476 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. ALEXANDER LEIGHTON, D. D.-This great sufferer for nonconformity was born in Scotland, about the year 1568, and educated, most prohably, in one of the Scotch univer- sities. He took his degree of doctor in divinity in the two universities of St. Andrews and Leyden.* Granger incorrectly observes, that he was not doctor of divinity, but of physic, though exercised in the ministry; and adds, that when he was interdicted the practice of physic by the president and censors of the college of physicians, in the reign of James I., as a disqualified person, he alleged that he bad taken the doctor's degree at Leyden, under professor Heurnius. It was then objected to him, that he had taken priest's orders ; and being asked why he did not adhere to the profession to which he had been ordained, he excepted against the ceremonies, but owned himself to be a clergy- man. Still persisting to practise in London, or within seven miles of the city, he was censured as disgraceful to the profession.+ He was father to Sir Ellis Leighton and the eminently pious Archbishop Leighton, of whom Bishop Burnet gives so excellent a character, and whose works are held in such high reputation at the present day.t This reverend divine obtained a good reputation for ability, learning, and piety ; but his zeal against episcopacy, and the oppressions of the bishops exposed him to nu- merous and painful sufferings. He published a book, entitled, "AnAppeal to Parliament ; or, Sion's Plea against the Prelacie ;" for which he met with unexampled cruelty in the star-chamber. In this book he expressed his senti- ments against the hierarchy and the proceedings of the ruling prelates with considerable freedom, and with too much zeal and warmth for the times. The book was dedicated to the parliament, in which some of our his- torians have observed,§ "That he excited the parliament and the people to kill all the bishops, by smiting them under the fifth rib ; and bitterly inveighed against the queen, calling her the daughter of Heth, a Canaanite, and an idolatress." If this account were perfectly correct, and Leighton had excited them to kill all the bishops, surely this would have been no greater crime than the bishops actually killing vast numbers of puritans, by the cruel punishments Peirce's Vindication, part i. p. 181.--Scots' Worthies, p. 141, Edit. 1796. + Granger's Biog. Hist. vol. ii. p. 180. l Burnet's Hist. of his Time, vol. i. p. 134. Fuller's Church Hist. b. xi. p. 136.-Walker's Attempt, part i. p. 5.
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