appears to have been a daughter of Patrick Simson, minister of Stirling, for in Row’s History of the Kirk of Scotland, p. 432, Mr John Gillespie is referred to as Simson’s son-in-law. This seems to be further proved by the fact that Patrick Simson, minister of Renfrew, and a grandson of Simson of Stirling, who was on very intimate terms with Robert Woodrow, the historian, always referred to George Gillespie as “my cousin.”
It is on his authority that Woodrow gives the date of Gillespie’s birth as 27th January, 1613. Woodrow, in his Analecta, says of the subject of this sketch that “when he was a child, he seemed to be somewhat dull and soft like, so that his mother would have stricken and abused him, and she would have made much of Patrick, his younger brother. His father, Mr John Gillespie, minister of Kirkcaldy, was angry to see his wife carry on so to his son George; and he would have said, ‘my heart, let alone; though Patrick may have some respect given him in the Church, yet my son George will be the great man in the Church of Scotland.'” This prediction proved true as we shall have occasion to notice afterwards.
That John Gillespie was not only a “thundering preacher” but also one who had the courage of his convictions with regard to the government and worship of the Church of Scotland is proved by the fact that his name is among those of several others who were summoned before the High Commission which met in Edinburgh on 28th January, 1620 for refusing to conform to the Acts of the Perth Assembly of 1618. They were dismissed with the warning that if they did not conform before the 1st March they would be deposed, and the Bishop of St. Andrews, who presided, caused the Clerk to make an Act bearing their consent to be deposed on that day if they conformed not. They unanimously protested that willingly they would never renounce their ministry. His name also appears among the subscribers to a Protestation offered to the Parliament at Perth on 1st July, 1606, against “the erection, confirmation and ratification” of bishoprics and bishops by the said Parliament. This Protest, which is as clear a piece of reasoning as is to be found in all the annals of the Church of Scotland, was the work of Patrick Simson, minister of Stirling, and the maternal grandfather of George Gillespie.
This Patrick Simson was one who had a large measure of the boldness of the Scottish Reformers as the following anecdote clearly shows:—
For some time after King James VI and his Queen came home from Denmark after their marriage, the Roman Catholics in this country became very bold and many outstanding Protestants were abused and some cruelly murdered. Shortly after the murder of James, Earl of Moray, by a professional papist, Mr Simson was preaching before the King, who did not in any way exert himself to bring the murderer to justice. The text was, “The Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel thy brother?” Gen. iv:9. The preacher, turning to the King before the congregation, said, “Sir, I assure you in God’s name, the Lord will ask at you where is the Earl of Moray, your brother?” The King replied before all the congregation, “Mr Patrick, my chalmer doore was never steeked upon you; ye might have told me anything ye thought in secret.” He replied, “Sir, the scandal is public.” After sermon he was sent for to the castle where he went up with the Bible under his arm, affirming that would plead for him. Row’s History of the Kirk of Scotland, p. 144. Thus we see that the subject of this sketch was not only the seed of the righteous but of men who attained to an uncommon boldness in defending the Cause of Christ and rebuking evil.
We have no means of ascertaining how George Gillespie’s earlier studies were prosecuted. It may have been under his father’s roof, as in the case of many of the families of the ministers of Scotland at this time, or in the parish school, for some parishes had schools where education was of a very high order, as can be proved from the fact that many of the youth of Scotland found their way to the Universities. One thing we are sure of, and that is, that young Gillespie made good use of his opportunities, for he entered St. Andrews’ University in 1629 when he was in his sixteenth year. That he prosecuted his studies there with zeal and industry is evident from the fact that when he left the University he was noted for his extensive learning.
The Condition of the Church at this time.
That Gillespie was born when the Church of Scotland was under a very dark cloud is proved when we compare the date of his birth with the dates of certain matters in her checkered history. A little over two years before Gillespie’s birth King James I of England and VI of Scotland ordered three Presbyterian pastors, whom he himself had created bishops to proceed to London in order to receive Episcopal consecration at the hands of Bishops of the Church of England so that they would be able to transmit the so-called Apostolic Succession to their brother-bishops at home. They were consecrated on 21st October, 1610. Thus we see that the carved work of the Reformers was, for the time being, cast down and broken. Two years later Parliament legalised the Acts of the General Assembly of 1610, popularly known as the “Angelic Assembly” from the large number of gold angel-pieces which were given to its members, as bribes, by the supporters of the King. Thus the yoke of the English hierarchy was imposed upon the Church of Scotland, which opened the floodgates for all that the Church of Scotland disapproved of at the time of the Reformation.
Instead of the God-fearing ministers who were the glory of the Church of Scotland, were the Bishops, who were everything but what they ought to be. Burnet, though himself a Bishop and an ardent Episcopalian, says in his History of Our Own Times, “That the persons preferred to that dignity did their part very ill. They generally grew haughty; they neglected their functions, and were often at court, and lost all esteem with the people; some few that were stricter and more learned, did lean so grossly to Popery, that the heat and violence of the reformation became the main subject of their sermons and discourses.”
