JOHN, an eminent Baptist minister and Rabbinical scholar, was born at Kettering in 1697. In consequence of the limited means of his parents, he was compelled to educate himself. Nevertheless, he became an eminent scholar in all the branches of knowledge required for the elucidation of Scripture, to which he devoted much of his long and useful life. After receiving baptism according to the usual forms in Nov. 1716, he began to preach, and officiated at Higham Ferrers, as well as occasionally at his native place in Northamptonshire, until the beginning of 1719, when he became pastor of the Baptist congregation at Horselydown in Southwark, where he continued during fifty-one years. In 1728 he published his Exposition of the Song of Solomon, in which he strongly contends against Whiston for its authenticity. In the same year he published also The Prophecies of the Old Testament respecting the Messiah Considered. This work was intended to refute Collins' Scheme of Literal Prophecy. His Treatise on the Doctrine of the Trinity was issued in 1731; and in 1735 following years he published his Cause of God and Truth, in 4 vols. 8vo, containing a defence of the Calvinistic against the Arminian views on election, original sin, predetermination, &c. But his great work was an Exposition of the Bible, in 10 vols. 4to. For this he had formed a large collection of Hebrew and Rabbinical books and MSS., and spent many years in a careful study of them, at the same time reading and collating the Targums, the Mishna, and the Book of Zohar. Of this work, the New Testament appeared first, in 3 vols. folio, 1746–48, in which year he received the degree of D.D. from Marischal College, Aberdeen. The volumes on the Old Testament were published in succeeding years. He published in 1767 a Dissertation on the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language—Letters, Vowel Points, and Accents; and in the same year he collated the various passages of the Old Testament quoted in the Mishna, in the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds, and in the Rabbath; besides extracting the variations in them from the modern printed text, which he sent to Dr Kennicott, who very handsomely acknowledged the obligation in his work published in 1767. In 1769 Dr Gill's Body of Doctrinal Divinity was published, in 2 vols. 4to; and in 1770 a Body of Practical Divinity. The next year, 1771, October 14th, he died at his house in Camberwell.

a measure of capacity, containing a quarter of an English pint, or 8½65 cubic inches.