Early Life
Leighton was born in London to Scottish parents in 1611. His father was Doctor Alexander Leighton, who was tortured by King Charles I for his puritan beliefs after authoring a pamphlet Zion's Plea against Prelacy in which he criticised the church, condemning Bishops as "antiChristian and satanic". Robert Leighton's mother was Alexander Leighton's first wife. According to Gilbert Burnet, Leighton was distinguished for his "saintly disposition" from his earliest childhood, even despite the persecution of his family. In 1627 (before his father published his pamphlet) at the age of sixteen, Robert Leighton went to study at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with an MA in 1631.
Following his graduation, his father sent him to travel abroad, and he is understood to have spent several years in France, where he acquired a complete mastery of the French language. While there he passed a good deal of time with relatives at Douai who had become Roman Catholics, and with whom he kept up a correspondence for many years afterwards. Either at this time or on some subsequent visit he had also a good deal of intercourse with members of the Jansenist party. This intercourse contributed to the charity towards those who differed from him in religious opinion, which ever afterwards formed a feature in his character.
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