Not long after this, so great was his reputation for talents, learning and piety, that he was chosen principal of the university of Edinburgh. This responsible post he filled till 1662. Bishop Burnet says of him: "He had generally the reputation of a saint, and of something above human nature in him. So the mastership of the college in Edinburgh falling vacant, and it being in the gift of the city, he was prevailed with to accept of it, because in it he was wholly separated from all church matters. He continued ten years in that post, and was a great blessing in it," etc. In 1662 he received bishop's orders in the established church of England, and together with several other bishops, was appointed by the king to attempt the establishment of episcopacy in Scotland. He consented to receive the appointment, and to act under it, not from any motives of ambition, but from a pure sense of duty; and with the hope of doing good by setting an example, on the court side, of kindness and concession. His see was that of Dunblane in Perthshire, one of the least important in the country, and was selected by himself on that account. In relation to his acceptance of this appointment he said: "One comfort I have, that in what is pressed on me, there is the least of my own choice; yea, on the contrary, the strongest aversion, that ever I had to any thing in all my life. I undergo it, if it must be, as a mortification, and that, greater than a cell and haircloth." But after entering on the duties of his new station, thus reluctantly accepted, he found that so few of his compeers in office, were governed by his unaspiring aims, and his spirit of conciliation and kindness, and that the difficulties on all sides, in the way of adjusting matters amicably, between the episcopal or court party, and the presbyterians, were so utterly insurmountable, that he adopted the resolution to resign his ecclesiastical preferments, and retire again from "that sphere of stormy greatness, wherein his apostolic virtues gilded the gloom, which it exceeded even their influence to dispel." He accordingly assembled his clergy, and after stating to them in an affecting manner, the reasons of the step he was about to take, he bade them a solemn farewell, and went to London to resign his trust into the hands of his sovereign. But in his interview with the king, he was persuaded to defer his intention of retiring for the present, and to make new efforts to heal the wounds, under which, through unhallowed contention, the cause of religion was then bleeding. In 1669, Leighton was appointed archbishop of Glasgow, and again made further efforts in the cause of peace. In 1670 he held repeated conferences with the leaders of the presbyterian party, in which various propositions, by way of compromise, and with a view to peace, were presented and discussed. The last meeting was at the house of Lord Rothes; and there the final answer was returned by Hutcheson, in the name of his brethren, we are not

free in conscience to close with the propositions made by the bishop of Dunblane as satisfactory." Leighton now justly concluded, that he could do no good on either side. Each party was resolved to triumph, and neither desired peace on solid and reasonable grounds. Not long after, he went to London, and gave back into the hands of his sovereign, all the public honors with which he had invested him. He then retired almost wholly from the world, living at first in the college of Edinburgh, and afterwards with a relative in Sussex in England. In 1684 all his earthly labors were closed, and he went to his reward, at the advanced age of seventythree, and ripe for glory. Such is an outline of the life of one of the most pure minded men, probably, that ever lived.

The biography of Leighton, prefixed to this volume, is very beautifully written. Mr. Cheever has caught the spirit of his subject; and writes under the influence of strong and almost enthusiastic admiration. He was justified in such feelings, for Leighton's was a lovely spirit. His piety was so chastised from every thing harsh and dogmatical; was so sweet, so benignant, so beautiful, that no man, possessed of good taste and deep piety himself, can fail to admire it. The mind is refreshed, soothed, delighted, at every step, as we wander among the pages of Leighton; and there is not a little of a kindred spirit in Mr. Cheever's description of this sweet and heavenly writer. We cannot refrain from giving to our readers a paragraph or two, as a specimen of his style. Speaking of Leighton's eminent holiness, in its influence on his intellect and writings, Mr. Cheever says,

If there be one quality which characterizes him, it is depth and majesty of thought; it would be severe, but the influence of his piety invests it with a sweet moral radiance, making it mild and attractive. It would fill the reader with awe; but there is present a glory of a nature so much purer and more celestial, that the intellectual grandeur of these volumes is merged and lost in the transcendent splendor of that holy spiritual light. The presence of Jesus transfigures his conceptions with such divine effulgence, that the power of his intellect is forgotten. p. 43. Again, speaking of Leighton's style, he says,

