with a clear conception of his own meaning and purpose, and a perfect command of all the subsidiary materials; and still more, that his soul is always teeming with those divine inspirations, which seem vouchsafed only from time to time to ordinary mortals.

"Had the mind of Leighton been less exact and perspicacious, the rapid and multitudinous flow of his ideas would have rendered him a writer of more than common obscurity; for he was impatient of those rules of art, by which theological compositions are usually confined. No man, indeed, was better acquainted with scholastic canons and dialectical artifices; but he towered above them. At the same time his argument never limps, although the form be not syllogistic,-the correctness of his mind preventing material deviation from a lucid and consecutive order. There is a logical continuity of thought to be traced in his writings; and his ideas, perhaps, may not be unaptly compared to flowers in a garden, so luxuriantly over-hanging trellises, as to obviate the primness and formality of straight lines, without however straying into a wantonness of confusion, that would perplex the observer's eye.

"It is not to be denied, that a more scientific arrangement in Leighton's compositions would have greatly assisted the memory of his readers: and let those who come short of him in intellectual power, beware of imitating his laxity of method. The rules of art, though cramps to vigour, are crutches to feebleness. My impression is, however, that the effusions of our author's mind, disposed more artificially, would have lost in richness what they gained in precision, and the gain would have been over-balanced by the loss. From the structure and flow of his discourses, I should conjecture it to have been his custom, when he had determined to write on any subject, to ruminate on it till his mind had assumed a corresponding form and tone; after which he poured forth his conceptions on paper without pause or effort, like the irrepressible droppings of the loaded honeycomb. So imbued was his holy soul with the principles of the gospel, or so completely, I might better say, was the whole scheme of revelation amalgamated in the menstruum of his powerful intellect, that whatever he wrote on sacred subjects came forth with an easy flow, clear, serene, and limpid. In all his compositions there is a delightful consistency; nothing indigested and turbid; no dissonances of thought, no jarring positions; none of the fluctuations, the ambiguities, the contradictions which betray a penury of knowledge, or an imperfect assimilation of it with the understanding. Equally master of every part of the evangelical system, he never steps out of his way to avoid what encounters him, or to pick up what is not obvious: he never betakes himself to the covers of unfairness or ignorance; but he unfolds, with the utmost intrepidity and clearness, the topic that comes before him.

"Moreover, it not a little enhances the value of his writings, that he si fully aware how far the legitimate range of human inquiry extends, and what is the boundary Divine wisdom hath affixed to man's inquisitiveness. While the half-learned theologian beats about in the dark, and vainly attempts a passage through metaphysical labyrinths, which

it is the part of sober wisdom not to enter, the sagacious Leighton distinctly sees the line, beyond which speculation is folly and in stopping at that limit he displays a promptness of decision, commensurate with his unwavering certainty in proceeding up to it.

"Such a writer as Leighton was incapable of parade. He was too intent upon his subject to be choice of words and phrases, and his works discover a noble carelessness of diction, which in some respects enhances their beauty. Their strength is not wasted by excessive polishing: their glow is not impaired by reiterated touches. But, though he was little curious in culling words and compounding sentences, his language is generally apt and significant, sufficient for the grandeur of his conceptions, without encumbering them. If not always grammatically correct, it is better than mere correctness would make it; more forcible and touching; attracting little notice to itself, but leaving the reader to the full impulse of those ideas of which it is the vehicle. Leighton is great by the magnificence of thought; by the spontaneous emanations of a mind replete with sacred knowledge, and bursting with seraphic affections; by that pauseless gush of intellectual splendour, in which the outward shell, the intermediate letter, is eclipsed and almost annihilated, that full scope may be given to the mighty effulgence of the informing spirit."-Pearson's Life of Leighton

PRACTICAL COMMENTARY

UPON THE

FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL

OF

ST. PETER.

The inscription hath the author and the address, from whom, and to whom. The author of this epistle is designed by his name, Peter, and his calling, an apostle.

