"He was a pleasant and facetious man, insinuating and crafty; but he was a better physician than a divine. His life was scarce free from scandal; and he was eminent in nothing that belonged to his own function. He had not only sworn the covenant, but had persuaded others to do it. And when one objected to him that it went against his conscience, he could not be chewed, but were to be swallowed down; and since it was plain

answered there were some medicines that

that a man could not live in Scotland unless he sware it, therefore it must be swallowed down without any farther examination.".

Of Hamilton, he says, that

"He was a good natured man, but weak. He was always believed episcopal. Yet he had so far complied in the time of the covenant, that he affected a peculiar expression of his counterfeit zeal for their cause, to secure himself from suspicion; when he gave the sacrament, he excommunicated all that were not true to the covenant, using a form in the Old Testament of shaking out the lap of his gown saying, so did he cast out of the church and communion all that dealt falsely in the covenant.'

Of the other bishops, Burnet says -after speaking in exalted terms of two episcopal ministers, Nairn and Charteris-that their deportment was in all points so different from what became their function, that he had a more than ordinary zeal kindled within him in regard to it.

"They were not only furious against all that stood out against them, but were very remiss in all parts of their function. Some did not live within their dioceses;

and those who did seemed to have no care of them. They showed no zeal against vice; the most eminently wicked in the county were their particular confidents; they took no pains to keep their clergy

strictly to rules and to their duty. On carnal way of living about them that very the contrary, there was a levity and a

much scandalized me. There was indeed one Scougal, bishop of Aberdeen, that was a man of rare temper, great piety and prudence; but I thought he was too much under Sharp's conduct, and was at least too easy to him."

Of his namesake, Burnet, archbishop of Glasgow, he speaks more than once as being particularly cruel, although naturally a soft, goodnatured man, and inclined to moderate counsels. After the defeat of the Cameronians at Pentland Hill, this man 66 advised the hanging of

all those who would not renounce the covenant and promise to conform to the laws for the future ;" and shortly after, with a letter in his pocket from the king in which his majesty thought that blood enough had been shed, he let an execution go on before producing the document. Another of these dignitaries, Ross, Burnet calls "a poor, ignorant, worthless man, but in whom obedience and fury were so eminent that they supplied all other defects;" and he says that Ross and Paterson in the time of James II,

procured an address to be signed by several of their bench, offering to concur with the king in all that he desired with relation to those of his own religion, (for the courtly style now was not to name popery any other way than by calling it the king's religion,) provided the laws might still continue in force and be executed against the Presbyterians." Of Paterson, after the revolution, he says that great pains were taken by him "to persuade the Jacobites to take the oaths, but on design to break them; for he thought by that means they could have a majority in parliament.' To some of the ordinary clergy he gives a better character, but even of them he speaks in such terms as the fol lowing:

"The new incumbents who were put in the places of the ejected ministers,

were generally very mean and despicable in all respects. They were the worst preachers I ever heard; they were ignorant to a reproach; and many of them were openly vicious. They were a disgrace to their orders and the sacred functions, and were indeed the dreg and refuse of the northern parts. Those of them who rose above contempt or scandal, were men of such violent tempers that they were as much hated as the others were despised."

And with regard to those who filled the vacancies in the west, we have this passage:

"Sir Robert Murray went through the west of Scotland. When he came back, he told me the clergy were such a set of men, so ignorant and so scandalous, that it was not possible to support them, unless the greatest part of them could be turned out, and better men found to put in their places."

Such were the clerical helpers of Leighton, according to one of themselves, and if we deduct one half from Burnet's testimony, on account of the opposition to the reigning measures in Scotland, into which his moderate and tolerant principles led him, the other half surely is far more than enough to show that they were unfit company for Leighton. Let us now look for a moment at the laymen enlisted in the same cause. First in order comes the Earl of Middleton, the king's first commissioner, who with his intimates was drunk a considerable part of the time, and whose cruel and rapacious violations of justice, were almost without parallel. He was supplanted by Lauderdale, who was origin ally a friend to the Presbyterians and to tolerant counsels, but was led by his sensuality, resentment, and servility to the court, into the worst of measures. The Earl of Rothes, was another of the principal members of the administration. He too degenerated until he stuck at nothing. Sharp said of him to Burnet, "that it was a great happiness to have to deal with sober and serious men; for Lord Rothes and his crew were perpetually drunk." We have somewhere seen the anecVol. III.

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dote that this nobleman, when upbraided for his vices, replied that the king's representative ought to represent him in all respects. We might go on to speak of others, as the lawyers Primrose and Fletcher, who kept cruelty as much as possisible within the lines of technical justice; of the military bloodhounds, such as Gen. Dalziell and Sir James Turner, whose ferocity exceeded belief; of the administrations subsequent to that of Lauderdale's, which in some respects surpassed the preceding in severity of laws. But what we have said is enough to give a sample of the character of the leaders in this movement, which is our object rather than to enter into the scenes of misgovernment and persecution.

