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THE SCOTTISH REFORMATION

]



THE SCOTTISH REFORMATION

Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics

(Being the Baird Lecture for 1899)

BY THE LATE ALEXANDER F. MITCHELL, D.D., LL.D.

EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY IN ST. ANDREWS UNIVERSITY

EDITED BY

D. HAY FLEMING, LL.D.

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR BY JAMES CHRISTIE, D.D.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCC



PREFACE.

Few men have shown more indomitable application to an arduous duty, amid physical weakness and bodily pain, than did the author of these Lectures in their preparation and revision. In the MS. there are a goodly number of additions and minute alterations in his own hand—some of them very tremulous, some of them in ink, some of them in pencil. He intended to revise them still more carefully ere they were published; but expressed the desire that, if he were not spared to do so, I would see them through the press. The Master, whom he served so long and so faithfully, having released him from the work he loved so well, and from the suffering he so patiently endured, the final revision has devolved upon me.

On the suggestion of Professor Robertson the book has been arranged in chapters. The sixth lecture having temporarily gone amissing before its delivery, Dr Mitchell prepared a rescension of it. The original and the rescension are now combined in chapter x. He intended to devote an extra lecture to Alesius, and another to Andrew Melville, but unfortunately was unable. The chapter on Alesius is therefore taken from two of his class-lectures, some of the longer extracts being thrown into appendices, and a few passages being slightly compressed. This is at once the fullest and the best account of Alesius that has yet been published. The facts concerning Melville in chapter x. are supplemented to a small extent in the paper quoted in Appendix A.

Comparatively few of the authorities were entered in the MS. when it was placed in my hands. I have filled in many, and have taken care, in almost every instance where volume and page are given, to check the quotations with the originals. My notes, and my additions to Dr Mitchell's notes, are enclosed within square brackets; but when I have merely supplied authorities, they are not so distinguished. The list which he had drawn up of the works of Alesius was partly in an obsolete form of shorthand, which to me was quite undecipherable. Having been privileged to examine a good many of these rare treatises in various public libraries, I have been able, though only to an inconsiderable degree, to supplement the list; these additions being marked like those in the notes and other appendices. In revising the Lectures themselves, I have corrected a number of trifling slips, but have made no alteration of which Dr Mitchell would not have cordially approved had his attention been drawn to it.

In preparing the Lectures, Dr Mitchell availed himself of elaborate articles he had written at various times for periodicals and other publications. The present volume is valuable in several ways, not the least of these being that it embodies, on many obscure and important points, the matured views of one of the most competent and cautious of historical students—of one who grudged no time and spared no labour in eliciting and elucidating the truth.

D. H. F.

December 1899.



THE SCOTTISH REFORMATION CONTENTS.

PAGE

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF DR MITCHELL xiii

CHAPTER I. THE NATURE AND NEED OF THE REFORMATION 1

CHAPTER II. PATRICK HAMILTON 19

CHAPTER III. THE OPPRESSED AND THE OPPRESSORS 34

CHAPTER IV. GEORGE WISHART 56

CHAPTER V. KNOX AS LEADER OF OUR REFORMATION 79

CHAPTER VI. THE OLD SCOTTISH CONFESSION OF 1560 99

CHAPTER VII. THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER 123

CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRST BOOK OF DISCIPLINE 144 SECT. I. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH 145 II. THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH 162 III. THE PREROGATIVES AND DUTIES OF CHURCH MEMBERS 169 IV. EDUCATION OF THE YOUNG AND UNIVERSITY REFORM 174 V. CARE OF THE POOR 179

CHAPTER IX. THE LAST DAYS OF JOHN KNOX 184

CHAPTER X. THE SECOND BOOK OF DISCIPLINE 214

CHAPTER XI. ALESIUS 239

APPENDICES.

A. THE PAEDAGOGIUM, OR ST MARY'S COLLEGE, ST ANDREWS 285

B. CITATIO PATRICII HAMILTON 289

C. CARDINAL BETOUN'S INCONTINENCE 292

D. CONDITIONS ON WHICH THE USE OF THE CHURCH OF THE WHITE LADIES AT FRANKFORT WAS GRANTED TO THE ENGLISH EXILES 294

E. THE THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL OPINIONS OF ALESIUS 295

F. THE DREAM OR VISION OF ALESIUS CONCERNING THE DECAPITATION OF ANNE BOLEYN 297

G. THE DEPARTURE OF ALESIUS FROM ENGLAND 298

H. ALESIUS' INVITATION OF MELANCHTHON TO HIS DAUGHTER'S WEDDING 300

I. THE WORKS OF ALESIUS 301

* * * * *

ADDENDA 307

INDEX 311



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

OF

THE VERY REV. ALEXANDER FERRIER MITCHELL, D.D., LL.D., PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN ST MARY'S COLLEGE, ST ANDREWS.

A pathetic and almost melancholy interest attaches to this volume of the Baird Lectures. Their scholarly and accomplished author may be said to have entered on the last stage of the malady to which he succumbed when they were read for him in Blythswood Parish Church, Glasgow, by his friend and former student, Professor Robertson, the closing one, indeed, having been delivered but a few days before his death. In proof of the deep interest which he took in the subject of these Lectures, and of his desire to present them in as perfect a form as possible, it may also be mentioned that he employed his time in revising them while confined to bed during the protracted and painful illness through which he passed. The editing of them he intrusted to another friend, Dr Hay Fleming of St Andrews, with whom he had much in common—similarity of tastes and interest in the same literary pursuits having led to an intercourse between them which ripened into mutual confidence and esteem. Had Professor Mitchell lived to see the work through the press himself, there is hardly room to doubt that, as in the case of most of his other publications, additional explanatory and supplementary notes on obscure points would have been appended by him. As it is, the editor in executing his task has done what he could in this respect.

