pious men which are conformable to Scripture, and which may be helpful to you; among which I mention that little book, Of the Imitation of Christ; for "the sum of religion is to imitate Him whom you worship."2 May our dearest Jesus imprint upon your hearts a living image of His own immaculate, meek, and lowly heart, by which, in that last great day, He may both recognise you as His own, and, together with all His redeemed and sealed ones, receive you into the mansions of the blessed. Amen. Let us pray. Eternal Maker and Ruler of the world,3 praise 1 De Imitatione Christi, a life-long favourite of Leighton; of which he had many editions, in different languages. 2 Summa religionis est imitari quem colis-a saying of Pythagoras. Vide antea. 3 Æterne rerum Conditor et Rex, evidently from the Cockcrow Hymn of Ambrose (A.D. 340-397), of which the first stanza runs Eterne rerum Conditor Noctem diemque qui regis, Et temporum das tempora Dr. Hamilton Macgill has a fine translation in his Songs of the Christian Creed and Life, London, 1879 Eternal God, who built the sky, waiteth for Thee in Sion; yet as Thou art infinitely greater than all hymns of praise, silence 2 is praise to Thee in Sion. The angelic choirs can praise Thee better in their songs, but let us in silence and wonder fall down at the footstool of Thy throne, while they repeat that, their continual cry: Holy, Holy, Holy, God of hosts, who filleth heaven and earth with His glory!3 But O that we had within us the faculty of setting forth that most holy NAME! that Name which, according to their measure, all things of this visible world which surround us celebrate, the heavens and the stars, the winds and the rivers, the earth and the ocean, and every kind of living creatures. Surely Thou hast put within us souls and faculties suited for such employment, above all these other creatures, whereby we are able to offer such praises with the light of the intellect, and animated with the 1 Te decet hymnus in Zione.-Ps. lxvii., Vulgate. 2 Silentium tibi in Zione laus est, Ps. lxv. 1 and lxii. 1, marg. Leighton uses this rendering in a lecture on Isaiah vi. 4, and quotes Trismegistus, σɩwπî pwvoúμeve. Cf. the closing lines of Thomson's Hymn "But I lose Myself in Him, in Light ineffable! Come, then, expressive silence, muse His praise ! 3 Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, exercituum Deus, qui et terram gloria replet sua et cœlum, Isa. vi. 3, marg. "His glory is the fulness of the whole earth." fervour of our affections, and to express more articulately those very songs of all the rest of Thy visible creatures. But these heavenly souls of ours, even particles of the breath of God, alas how deeply have we immersed them in the mire! Nor can they be extricated again from this mire, and purged from their impurities, by any hand except Thy right hand alone, O Father most high and most gracious! If Thou shalt deign to visit us with this grace, then at length shall we offer to Thee new songs as incense, and ourselves thus renewed as a whole burnt-offering; and what remains to us of life we shall not live to ourselves, but to Him only and wholly who died for us. May Thy most powerful hand sustain Thy Church universal throughout the whole world, and especially in these islands, and may the beams of Thy countenance continually make her glad. Let our King be joyful in Thee, and trusting in Thy benignity, let him never be moved;1 may piety and righteousness establish his throne, and let peace and the Gospel of peace bless these kingdoms, 1 Exultet in te Rex noster, et benignitate tua fretus nunquam dimoveatur: an adaptation from Psalm xxi. 7: Quoniam rex sperat in Domino, et in misericordia Altissimi non commovebitur.--Vulgate. 2 The last paragraph of this prayer bears internal evidence of the time of the Restoration. The subsequent twenty or through Jesus Christ our Lord; to whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, be praise, honour, and glory for ever and ever. Amen. thirty years, it is needless to say, were years of unrighteousness in respect of the throne and its surroundings; and except Leighton, and other like-minded men within the Establishment, and the persecuted children of the Covenant without the camp, there were few faithful witnesses of the truth of the Gospel, and the blessing of peace was withheld. Sincere, undoubtedly, the prayer for peace was, as was the heart from which it came; but, like the intercession of Abraham for Sodom, it could not prevent the inevitable. Leighton was not yet disenchanted from the dream of a millennium or golden age, when strifes should cease, and every man would sit under his vine and his fig-tree. Had he forecast the miserable tale, in which he was a leading character, for the next twelve years, he would have done wisely to have kept by the College Close. His letters to Lauderdale, Burnet, and others, when he was struggling for release from office as a bishop, reveal the anguish of his heart. "He that sees within me and all men, perfectly knows how much I would prefer a retreat, and the poorest private life, to the highest church preferment in the three kingdoms." He speaks of "struggles and tossings of my thoughts concerning my engaging in this station, both before my submission to it and ever since. As for us of this order in this kingdom, I believe 'twere little damage either to Church or State, possibly some advantage to both, if we should all retire; but that is a thing neither to be feared nor hoped." CHARGES1 TO THE CLERGY OF THE SYNOD OF DUNBLANE. I. The Register bears that Leighton's first Synod was held at Dunblane on the 15th September 1662, when "the Bishop preached, and propounded some few particulars, which by the unanimous voice of the Synod were approved and enacted. The Bishop left a note of particulars propounded and written with his own hand, the true copy of which is here inserted." For Discipline. 1. That all diligence be used for the repressing of profaneness, and the advancement of solid piety and holiness, and therefore— 2. That not only scandals of unchastity, but drunkenness, swearing, cursing, filthy speaking, and mocking of religion, and all other gross offences, be brought under Church censure. 1 The so-called Charges were printed in 1797. They were not taken from the author's MSS., but from the Register or Minute-Book of the Synod of Dunblane, which is still preserved in the Bibliotheca Leightoniana at Dunblane. The press copy was written out for P. Neill, the publisher, by the Rev. Michael Gilfillan, minister of the Secession Church, Dunblane, of whom it is recorded that "he had read almost every book of value in Leighton's library, with 230 |