Rule was born about 1629, probably in Edinburgh, where his brother, Archibald, was one of the bailies.The Dictionary of National Biography gives Archibald's occupation as a merchant and a magistrate. Hew Scott states that it is "not unlikely" that his father was George Rule, minister at Longformacus, and his mother Anna Johnston. After a distinguished career at the University of Glasgow, where he was regent, he became, Sub-Principal of King's College, Aberdeen, in 1651.
In Northumberland
From Aberdeen he went to Alnwick to be minister of a Dissenting congregation. After the Restoration he was much molested by local authorities, who tried to force upon him the use of the English Prayer Book. About 1656 he became perpetual curate of Alnwick, Northumberland. At the Restoration Major Orde, one of the churchwardens, provided a prayer-book. Rule, however, preached against its use, whereupon Orde indicted him at the Newcastle assizes for depraving the common prayer. Before the trial Orde lost his life by a fall from his horse at Ovingham, Northumberland, and, in the absence of a prosecutor, Rule was acquitted.
Flight abroad
In 1662 he was ejected under the Bartholomew Act. He returned to Scotland, preached for a time in Fife, but incurring the displeasure of the Privy Council, fled to France and Holland. He took the degree of M.D. at Leyden, graduating in 1665, and practised medicine. In 1672, along with his brother Robert, Rule travelled to Derry, where Robert was installed as minister until 1688. The First Derry Presbyterian Church records say:
On the East Coast
In 1679 he was in Berwick-on-Tweed, where he was engaged both as a minister and a doctor. He practised with great success at Berwick, preaching at the same time in conventicles, often at much peril. At Linton Bridge, near Prestonkirk, Haddingtonshire, Charles Hamilton, 5th Earl of Haddington, fitted up for him a meeting-house, which was indulged by the privy council on 18 December 1679. Next year, while visiting his niece, Mrs. Kennedy, in Edinburgh, he baptised her child in St. Giles's Church, after preaching a weekday lecture there, on the invitation of the minister, Archibald Turner, the Episcopal minister. For this offence Rule was brought before the privy council, and imprisoned on the Bass Rock. His health failed, and he was at length discharged, under a bond of five thousand merks to quit the kingdom within eight days. He returned to Berwick, where he evaded arrest by keeping on the English side of the Tweed.
In Dublin
Gilbert served as minister to the presbyterian congregation of Wood Street Church, Dublin from 1682 until 1687, as a colleague of Daniel Williams. At the revolution he became one of the ministers of Greyfriars Kirk.
Returning to Scotland, he received a call on 7 December 1688 to the ministry of Greyfriars church, Edinburgh. This was confirmed by the town council on 24 July 1689. Rule in the meantime had been in London, to forward the presbyterian interest, and had gained the special notice of William III. In 1690 he was appointed by the privy council one of the commissioners for purging Edinburgh University, and on the expulsion, in September 1690, of the principal, Alexander Monro, Rule, while retaining his ministerial charge, was made principal by the town council. His predecessor as Principal, Dr Alexander Monro had been ejected for not taking the oath of allegiance to William and Mary, and wrote a work in defence of his faith called "An Enquiry into the New Opinions Propagated by the Presbyterians of Scotland; Together with some Animadversoins on a Late Book entitled 'A defense of the Vindications of the Kirk'; in a Letter to a Friend at Edinburgh". This prompted Gilbert Rule to respond with a book called "The Good Old Way Defended". He came under personal attack for defending Presbyterian principles. Engaging usually in study till a late hour, he was termed "the Evening Star", and was distinguished for great learning, piety, candour, and moderation. He retained both jobs till his death. He died on 7 June 1701, at the age of seventy-two, and is buried in Greyfriars Churchyard.
Family Life
He got married on 4 February 1655 to Janet Turnbull, and had children — Gilbert, M.D.; Andrew, advocate, died December 1708; Alexander, Professor of Hebrew in Edinburgh University 1694-1702; Rachel; Janet.
