PRESBYTERIAN CONFESSORS.

85

endured. Such dissident societies were in existence, though in small numbers, and obscure places.

But the presbyterians, who were of the more progressive character, exerting political influence, were much more numerous. One of these presbyterians was the father of Archbishop Leighton: and when I speak of him, I refer to a man whose virtues, piety, and integrity, whose devotedness and self-denial, were enough to consecrate any title in any church, in the affections of the benevolent and the pious of any age. I have read in the writings of men, admirable works for my own spiritual profit; but I confess I have never drank sweeter waters-waters more pure and direct from the pellucid fountain of love and truth, than I have drawn from the writings of Archbishop Leighton. His father, however, was a presbyterian minister, and it is one of the extraordinary phenomena of the human mind, how men can pass from one extreme to another. I sometimes mark it, as specially deserving notice and reflection, that some of the more decided dissenting ministers, who are reckoned extreme in their views, are the fathers of young men who go and nestle themselves under the foldings of the episcopal church. It is a truth. The mind of man goes off at a tangent, and we can only be excused from going after and following it, by claiming the privilege of sobriety, reflection, and judgment.

Leighton saw, that through the counsellors of the crown, measures were adopted which he thought calculated to pollute and corrupt the church of God. In James's reign the sacred scriptures were, for the first time, made a common book, and that book, in English, was a new book. Some of you who have opened your eyes for the first time on a rich old English book, and become familiar with its phraseology, are ready to answer to the sympathies and approve the expression when I say, that the good old English of the English Bible—the "English undefiled”—

speaks more to the sympathies and affections of the English heart, than almost any English book produced since that era. In consequence of this, it was the book of study, especially by the divines. There were not many books of a common character, and there was not much literature of a general nature among the people; but the scriptures had become a familiar book, and therefore the phraseology and language of the scriptures, their metaphors and facts, were employed by writers in order to set forth what they thought concerning the times in which they lived. Alexander Leighton was well versed in the scriptures, and derived his phraseology, illustrations, and even figures of speech, from the language, the allusions and facts of the sacred volume. He wrote a book, entitled, "Zion's Plea against Prelacy ;" and in this work he traced what he thought were the corruptions of the English church to the royal persons, if not before, behind the throne, and round about it. He compared one of those royal personages to a daughter of one of the nations of Canaan, who had been employed to corrupt the minds of the Israelites after the tribes had taken possession of the promised land. In truth, he very distinctly pointed out the queen as a daughter of Heth, who was bringing back the corruptions of Rome as of the Canaanitish nations, into the land of Israel.

He was brought before a court which, happily for you and me, does not now exist, or else I should not stand here, and you would not sit there, the court of Star Chamber, which was neither constitutional nor righteous, but one of the vilest dens of infamous and abominable cruelty ever maintained by English royalty; originally consisting of the members of the king's council, ex officio, several spiritual and temporal peers, and two of the twelve judges. Its powers ultimately came to be exercised exclusively by the privy council, and then it took cognizance of civil suits and criminal charges. Leighton

ALEXANDER LEIGHTON,

87

was brought before this court, and found, on his own pleading, guilty of having written and printed this book. His defence admitted, "It is true I wrote it, and it was printed at my expence; it was printed in Holland; and I made an agreement with the publisher to print a certain number, and send them all to me; and when I received them, I took care that they should be put into the hands of the members of parliament in the lower house, and the members of the baronial legislature. I did not wish to create uneasiness in the minds of the people; but I wished our legislators to take care that no detriment came to the church of God by the policy of our rulers." Alexander Leighton was in error. He thought to gild the drapery, or brush away the dust from the cornices, to beautify the Corinthian capital of the pillar; and forgot not only the intermediate column, but also the base on which it stood. Had he thought properly, he would have said, "Let me have a good broad foundation among the people, and make them acquainted with sound principles, and those principles will aspire, and reach the loftiest pinnacles of power in defiance of despotism." His plea and forbearance availed him not. He was found guilty; and I read in a subsequent speech of Archbishop Laud, written by his own hand, that he was present, and took an active and prominent part in the proceedings. When the sentence was pronounced, it has been asserted, and never disproved, that the archbishop Laud pulled off his cap in court, and, holding up his hands, rendered thanks to God who had given him the victory.

