Leighton, ROBERT, perhaps the rarest flower that has grown out of Scotch theology, was born in 1611, but where is as yet quite uncertain. He was the second son of Dr Alexander Leighton (1568-1649), Presbyterian minister in London and Utrecht, the author of An Appeal to the Parliament; or Sion's Plea against the Prelacie (1628), which earned him from the tender mercies of Laud the cruel punishment of scourging, the pillory, branding and mutilation, heavy fine, and close imprisonment. At sixteen the boy went to the university of Edinburgh, where he graduated M.A. in 1631. The only record of his college days is a sarcastic and obvious epigram on Aikenhead, the provost of Edinburgh. He next spent some years in France, and widened his spiritual sympathies by living some time with Roman Catholic relatives at Douay. He was ordained Presbyterian minister of Newbattle in 1641, signed the Covenant along with his parishioners two years later, and, in spite of Burnet's account of his lack of sympathy with his brethren, appears to have taken his part in all the Presbyterian policy of the time, and even to have represented the Synod of Lothian in a mission to London. The famous story of his being questioned 'whether he preached to the times' and of his retort that surely they might 'permit a poor brother to preach Jesus Christ and eternity' is unauthenticated. At this period he was a frequent visitor to London, and after 1646 he went thither once a year. About the close of 1652 he applied for leave to resign his charge, on the plea of inability to perform its duties from ill-health and weakness of voice, and early next year he was allowed to do so on being appointed Principal of the university of Edinburgh.
Here he remained nine years, and Burnet testifies to his remarkable influence over the students. Elsewhere he tells us of the wonderful effect of his preaching, which yet displeased Presbyterian zealots from its haranguing method, without heads. Leighton's Prælectiones Theologicae are extant to show the kind of Latin orations which he delivered weekly. Most of the Sermons and the Commentary on the First Epistle of Peter were the work of the Newbattle period. The Restoration placed on the throne an absolute king with a rooted determination to force Episcopacy on Scotland. Leighton after much reluctance was forced by the king himself to become one of the bishops of the new ecclesiastical regime, but with characteristic modesty chose for himself Dunblane, the poorest of the new dioceses, although the elevation was to him 'a mortification greater than a cell and hair-cloth.' The worldly-minded Sharp at first had his scruples about receiving new ordination; to the saintly Leighton, indifferent to the mere externals of religion, this was a detail of no great moment. On the northward journey he discovered the true motives of Sharp and his brother bishops, and left them at Morpeth to avoid their hateful triumphal entry into Edinburgh. For the next ten years the beautiful little town of Dunblane was his home, and here he laboured with a sinking heart to build up the shattered walls of the church, although he soon lost all hope of success, while his work 'seemed to him a fighting against God.' It was characteristic of the man that he never would permit himself to be addressed as 'my lord,' and that he only appeared in parliament when church matters were in dispute. His conception of Episcopacy was similar to that suggested by Archbishop Ussher, and his aim was to preserve what was best in the two systems as a basis for comprehensive union, 'reconciling the devout on different sides.' But nowhere among his unworthy associates did he find any 'such appearance of seriousness or piety as became the new-modelling of a church,' and he only succeeded in being misunderstood by both sides, his moderation being misread by the fiercer Presbyterians as 'pretended holiness, humility, and crucifixion to the world,' assumed as 'a cloak under which to creep toward promotion'—'a mere betrayal of religion with a kiss.' The severity of his life, his unworldliness, and even his celibacy, were thought to savour of Romanism, and already his recommendation of his favourite book, The Imitation, to the Edinburgh students, had given offence to rigid Presbyterians like Dickson, who refused it because 'self and merits run through it.' Row characterises him as 'carrying like a pawky prelate,' and says that his condescensions made the Dunblane clergy think 'he was but straking cream in their mouths at first.' The continued persecutions of the government, bent on playing out 'a forlorn after-game,' drove him to London in 1665 to resign his see. He told the king he 'could not concur in the planting the Christian religion itself in such a manner, much less a form of