Such men of course wished for Leighton's concurrence only that his piety might reflect honor upon their party: they had no idea of asking or following the advice of a simple hearted and good man like him. He on his part, soon began to find out that he was in strange company. The feasting and jollity upon the day of his consecration at Westminister, displeased him; it did not look like the remodeling of a church. He had in his mind a plan of union with the Presbyterians, and another plan to promote a higher degree of piety than had before existed. But when he talked of these subjects to Sharp, he found him unwilling to listen; when he turned to Fairfoul he heard nothing from him but merry stories. He soon, therefore, lost all hope, and once told Burnet "that how fully soever he was satisfied in his own mind as to Episcopacy itself, yet it seemed that God was against them, and that they were not like to be the men that should build up his church, so that the struggling about it seemed to him like fighting against God." Leighton went with his colleagues to Scotland, but left them before arriving at Edinburgh in or

der to avoid the intended pomp of their reception. He had chosen for his own the small see of Dunblane, and kept himself very much within his province, declining all honors and titles, as far as possible, and studying to imitate the best bishops of the early church. He seldom was in his place at the parliament unless it were to vote against violent measures. Twice he went to London by the persuasion of his friends in order to give the king a fair account of the counsels prevailing in Scotland. He said that they "were so violent that he could not concur in the planting the Christian religion itself in such a manner, much less a form of government." Although there were no persecutions in his own diocese, yet his love of retirement, and a feeling of shame at being remotely a partaker in other men's sins, made him desirous of giving up his bishopric and breaking off all official connexion with such a party. This, however, was not as yet effected. He continued in the diocese of Dunblane from 1662 to 1669. His addresses to the clergy whom he superintended are still preserved, and breathe the same spirit of piety and peace which is so manifest in his other works. In October, 1665, he tells them "of the resolution he had taken of retiring from this public charge; and that all the account he could give of the reasons moving him to it, was briefly this; the sense he had of his own unworthiness of so high a station in the church, and his weariness of the contentions of this church, which seemed rather to be growing than abating." Of the first reason it is not wrong to say that he should have let it influence him, if at all, be fore he entered the office. He is earnest for a strictness of discipline, which no hierarchical church has ever adopted, at least in modern times. He speaks in 1667" of the gross and almost incredible ignorance of the common sort, under so

much preaching and catechising,"how great a contrast with what Burnet says concerning the religious knowledge of the Presbyterians in the west.

In 1669, on the deposal of Alexander Burnet, Leighton, much against his will, was appointed archbishop of Glasgow. He continued to hold this dignity until 1674, when he retired forever from public life. His activity in this new station consisted chiefly in efforts to bring the Presbyterians to terms, and for this purpose he was willing to conform the established church as nearly as possible to the model of the kirk : although the order of bishops was still to be retained, yet they were to act only in the capacity of presidents of church judicatories; and ministers opposed to the order might declare that they submitted only for the sake of peace. Long and wearisome were his efforts to reconcile parties. In concert with some other moderate men he procured, indeed, meetings to be held, and made advances towards union; but all persuasions were only idle wind to the Presbyterians. Nor can we blame them for this. For had they felt it right to make a compromise at all, how could they trust such men as they had to deal with, or be sure that Leighton would not be duped by his own partners. They might well say, 'timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.' Men whose dealings with them at one time were by means of thumb-screws, and bands of ruffianly soldiers, and at another of the olive branch of peace, could not be sincere. They were sure that ulterior measures were contemplated somewhere or other, if not by Leighton, at Edinburgh, if not there, at London. Episcopacy, though it had come into Scotland with blood, had put but one foot upon the soil. It was as yet very much without a form of prayer, without surplices, without godparents and the cross in baptism, without holidays, without re-ordination. But

those cunning Presbyterians well knew what it had done in the times of their fathers, how it took an ell when they gave it an inch. They knew the king's supremacy and faithlessness, they knew the parliament's compliance and venality. They knew that the English would not be satisfied without a greater conformity than existed, and that policy alone prevented the leaders of the predominant party from carrying their measures farther. Will it seem strange then, above all when we think of their Scotch stiffness and great love for their kirk, that they felt it necessary to make a stand at first, if they would not abandon a cause so dear to their hearts? There was one answer which the Presbyterians had ready to meet the force of every argument and entreaty. It would be a breach of the covenant if they conformed. To meet this plea Leighton, at some time or other, probably soon after the resto ration, wrote a short paper,* which appears among his works. His method of handling the subject, discovers much candor, but we think, some simplicity also. He allows to tender consciences, nearly the very ground they wished, and then at considerable odds, attempts to dis lodge them from their position. His first argument is that the English who took the covenant, did not understand it to be opposed to all kinds of episcopacy. This was to a great extent true; but he owns that most of the Scotch, both ministers and people, did understand it "as against all episcopacy whatever, even the most moderate." Must they not then keep their promise in the sense attached to it in their own country by imposers and promisers? "And are there not deans, chapters and commissaries in the new church ?” asks a Scotchman, "which are expressly abjured in the covenant?" True,

This piece also appears as a letter at the end of Mr. Pearson's life, together with a shorter one to the same effect.