His style is pure, unelaborate English. It is a fountain of genuine, native idioms. His pages sparkle with expressions, which, without degenerating into tameness, possess a delightful colloquial simplicity. There is more of the Saxon part of our language, than of words of other origin. His words are indeed perfectly unexampled in that age for simplicity and purity; and they seem to arrange themselves as self-intelligent, in the easiest and most unpremeditated forms, like dew imperceptibly descending on the mown grass. His style glides along like a placid river, "winding at his own sweet will," amidst luxuriant landscapes, dotted with white cottages, shining through trees, and abundant VOL. V.

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in all images of purity and contentedness. It is peculiarly marked, neither by the vivacity of Baxter, nor the Greek-like profundity of Howe, nor the regularity of Bates, nor the profuse magnificence of Jeremy Taylor, nor the synonymous redundancy of Barrow; but it possesses a mingled melody, simplicity, and richness, superior to either of these writers. It is read with greater ease, and a more continuous feeling of delight.

His illustrations are inimitably beautiful, and he throws them off with surprizing fertility. They give such clearness to the thought, at the same time admitting the rich light of a fine imagination to stream upon it, that what was before but an intellectual abstraction, receives, as it were, an instantaneous creation, and becomes a thing of sensible life and beauty; as if one of the invisible spirits, passing by in the air, should on a sudden assume a bodily shape of glory to the eye. His figures detain and fix, for the mind's inspection, the subtle shades of thought, and finish and shape those timid, half-disclosed spiritual appearances, that else, as they come to the vision like birds of Paradise, would fly away as quickly. It is as if the restless clouds, with all the evanescent beauty of their deepening and changing hues at sunset, should hear a voice, and remain for hours, motionless and the same, in extreme stillness to the sight. pp. 45-47.

Again, speaking of the effect which such writings as those of Leighton would produce, if read, on the minds of those who ought to read them, at the present day.

It is grievous that with such examples of holy living, and such food for piety in the heart, given us not only in the bible, but in the writings of men, whose minds were baptized and thoroughly interpenetrated by its spirit, our christian attainments should be so lean. The truth is, we use these means too much for delight, instead of improvement. We love the heavenly feeling induced by the perusal of Leighton, but we do not, when we have done reading him, employ the happy frame, and pour out its fulness in prayer. Would we only seize the intervals of softened thought and energetic purpose, the intervals of clear vision into eternity, which visit us when we read the lives and writings of such holy men, and which besides, in the movements of the wonder-working Spirit, come to us, often unaccountably, like an unexpected breeze from paradise, and make use of them by praying at the time, with the power and fervency which such a state of mind enkindles, we should soon become eminent christians. We are not watchful to obey those gentle impulses with which God draws us to himself; there is some excuse or other; we are not ready now for the work of advancing in holiness which was the all-consecrating purpose of existence in Leighton's bosom. That definite aim, which he lamented was so little prevalent, was in him like a passion, which overpowers and masters all other considerations, and binds them to his service. "It is wonderful," said Foster, "how even the apparent casualties of life seem to bow to a spirit that will not bow to them, and yield to assist a design, after having in vain endeavored to frustrate it." In the formation of christian cha

racter we need that holy energy and decision, which, instead of being governed by external circumstances, governs them, and makes them religious servitors, to feed the sacred fire that burns in the bosom. The christian who does not watch, leaves himself a sport for all the casual influences that from every side can pour in upon his soul; he is taken along by successive events in his progress to eternity, and, as it were, handed forward in quiet passiveness from one to the other, till the last brings him, perhaps without warning, to the bar of God. pp. 48, 49.

