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- Fifth and youngest child of William McGill (senior), and Jean Heron
Of his family of eight children only three survived, one of whom it had been found necessary to place in a lunatic asylum.
The son of William McGill, who farmed in Wigtonshire, the Reverend McGill was educated at Glasgow University, licensed to preach in 1759, and appointed assistant to the minister of Kilwinning. He was ordained to the second charge of Ayr in 1760 and received a doctorate of divinity from Glasgow in 1785. He was a friend of old William Burnes. Father and son both approved of his New Licht doctrines.
McGill, however, was a timid man for all his liberality, 'a mixture of simplicity and stoicism'. When his essay, The Death of Jesus Christ, published in 1786, was denounced as heterodox by Dr William Peebles of Newton-on-Ayr, McGill published a defence, The Benefits of the Revolution, in 1789. The charge was that, while receiving the privileges of the Church, he was at the same time plunging a dagger into her heart. In May 1789, the General Assembly ordered an inquiry into the affair. The Ayr magistrates published in the press their appreciation of McGill's services. McGill brought the proceedings to a close by offering an apology to the court, and the case was dropped.
An explanation of the timidity of one called by Mrs Dunlop 'a poor little white rabbit', is to be found in the letter Burns wrote to Graham of Fintry, in December 1789:
In the late 1780s there arose a theological controversy in Ayrshire, centred around the Rev William McGill (1732-1807), the associate minister to William Dalrymple (1723-1814) of the Old Kirk in Ayr. McGill was principally accused of holding 'Socinian' views, particularly in his Practical Essay on the Death of Jesus Christ (1786) which were at odds with the accepted standards of his church, a church which still retained a mainly Calvinistic outlook in the period. The Aim of this thesis Within this thesis I will attempt to place McGill firmly within the context of his day. This will be done by offering a picture of the Scottish, English and Irish ecclesiastical scene, with particular reference to Scotland, in which the Ayr minister was working. Further consideration will be given to the impact of the Enlightenment, as well as the American and French Revolutions, in the latter part of the century. The response of the various churches in Britain to these events are of particular importance for McGill's career as, in his final published work On the fear of God (Ayr, 1795), the theological 'radical' emerges as a political conservative. What has perhaps been lacking in previous assessments of McGill is a study of the full range of influences which drove the Ayr minister's theology. By utilising the evidence offered by the 'Ayr Library Society' (which held the works of noted English Socinians) of which McGill, along with Dalrymple, was a founder member in 1762, I will attempt to trace some of the main sources for McGill's later thought. Of key significance is the holding of works by the Society of several leading English Socinians. Although speculative (as McGill does not directly cite these works), based on the evidence there does appear to be parallels between McGill's work and that of the English theologians. I will also assess, in addition to considering why McGill's work proved contentious, the reasons for his 'apology', following the case. Additionally it will be important to re-examine the overall effect of the case, in order to fully appreciate the significance of McGill for the wider Scottish churches of his day.
'I think you must have heard of Dr McGill, one of the clergymen of Ayr, and his heretical book. God help him, poor man ! though he is one of the worthiest as well as one of the ablest, of the whole priesthood of the Kirk of Scotland, in every sense of that ambiguous term, yet for the blasphemous heresies of squaring Religion by the rules of Common Sense, and attempting to give a decent character to Almighty God and a rational account of his proceedings with the Sons of Men, the poor Doctor and his numerous family are in imminent danger of being thrown out to the mercy of the winter winds.'
To John Logan, 7th August 1789, Burns had written: 'If I could be of any service to Dr McGill, I would do it though it should be at a much greater expence than irritating a few bigotted Priests.'
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