loss of the greatest Baptist theologian of the eighteenth century. One admirer expressed his grief in verse: What doleful tidings strike my list’ning ear, or wound the tender feelings of my heart? Must the bright star forever disappear? Must the great Man, the learned Gill depart? Zion may mourn, for grief becomes her well. To lose the man whose Heav’n instructed pen Taught knowledge clearly, while before him fell Gigantic errors of deluded men.2 John Gill was the first Baptist to develop a complete