The sentence pronounced was, "that he (Leighton) be degraded of his ministry, that he be brought into the pillory at Westminster, and there whipped; that he be set upon the pillory for some convenient space, and have one of his ears cut off, and his nose slit, and be branded in the face a double S.S.; that he be carried to the Fleet prison,

and at some convenient time (a week) afterwards, he be carried into the pillory at Cheapside, upon a marketday, to be there likewise whipped; that he be then again set upon the pillory, and have his other ear cut off, and carried back to the prison of the Fleet, till he should pay to our sovereign lord the king,' the fine of ten thousand pounds, or to remain there during life." What must have been, may I not demand, I will not insinuate, the church which had such a head; one who could dare to give God thanks for such cruelty? But, I will ask, what must have been the monarch who employed such a monster as his chief counsellor ? The sentence was executed with such ferocity, that Leighton himself affirmed, every lash brought away the flesh; ten years afterwards he declared he should feel it to his dying day; he was kept on the pillory "near two hours in frost and snow," and sent to prison exposed by water. He was confined ten weeks after, in mire and dirt, not sheltered from rain and snow; he was then shut up most closely twenty-two months, and not suffered to breathe in the open air; and had remained a prisoner ten years, when the Long Parliament delivered him. To sanction all this, piety was assumed as a cloak, and zeal for the royal honour and the safety of the state, was affected by the barbarous inquisitors.

The archbishop was not only eminently responsible for such measures, but they ministered to his pleasure and drew forth his boundless exultation. He again was present, if he did not also preside, when a similar sentence was pronounced; and both acknowledged his participation in the condemnation of Leighton, and gave his colleagues "all hearty thanks for the just and honourable censure which they had now pronounced on William Prynne" and his fellow-sufferers. From the presence of Prynne in the painting now before you, I deem it suitable to add a few words on his condemnation and sufferings.

He was not of the clerical profession but a barrister-atlaw, a gentleman of good family; after the Restoration he became Recorder of Bath, and twice sat in Parliament as representative of that city. He was so assiduous a student, and so indefatigable a labourer in the field of literature, it is asserted, that from his arrival at man's estate he wrote a sheet for every day of his life. His works published amounted to forty volumes quarto and folio. His Histrio-mastix was a quarto volume of one thousand and six pages. For this work, nominally, was he prosecuted in the Star Chamber; because in it he had condemned plays, masques, dancing, etc., as opposed to religion and dishonourable to the rulers. But Prynne had excited the resentment of Laud by writing against arminianism, jurisdiction of prelates, etc., and by advocating presbytery. The pious archbishop went to Noy, the attorney-general, on a Sunday morning, with his charges against Prynne: and thence originated the prosecution. His book was denounced to be burned by the hangman, he was degraded from the bar, and declared for ever incapable of that profession, excluded from the Society of Lincoln's-Inn, degraded of his rank at Oxford, sentenced to the pillory at Westminster and Cheapside, to lose his ears, one in each place, to pay a fine of five thousand pounds, and suffer perpetual imprisonment.

William Prynne loved his ears, and suffered pain when he lost them. But it was naught for him to be maimed for the truth; he was willing to be maimed again, and the more so that he had been maimed before. O, they little know what the heart is, who try to suppress truth by punishing it! William Prynne in prison! I have said he lost his ears. Perhaps I should add, before passing on, that he must have had some friend in court, it not at it, who picked up the fragments and gave them to his wife; and she, wishing all things to appear in their natural order, sewed them on again. For her sake,