the plea that their presbyterian ordination was void from the beginning, it having been conferred by a church actually in a state of schism, which vitiated all its acts of administration. Leighton denied the soundness of this objection to the validity of his ministry. Yet being little scrupulous, too little indeed, about the circumstantials of ecclesiastical polity, he yielded to Sheldon's demand with a readiness, which the repugnance evinced to it by Sharp made the more observable. The view he took of the ceremony imposed upon them was, that the "re-ordaining a priest ordained in another church imported no more, but that they received him into orders according to their own rules; and did not infer the annulling the orders he had formerly received." Had the English bishops concurred in this view of the subject, Leighton would have stood on solid ground in submitting to a new ordination. But it was their avowed meaning to bestow that upon him, of which in their judgment he was hitherto destitute,-a regular consecration to the ministry of the gospel; and in this meaning Leighton did apparently acquiesce. His private construction of the ceremony to which he submitted could not change its public aspect and character. It seemed to be levelled at the foundations of presbyterianism, by impeaching the legitimacy of all presbyterian ministers who had received holy orders after episcopacy was legally resettled in Scotland by King James; and it exasperated not only the clergy who were in that predicament, but many of the laity also, in whose judgment the honour and interests of their

church had been compromised by Leighton's con

cession.

It is the duty of a faithful historian to avow, that Leighton did not, in this instance, sufficiently consider the ill impression his compliance would produce on mankind, and how much it might weaken his influence by depressing him in public estimation to the level of mere worldly calculators. Yet assuredly the real spring of his conduct in this affair was a high-toned spirituality, which led him to overlook the importance attached by vulgar opinion to the outside frame and fashion of religion. For on any point which seemed to touch the substance of christian piety he was exquisitely sensible. Hence his disgust at the feasting and jollity with which the consecration of the new bishops was celebrated. It grieved this excellent man to see any thing of sensual levity mixed up with the solemn business to which they were set apart; and the absence of that seriousness and spirit of prayer, which were especially called for by such an undertaking as remodelling a church, filled his mind with sad presentiments. These were increased, when he found Archbishop Sharp unprepared with any plan for healing the wounds of the church, for expelling its evil humours, for rectifying its disorders, and for kindling in it a livelier flame of true piety. On these great objects Leighton was anxious to begin without delay; and already he had conceived a scheme for the union of parties in Scotland, and for reforming the public services of religion, and reducing them to a method more adapted to general edification.

But in these christian projects he found no auxiliaries. With Sharp the establishment of an hierarchy, with himself at the head, appears to have been the ultimate object; and he was neither able to understand the spirit, nor disposed to forward the views of Leighton, of whose influence with Lauderdale he had begun to conceive a jealousy, and to whose pious disinterestedness the worldliness of his colleagues stood in disgraceful contrast. Leighton's sad forebodings were not a little confirmed by a close observation of Sharp's real character, and by the clearer development that was daily taking place of the principles which actuated the episcopalian leaders. In the supercilious recklessness of the infant hierarchy he descried the sure omen of its downfal; and he remarked to Burnet that, "in the whole progress of that affair, there appeared such cross characters of an angry Providence, that how fully soever he was satisfied in his own mind as to episcopacy itself, yet it seemed that God was against them, and that they were not like to be the men that should build up his church; so that the struggling about it seemed to him like a fighting against God."

On the twelfth of December, 1661, four of the persons designated to the episcopal government of Scotland received consecration in London; Leighton being appointed, at his own request, to the inconsiderable see of Dunblane, in Perthshire. Early in the following year, the new bishops proceeded in one coach to Edinburgh. Between Leighton and his colleagues, however, there was such a want of sympathy, as made it very

irksome to him to journey in their company; and having learnt that it was their intention to make a grand entry into Edinburgh, he quitted them at Morpeth, and arrived some days before the rest of the party. Burnet describes himself to have been a downcast spectator of the pomp and parade with which the other three bishops were escorted into the Scottish metropolis and the spirit of wise and pious men was abashed, when they contrasted this ostentatious pageantry with the example of that true Bishop of souls, who made his last solemn entrance into Jerusalem, riding upon an ass and weeping, as if unable to endure the splendour of a triumph which prophecy forbade him to decline, unless it were shaded with a cloud of humility and sadness.

The first measures taken by Sharp and his coadjutors, if the pliable agents of his cupidity deserve to be so named, bore fatal marks of that perverse genius by which they were conceived. Instead of endeavouring to subdue the angry spirit of presbyterianism by firm but gentle management, he proceeded to lay on at once the whole weight of episcopal domination. In pursuance of this policy it was enacted, even before the Bishops left London, that presbyteries and judicatories should be abolished. This intemperate decree was followed up by an act, asserting the King's ecclesiastical supremacy, reinstating the bishops in their parliamentary privileges and civil dignities, and conferring on them an exclusive presidency in church meetings, the power of ordination and censure, with whatever else appertains to the administration and

VOL. I.

d

jurisdiction of the church. It was added indeed that in the exercise of their functions they were to advise with certain loyal and prudent clergymen. Yet, as their assessors were to be selected by themselves, and were not empowered collectively to enforce an opinion contrary to their diocesan's, it is clear that any check they could maintain on the despotism of the bench would be of small account. All real authority was lodged with the bishop; and his clerical advisers were mere ciphers, to whom was allotted the unenviable privilege of sharing with their superior the odium of arbitrary procedings, which they had no power either to prevent or to modify.

Such was the present scheme of episcopacy, widely different from that of the year 1612, when the bishops were content to be settled presidents, to have a negative voice in all questions relating to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and some superior authority in ordination. This hasty attempt to force on a people, to whom presbytery was dear “as a wife of youth," the highest kind of prelacy, was certainly to pour new wine into old bottles. It could not but produce a disastrous explosion. But nothing could stay the precipitance of that misguided man, who seems to have expected, in the pride of newblown grandeur, that difficulties would vanish at his touch. It is admitted that he never exerted his powers to the full extent permitted by this act of parliament. Still the passing of such an act furnished those who refused the new model with a plausible justification; and exhibited the capital solecism in policy, of making a legislative invasion of popular rights and