We shall not insist upon his name, that it was imposed by Christ, and what is its signification; this the evangelists teach us, St John, i. 42; St Matt. xvi. 18., &c.

glossing have been so impudent as to add that beside the text; though chap. v. 4, he gives that title to Christ alone, and to himself only fellow Elder, and here, not Prince of the Apostles, but an Apostle, restored and re-established after his fall, by repentance, and by Christ himself after his own death and resurrection, John xxi. Thus we By that which is spoken of him in divers have in our apostle a singular instance of hupassages of the Gospel, he is very remarkable man frailty on the one side, and of the sweetamongst the apostles, both for his graces ness of divine grace on the other. Free and and his failings; eminent in zeal and cou-rich grace it is indeed, that forgives and rage; yet stumbling oft in his forwardness, swallows up multitudes of sins, and of greatand once grossly falling: And these by the est sins, not only sins before conversion, as providence of God being recorded in scripture, give a check to the excess of Rome's conceit concerning this apostle. Their extolling and exalting him above the rest, is not for his cause, and much less to the honour of his Lord and Master Jesus Christ, for he is injured and dishonoured by it; but it is in favour of themselves, as Alexander distinguished his two friends, that the one was a friend of Alexander, the other a friend of the king. That preferment they give this apostle is not in good will to Peter, but in the desire of Primacy. But whatsoever he was, they would be much in pain to prove Rome's right to it by succession. And if ever it had any such right, we may confidently say, it has forfeited it long ago, by departing from St Peter's footsteps, and from his faith, and retaining too much those things wherein he was faulty: namely,

His unwillingness to hear of, and consent to Christ's sufferings, his Master, spare thyself, or Far be it from thee,-in those they are like him: For thus they would disburden and exempt the Church from the Cross, from the real cross of afflictions, and, instead of that, have nothing but painted, or carved, or gilded crosses; these they are content to embrace, and worship too, but cannot endure to hear of the other. Instead of the cross of affliction, they make the crown or mitre the badge of their church, and will have it known by prosperity and outward pomp, and so turn the church militant into the church triumphant, not considering that it is Babylon's voice, not the church's, I sit as a queen, and shall see no

sorrow.

Again, they are like him in his saying on the mount at Christ's transfiguration, when he knew not what he said, It is good to be here: So they have little of the true glory of Christ, but the false glory of that monarchy on their seven hills, It is good to be here, say they.

Again, in their undue striking with the sword, not the enemies, as he, but the faithful friends and servants of Jesus Christ. But to proceed.

We see here Peter's office or title, an Apostle, not chief Bishop. Some in their

to St Paul, but foul offences committed after conversion, as to David, and to this apostle; not only once raising them from the dead, but when they fall, stretching out the same hand, and raising them again, and restoring them to their station, and comforting them in it by his free Spirit, as David prays. Not only to cleanse polluted clay, but to work it into vessels of honour, yea, of the most defiled shape to make the most refined vessels, not vessels of honour of the lowest sort, but for the highest and most honourable services, vessels to bear his own precious Name to the nations; making the most unworthy and the most unfit, fit by his grace to be his messengers.

Of Jesus Christ.] Both as the Beginning and End of his apostleship, as Christ is called Alpha and Omega, Rev. ii. 11, chosen and called by him, and called to this, to preach him, and salvation wrought by him.

Apostle of Jesus Christ.] Sent by him, and the message no other but his Name, to make that known. And what this apostleship was then, after some extraordinary way, befitting these first times of the gospel, that the ministry of the word in ordinary is now, and therefore an employment of more difficulty and excellency than is usually conceived by many, not only of those that look upon it, but even of those that are exercised in it, to be ambassadors for the greatest of Kings, and upon no mean employment, that great treaty of peace and reconcilement betwixt Him and mankind, 2 Cor. v. 20.

The Epistle is directed to the elect, who are described here, by their temporal and by their spiritual conditions. The first hath very much dignity and comfort in it; but the other hath neither, but rather the contrary of both: And therefore the apostle, intending their comfort, mentions the one but in passing, to signify to whom particularly he sent his Epistle. But the other is that which he would have their thoughts dwell upon, and therefore he prosecutes it in his following discourse. And if we look to the order of the words, their temporal condition is but interjected; for it is said, To the Elect, first, and then To the strangers scat

tered, &c. And he would have this as it were drowned in the other, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.

