“ Already, in 1640, he had accompanied the commissioners of the peace to England as one of their chaplains; and in 1643 he was appointed by the Scottish Church one of the four commissioners to the Westminster Assembly. Here, though the youngest member of the Assembly, he took a prominent part in almost all the protracted discussions on church government, discipline and worship, supporting Presbyterianism by numerous controversial writings, as well as by an unusual fluency and readiness in debate. ”

“ In 1645 he returned to Scotland, and is said to have drawn the act of assembly sanctioning the directory of public worship. On his return to London he had a hand in drafting the Westminster confession of faith, especially chap. i. Gillespie was elected moderator of the Assembly in 1648, but the laborious duties of that office (the court continued to sit from the 12th of July to the 12th of August) told fatally on an overtaxed constitution; he fell into consumption, and, after many weeks of great weakness, he died at Kirkcaldy on the 17th of December 1648. ”

“ Aaron’s Rod Blossoming, or the Divine Ordinance of Church-government vindicated (1646) , which is deservedly regarded as a really able statement of the case for an exclusive spiritual jurisdiction in the church ”