very partial, and delighted in its appropriation to divine uses; but he disapproved of its being made subservient to a refined sensuality; and he affirmed that even the croaking of frogs was less grating to his ear than the idle songs which professed christians sing and play without blushing or compunction. He contrasted the harp and psaltery of David, rehearsing the praises of the Lord, with the tabret and pipe, so loathed by Isaiah, because they were employed to inflame the passions of voluptuous libertines, and to divert their thoughts from those operations of the Lord's hands, "which utter the most harmonious music." We have seen that his walk was direct to heaven, and the drift of his conversation habitually unearthly. He died daily by the mortification of his natural appetites and affections; and he was visibly perfect in that frame of mind, which he wondered should not be universal," in which every second thought is of death." It was not in a melancholy tone that he touched on this serious subject; for the illusions spread over earthly things had long since faded away from his eyes, which were fixed in the sublime anticipations of faith on those blissful realities, that shall open upon the redeemed of the Lord, when they have shaken off mortality. To him, therefore, death had lost its sting: it was become a pleasant theme; and gave occasion to some of his most cheerful sayings. He would compare this heavy clod of clay, with which the soul is encumbered, to the miry boots of which the traveller gladly divests himself on finishing his journey; and he could not disguise his own wish to be speedily un 66 clothed, instead of lingering below till his garments were worn out and dropped off through age. In ge neral, his temper was serene rather than gay; but his nephew states, that if ever it arose to an unusual pitch of vivacity, it was when some illness attacked him ;— when, “ from the shaking of the prison doors, he was led to hope, that some of those brisk blasts would throw them open, and give him the release he coveted.” Then he seemed to stand tiptoe on the margin of eternity, in a delightful amazement of spirit, eagerly awaiting the summons to depart, and feeding his soul with the prospect of immortal life and glory. Sometimes, while contemplating his future restingplace, he would break out into that noble apostrophe of pious George Herbert: O let me roost and nestle there; And I of hope and fear. Hearing once of the death of a portly man,-"How is it," he exclaimed, "that A- has broke through those goodly brick walls, while I am kept in by a bit of flimsy deal?" He would say pleasantly, that he had his nightcap on, and rejoiced that it was so near bedtime, or, rather, so near the hour of rising to one who had long lain awake in the dark; and pointing to the children of the family, one evening, who were giving signs of weariness, and asking to be undressed; "Shall I," said he, "who am threescore and ten, be loth to go to bed?" This world he considered a state of nonage, and the land of mature men a land very far off. No apophthegm of uninspired wisdom pleased him more than that of Seneca: "Illa dies, quam ut supremam metuisses, æternitatis natalis est." His eagerness to depart resulted from his earnest desire to "see and enjoy perfection in the perfect sense of it, which he could not do and live." "That consummation," he would say, "is truly a hope deferred; but, when it cometh, it will be a tree of life." Perhaps, indeed, he would have been over anxious to take wing, had not his impatience been balanced by profound submission to the divine good pleasure. This alone prevented an excessive desire for the moment to arrive, when his soul, completely fledged, should soar into its proper element; should remove far away, not only from the wickednesses of a profane world, but also from the childishnesses of religious christians; and should be at rest amidst the truly reformed churches of just men made perfect, those happy circumferences, as he termed them, which are intimately and perfectly united to their solatious centre, and to each other. An extract from a letter supposed to have been written a short time before his death, may here be aptly inserted. I find daily more and more reason without me, and within me yet much more, to pant and long to be gone. I am grown exceeding uneasy in writing and speaking, yea almost in thinking, when I reflect how cloudy our clearest thoughts are: but, I think again what other can we do, till the day break and the shadows flee away, as one that lieth awake in the night must be thinking; and one thought that will likely oftenest return, when by all other thoughts he finds little relief, is, when will it be day? Yet Leighton, for the comfort of weak believers be it recorded, did not pretend to an absolute assurance of final salvation. Conversing, one day, in his wonted strain of holy animation, of the blessedness of being fixed as a pillar in the heavenly Jerusalem to go no more out*, he was interrupted by a near relation exclaiming, "Ah, but you have assurance." “No, truly," he replied, "only a good hope, and a great desire to see what they are doing on the other side, for of this world I am heartily weary. Such was the holy man, of whom little now remains to be told, except his dismissal from this troublesome scene to that place among the sanctities of heaven, which he had long preoccupied in spirit and affection. After a retirement of five years he was alarmed by receiving a letter in the King's own hand, which threatened him with an order to exchange his peaceful retreat for the distraction and turbulence of a public station. The letter ran as follows: MY LORD, Windsor, July 16, 1679. I am resolved to try what clemency can prevail upon such in Scotland, as will not conform to the government of the church there; for effecting of which design, I desire that you may go down to Scotland with your first conveniency; and take all possible pains for persuading all you can of both opinions to as much mutual correspondence and concord as can be: and send me from time to time characters both of men and things. In order to this design, I shall send a precept for two *Rev. iii. 12. hundred pounds sterling upon my Exchequer, till you resolve how to serve me in a stated employment. Your loving Friend, CHARLES R. For the Bishop of Dunblane. It was sent at the urgent suit of the Duke of Monmouth, who then administered the affairs of Scotland, and who was anxious for Leighton to go back and reside in that country, although he should not consent to resume his episcopal office. Leighton was willing to take this step, if any likelihood could be shown of benefit resulting from it; but the Duke's credit failing shortly afterwards, this project seems to have fallen with it. In the year 1684, Leighton was earnestly requested by Burnet to go up to London, and to visit Lord Perth, who had begun to feel compunction for his lamentable departure from virtue, and had expressed an earnest desire to have the benefit of the Bishop's counsel. The hope of reclaiming that unhappy nobleman prevailed over personal considerations, and he went up to London accordingly, healthy in appearance, but with feelings of illness which may account for his presentiment that his dissolution was at hand. "The worse I am," said he in the plenitude of his self-denying benevolence, "the more I choose to go, that I may give one pull to yon poor brother, and snatch him, if possible, from the infectious air of the court." Burnet had not seen him for a considerable time, and was astonished at the freshness and vigour which he exhibited at his VOL. I. k |