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says Leighton, but the covenanters never considered how different the nature and model of a thing might be under the same name. Why not alter the names then," might a Scotchman reply; so easy a thing may remove a part of our scruples. Are the names worth fire and sword?" But says Leighton, "that this difference should arise to a great height, may seem somewhat strange to a man that calmly considers that there is in this church, no change at all, neither in doctrine nor worship, no, nor in the substance of the discipline itself." Why then make so much ado about the matter," rejoins the other party. "Besides who guaranties that we have reached the end of the changes.'

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In this paper he exclaims "who would not long for the shadows of the evening, and to be at rest from all these poor, childish, trifling contests." The evening of his fruitless work in Scotland at length came; and never did a servant more earnestly welcome the shadow, never did a bird escape more gladly from the fowler's snare, than did this man of peace and love from the men and the scenes of strife. My soul hath long dwelt," he could say, "with him that hateth peace." Now his enlargement has come, he flies to a retirement among his relatives in England, and there divides his time between studious meditation upon heavenly things, and preaching and praying in the parishes round about. All he had, it is recorded, was distributed in charities by the hands of others. His friend Burnet had come to London to live, and occasionally saw him. He spoke to Burnet of popery, when he perceived an intention of bringing it in, with more zeal than seemed to be in his nature with relation to any points of controversy. "He looked also on the church of England with melancholy reflections, and was very uneasy at an expression then much used, that it was the best constituted church in

the world. He thought it was truly so in relation to the doctrine, the worship, and the main part of our government. But as to the administration, both with relation to the ecclesiastical courts, and the pastoral care, he looked on it as one of the most corrupt he had ever seen. He thought we looked like a fair carcass of a body without a spirit; without that zeal that strictness of life and that laboriousness of the clergy that became us."

After ten years of retirement he received the message 66 come up hither." He died, as he had wished to die, at an inn. The pleurisy which caused his death, was taken on a journey of mercy to London. At Burnet's urgent entreaty he went to the metropolis to try what effect his expostulations might have upon a young nobleman, who had been a promising pupil under Burnet," but was now engaged in the foulest and blackest of crimes." To Lord Perth the journey was unprofitable, and he turned Catholic not long after to please James II. But to Leighton it unlocked the prison doors of the body, and brought the message of everlasting peace.

The life of this eminent Christian suggests two reflections with which we will close our remarks. And one is that it is a serious thing to change our church, a thing certainly which nothing but plain duty ought to require of us, and against the lawfulness of which there is ever a strong presumption. What did Leighton, acting right as he judged, gain for himself? To escape from jars and wrangling he fell into hotter disputes, until he deemed his usefulness at an end and withdrew from active life. What did he gain for the cause of religion? When his conscience did not render continuance in the kirk unlawful, he left it and thereby gave his aid, unwillingly 'tis true, but actually, to the most lamentable persecution that ever existed of one Protestant com

munion by another, in which more than eighteen thousand persons are said to have suffered death, exile or imprisonment. Had he and the truly good men who acted with him stood wholly aloof, it is by no means certain that the bad men would have dared to move a step forwards. The church of Christ is wider than the bounds of a denomination. What then? shall we break old ties and go to some other Christian sect, because taste or a slight offense or we know not what whim calls us to do so? No more than break away from old friends, and an old home for the same reason; and he who does so gives reason to fear that he has neither the home feelings nor a capacity for friendship. But the church of Christ is wider than the bounds of a denomination. What then? If we go where no branch of our denomination exists, and where the means of building us up in the faith, are lodged in the hands of other Christians, must we try to build up our denomination? Nay, that would be worse than going off ourselves. For in this case we produce a schism where before our arrival all were united.

But lastly we see from the history of Leighton's time, that if men will wrangle, on them falls the guilt of alienating the sons of peace, and of making men long to escape from their enclosure. It is true there is a weak desire of peace in some minds, and there is a cowardly policy which would smother discord at the expense of truth. But there is also in too many others a zeal for their own way, which they call the love of truth, but which their ill temper shows not to be love in truth. This spirit, all will at once condemn when it leads those to form separate organizations, who would be puzzled to tell how they differ from their brethren. But the evil of it, when it causes others to detach themselves from the body where the strife prevails, is not so much per