Under more favourable circumstances a pious young man of George Gillespie’s abilities and acquirements would very soon find a sphere of usefulness in the Church of Scotland, but it was otherwise at the period of which we write. King James I, having got Andrew Melville out of the way, first by confining him in the Tower of London and then by banishment to France, and having forbidden his nephew, James Melville, to return to Scotland, he, in 1610, at the Glasgow Assembly, succeeded in intruding Episcopacy, and although there were still Presbyteries and Synods, and also a General Assembly if the King condescended to call one, the Bishops were lords over these Courts so that, in effect, the Church was governed by Prelates. In 1618 an Assembly met at Perth by order of the King, and, through its members being overawed and bribed by him, the infamous Five Articles of Perth were passed. These were, kneeling at the Communion, the observance of holy days, Episcopal confirmation, private baptisms, and the private dispensation of the Lord’s Supper. This attempt at abolishing the Presbyterianism of the Church of Scotland was only partially successful, for the Most High, in various places, blessed the land by the refreshing showers of a spiritual revival, so that, though the people were sore oppressed, their spirits were kept from being broken by their hard lot.
Among the ministry of the Church of Scotland at this time were many who truly feared the Lord and declared His whole counsel to perishing sinners. Where such faithful preaching was to be found the Holy Spirit began to work mightily so that many were brought from the darkness of sin to God’s marvellous light, and others who had been in Christ before these declensions began, were now finding their drooping spirits revived. King James and his servile minions and court parasites might do all in their power to crush evangelical religion and a Scriptural form of Church government out of Scotland, but they all forgot, or ignored, the lesson that Andrew Melville taught the King some years before this: “Sir, when you were in your swaddling-clothes. Christ Jesus reigned freely in this land in spite of all His enemies; His officers and ministers convened and assembled, and convened for the ruling and welfare of His Church, which was ever for your welfare, defence, and preservation, when these same enemies were seeking your destruction and cutting off.” The Lord Jesus, however, did neither forget nor ignore His Church and people, for in many places they could say, “Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance, when it was weary. Thy congregation hath dwelt therein: Thou, O God, hast prepared of Thy goodness for the poor.” Ps. lxxviii. 9:10.
Archbishop Laud.
In 1625 King James went the way of all the earth and his son, more bigoted and cruel, if possible, than the father, reigned in his stead as Charles I. He was bent on doing in the Church of Scotland what his father had only partially accomplished. In this he had a henchman in Archbishop Laud, who was willing to go to any length in order to please his royal master. He seems to have been Charles’s favourite and confidential friend from the beginning of his reign. In 1633 he became Archbishop of Canterbury, and to him may be attributed a very large share of the trials which befell the Cause of Christ in Scotland and England. According to Andrew Stevenson, in his History of the Church and State in Scotland, it could be said of him as was said of old of Pope Boniface: “He came in like a fox, he reigned like a lion, and he died like a dog.”
As for his religion it was reckoned that if it had been divided into four parts, two were Arminianism, the third Popery, and scarce a fourth part Protestantism. He would never brook any deviation from what he conceived to be proper to religious worship; his whole conduct in that respect showed him to be “cunning, narrow-minded, bigoted and malevolent,” and to his charge may be laid the introduction of the most fearful punishments meted out to Christ’s witnesses in this country at that time, such as putting in the pillory, slitting of noses, branding on the cheek, cutting off ears, scourging, and other forms of punishment, which, for their horrible nature, vie with those practised among savages. From his elevation to the See of Canterbury till his execution on Tower Hill on 10th January, 1641, he continued his tyrannical abuse of power along with these atrocities, showing him to have been a monster of iniquity who covered himself with the cloak of a high religious profession.
Efforts are made in our day to show Laud in a better light than contemporary history shows him to be. He is paraded as a “great ecclesiastic possessed of considerable learning and ability, and his zeal, for the Church, however unwise at that time, was undoubtedly sincere.” Some part of this character may be true, to a certain extent, but the other side of his character eclipses anything that he may have shown of an amiable nature. Lord Macaulay says of him, “Of all the prelates of the Anglican Church, Laud had departed farthest from the principles of the Reformation, and had drawn nearest to Rome. His theology was more remote than even that of the Dutch Arminians from the theology of the Calvinists. His passion for ceremonies, his reverence for holidays, vigils, and sacred places, his ill-concealed dislike of the marriage of ecclesiastics, the ardent and not altogether disinterested zeal with which he asserted the claims of the clergy to the reverence of the laity, would have made him an object of aversion to the Puritans, even if he had used only legal and gentle means for the attainment of his ends.
But his understanding was narrow, and his commerce with the world had been small. He was by nature rash, irritable, quick to feel for his own dignity, slow to sympathise with the sufferings of others, and prone to the error, common in superstitious men, of mistaking his own peevish and malignant moods for emotions of pious zeal. Under his direction every corner of the realm was subjected to a constant and minute inspection. Every little congregation of separatists was tracked out and broken up. Even the devotions of private families could not escape the vigilance of his spies. Such fear did his rigour inspire that the deadly hatred of the Church, which festered in innumerable bosoms, was generally disguised under an outward show of conformity. On the very eve of troubles, fatal to himself and to his order, the Bishops of several extensive dioceses were able to report to him that not a single dissenter was to be found within their jurisdiction.” History of England, 1921 reprint. Vol. i. p. 74.
With the view of eliminating the last vestiges of Presbyterianism in the Church of Scotland, it was resolved that a Book of Canons and a Liturgy should be prepared by the Scottish Bishops. The Book of Canons appeared in 1635 and the Liturgy in 1637. Previous to the appearance of the Liturgy it was sent to England for revision, and Laud himself superintended that revision, adding to it much that gave the whole a decided Popish trend. These revisions were submitted to the King for his approval and an order from him appeared, requiring the Liturgy to be used in all the Scottish churches, and an Act of the Privy Council was passed enforcing the order.
(To be continued)