When the decease of the venerable Professor took place at St Andrews towards the end of March of this year, it was felt that the Church of Scotland had been bereft not only of one of her ablest and most trusted leaders, but of one of the wisest and warmest friends of her missions; and the many tributes paid to his memory, both from the pulpit and in the press, were all expressive of the high regard in which he was held, and of the sense of public loss caused by his removal. But the loss was not that of his own Church alone, nor of the University with which his name had been so long and so honourably associated. There are those in other communions who had learned to look upon him as "a master of Israel," and in all Presbyterian Churches especially he was recognised as one of the ablest and most learned exponents of the principles which they hold in common, and as one of the most earnest defenders of "the faith once delivered to the saints."

As many of those who are familiar with Professor Mitchell's writings may know little or nothing of his personal history, it has been suggested that a short biographical sketch of him would form an appropriate introduction to this posthumous volume. The particulars woven together in the following narrative have been collected from various sources, some of them having been furnished by members of his own family.

Alexander Ferrier Mitchell was born on 10th September 1822 in the old ecclesiastical city of Brechin, with which his ancestors had had an honourable connection for several generations. His grandfather, Alexander Mitchell, and his father, David Mitchell, were both known as Convener Mitchell, probably as having succeeded each other in the convenership of the local guilds. On the maternal side he was descended from another Brechin family, some of the members of which had in their day served in various capacities abroad, one of his granduncles, Alexander Ferrier, after whom he was named, having been a doctor in India, and another, Captain David Ferrier, "a brave and bold sailor,"—in memory of whom there is a tablet on the east door of the old Cathedral,—having made a voyage round the world in the Dolphin, in which also he ran the blockade in time of war into some of the French ports. Elizabeth, daughter of James Ferrier at Broadmyre, the Professor's mother, was a woman of good judgment and deep piety, and from her he seems to have inherited some of the most prominent features of his character. He was one of a family of three, his brother and sister having died, the former at Bloemfontein in South Africa, many years ago. In childhood he had a narrow escape, a cart having run over his body. He was picked up and carried home by the minister of the Episcopal church. As a boy he passed through more than one severe illness, and when taken for a change to Glenesk one summer he was described by a sympathetic friend as "a deein' laddie." To a mother's unwearied care and attention he owed, under the divine blessing, the recovery of his health, and to a mother's religious training he owed in no small degree that knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and that pious disposition by which he was distinguished from his earliest years. His elementary education he received at the grammar-school of his native town, and when fifteen years of age he proceeded to St Andrews to prosecute his studies with a view to the Christian ministry.

In those days the journey thither was not made with the comfort and facility with which it is now accomplished; and the Professor himself has told how, on landing from the North off the ferry-boat at Newport, he walked all the way to St Andrews—a distance of eleven miles—along with the carrier's son by the side of the cart which conveyed his luggage to its destination. Widely different as were the future careers of those two youths, there were various interesting points of contact in their lives, the one becoming an eminent doctor in the University, and the other filling the honourable position of a magistrate in the ancient city, while both were associated as members of the kirk-session of the Town Church.

At the very outset of his career at St Andrews the young student from Brechin gained the highest distinction, having won the first bursary open to students entering the University, as the result of a competitive examination in classical scholarship. Throughout his course, both in Arts and Divinity, he maintained a highly honourable place in all the classes, distinguishing himself particularly by proficiency in Hebrew and other Oriental languages; while he won the commendation of his professors and the esteem of his fellow-students not more by his attainments in learning than by the sterling integrity of his character and the example of his consistent Christian life. Among his contemporaries at College were not a few who in after-life rose to prominent positions in the Church, one of these being his future colleague, the late Principal Tulloch, with whom he continued to have most cordial relations during a lifelong friendship.

On completing the usual curriculum of study at the University, Mr Mitchell was in 1844 licensed to preach the Gospel, and after acting for some time as an assistant, first to the minister of the parish of Meigle and then to the minister of the parish of Dundee, he was in 1847 ordained by the Presbytery of Meigle to the pastoral charge of the parish of Dunnichen in his native county.

The Professor had been no passive spectator of the exciting and momentous events which were taking place in the Church of Scotland in the years which immediately preceded and followed his entrance on the work of the ministry; and in his address as Moderator of the General Assembly, four decades afterwards, he gives a graphic account of the impressions made upon him by his visits to the Supreme Court of the Church during that period of acrimonious controversy and painful separation. He says: "My first view of the General Assembly was gained in 1840, where from the public gallery of the Tron Church, in near proximity to Dr John Ritchie, of the Potterrow (whose thoughts were already running in the same direction as those of his successors are now), I listened to the thrilling eloquence of Chalmers, and the calm, thoughtful utterances of Cook, and witnessed the first of those titanic encounters between Cunningham and Robertson, which the pen of Hugh Miller and the histories of the period have made classical. My next glimpse of the Assembly was in 1843, when, from the students' gallery of St Andrew's Church, beside my friend William Smith, afterwards of North Leith, I witnessed that sad sight which was never to fade from our memories, nor cease to influence the course of our thought and action—the scene when Welsh, Chalmers, Gordon, and many more good and devoted ministers, abandoning in despair the contest of ten years, withdrew from the Church of their fathers, to rear another in which they hoped to enjoy greater freedom and peace. My next view of the Assembly was in 1848, when, along with Dr Tulloch, and two or three other college friends, I took my place for the first time as a member of the House, and when my old preceptor, then Professor of Church History in St Mary's College, filled the chair. The Church at that time was but slowly recovering from the staggering blow she had received in '43, and the great Dr Robertson was shaping out the splendid scheme which was to constitute her mission for the immediate future, and give to her the consciousness and confidence of reviving life. There were plenty of aged men there, whose lives had been honourably worn out in her service; a goodly band of young men, with not a little of the ardour and enthusiasm of youth; not a few of riper years, who, after weary waiting, had at last been promoted to pastoral charges. But that class which is the mainstay of a Church—the men who have attained to experience by years of labour in her service, and are still able to bear the burden and heat of the day—was more scantily represented."

