Volume 2 > Half-Volume 4

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persuaded that nothing could be given either so
entertaining or so full of information.
"Robert, eldest son of Dr. Leighton, was bred in
Scotland, and was accounted a saint from his youth
up. He had great quickness of parts, a lively ap-
prehension, with a charming vivacity of thought and
expression. He had the greatest command of the
purest Latin I ever knew in any man; he was master
of both Greek and Hebrew, and of the whole com-
pass of theological learning, chiefly in the study of
the Scriptures. But that which excelled all the rest
was, he was possessed with the highest and boldest
sense of divine things that I ever saw in any man;
he had no regard for his person, unless it was to
mortify it by a constant low diet, that was like a
perpetual fast. He had both a contempt of wealth
and reputation: he seemed to have the lowest thoughts
of himself possible, and to desire that all other per-
sons should think as meanly of him as he did him-
self. He bore all sorts of ill usage and reproach
like a man that took pleasure in it. He had so
subdued the natural heat of his temper that in a great
variety of accidents, and in the course of twenty years
of intimate conversation with him, I never observed
the least sign of passion but upon one single occa-
sion. He brought himself into so composed a gravity
that I never saw him laugh, and but seldom smile;
and he kept himself in such a constant recollection,
that I do not remember that I ever heard him say
one idle word. There was a visible tendency in all
he said to raise his own mind, and those he conversed
with, to serious reflections. He seemed to be in a
perpetual meditation; and, though the whole course
of his life was strict and ascetical, yet he had no-
thing of the sourness of temper that generally pos-
sesses men of that sort. He was the freest from
superstition, of censuring others, or of imposing his
own methods on them, possible; so that he did not
so much as recommend them to others. He said
there was a diversity of tempers, and every man was
to watch over his own, and to turn it in the best
manner he could. His thoughts were lively, oft out
of the way and surprising, yet just and genuine.
And he had laid together, in his memory, the great-
est treasure of the best and wisest of all the ancient
sayings of the heathens as well as Christians, that I
have ever known any man master of, and he used
them in the adeptest manner possible. He had been
bred up with the greatest aversion possible to the
whole frame of the Church of England. From
Scotland his father sent him to travel. He spent
some years in France, and spoke the language like
one born there. He came afterwards and settled
in Scotland, and had the Presbyterian ordination;
but he quickly bore through the prejudices of his
education. His preaching had a sublimity both of
thought and expression in it. The grace and gravity
of his pronunciation was such, that few heard him
without a very sensible emotion; I am sure I never
did. His style was rather too fine; but there was a
majesty and beauty in it that left so deep an impres-
sion, that I cannot yet forget the sermons I heard
him preach thirty years ago; and yet with this he
seemed to look on himself as so ordinary a preacher,
that while he had the cure, he was ready to employ
all others, and when he was a bishop he chose to
preach to small auditories, and would never give
notice beforehand. He had indeed a very low voice,
and so could not be heard by a great crowd. He
soon came to see into the follies of the Presbyterians,
and to dislike their covenant, particularly their im-
posing it, and their fury against all who differed from
them. He found they were not capable of large
thoughts; theirs were narrow as their tempers were
sour; so he grew weary of mixing with them. He
scarce ever went to their meetings, and lived in great
retirement, minding only the care of his own parish
at Newbattle, near Edinburgh. Yet all the opposi-
tion that he made to them was, that he preached
up a more exact rule of life than seemed to them
consistent with human nature; but his own practice
did outshine his doctrine.
"In the year 1648 he declared himself for the
engagement for the king. But the Earl of Lothian,
who lived in his parish, had so high an esteem for
him, that he persuaded the violent men not to meddle
with him, though he gave occasion to great excep-
tion ; for when some of his parish who had been in
the engagement were ordered to make public pro-
fession of their repentance for it, he told them they
had been in an expedition in which he believed they
had neglected their duty to God, and had been guilty
of injustice and violence, of drunkenness, and other
immoralities, and he charged them to repent of these
seriously, without meddling with the quarrel or the
grounds of that war. He entered into a great cor-
respondence with many of the Episcopal party, and
with my own father in particular, and did wholly
separate himself from the Presbyterians. At last he
left them and withdrew from his cure, for he could
not do the things imposed on him any longer. And
yet he hated all contention so much that he chose
rather to leave them in a silent manner, than to en-
gage in any disputes with them. But he had gene-
rally the reputation of a saint and of something above
human nature in him; so the mastership of the Edin-
burgh College falling vacant some time after, and it
being in the gift of the city, he was prevailed on to
accept 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; for he talked
so to all the youth of any capacity or distinction, that
it had a great effect upon them. He preached often
to them, and if crowds broke in, which they were
apt to do, he would have gone on in his sermon in
Latin, with a purity and life that charmed all who
understood it. Thus he had lived above twenty
years in Scotland, in the highest reputation that any
man in my time ever had in the kingdom. He had
a brother well known at court, Sir Elisha, who was
very like him in face and in the vivacity of his parts;
but the most unlike him in all other things that can
be imagined. For though he loved to talk of great
sublimities in religion, yet he was a very immoral
man. He was a Papist of a form of his own; but
he had changed his religion to raise himself at court,
for he was at that time secretary to the Duke of
York, and was very intimate with Lord Aubigny,
a brother of the Duke of Richmond's, who had
changed his religion, and was a priest, and had
probably been a cardinal if he had lived longer.
He maintained an outward decency, and had more
learning and better notions than men of quality who
enter into the church generally have. Yet he was
a very vicious man; and that perhaps made him the
more considered by the king [Charles II.], who loved
and trusted him to a high degree. No man had
more credit with the king; for he was in the secret
as to his religion, and was more trusted with the
whole designs that were then managed in order to
establish it, than any man whatsoever. Sir Elisha
brought his brother and him acquainted; for Leighton
loved to know men in all the varieties of religion.
In the vacation time he made excursions and came
often to London, where he observed all the eminent
men in Cromwell's court, and in the several parties
then about the city of London; but he told me that
they were men of unquiet and meddling tempers;