This certainly is beautiful writing, and as just as it is beautiful. The works of Leighton are somewhat voluminous. The book before us contains but a part of them, being a single octavo volume, of five hundred and seventy pages. It professes to give, "not a mere compilation of his beauties," "nor a meager list of scattered extracts," but a selection, in regular order, from his complete works. It is made up of portions of his Commentary on Peter, his Sermons, and his Lectures; the former occupying about one half of the volume. The whole taken together, affords a rich entertainment, to a mind which is prepared to relish its beauties, and to appreciate its sweet tone of piety.

The writings of Leighton indicate a mind singularly weaned from the world, and attempered to a purer region. The great objects of eternity were vivid realities to him: he lived as one whose eye was continually fixed upon the future. Especially was his communion with God intimate and childlike. This gave a cast to his

manner of writing: it tinged and marked every thing which came from his pen, his most familiar letters, as well as his graver and more formal expositions of divine truth. To this was added uncommon depth of feeling. His soul was finely strung, and yet there was no sickliness of sentiment about him. His was a correct and elevated sensibility, under the direction of a powerful intellect and a singularly chastised and delicate taste. In many passages there is a perfect charm, owing to this fact; you see the deep fountains of feeling within him stirred, and yet sending forth only sweet and pure waters. Nothing turbid, nothing bitter, nothing violent, appears on his pages. And yet he had much to awaken emotions of this sort within him; for his public life was passed in one perpetual storm. When he came upon the stage, causes were at work, on every side, to poison and embitter the pure fountains of feeling in his soul, and to make him a fierce and bloody partizan in religion, rather than a meek and humble disciple of Christ. The elevated sphere, which he was afterwards called to fill, only placed him on a higher eminence amid the fury of the storm. But, through it all, his own soul was preserved full of calm, sweet, heavenly affections. Under the influence of these affections he always wrote and acted.

His writings are also distinguished by a remarkably scriptural

cast of thought and manner. In reading his Commentary on Peter, and his Meditations on the Psalms, we have been particularly struck with this fact. There is something in the whole tone of his religious thinking, which resembles strongly the free, unguarded, and beautiful simplicity of the sacred writers. These writers he had studied much. He had studied them as a learner, and not as a mere theologian; and the eminent purity of his own soul, prepared him to receive from them a deep impression, corresponding to their peculiar spirit and manner. This impression is every where apparent as you turn over his pages.

As a divine and a christian, nothing had a more decisive influence, in forming the character of Leighton, than his views of the doctrine of justification by faith. This was the foundation stone, not of his creed only, but of his character. It was this great truth, which gave to his piety, and to the whole turn of his mind as a religious man, its most interesting peculiarity. You see continually, the plastic influence of this doctrine upon his heart. Every where in his prayers, you see the Redeemer, as the " Lord his righteousness and strength," brought into view, and honored, as the last and only hope of his soul, for justification before God. The entire cast of his piety was formed on this foundation, and of course he was humble. His opinion of himself was just such, as the doctrine above referred to, when received as a fact rather than as an abstract truth, never fails to produce. It laid him low in the dust, where it lays every man who truly embraces it.

In his more distinctive theological views, he was a Calvinist. He held the great doctrines of the gospel, as Calvinistic divines have always held them; and abundantly insisted on them, in all the situations which he filled, as minister at Newbottle, as president of the college, as bishop of Dunblane, and as archbishop of Glasgow. He continued to hold them, when, resigning all his preferments, he returned again to private life, and was called from his labors on earth. And he not only held them, but he loved and lived upon them; they were the food of his soul. The decrees of God, as extending to all events; man's entire depravity by nature; regeneration through the distinguishing influence of the Spirit; eternal election to the enjoyment of this influence; perseverance in holiness to the end; these and kindred doctrines appear every where in his writings, not so much in guarded and formal statements, as in indirect and incidental notices; but not the less, on that account, evincing the place which they held in his heart. His theology was eminently the theology of the bible; and it was Calvinism only as Calvinism is the theology of the word of God.

As a christian, he had no narrow views, nor was he ever satisfied with the prevalence of a sectarian piety. He looked upon christianity as one great and glorious cause, depending for its basis