‘The information of Cuthbert Nicholas, cordwainer, against the persons hereinafter named, for being att meetings and conventicles:—Mr Richard Gilping, Mr William Deurant, Mr John Pringle, Mr Henry Lever, preachers,’ &c. &c. &c. &c.
So early as 1663—which would intimate that Gilpin had previously resided and ‘preached’ in Newcastle—Bishop Cosin wrote to the Mayor of Newcastle, telling him to look sharply after ‘the caterpillars,’ naming as the ringleaders, ‘William Durant, Henry Leaver, Richard Gilpin, and John Pringle.’[49] When we consider who these men were—every one a ‘pattern’ of godliness and consuming consecration to the Master, and more especially that one of them, viz., Gilpin, had lately refused to elevate himself to a level with Cosin, it is hard to repress indignation; while the word of scorn, ‘caterpillars,’ reminds one of the Popish parallel of Pope Alexander, wondering how the Signory of Florence could so far have forgotten what was due to him and to themselves as to aid and abet that ‘contemptible reptile,’ [vermicciattolo] in offending the majesty of the Holy See—the ‘reptile’ being Savonarola; or the ‘heretici et imperiti homines’ of Salmeron, as applied to Augustine and Chrysostom, Jerome, et hoc genus omne.[50] Very different was the ‘letter’ of Cosin, Bishop of Durham to the Mayor, from that of another ‘in authority,’ who had also addressed to his Worship of Newcastle ‘a letter,’ wherein he had counselled amity and forbearance; so much so, that Mr Durant and others of the preachers in Newcastle, returned him an answer of thanks for his ‘inculcated exhortations to love the whole flock of Christ, though not walking in the same order of the gospel.’ The writer was Oliver Cromwell.[51]
Until the ‘Indulgence’ of 1672, Gilpin carried on his ‘ministry’ in the half-public, half-hidden, manner which these deplorable acts indicate. At one time he had to leave his own house; for in the Barnes’ ‘Memoirs,’ we read, ‘When the Five Mile Act came out, Dr Gilpin lodged at Mr Barnes his house, for more security. When his goods were destrained upon, Mr Barnes—to prevent their being squandered away—replevyed them.’ ... ‘And when there was a design to banish the Doctor from Newcastle, Mr Barnes, by persuading the magistrates of his great usefulness in the town, by his skill in physic, procured him quietness to the end of King Charles his reign.’[52] Not however until 1672 was there anything approaching ‘religious liberty’ in England, and that only by connivance. Until that year, practically, Nonconformity and Dissent from the Church of England was politically treason, and ecclesiastically ‘illegal.’
The Reader will have noticed that by Barnes and others, our Worthy is designated ‘Doctor,’ and that this stood him in stead on one occasion. But the title was not due technically until 1676. In that year he proceeded to Leyden—like Sir Thomas Browne earlier—and there ‘took’ the ‘degree’ of M.D. By the kindness of Professor J. Van Hoeden of Leyden, I am enabled—for the first time—to give the ‘record’ of it from the ‘Inscriptions of the Students.’[53] It is as follows:—‘Richard Gilpin, [misspelled “Gulpin,”] Cumbridus,’ obtained his degrees July 6, 1676—post disputationem privatam de Historia Hystericæ Passionis medicinæ doctor renunciatus est a clarissimo Kraame—and again, Richard Gilpin—Med. Candid., anno 50, apud Prof. Spinæus, die xxix. Junii 1676. This second inscription is only a week before ‘the promotion, die vi. Julii 1676.’ Gilpin ‘lodged’ with Professor Spinæus during his brief visit. In the list at close of the Memoir, along with his other Writings, is given the title-page of the medical Dissertation or ‘Disputation,’ which he read on the occasion and published. In passing, I may remark that the ‘Disputation’ is entirely technical, so that there is nothing to interest an unscientific reader.[54]
Returned from Holland as Dr Richard Gilpin,—and by this time married to his second wife, a daughter of a Cumberland squire, Brisco or Briscoe of Crofton Hall,—he gave himself to his work with unflagging zeal, with ever-deepening power and influence, and with most gratifying tokens that he was not labouring in vain, nor spending his strength for nought. He was now in ‘easy’ circumstances. ‘The purchase,’ says Barnes, ‘of the Lordship of Scaleby had put him into debt, but he now cleared it off,’ and Mr Barnes went with him to Sir Richard Musgrave, and got the conveyances finished, and this because ‘by the encouragement his ministry met with from the liberality of the people, and his emoluments by the practice of physic, he [had] raised a considerable estate.’[55] He was vigilant as a ‘watchman’ on the walls of Zion; and as he mellowed into a beautiful old age, surrounded by a gifted and affectionate family, and having ‘troops of friends,’ he came to be the representative man of Nonconformity, so that the ‘care’ of all their churches, in large measure, came upon him. Very pleasant must have been those holiday ‘escapes’ from smoky Newcastle to the sylvan solitudes and brightness of Scaleby, which he interposed between his toils.
