the
document was drawn up by his brother-in-law, Archibald Johnstone, Lord
Warristoun. He therefore found it necessary to retire from his profession,
and twice went into exile. He disapproved of the rising of the Scots, but
was none the less a severe critic of the government of Charles I. and of
the action of the Scottish bishops. This moderate attitude he impressed on
his son Gilbert, whose early education he directed. The boy entered
Marischal College at the age of nine, and five years later graduated M.A.
He then spent a year in the study of feudal and civil law before he
resolved to devote himself to theology. He became a probationer for the
Scottish ministry in 1661 just before episcopal government was
re-established in Scotland. His decision to accept episcopal orders led to
difficulties with his family, especially with his mother, who held rigid
Presbyterian views. From this time dates his friendship with Robert
Leighton (1611-1684), who greatly influenced his religious opinions.
Leighton had, during a stay in the Spanish Netherlands, assimilated
something of the ascetic and pietistic spirit of Jansenism, and was devoted
to the interests of peace in the church. Burnet wisely refused to accept a
benefice in the disturbed state of church affairs, but he wrote an
audacious letter to Archbishop Sharp asking him to take measures to restore
peace. Sharp sent for Burnet, and dismissed his advice without apparent
resentment. He had already made valuable acquaintances in Edinburgh, and he
now visited London, Oxford and Cambridge, and, after a short visit to
Edinburgh in 1663, when he sought to secure a reprieve for his uncle
Warristoun, he proceeded to travel in France and Holland. At Cambridge he
was strongly influenced by the philosophical views of Ralph Cudworth and
Henry More, who proposed an unusual degree of toleration within the
boundaries of the church and the limitations imposed by its liturgy and
episcopal government; and his intercourse in Holland with foreign divines
of different Protestant sects further encouraged his tendency to
latitudinarianism.

When he returned to England in 1664 he established intimate relations with
Sir Robert Moray and with John Maitland, earl and afterwards first duke of
Lauderdale, both of whom at that time advocated a tolerant policy towards
the Scottish covenanters. Burnet became a member of the Royal Society, of
which Moray was the first president. On his father's death he had bee