ΤΟ THE REV. ALEXANDER F. MITCHELL, D.D. PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS This Wolume IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED, IN REMEMBRANCE OF LONG FRIENDSHIP BY HIS EARLY STUDENT THE EDITOR. PREFACE. "The last thing that we discover in writing a book is to know what to put at the beginning."-PASCAL'S Thoughts. IN preparing this volume the Editor has made use of all the resources he could command. The authorities are named in the text or in the notes. Research has elicited nothing regarding the elder Leighton's connection with the University of St. Andrews; and an examination of Edinburgh parish registers, about 1611, has failed in verifying the statement that Robert Leighton was born in Edinburgh. The Editor expresses grateful acknowledgments to friends who have helped him with books, in finding access to documents, or otherwise; among others, to Mr. D. Hay Fleming, St. Andrews; Rev. J. Sturrock, Edinburgh, for the use of Sion's Plea, and Speculum Belli Sacri, original editions; Mr. Small, and Mr. Harris, for inspection of University papers and Town Council Records relating to Leighton's Principalship; Mr. Brander, Advocates' Library; Messrs. R. H. Christie, and J. G. Christie, B.D., Bibliotheca Leightoniana, Dunblane; Rev. W. R. Nicoll, M.A., Kelso; Rev. W. B. R. Wilson, Dollar; Rev. J. S. Bowie, B.D., Dunblane; Rev. A. B. Alexander, M.A., Langbank; Rev. James Muir, Bridge of Allan ; and Rev. Professor Grahame, D.D., London. It may be mentioned that the Memoir of Leighton by the Editor was in type before either the Lecture on Leighton by his distinguished friend Principal Tulloch, or that by Dr. Blaikie, appeared. Each of the three sketches has its own standpoint, and the reader may do well to peruse all of them. The Editor sends out this little book, as a miniature of a great portrait, with the hope and prayer that some of the beauty of the original may steal into the soul of the reader and beget the desire for more. In a troubled age and clime, Leighton's spiritual life flourished in its grace and heavenward aspiration like the palm-tree, and grew in strength and fragrance like the cedar in Lebanon. And the grace of God, which was so rich in him, is still diffused through his writings "like fragrance after showers." The nimbus which the old masters set around the heads of their saints is not paled by lapse of years; so far from its lustre being dimmed by the light of the centuries, it grows more and more ethereal in its tone. And those who study the type of Christian thought and life engraven in the character and imprinted in the writings of Leighton, will understand the spiritual force he has been for the last two hundred years. Should this book be productive, with the Divine blessing, of such study and experience, the Editor will have his reward. Memoir. OF ROBERT LEIGHTON. Non est mortale quod opto. Cupio videre Calestia. Ꭱ OBERT LEIGHTON was born in 1611; but the place of his birth is hitherto not known. He was the eldest son of Dr. Alexander Leighton, a Scotchman and Presbyterian minister in London and Utrecht, and who had also practised medicine for some time. The elder Leighton was a man of letters, and in 1624 gave to the world a book called "Speculum Belli Sacri: or the Looking-Glasse of the Holy War," having for its aim "neither lucre nor applause, but the good of God's church." In 1628 he issued "An Appeal to the Parliament: or Sion's Plea against the Prelacie;" both of which 1 Note A. A Such books display great learning and faculty.1 The dismal tale that grew out of these books, in the infliction of revolting cruelties on their unhappy author, has been a hundred times told. The penalties he paid were severe scourgings, pilloryings, mutilations of the nose and ears, hot-iron brandings of the cheek with the letters S. S. (Sower of Sedition), exorbitant fines, and life-long imprisonment. All these barbarities, worthy of a Torquemada, were exacted to the letter by the StarChamber from this Puritan of Puritans.2 was the father of Robert Leighton, "with something," as Professor Masson thinks, "of the mild and meditative spirit of his son," to whom the son in his letters used the epithets "kind and loving father." Of his mother we know nothing save that she was a sweet-blooded Christian who left her impress on her son, as appears from his letters to her. Like Carlyle he could say, "My heart and tongue played freely with my mother." But the chroniclers of Robert Leighton have not given us 1 Dr. Grosart thinks that the father was "in certain elements, a larger, stronger, wider-brained man, than his saintly son." 2 He is described "as a man of low stature and fair complexion, eminent for learning and piety, who was never heard to speak of his persecutors but in terms of compassion and forgiveness." |