George Gillespie

If you were tasked with answering the question “What is God?”  how would you answer it?   Well, even theologians as astute as the Westminster Divines were a bit taken back with answering this question.

Sometimes teachers are quick to answer questions posed to them.   Sometimes they may not have an immediate answer and to give off the appearance of humility, they defer to their colleagues.   Was this the case here?  I’m not certain, but the committee tasked with this question, decided to ask Scotsman George Gillespie to answer this question.

Of all the people in the Westminster Assembly, George Gillespie was the youngest!

Well, rather than jumping right into answering the question, Gillespie and the Westminster Divines took up the matter in prayer.  Here’s what Gillespie prayed:

“O God, thou art a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in thy being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth…”

Sounds like WSC 4/WLC 7, right?   I joke with my students that after Gillespie finished his prayer, the other men of the committee probably said something akin to “Dude, methinks he hath verily answered the question!”.   They tend to grin at this.

But I  try to encourage them on another point.   As I mentioned, Gillespie was the youngest member of the Westminster Assembly, but this alone was a great contribution, but he made others as well.    I tell them to not let their youth be a deterrent from serving God.   Obviously, Gillespie had to have a tremendous prayer life to be able to praise and worship God with such an elegant and thoughtful prayer.