rowat

Updated: June 17, 2025

When Mr Gillespie was busy studying his sermon that he was to preach before the Parliament to-morrow, the ministers sent privately for Mr Gillespie, whom he observed to come in very quietly, and when Lauderdale, Glencairn, and some others, rose up and debated very strongly for the engagement, Mr Gillespie rose up and answered them so fully and distinctly, firstly, secondly, and thirdly, that he fully silenced them all; and Glencairn said, ‘There is no standing before this great and mighty man!’ I heard worthy Mr Rowat say, that Mr Gillespie said, ‘The more truly great a man is, he was really the more humble and low in his own eyes,’ as he instanced in the great man Daniel; and, said he, ‘God did not make choice of some of us as his instruments in the glorious work of Reformation, because we were more fit than others, but rather because we were more unfit than others.’ He was called Malleus Mallignantium, and Mr Baillie, writing to some in this church anent Mr George Gillespie, said, ‘He was truly an ornament to our church and nation.’ And Mr James Brown, late minister of Glasgow, told me that there was an English gentleman said to him, that he heard Mr Gillespie preach, and he said, he believed he was one of the greatest Presbyterians in the world.

George Gillespie - The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2)