The young minister, with so many conspicuous gifts and graces, was not allowed to remain long in the quiet pastoral charge at Dunnichen, where his ministry had been very acceptable; and in 1848—only one year after his ordination, and when not more than twenty-six years of age—he was appointed to the chair of Hebrew in St Mary's College, St Andrews, through which he had so recently passed as a student. He has himself told of the cordial welcome which he received from the venerable Principal Haldane and the other members of the professorial staff, and of the harmony with which they co-operated in the work of the College.

It was not then a common thing that so young a minister should be called to occupy such a position of dignity and responsibility, nor was Hebrew then so popular a branch of study as it has, for various reasons, since become in our Divinity Halls; but the ability and success with which the Professor discharged the duties of his chair, and the salutary influence which he exerted in many ways upon the students, more than justified the appointment. He was one of the first in Scotland to introduce a scientific method in the teaching of Hebrew, and his class-room became a place of very real work, necessitating careful preparation on the part of the students. Some of these, perhaps, thought him rather exacting, and the strict discipline which he enforced was not altogether to their liking; but there were very few who did not value his good opinion, or who would not have considered it a kind of degradation to incur his displeasure; while many, imbued with something of his own spirit, attained under his guidance to such a degree of proficiency in the knowledge of the sacred tongue as made the reading of the Old Testament in the original a source of interest and pleasure to them in subsequent years. Dr William Wright, one of the greatest of Orientalists, was one of his students, and two others of them are occupants of Hebrew Chairs in Scottish Universities.

The appointment of the Professor to the Convenership of the Committee on the Mission to the Jews in 1856 marked a new era in its history, in respect both of the method of its operations and the field in which these have ever since been carried on. One of the results of the Crimean war, which had then but recently closed, was the opening of the Turkish empire for evangelistic enterprise; and it may be said that the Professor laid the foundations of the Mission in the Levant at the several stations occupied by the Church of Scotland, which are now known not only as places of great historic interest but as important centres of missionary activity in which the Church bears an honourable part. In the autumn of 1857 he undertook a journey to the East at the request of the Committee, and in the course of his travels there visited not only the principal Turkish cities on the coast, but Jerusalem and other places in Palestine and Syria, collecting information with a view to find openings for the planting of the Mission at suitable stations in addition to the two which had been already occupied. The report which he presented on his return led by degrees to a great expansion of the Mission, and several of his own students and others were through his influence induced to enter the service of the Committee. With many other claims on his attention, he ungrudgingly gave up a great part of his time to the administration of the affairs of the Mission, over which for nineteen years he continued to preside with great zeal and wisdom, pressing its claims on the members of the Church, and guiding and encouraging the missionaries by an intelligent and sympathetic interest in their arduous work. When in 1875 he retired from the Convenership, the General Assembly expressed its sense of the value of the distinguished services which he had rendered to the Church in this department of her work in the following terms: "The Assembly are satisfied that the present prosperity of the Jewish Mission, and the remarkable progress which it has made, has been mainly owing to the great labour, the learning, enthusiasm, and warm and intelligent Christian interest which Dr Mitchell has devoted during these years to the cause of Jewish conversion in connection with the Church of Scotland." After his retirement from the Convenership he but seldom attended the meetings of the Committee, for the reason, as he was once heard to say, that he did not wish to appear to hamper his successors; but he never ceased to take a deep interest in the Mission, and none rejoiced more than he in its growing prosperity.

While the Professor still occupied the Hebrew Chair, he had shown a special aptitude for another branch of learning, in which he was yet to make a reputation for himself in the Churches not only of Britain but of America. In 1866 he published a lecture, primarily addressed to his students, on 'The Westminster Confession of Faith: A Contribution to the Study of its Historical Relations and to the Defence of its Teaching,' which, as a reply to views then current in certain quarters, attracted no little notice at the time of its publication, and which is not only of special interest as illustrating his theological standpoint, and the calm and temperate, yet earnest and vigorous, manner in which he could defend it, but is of permanent value as a contribution to the literature of the subject with which it deals. In the following year he published 'The Wedderburns and their Work, or the Sacred Poetry of the Scottish Reformation in its Relation to that of Germany'—a subject which was treated by him much more fully in one of his most recent works.

The Professor was known to possess a most extensive and accurate knowledge of Church History in general, and of Scottish Church History in particular; and when in 1868 he was called to occupy the Chair of Ecclesiastical History in St Mary's College, the appointment was hailed with satisfaction alike by the University and the Church. With an absorbing interest in his subject, and with the true instinct of the historian, he was most painstaking in ascertaining historical facts, never reaching his conclusions but as the result of patient and careful investigation; and those who knew him intimately can tell how little he grudged the trouble of a journey to Edinburgh or London, or even of an occasional excursion to the Continent, in order to prosecute his researches in libraries there with the view of verifying a statement, or of obtaining indubitable evidence on some controverted point. Besides those who had the privilege of listening to his prelections from the professorial chair, there are many in the Churches on both sides of the Atlantic who have profited by his great erudition; and his published writings, which all bear the impress of a master-hand, will always be reckoned standard works in Ecclesiastical History.

