perfect friendship, and fatherly care, with which he had alway treated me.*

* Bishop Burnet gives the following character of Archbishop Leighton, in the conclusion of his Pastoral Care: ..

'I have now laid together, with great simplicity, what has been the chief subject of my thoughts, for above thirty years. I was formed to them, by a bishop, that had the greatest elevation of soul, the largest compass of knowledge, the most mortified and heavenly disposition, that I ever yet saw in mortal; that had the greatest parts, as well as virtue, with the perfectest humility, that I ever saw in man; and had a sublime strain in preaching, with so grave a gesture, and such a majesty both of thought, of language, and of pronunciation, that I never once saw a wandering eye where he preached; and have seen whole assemblies often melt in tears before him; and of whom, I can say, with great truth, that, in a free and frequent conversation with him, for above two-and-twenty years, I never knew him say a word, that had not a direct tendency to edification: and I never once saw him, in any other temper, but that which I wished to be in, in the last minutes of my life.'

MESSRS. NAIRN AND CHARTERIS.

*

MANY of the episcopal clergy in Scotland were much offended at all these proceedings. They saw the prejudices of the people were increased by them. They hated violent courses, and thought they were contrary to the meek spirit of the gospel, and that they alienated the nation more from the church. They set themselves much, to read church history, and to observe the state of the primitive church, and the spirits of those times and they could not but observe so great a difference, between the constitution of the church, under those bishops, and our own, that they seemed to agree in nothing, but the name. I happened to be settled near two, of the most eminent of them, who were often moved to accept of bishopricks, but always refused them; both, out of a true principle of humility and self-denial, and also, because they could not engage in the methods, by which things were carried on.

One of these, Mr. Nairn, was one of the politest clergymen I ever knew bred in Scotland. He had formed clear, and lively schemes of things, and was the most eloquent of all our preachers.

* The severities used in enforcing ecclesiastical uniformity.

He

considered the pastoral function as a dedication of the whole man to God, and his service. He read the moral philosophers much; and had wrought himself into their equal temper, as much as could consist with a great deal of fire, that was in his own but he turned it all to melting devotion. He had a true notion of superstition, as a narrowness of soul, and a meanness of thought in religion. He studied to raise all that conversed with him, to great notions of God, and to an universal charity. This made him pity the presbyterians, as men of low notions, and ill tempers. He had, indeed, too much heat of imagination, which carried him to be very positive in some things, in which he afterwards changed his mind; and that made him pass for an inconstant man. In a word, he was the brightest man I ever knew among all our Scottish divines.

Another of these was Mr. Charteris, a man of a composed and serene gravity, but without affectation or sourness. He scarce ever spoke in company, but was very open and free in private. He made true judgments of things, and of men: and had a peculiar talent, in managing such as he thought deserved his pains. He had little heat, either in body or mind: for, as he had a most emaciated body, so he spoke both slow, and in so low a voice, that he could not easily be heard. He had a great tenderness in his temper; and was a very perfect friend, and a most sublime Christian. He lived in constant contempt of the world,

*

and a neglect of his person. There was a gravity in his conversation, that raised an attention, and begot a composedness, in all about him, without frightening them; for he made religion appear amiable, in his whole deportment. He had read all the lives and epistles of great men, very carefully. He had read the fathers much and gave me this notion of them, that, in speculative points, for which writers of controversy searched into their works, they were but ordinary men; but their excellency lay in that, which was least sought for, their sense of spiritual things, and of the pastoral care. In these, he thought, their strength lay. And he often lamented, not without some indignation, that, in the disputes about the government of the church, much pains were taken to seek out all those passages, that showed what their opinions were: but that due care was not taken, to set out the notions that they had,..of the sacred function, of the preparation of mind, and inward vocation, with

* He took care, that we should be well acquainted with the history of the church. He did not think it right, that we should, for a moment, imagine, that nothing had happened in the church of God, since the days of the apostles; that we had received our faith immediately from their hands, without any intermediate debt of gratitude, and acknowledgment; that no trials had been undergone; that no examples to animate our zeal, none to warn us of our weakness, had been set forth in its transmission; that the word of God, after a lapse of eighteen hundred years, had come into our hands somehow or other, but how, and by whom, it was no more our business to inquire, than if it had fallen, like the Roman sacred shield, immediately from heaven; that we were a body in ourselves, indebted to no one, related to no one, without fathers, without brethren: such a state of feeling, he said, argued far too narrow a foundation of Christian principles.'.. Rectory of Valehead. p. 48.

X

which men ought to come to holy orders; or of the strictness of life, the deadness to the world, the heavenly temper, and the constant application to the doing of good, that became them.* Of these, he did not talk like an angry reformer, that set up in that strain, because he was neglected, or provoked; but like a man full of a deep, but humble sense of them. He was a great enemy to large confessions of faith, chiefly when they were imposed in the lump, as tests: for, he was positive in very few things. He had gone through the chief parts of learning: but, was then most conversant in history, as the innocentest sort of study, that did not fill the mind with subtilty, but helped to make a man wiser and better.

These were both single persons, and men of great sobriety: and they lived in a constant low diet, which they valued more, than severe fasting. Yet, they both became miserable by the stone. Nairn went to Paris, where he was cut of a great one, of which he recovered; but lived not many years after. Charteris lived to a great age, and died in the end of the year 1700., having, in his last years, suffered unspeakable torments from the stone, which the operators would not venture to cut. But, all that saw what he suffered, and how he bore it, acknowledged, that, in him they saw a most perfect pattern, of patience, and submission to

Perhaps, the best manual extant, on those important subjects, is Bishop Burnet's own treatise on the Pastoral Care.