government.' Charles apparently listened with respect, and the good bishop was persuaded to return. Again in 1669 he went to London to advocate his scheme of Accommodation, and after his return voted in favour of the unjustifiable Asserty Act—a weak piece of compliance which he repented all his life. Immediately after he assumed the duties of commendator of the archdiocese of Glasgow, while still continuing for some time Bishop of Dunblane. Next followed his fruitless conferences at Edinburgh in 1670 and 1671 with leading Presbyterians on behalf of Accommodation, and his sending through the western counties itinerant advocates of the cause. In despair of success he begged for permission to retire, and at length about the close of 1674 was permitted to lay down his archbishopric. His letter to Lauderdale (December 17, 1674) describes his sickness and sense of his own unworthiness, and his desire to spend the remainder of his life in quiet retirement, as well as 'pity to see a poor church doing its utmost to destroy both itself and religion in furious zeal and endless debates about the empty name and shadow of a difference in government, and in the meanwhile not having of solemn and orderly public worship so much as a shadow.' His last ten years he spent in calm preparation for his end, in the house of his widowed sister, Mrs Lightmaker, at Broadhurst Manor in Sussex, frequently preaching in the church of Horsted Keynes, in the south transept of which he lies. His death, which was the result of an attack of pleurisy, came suddenly, 25th June 1684, in an inn—as he often said he wished it should—in Warwick Lane, London, whither he had been summoned by Burnet to an interview with Lord Perth, just appointed Lord Chancellor of Scotland.
No man ever lived more intensely absorbed in the love of God than Leighton: no saint was ever filled with a greater measure of the spirit of Christ. It was characteristic of him that he never thought his writings of any value, that he printed nothing himself, and that he left orders for his MSS. to be destroyed; yet no religious books reveal a deeper spirituality, a more heavenly exaltation and devotion. And no less wonderful is their sweetness and beauty, wedded to sincerity and intellectual strength, as well as their broad catholicity of spirit—the direct outcome of a large mind moulded in Christian charity. He saw the good that underlay all ecclesiastical systems, and yet recognised how profitless all might become if allowed to interpose between the human soul and God. Love of peace was with him a passion, though unhappily he fell on evil days and unhappy methods of conciliation. The best tribute to his memory is from the pen of Burnet, who says at the conclusion of his Pastoral Care, 'in a free and frequent conversation with him for above two and twenty years, I never knew him say an idle 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 moments of my life.' And again in the History of His Own Time he says: 'I bear still the greatest veneration for the memory of that man that I do for any person; and reckon my early knowledge of him, which happened the year after this [Leighton's promotion to a bishopric], and my long and intimate conversation with him, that continued to his death, for twenty-three years, among the greatest blessings of my life; and for which I know I must give account to God, in the great day, in a most particular manner.' Of great modern Englishmen none has esteemed Leighton more highly than Coleridge, whose Aids to Reflection indeed is based on aphorisms culled from his writings.
Leighton left his library to Dunblane, which has another memorial of its great bishop in the 'Bishop's Walk' along the banks of the Allan Water. In the Bibliotheca Leightoniana there were originally more than 1500 volumes, and upwards of 1200 still remain, more than 200 of which have interesting marginalia. His first editor was his friend Dr Fall, who printed most of the works from 1692 to 1708. The chief later editions are those of Doddridge (1748), Jerment (1805-8), Pearson (1825), and Aikman (1831). The last three editions have lives of the author, of which Pearson's is full and good. The best and most complete edition is that of the Rev. William West, although the method of editing is not entirely to be commended, and the anti-Presbyterian prejudice ill befits the subject. The work was the labour of a quarter of a century, and vols. ii.-vi. were issued 1869-70; vol. vii., 'Remains,' in 1875. Vol. i., to include the Life and Letters, is not yet published. There is an admirable volume of Selections from the Writings, with a brief Memoir (1883), by the Rev. Dr Blair of Dunblane. See also the last scholar's 'Bibliography of Archbishop Leighton' in the British and Foreign Evangelical Review for July 1883.