It is no part of the purpose of this notice to describe his various works in detail, but the mere enumeration of them will show what a life of unremitting study he lived. Besides those already referred to, he edited, along with the late Dr Struthers, in 1874, 'The Minutes of the Westminster Assembly from November 1644 to March 1649,' to which is prefixed an elaborate Historical Introduction written by himself; in 1882 he wrote a 'Historical Notice of Archbishop Hamilton's Catechism' (first printed at St Andrews in 1551), prefixed to Paterson's black-letter reprint of the same; in 1883 he published his Baird Lecture, 'The Westminster Assembly: Its History and Standards'; in 1886 he published 'The Catechisms of the Second Reformation'; in 1888 he edited, for the Scottish Text Society, 'The Richt Vay to the Kingdome of Heuine,' by John Gau, the earliest known prose-treatise in the Scottish dialect setting forth the doctrines of the Reformers; and in 1897, for the same Society, 'The Gude and Godlie Ballads,' reprinted from the edition of 1567, with a full and most interesting Introduction. For the Scottish History Society he also edited in 1892 and 1896, along with the writer of this sketch, two volumes of 'The Records of the Commissions of the General Assembly,' covering the period 1646-1650, from the original manuscript in the Assembly library, with an introduction, notes, and appendices by himself. To these must be added the present volume of the Baird Lecture, 'The Scottish Reformation.'

The Baird Lecture on the Westminster Assembly was received with great favour in America as well as in this country, and a new edition of it was published at Philadelphia in 1897, in a notice of which in the 'Presbyterian and Reformed Review' the following statement occurs: "The book at once took its rank as the most trustworthy and sympathetic account of the Westminster Standards in existence, and rapidly ran out of print. The public is to be congratulated that Dr Mitchell has permitted himself to be persuaded by the [Presbyterian] Board to revise the text and allow a new edition to be issued to meet the present demand. The revision does not much alter the text. A phrase is more felicitously turned here or rendered a shade more exact or emphatic there; a few additional references are added in the notes; and a few additional citations and remarks incorporated in them: that is about all. But so good a book needed only these little touches of betterment."

The Professor also contributed to various journals and encyclopaedias many important articles, chiefly on historical topics relating to Scotland, which, if collected, would form a volume of miscellaneous papers of great interest and value. The most important of these are included in the subjoined list: In the 'British and Foreign Evangelical Review,' January 1872, "Our Scottish Reformation: Its Distinctive Characteristics and Present-Day Lessons," pp. 87-128; October 1875, "Dr Merle D'Aubigne on the Reformation in Scotland," pp. 736-760; October 1876, "Killen's Ecclesiastical History of Ireland," pp. 713-741: in the 'Catholic Presbyterian,' March 1879, "Calvin and the Psalmody of the Reformed Churches": in the 'Scottish Church,' November 1886, "St Andrews in Covenanting Times": in the 'Year-Book of the Church of Scotland,' 1886, "Brief Sketch of the History of the Reformed Church of Scotland": in 'St Giles' Lectures,' First Series, 1880-81, "Pre-Reformation Scotland"; and in Fourth Series, 1883-84, "The Primitive or Apostolic and Sub-Apostolic Church," being the first of the lectures entitled, "The Churches of Christendom." To Dr Schaff's Encyclopaedia he contributed separate articles on "St Columba," "The Culdees," "Patrick Hamilton," "Iona," and "The Keltic Church"; and to the 'Presbyterian and Reformed Review,' published at Philadelphia, he contributed a review of Dr Hume Brown's 'John Knox.' Besides many Reports on various matters presented to the General Assembly, he issued for special purposes a "Statement regarding the Eldership," and a "List of Acts of the Scottish Parliament, and of Acts, Overtures, and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, adopted at various times for the Acknowledgment of the True Reformed Protestant Religion, the Maintenance of Sound Doctrine, and the Subscription of the Confessions of Faith of 1560 and 1647." When at Geneva, on one of his visits to the Continent, he prepared for private circulation, from the original, which is still preserved among the historical treasures in the Hotel de Ville, "Livre Des Anglois, or Register of the English Church at Geneva under the pastoral care of Knox and Goodman, 1555-1559," with a Prefatory Notice and a Facsimile of pp. 49, 50. To this list of his minor works may be added a sermon on "The Unsearchable Riches of Christ," published in 1879.

The Professor accorded a generous and helpful sympathy to those who were workers in the field in which he laboured himself with so great assiduity and success; and he was not only a member both of the Scottish History Society and of the Scottish Text Society, but took an active interest in their affairs. He was also one of the representatives of the Church of Scotland in the General Presbyterian Alliance from the date of its formation, and took part in the business of all its General Councils, at the first of which, held at Edinburgh in 1877, he laid on the table a paper which he had drawn up on "The Harmony between the Bibliology of the Westminster Confession and that of the earlier Reformed Confessions, exhibited in parallel columns." He was appointed Convener of the Committee on the Desiderata of the History of the Presbyterian Churches; and at the following General Council, held at Philadelphia in 1880, it fell to him, in consequence of the death of Principal Lorimer, who was Convener of the British section of the Committee on Creeds and Formulas of Subscription, to give in the report containing "Answers to Queries regarding Creeds and Confessions." The Answers as regards the Church of Scotland, which had been prepared by himself, are to be found in the Report of the Proceedings of the Council, pp. 969-984. When in America he also delivered a course of lectures at Alleghany. His connection with the Alliance brought him into close contact with some of the leading Presbyterian divines of Britain and America, with whom his opinions on the history of the doctrine, worship, and government of the Church carried great weight; and Dr Schaff has acknowledged his obligations to him, among others, in his well-known work entitled 'The Creeds of Christendom.'

