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GIB, ADAM, long
distinguished as leader of the religious party called Anti-burghers, was a
native of Perthshire, and born in 1713. He received his education at the
university of Edinburgh. In the year 1741, he was ordained a minister of
the Associated Presbytery, recently formed by Mr Ebenezer Erskine and
others, as detailed in the life of that eminent individual. Mr Gib’s
charge was one of the most important in the kingdom—namely, the
congregation in the southern suburbs of Edinburgh, which was afterwards
administered to by the late Dr Jamieson, the learned author of the
Scottish Etymological Dictionary. It is well known, that during the
progress of the rebellion of 1745-6, no body of individuals in
Scotland manifested a warmer loyalty to the government than that to which
Mr Gib belonged. When the insurgents were approaching Edinburgh, about
three hundred of the congregation in and around the city took up arms for
its defence, hired a sergeant to teach them the military exercise, and
were the last to deliver up their arms to the castle, when all hope
of holding out the town had been abandoned. During the six weeks
occupation of the city by prince Charles, the established presbyterian
clergy were, with one exception, mute, having mostly fled to the country.
Mr Gib was also obliged to abandon his meeting-house; but he did not fly
so far as the rest, nor resign himself to the same inactivity. He
assembled his congregation at Dreghorn, about three miles from the town,
and within a short distance of Collington, where the insurgents kept a
guard, and not only preached the gospel as usual, but declared that he was
doing so, as an open proof and testimony "that we are resolved,
through the Lord’s grace, to come to no terms with the enemy that has
power in the city, but to look on them as enemies, showing ourselves to be
none of their confederacy. In our public capacity," he continued,
"it is fit that we make even a voluntary removal from the place where
they are, as from the seat of robbers, showing ourselves resolved that
their seat shall not be ours." Mr Gib thus discoursed on five different
Sundays, "expressly preaching up an abhorrence of the rebellion then
on foot, and a hope of its speedy overthrow, and every day making express
mention of the reigning sovereign in public prayer; praying for the safety
of his reign, the support of his government, a blessing on his family, and
the preservation of the protestant succession in that family; at the same
time praying for the suppression of the rebellion, expressly under the
characters of an unnatural anti-christian rebellion, headed by a popish
pretender." What is most surprising of all, to pursue Mr Gib’s
own relation of the circumstances, "while I was doing so, I
ordinarily had a party of the rebel guard from Collington, who understood
English, standing before me on the outside of the multitude. * * * Though
they then attended with signs of great displeasure they were restrained
from using any violence: yet, about that time, as I was passing on the
road near Collington, one of them, who seemed to be in some command, fired
at me; but, for any thing that appeared, it might be only with a design to
fright me."
In a subsequent part of the
campaign, when the Seceders re-appeared in arms along with the English
army, Mr Gib seems to have accompanied them to Falkirk, where, a few hours
before the battle of the 17th January, he distinguished himself by his
activity in seizing a rebel spy. When the rebels in the evening took
possession of Falkirk, they found that person in prison, and, being
informed of what Mr Gib had done, made search for him through the town,
with the intention, no doubt, of taking some measure of vengeance for his
hostility.
Referring the reader to the
article Ebenezer Erskine for an account of the schism which took place in
1747, in the Associated Presbytery, respecting the burgess oath, we shall
only mention here that Mr Gib took a conspicuous part at the head of the
more rigid party, termed Antiburghers, and continued, during the rest of
his life to be their ablest advocate and leader. A new meeting-house was
opened by him, November 4, 1753, in Nicholson Street, in which he
regularly preached for many years to about two thousand persons. His
eminence in the public affairs of his sect at last obtained for him the
popular epithet of Pope Gib, by which he was long remembered. In
1765, when the general assembly took the subject of the Secession into
consideration, as a thing that "threatened the peace of the
country," Mr Gib wrote a spirited remonstrance against that injurious
imputation; and, as a proof of the attachment of the Seceders to the
existing laws and government, detailed all those circumstance respecting
the rebellion in 1745, which we have already embodied in this notice. In
1774, Mr Gib published "A Display of the Secession Testimony,"
in two volumes 8vo; and in 1764, his "Sacred Contemplations," at
the end of which was "An Essay on Liberty and Necessity," in
answer to lord Kame’s essay on that subject. Mr Gib died, June 18, 1788,
in the 75th year of his age and 48th of his ministry, and was interred in
the Grey Friars’ church-yard, where an elegant monument was erected to
his memory, at the expense of his grateful congregation.
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