His Congregation enormously increased—at a bound probably, for, on the death of William Durant in 1681, his ‘flock’ was received by Gilpin.[56] Accordingly, in the course of years, he received several ‘helpers.’ One was the excellent William Pell, M.A., who, ‘ejected’ from Great Stainton in 1662, after being ‘seven years minister of a congregation at Boston,’ removed to Newcastle, where, says Calamy, ‘he became assistant to Dr Gilpin, and died there, aged 63.’ This was in 1698.[57] Another was Timothy Manlove, M.D., who settled at Pontefract in 1688, removed to Leeds in 1694, and became assistant to Dr Gilpin in 1698. He died August 3, 1699, and Gilpin preached two ‘Sermons’ before his funeral, informed by a fine spirit. They were published; and the title-page will be found in our list of his Writings at close.
As before with the ‘Temple Rebuilt,’ it was only by constraint that Gilpin issued these Sermons—two in one. ‘The following Discourse,’ he says, ‘was preached without the least thought of offering it to public view; and yet I was persuaded to yield to the publication of it to prevent the printing of more imperfect notes.’ The melancholy duty interrupted a series of Sermons on ‘Striving to enter in at the strait gate,’ and from Galatians v. 16, ‘This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh;’ but, he continues, ‘having received an intimation that my dear brother and fellow-labourer, now deceased, had found such comfort in his meditations of this scripture in his prospect of death, that he expressed his desires that his funeral sermon might be upon this text,’ [Romans viii. 35-39,] he had chosen it. I have space for only a very few sentences from these ‘Sermons’ as follow:—“In all these things we are more than conquerors.” It is a glorious victory to stand in an evil day when Satan hath drawn up all his forces against us. It is a glorious victory not only to escape without loss, but to gain by his opposition. Thus we outshoot him in his own bow; and all this, sine labore et sudore, easily through Divine assistance, (page 17.) Again: “We are led by the Spirit” ver. 14. Whether we read the sense backward or forward it holds true, “as many as are led by the Spirit are the sons of God,” and “as many as are the sons of God have been and shall be led by the Spirit,” (page 30.) He pays affectionate tribute to his departed ‘assistants.’ ‘It hath pleased God Almighty and the all-wise Disposer of all things to make another breach upon us. It is not long since he took Mr Pell from us, and now he hath called home Mr Manlove, both of them excellent men, worthy ministers of the Gospel, singularly both of them fitted with abilities for their work. They were successively my dear brethren and fellow-labourers in this part of God’s vineyard. It must be acknowledged that it is a stroke to be lamented: and if we look upon the present Providence we may have some cause to fear that when God is discharging His servants from His work, and paying them their wages, that He may shortly break up His house with us,’ (page 21.)
From what must have been a large correspondence, only two letters of Dr Gilpin have come down to us, in so far as known. The one is an unimportant ‘note’ given in Horsley’s ‘Life of Dr Harle,’ (8vo, 1730,)—not worth reprinting; the other hitherto unpublished, and of much interest and value, as shewing how staunch and true he was to the last in his Nonconformity, and how his one fear in his ‘old age’ was lest the Church of England should absorb his large congregation on his death.
This Letter is among the Ayscough MSS. 4275 in the British Museum (Birchiana.) We have transcribed it verbatim.