In 1885 the Church showed her appreciation of the Professor's character and work by electing him to the Moderatorship of the General Assembly, an office which he filled with a union of dignity and authority which reflected honour upon the Church. If there are parties in the Church of Scotland, he never identified himself with any of them, and had learned to call no man master but Christ. He knew his own mind, and could give forcible expression to his convictions when occasion required. Naturally of an unassuming disposition and unobtrusive manners, he never courted popularity nor sought to thrust his opinions upon others; and it was for this reason, perhaps, that he was deferred to even by those whose views were in some respects widely divergent from his. It was doubtless for this reason also, as well as for others, that he wielded so great an influence in the counsels of the Church, and probably few men had more to do than he with the shaping of her policy in recent years. In paying a tribute to his memory at a meeting of the Presbytery of Edinburgh a few days after his decease, the Very Rev. Dr Scott of St George's said that "by Professor Mitchell's death the Church had lost a laborious, faithful, successful, and honoured minister and professor, and perhaps one of the soundest and wisest counsellors that the Church ever had. He was a man who had friends in all the Churches. He knew how powerfully his influence had told in the Church—always for conciliation, not only so far as those without their own Church were concerned, but those within the Church also. Had it not been for Dr Mitchell's influence the relaxation of the formula regarding the subscription of elders would never have been carried through."

A man of a very catholic spirit, and a lover of peace and concord, the Professor, like many others who longed for a comprehensive union of the Scottish Churches, would willingly have made all reasonable concessions for the attainment of so desirable an object. But he was too loyal a son of the Church of Scotland to consent to any unworthy compromise, and in the hour of danger no one was more ready than he to exert all the influence at his command in her defence. Readers of Dr Boyd's 'Twenty-five Years of St Andrews' may remember the account there given of the impression made by the Professor's sermon in the Town Church in the height of the contest in 1885, when the question of Disestablishment was brought so prominently before the electors of the St Andrews Burghs. Dr Boyd says: "It had been intimated at the services during the day that Dr Mitchell, our Professor of Church History, would lecture in the parish church in the evening on 'Some aspects of the Church Question deserving of consideration in the present crisis.' Dr Mitchell was that year Moderator of the Kirk: and he very seldom preaches. The church was filled by a great congregation. I should not in the least degree have been surprised to hear Dr Mitchell preach wisely and devoutly: that is his usual way. But it did surprise me to find that man of calm and well-balanced mind fire up into a pathos and vehemence which I have rarely seen equalled and never surpassed. The question of disestablishment had been raised: and one was made to realise how it stirs the blood of good men here. And not merely were there this evening a fire, a keenness, a power of stirring a multitude to the depth of their nature, which are rare indeed, but an incisive severity of denunciation which few had expected from that calm, cautious man. And if the preacher was at white-heat, so was the congregation long before he was done. Several times there would have been loud applause, had it not been hushed."

The attitude which the Professor maintained in regard to the doctrine and worship of the Church was a strictly conservative one, and may be best described in his own words, taken from an article included in the list of his minor works. In that article, after quoting the advice tendered by an eminent minister of the Church of England to a minister of the Church of Scotland—"Stick by your own Kirk: it is an honest Kirk, one of the few that has fairly rid itself of sacerdotalism and ritualism, and you have no cause to be ashamed of it"—he goes on to say: "The advice is not unneeded in the present day by others than he to whom it was originally tendered, and I give it this publicity for the benefit of all whom it may concern. The Reformed Church of Scotland from the first rid herself of these medieval corruptions, and the attempt to bring her again under the yoke issued in dire disaster to those who made it. This surely is no time for the Presbyterian Churches to swerve from the testimony they have so long and resolutely borne against all such errors. When we think of the mischief they are now causing in the Church of England, and the grief they are occasioning to many of her most loyal sons, rather does it become us to bear more decided testimony to the truths, that under the New Testament there is but one Priest, who ever liveth to make intercession for us, and one sacrifice once offered, which perfects for ever them that are sanctified; that He has not communicated His priestly office to His ministers either by succession or delegation, nor authorised them to repeat or continue that sacrifice which is the propitiation for sin; and that He has neither Himself imposed, nor warranted others to impose, a load of 'fondly' invented ceremonies in His worship."

If the Professor thus strenuously opposed sacerdotalism on the one hand, he had as little sympathy with Broad Churchism on the other. The non-natural sense in which the narratives of the New Testament miracles are understood and interpreted by some of the modern critics he rejected as subversive of Christian truth, a common saying of his being, "If the Gospel is not true historically, it is not true at all: 'If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain'"; and while he mellowed with advancing years, he never wavered in his deep religious convictions, nor for a moment relaxed the tenacious grasp which he had of the doctrines of Christianity as set forth in the standards of the Reformed Churches. One of his latest sayings was, "I die in the faith which I have always professed."

From his Alma Mater the Professor had received the degree of D.D. in 1862, and in 1892 the University of Glasgow conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. in recognition of his eminence as a teacher and an author. A young minister of the Church, himself one of his most distinguished students, has drawn a picture of him as he appeared about the latter of these dates, which is so true to the life that no excuse is needed for introducing it here. He says: "St Andrews and Professor Mitchell are inseparable. For forty-four years he has taught in the University: first the Hebrew Tongue; next the History of the Church of Christ. As a Professor, Dr Mitchell comes into contact with a comparatively small number of students. The classes in St Mary's are diminutive—in some ways a source of much gratification to the writer and others—consequently he is little known by most men here. Of course, all are familiar with the Figure pacing the town in the bright of the forenoon; or, arm-in-arm with a youthful Professor, walking as far as the Swilcan; or, at a Graduation Ceremony, scanning the audience, if perhaps he may get a glimpse of some old pupil among the crowd of interested spectators. For many of his students have risen high: and some of them have a weight of years to bear. But all are not aware that in the Church History Class-Room English is spoken as she is nowhere else in St Andrews. The beautifully rounded and perfectly balanced sentences, and the elegance of the language, will hardly be excelled. To make the study of Church History what is called popular is one of the few impossibilities of life, but there is no man living who can invest the subject with more interest; for Professor Mitchell is thoroughly up to date with all his facts, and loses no opportunity of visiting the great German authorities.... To be reproved in class by the Professor is not to be desired: to be 'spoken to' in his ante-room still less so. Many men stand in awe of him—I have always thought unnecessarily so."

