Gill, JOHN

Gill, JOHN, an eminent Baptist divine, was born at Kettering, Northamptonshire, November 23, 1697. He was mainly self-educated, yet became proficient in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and afterwards devoted himself much to the study of the rabbinical writers. He became in 1719 pastor of a Baptist church in Southwark; from which, in 1757, he removed to a chapel near London Bridge, where he ministered till his death, October 14, 1771. His first important work was an Exposition of the Song of Solomon (fol. 1728), in which he vindicated the authenticity of that book against Whiston. His Exposition of the New Testament appeared in 1746- 48; and subsequently his Exposition of the Old Testament (republished as one work, 9 vols., with a memoir, in 1810); A Body of Doctrinal Divinity (1769); and A Body of Practical Divinity (1770). He wrote also, as a controversialist, in defence of the doctrine of the Trinity and of Calvinism. Gill received the degree of D.D. from Aberdeen in 1748. He was a robust Calvinist, devout, laborious, and learned.