which had been spent abroad in a varied intercourse with men, and a liberal-minded appreciation of different forms of religion. When we bring this fact into view, it is much more easy to understand the character of Leighton, and the peculiar part which he took in the religious troubles of his country.
He had no sooner settled at Newbattle than he distinguished himself by an assiduous and quiet devotion to the duties of his parish, rather than by the manifestation of any interest in the political distractions of the time. Burnet speaks with enthusiasm of his preaching. "His style," he says, "was rather too fine; but there was a majesty and beauty in it that left so deep an impression, that I cannot yet forget the sermons I heard him preach thirty years ago." he diligently visited the sick and the poor, and by "precept, example, and prayer," laboured to promote the pious well-being of his parishioners. "His own practice did even outshine his doctrines," Burnet adds. Of his ecclesiastical duties he was less careful. He did not very punctually attend his presbytery, and withdrew somewhat from the general society and interests of the clergy. There is a story preserved of this period of his life, which very well serves to illustrate his peculiar disposition. It was the practice of the presbyteries to inquire of their members whether they "preached to the times." Leighton was forced to confess that he had not done so, but excused himself by saying—"If all the brethren have preached to the times, may not one poor brother be allowed to preach for eternity?" Leighton continued his pastoral labours in the same spirit, not easily moved from his purposes with all the quiet gentleness of his temper. In 1648, on the outbreak of the second civil war and the duke of Hamilton's invasion of England, he joined what was called the party of the engagement in favour of the war; and on its disastrous termination he escaped with some difficulty the risks to which he had exposed himself in this one of the most doubtful acts of his life. The influence of the earl of Lothian, who greatly respected him, was probably interposed on his behalf, and the affair ended by his being called upon to rebuke those of his parishioners who had joined in the expedition. This very delicate duty he discharged in a characteristic manner. He set before them that they had been on an expedition in which they had been guilty of many offences—violence, drunkenness, and other immoralities, and called upon them to repent of all their wickedness, without making any allusion to the political character or ground of the war. After this, however, he seems to have felt his position at Newbattle uncomfortable. His want of sympathy with any of the extreme parties rendered ecclesiastical politics intolerable to him. He resolved—as later when in a far more conspicuous station—to retire from his position. He tendered his resignation of his charge in 1652. He was persuaded to remain for a time, but in the commencement of the following year he renewed his resignation, and was released from his ministerial charge in February, 1653.
The strong hand of Cromwell's soldiers was at this time uppermost in Scotland; and the general assembly having been violently dismissed by Colonel Cotterel in July, 1653, there was some abatement—publicly at least—of the incessant wranglings which had rent the church for some years. The government was desirous of placing men of moderate and enlightened principles in offices of trust, and Leighton was selected by the magistrates of Edinburgh to fill the office of principal in the university of that city. Leighton was "prevailed with to accept it, because he was wholly separated from all church matters." In this important position be continued till the Restoration. He discharged his duties as principal and primarius professor with the same earnest fidelity, and the same attention to moral rather than external interests, as had distinguished him at Newbattle, He delivered a theological lecture to the students once a week. and frequently preached to them in the college church. His "Prælectiones Theologicæ" have been preserved, and are in some respects among the most interesting of his works. It was their great aim, as he himself says in his farewell address to the students, "to direct their minds from those barren and thorny questions and disputes which have invaded the whole of theology. While other theologians and doctors by their fierce disputes had split into parties, and unhappily divided the whole world, he had applied himself only to those great indisputable and leading truths which are few and clear, and which have been received with general concurrence." Leighton, in short, takes credit for the peculiar character of his theological labours, which he felt to be in contrast with the theological spirit of his time. This spirit was almost everywhere one of contentious zeal; minute points were called into first importance, and argued as great principles. Both as a parish minister and as a theological teacher he opposed himself to this tendency of his time. He looked only at moral distinctions and christian verities, and left alone mere controversial subtleties. He stood aloof, in thought, from his age, while yet conspicuously mingled up with its great events in Scotland He suffered for this by frequent misrepresentations of his motives and character, and by a real loss of influence at the time, which a more practical and excitable nature would have secured to him; but he has gained on this very account in general esteem, and continues by his writings a christian light and influence now, when all his theological contemporaries in Scotland are forgotten.
On the restoration of Charles II., Leighton, it is well known, accepted the bishopric of Dunblane in the newly-instituted episcopacy which the royal party resolved once more to set up in Scotland. Nothing could be purer than the motives which actuated him in this step, but it proved, nevertheless, a great and unhappy mistake in his career. To one like Leighton, who regarded church government as in the main a matter of expediency, it can be no imputation that he became an episcopalian and accepted a bishopric. Some of the most distinguished of the English puritans did the same; and Baxter, although he declined to accept a bishopric, was quite disposed to accept a modified episcopacy, as, in Leighton's very words, "not contrary to the rule of scripture or the example of the primitive church," and as "likeliest to be the way of a more universal concord, if ever the churches on earth arrive at such a blessing." Leighton's mistake consisted in his want of discernment of the circumstances of Scotland, and the character of the men with whom he was to be associated. The task he and they undertook was probably in any case a hopeless one, after what had passed; but it was obviously and wickedly desperate in the hands of men like Sharpe and Lauderdale. It was through his brother. Sir Elisha Leighton, who had secretly espoused popery and become secretary to the duke of York, that the offer of a bishopric was made to him. As soon as he was thought of the king and all concerned seem to have been deeply sensible of what advantage it would be to have his name and character identified with their cause, and the proposal was urgently pressed upon him. In a letter on the subject to a friend in Scotland, he says that he had "the strongest aversion to the proposal that ever he had to anything in all his life; but the difficulty lay in a necessity of either owning a scruple which I have not, or the rudest disobedience to authority that may be. The truth is," he adds, "I am importuning and struggling for a liberation, and look upwards for it; but whatever be the issue I look beyond it and that weary, wretched life through which the hand I have resigned to, I trust, will lead me in the paths of his own choosing." Sharpe and Leighton, the former not without some grumbling, submitted to reordination as priests, and were then, along with Fairfoul and Hamilton, publicly consecrated in Westminster abbey on the 15th of December, 1561. They returned to Scotland together; but as Leighton stated to Burnet afterwards, he believed that his associates were weary of him, as he was very weary of them. He had wished to discuss seriously the state of the country and the prospects of a religious settlement, but he found them little disposed to any serious business. Fairfoul had always "a merry tale ready at hand to divert him;" and Sharpe seemed bent only on coercion. "By these means," adds Burnet, "Leighton quickly lost all heart and hope; and said often to me upon it, that in the progress of that affair there appeared such cross characters of an angry providence 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." Sharpe's dissimulation and Middleton's impiety were indeed base enough instruments to "cast a reproach" on any cause. Leighton parted with his companions at Morpeth, when he understood that they meant to enter Edinburgh in triumph. He betook himself to his episcopal duties with the quiet and unostentatious earnestness characteristic of him. So far as he engaged in public affairs he advocated moderation. A question arose as to the interpretation of the oath of allegiance, and he strongly urged the propriety of an explanatory act which would enable