The Professor continued to take a warm interest in his students after they had left the Divinity Hall, and had entered on the work of the ministry; and when attending the General Assembly he could generally tell how many of its members had passed through one or other of his classes in St Mary's College. When he retired from the duties of his Chair in 1894, the occasion was regarded as affording a suitable opportunity of giving public expression to the esteem in which he was held by his friends, and to their grateful appreciation of his services both to the Church and the University; and in 1895, while the General Assembly was in session, he was presented, in name of a large number of his former students and other friends, with an illuminated address, a cheque for 200 guineas, and his portrait by Sir George Reid—acknowledged to be one of the best that have yet come from the studio of the President of the Royal Scottish Academy. The Right Hon. James A. Campbell of Stracathro, M.P., with whom he had long had intimate relations, presided at the ceremony and made the presentation. The reply of the Professor, as containing many interesting reminiscences, and as showing the view which he took himself of his life and work, is here inserted in extenso. He said:—

"Mr Campbell, I thank you, sir, with all my heart, for the many kind things—far more kind than I deserve—which you have just said of me, and for the many kind services which you have rendered to me in the course of our lifelong friendship; and I thank, with all my heart, you, my many esteemed friends and pupils, who have united in presenting me with this address expressive of your warm affection, this speaking likeness and munificent gift. Kindness far more than I have merited has followed me all my life through—never more conspicuously than at the close of my public career; and now in retiring from the professorial work I loved, and from the College for which almost for half a century I lived and laboured, it is a consolation to me to know that I carry with me into my retirement the esteem of so many honoured friends and the affectionate regard of so many former pupils. Some have been speaking lately of the loneliness of a Scottish student's college life. I can only say for myself that the years I spent as a student in St Mary's College were among the happiest of my life, and that the friendships then formed within the little band of my fellow-students were among the most valued and lasting of those I have enjoyed. I have but to name John Robertson, afterwards minister of Glasgow Cathedral; John Tulloch, afterwards Principal of St Mary's College; William Milligan, afterwards Professor of Biblical Criticism in Aberdeen; William Dickson, afterwards Professor of Divinity in Glasgow; Drs W. H. Gray, Gloag, and Herdman, and with these some who afterwards joined the Free Church: Dr Thomson, long at the head of the Free Church Jewish Mission at Constantinople; Dr Thomas Brown, younger brother of my late colleague, Dr William Brown, agent for the Turkish Missions Aid Society; and Edward Cross, afterwards Free Church minister at Monifieth, with whom I laboured in happiest intercourse in Dundee, he being assistant to the Free Church minister in the same district of the town when I was assistant to the Parish minister. When in my twenty-sixth year I returned as a Professor in the College where so shortly before I had been a student, I can never forget the kindness with which I was received by my aged instructors there, especially by Principal Haldane, whose kind counsels were then invaluable to me, nor the kindness of Professors Duncan and Alexander, the only two of my instructors remaining in the Old College. St Andrews about that time had the reputation of being rather a hot place. The conviction that I was a man of rather placid temper, who would not add fuel to the flame, I believe weighed considerably with Lord Advocate Rutherfurd in finally recommending me for the Chair. Within St Mary's College we were a happy family, and the youth of twenty-six and the two aged Professors beyond threescore and ten continued to work in unbroken harmony—the youth deeming it a special privilege to aid the venerable Principal in his class-work during the last year of his life, as well as to aid him and his aged colleague in their pulpit work. It was soon after this that I began to take an active part in Church work, attending the General Assembly as an elder and as Convener of the Jewish Mission—doing what I could to reorganise it in Turkey, first in conjunction with such venerable fathers as Drs Muir, Hunter, Grant, and James Robertson, and with several brethren nearer my own age, who were bearing the burden and heat of the day—Drs Crawford, Nicholson, Nisbet, William Robertson, and Elder Cumming, and such laymen as Sheriff Arkley, David Smith, Henry Cheyne, John Elder, John Tawse, and the good Edmund Baxter, all now gone to their rest and their reward. Principal Haldane was succeeded by my old class-fellow, Principal Tulloch, in harmony with whom I wrought for thirty years in the College, occasionally taking part of his work, as I had of his predecessor's, when he was laid aside by ill-health, and also taking part with him in Church work, especially in the work of the Anti-Patronage Committee, on whose success so many in the Church had set their hearts. After his untimely removal, though I had served for seven or eight years beyond the statutory thirty, I continued at my post, and in the most kind and cordial relations both in Church and University work with his successor, Principal Cunningham, heartily co-operating with him in the repeal of what has been termed the Black Act of 1711, and in the restitution of the old formula for ministers and elders, which are now so generally welcomed, and have been acknowledged by one at least of the three who protested against the change to be a great boon. I have often spoken of the pleasure I have had in superintending the work of my students, and my gratification at the zest with which they took to the study both of Hebrew and Church History. The circumstances which led to my resignation are already well known to you all, and I need only say that it was to me a very regretful necessity. I leave in each of the three other Divinity Faculties at least one distinguished pupil, and in St Mary's College two who, with their younger colleagues, I trust will strive to make it more than ever a School of the Prophets, a nursery for earnest, faithful, scholarly, and devoted ministers, who shall set high above all passing isms Christ the personal Saviour, and those great truths as to His divine nature, incarnation, atoning death, and glorious resurrection, to which the historic Church of Christ through so many centuries has clung as her life and strength and joy. Christ before, Christ behind,—according to St Patrick's prayer,—Christ above, Christ beneath, Christ in the heart, Christ in the home. I heartily thank you all for your great kindness, and especially Principal Stewart and Mr Wenley, and one who once said I had been as a father to him, and of whom I may truly say that he has been as a son to me."

