GILLESPIE, GEORGE (1613-48). A Scotch Presbyterian clergyman and prominent member of the Westminster Assembly. He was born at Kirkcaldy, near Leith, January 21, 1613. After a brilliant career as a student at the Saint Andrews University he became domestic chap lain to Lord Kenmure, and in 1634 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 (1637), which at tracted considerable attention, and within a few months all available copies were called in and burned by order of the Privy Council. In April, 1638, soon after the authority of the bishops had been set aside by the nation, Gillespie was or dained minister of Wemyss (Fife) by the Pres bytery of Kirkcaldy, and in the same year preached a sermon before the General Assembly at Glasgow, pronouncing so decidedly against royal interference in matters ecclesiastical as to call for remonstrance on the part of the Earl of Argyll, then Lord High Commissioner. In 1642
Gillespie was transferred to Edinburgh; but the brief remainder of his life was chiefly spent 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 ap pointed to the Westminster Assembly. Here he took a prominent part in almost all of the pro tracted discussions on Church government, dis cipline, and worship, supporting Presbyterianism by numerous controversial writings, as well as by an unusual fluency and readiness in debate. He died at Kirkcaldy December 16, 1648. His works were published in Edinburgh (1843.48) with prefatory memoir by Hetherington.