[5] Gray was born in a house still standing on the north side of the Lawnmarket, Edinburgh, in August 1633 (bap.
His mother was Geils or Egidia Smyth, sister to Sir John Smith of Grothill, provost of Edinburgh from 1643 to 1646.
[3][6][4] Andrew in his childhood was playful and fond of pleasure; but while he was quite young his thoughts were suddenly given a serious turn by reflecting on the piety of a beggar whom he met near Leith.
[4] He was licensed to preach in 1653, and was ordained to the collegiate charge of the Outer High Church of Glasgow on 3 November 1653, although only in his twenty-first year, notwithstanding some remonstrance.
[7] One of the remonstrants, Robert Baillie, refers in his Letters and Journals to the 'high flown, rhetorical style' of the youthful preacher, and describes his ordination as taking place 'over the belly of the town's protestation.
[9] His ministry proved eminently successful, and although only of three years' duration, in the profound impression produced during his lifetime, and the sustained popularity of his published works, Gray had few rivals in the Scottish church.
Andrew Gray died after a brief illness, of a 'purple' fever, and was interred in Blackadder's or St. Fergus's Aisle, Glasgow Cathedral.
[5][4] Many of Gray's sermons and communion addresses were taken down at the time of delivery, chiefly in shorthand by his wife, and were published posthumously.
From the 1746 volume was reissued separately, with a Gaelic translation by J. Gillies (Glasgow, 1851, 12mo), the sermon on Canticles iii.