In 1852 the Professor married the eldest daughter of the late Mr Michael Johnstone of Archbank, near Moffat, who belonged to an influential yeoman family that has been connected with Annandale for the last two hundred years. The late Mr Peter Johnstone, brother of Mrs Mitchell's father, who was a proprietor as well as a large farmer, is still remembered as having done a great deal to promote the cause of education in the district where he resided; and her brother, the late Mr James Johnstone, was tenant of Bodsbeck farm, which is the scene of the Ettrick Shepherd's well-known Covenanting story—"The Brownie of Bodsbeck." How much Mrs Mitchell did to brighten the life and to minister to the happiness of the Professor can be known only to those who have had the privilege of being admitted into the inner circle of their friends, and there are not a few who have very pleasant reminiscences of delightful intercourse with them in their house at 56 South Street, where the duty of entertaining strangers seemed never to be forgotten. Their family of four sons and two daughters all survive, with the exception of the eldest son, Robert Haldane, who died several years ago in Australia, to which he had emigrated along with his brother Johnstone.

Probably few are aware that the Professor spent many of his happiest days, and did much of his literary work, at Gowanpark, his country residence near Brechin, which, with its charm of seclusion and restfulness, no one who has visited it can ever forget, and which his family came to regard as their home almost as much as St Andrews. There he found relaxation in the interest which he took in the work of his little farm, which was his own property, and as long as he had health he enjoyed a ramble among the neighbouring hills, or a walk, varied by an occasional drive, along the quiet country roads. His home in the country, however, was with him no mere place of recreation, still less of idleness, and there, as elsewhere, he never failed to find his chief source of pleasure in the prosecution of his favourite studies.

When the Professor retired from the duties of his Chair he did not cease to take an interest in the affairs of the College, of which he was an ornament while he lived, and with which, as was said in a notice of him at the time of his death, his name will always be associated—like those of Andrew Melville, Samuel Rutherford, and others in remote and troublous times, and that of Principal Tulloch in our own more peaceful days. Nor did he cease to interest himself in the work of the Church which he loved so well and had served so faithfully. Perhaps it was to show his love for the Church as much as to gratify his own feelings that, amid great bodily infirmity, he undertook the journey to Edinburgh, in May 1898, to attend the General Assembly. He was unable, indeed, to be present there more than once or twice, and when on one occasion he occupied the Moderator's chair for a few minutes, a thrill of respectful sympathy passed through the House. In a letter written a few days after his return home he says, "I am very pleased to have been able to give even such limited attendance," adding, with a touch of pathos, as if anticipating that the visit would be his last, "in the fiftieth year since Mr John Tulloch and Alex. F. Mitchell were first returned as members."

Soon afterwards he removed to his loved retreat at Gowanpark, but his health did not improve, and he was but seldom able to leave the house. Most of the letters he wrote at this time, some of them in pencil, with his head resting on the pillow, were evidently intended to be his parting words to those to whom they were addressed. In one of these, written in the middle of September, he says, "For the first fortnight after I came here I was able to go out of doors, and in my invalid chair bask in the sun for an hour a-day. I am still keeping my bed in the hope of being able to return without risk to St Andrews in the end of the month;" and then, alluding to a subject his interest in which seems to have helped to keep him alive, he says, "I have got five of my six Baird Lectures transcribed. Of course I must get some one to read them for me."

When he returned to St Andrews, the burden of his infirmities grew heavier, and as the spring approached it was manifest that he was nearing the end. He was greatly affected by the tidings of the tragic death of Dr Boyd, who had paid him a visit shortly before his departure for the south. On the Monday before he died he repeated the words of the second paraphrase in a clear, strong voice, and quoted almost the last recorded words of St Paul, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." On Tuesday evening he desired some one to sing to him, and as Miss Mitchell was unable to control her feelings to do so, Mr Smith, his amanuensis, who had come in, was asked by him to sing "Jesus, Lover of my Soul." When this was done he turned to Miss Mitchell, and said, "What would you like?" and they sang together "Rock of Ages." With uncomplaining patience he had suffered much, but welcome rest came to him on the morning of Wednesday, 22nd March. Having served his own generation by the will of God, he fell asleep amid the tender regrets of his family, leaving behind him a memory that will always be held in honour, and an example of laborious service, of deep piety, and of fervent trust in Christ.

In compliance with his own wish, his remains were conveyed to Brechin, where they were laid to rest beside those of his fathers under the shadow of the old Cathedral, the members of the local Presbytery, in token of their respect, being present on the occasion. "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."

Gilmerton Manse, December 1899.



THE SCOTTISH REFORMATION.



CHAPTER I.

THE NATURE AND NEED OF THE REFORMATION.

[Sidenote: Its Animating Principle.]