That those dispersed strangers that dwelt in the countries here named, were Jews, appears, if we look to the foregoing Epistle, where the same word is used, and expressly appropriated to the Jews, St James i. 1. And Gal. ii. St Peter is called an apostle of the circumcision, as exercising his apostleship most towards them; and there is in some passages of the Epistle somewhat, that, though belonging to all Christians, yet hath, in the strain and way of expression, a particular fitness to the believing Jews, as being particularly verified in them which was spoken of their nation, chap. ii. ver. 9, 10.

heirs of a better, as follows, ver. 3, 4. ; and having within them the evidence both of eternal election, and that expected salvation, the Spirit of Holiness, ver. 2. At the best a Christian is but a stranger here, set him where you will, as our apostle teaches after : And it is his privilege that he is so; and when he thinks not so, he forgets and disparages himself, and descends far below his quality, when he is much taken with any thing in this place of his exile.

But this is the wisdom of a Christian, when he can solace himself against the meanness of his outward condition, and any kind of discomfort attending it, with the comfortable assurance of the love of God, that he hath called him to holiness, given Some argue from the name, strangers, him some measure of it, and an endeavour that the Gentiles are here meant, which after more; and by this may he conclude, seems not to be: For proselyte Gentiles were that he hath ordained him unto salvation. indeed called strangers in Jerusalem, and by If either he is a stranger where he lives, or the Jews. But were not the Jews strangers as a stranger deserted of his friends, and in these places, Pontus, Galatia, Cappado- very near stripped of all outward comforts; cia, Asia, and Bithynia? Not strangers yet he may rejoice in this, that the eternal dwelling together in a prosperous flourish- unchangeable love of God, that is from evering condition, as a well planted colony, but strangers of the dispersion, scattered to and fro; and their dispersion was partly, first by the Assyrian captivity, and after that by the Babylonish, and by the invasion of the Romans: And it might be in these very times increased by the believing Jews flying from the hatred and persecution that was raised against them at home.

lasting to everlasting, is sealed to his soul. And O! what will it avail a man to be compassed about with the favour of the world, to sit unmolested in his own home and possessions, and to have them very great and pleasant, to be well monied, and landed, and befriended, and yet estranged and severed from God, not having any token of his special love?

These places here mentioned, through To the Elect.] The apostle here denowhich they were dispersed, are all in Asia. minates all the Christians to whom he writes, So Asia here is Asia the lesser. Where it by the condition of true believers, calling is to be observed, that some of these who them elect and sanctified, &c. And the heard St Peter, Acts ii. are said to be of apostle St Paul writes in the same style in those regions. And if any of those then con- his epistles to the churches. Not that all in verted were amongst these dispersed, the com- these churches were such indeed, but befort was no doubt the more grateful from the cause they professed to be such, and by that hand of the same apostle by whom they were their profession and calling as Christians, first converted; but this is only conjecture. they were obliged to be such; and as many Though divine truths are to be received of them as were in any measure true to that equally from every minister alike, yet it their calling and profession, were really such. must be acknowledged, that there is some- Besides, it would seem not unworthy of conthing (we know not what to call it) of a sideration, that in all probability there would more acceptable reception of those who at be fewer false Christians, and the number of first were the means of bringing men to God, true believers usually greater, in the churches than of others; like the opinion some have in those primitive times, than now in the of physicians whom they love. best reformed churches: Because there could

The apostle comforts these strangers of not then be many of them that were from this dispersion by the spiritual union which their infancy bred in the Christian faith, but they obtained by effectual calling, and so for the greatest part were such, as, being of calls off their eyes from their outward, dis- years of discretion, were, by the hearing of persed, and despised condition, to look above the gospel, converted from Paganism and that, as high as the spring of their happi- Judaism to the Christian religion first, and ness, the free love and election of God. made a deliberate choice of it, to which there Scattered in the countries, and yet gathered were at that time no great outward encou in God's election, chosen or picked out; ragements; and therefore the less danger of strangers to men amongst whom they dwelt, multitudes of hypocrites, which, as vermin but known and foreknown to God; removed in summer, breed most in the time of the from their own country, to which men have church's prosperity. Though no nation or naturally an unalterable affection, but made kingdom had then universally received the