Dæmonologia Sacra; or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations: In Three PartsGilpin, Richard
Religion
Dæmonologia Sacra; or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations: In Three Parts
Gilpin, Richard
Devil -- Early works to 1800; Temptation -- Early works to 1800
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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