With the single exception of the period which covers the introduction and first marvellous triumphs of Christianity, the Reformation of the sixteenth century must be owned as perhaps the greatest and most glorious revolution in the history of the human race. And the years of earnest contendings and heroic sufferings which prepared the way for its triumph in many lands and issued in its cruel suppression in others, and the story of the men who by God's grace were enabled to bear the brunt of the battle and to lead their countrymen on to victory or to martyrdom, will ever have a fascination for all in whose hearts faith in the great truths, then more clearly brought to light, has not yet altogether evaporated. The movement then initiated was no mere effort to get quit of acknowledged scandals, which had long been grieved over but never firmly dealt with; no mere desire to lop off a few later accretions, which had gathered round and obscured the faith once delivered to the saints;[1] no mere "return to the Augustinian, or the Nicene, or the Ante-Nicene age," but a vast progress beyond any previous age since the death of St John—a deeper plunge into the meaning of revelation than had been made by Augustine, or Anselm, or St Bernard, or A Kempis, or Wycliffe, or Tauler. Its object was to get back to the divine sources of Christianity,—to know, and understand, and appropriate it as it came fresh and pure from the lips of the Son of God and His inspired apostles, not excluding that chosen vessel to whom the grace had been given "to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." It was, in fact, a return to the old Gospel so attractively set forth by him in his Epistles, and verified to the reformers by their own inmost spiritual experience under deep convictions of sin and shortcoming. The cry of their awakened consciences had been, How shall we sinners have relief from our load and be justified before God? And this, as has been said, was just the old question put to the apostle himself by the jailer at Philippi, What must I do to be saved? And the answer their own experience warranted them with one accord to proclaim was still, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, believe in the riches of His pardoning mercy, in the merit of His atoning death, in the freeness and power of His efficacious grace. By believing, however, they meant, and were careful to explain that they meant, not a mere intellectual assent to the truth of the facts, but such an assent as drew with it the trust of the heart and the personal surrender of the soul to Christ; or—to use language of somewhat later origin—the individual appropriation of the freely offered Saviour, with all His fulness of blessing, pardon, and righteousness by His one offering once offered, and renewal into His own image by the continuous indwelling of His Holy Spirit.

[Sidenote: Infusion of a New Life.]

Such was the animating principle which gave power to the teaching of the reformers in all lands, and which constitutes still the central article of a standing or a falling church to all their true-hearted successors—Christ crucified for our sins, raised again for our justification, and now exalted to the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens as Prince and Saviour, to give repentance and remission of sin and all needed grace to those who thus believe in Him, and are brought into union with Him. And the Reformed Church will never perish or decay while it continues to set forth this Gospel, and is honoured by its divine Head to bring it home to the hearts and consciences of men, with the same power as its first teachers were honoured with in the brave days of old. For it must never be forgotten, I repeat, that the Reformation movement was not only the introduction of a more scriptural and scientific method of exhibiting Christian doctrine, and simple unfolding of its teaching as to man's fallen state and the remedy their heavenly Father had in His love provided for them; not only the reassertion of the supremacy of the written Word of God over human traditions, as well as of the right of all Christian men and women to have direct access to that blessed Word; not only the translation into the vernacular—German, English, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish—and the circulation throughout Western Europe of that which for ages had been to the Christian laity as a book that is sealed; but it was also, above all this, the infusion of a new and higher life into the churches. We fall short of a full comprehension of the movement if we fail to recognise that the God of all grace and blessing was then pleased to "send a plentiful rain to confirm His inheritance when it was weary," to grant a second Pentecost to the church, to make the people willing in the day of His power, and to pour out His Spirit in rich abundance upon men.

With all the conscious and unconscious preparation which had paved the way for them, the men who were God's chosen instruments at that crisis were made deeply to feel and humbly to own that it was God Himself who had led them on—at times by ways they had not thought of; that it was He who had upheld them in their extremity when all human power seemed to be arrayed against them; that it was He who, when their resources were exhausted, was pleased, in the day when they cried unto Him, to hear their prayer and revive their hopes by the plentiful outpouring of His Spirit. How feelingly this was acknowledged by Luther at various crises in his life is known to all who are in any measure acquainted with his thrilling story. No one could have more constantly in his heart or more frequently on his lips the Hebrew psalmist's song of holy confidence, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.... There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God." There was also that other which, under reverses and discouragements, was the solace of our own reformer, "If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us: then they had swallowed us up quick.... Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth." As they mused the fire burned and found expression in such songs of holy confidence as—

"A sure stronghold our God is He, A trusty shield and weapon; Our help He'll be, and set us free Whatever ill may happen.

* * * * *

Through our own force we nothing can, Straight were we lost for ever, But for us fights the proper Man, By God sent to deliver. Ask ye who this may be? Christ Jesus named is He, Of Sabaoth the Lord Sole God to be adored, 'Tis He must win the battle."[2]

"If God were not upon our side When foes around us rage, Were not Himself our help and guide When bitter war they wage, Were He not Israel's mighty shield, To whom their utmost crafts must yield, We surely must have perished."[3]

[Sidenote: Decay of the Medieval Church.]

By the time at which reforming influences began manifestly to show themselves in Scotland, that grand medieval organisation, which had supplanted the simpler arrangements of the old Celtic church, had in its turn exhausted its life powers, and shown unmistakable signs of deep-seated corruption and hopeless decay. Whatever good it may have been honoured to do in times past,—in keeping alive the knowledge of God and of things divine in the midst of "a darkness which might be felt," in promoting a higher civilisation than the Celtic, in alleviating the evils of the feudalism which Anglo-Norman settlers had brought in, in founding parishes and universities and some other institutions which, with a purified church and revived Christian life, were to be a source of blessing after it was swept away,—yet now at last it had grossly failed to keep alive among the common people true devotion, or to give access to the sources at which the flame might have been rekindled; it had failed to provide educated men for its ordinary cures, to raise the masses from the rudeness and ignorance in which they were still involved, and even to maintain that hearty sympathy with them and that kindly interest in their temporal welfare which its best men in its earlier days had shown. It continued to have its services in a language which had for ages been unintelligible to the bulk of the laity, and was but partially intelligible to not a few of its ordinary priests. It had no catechisms or hymn books bringing down to the capacities of the unlettered the truths of religion, and freely circulated among them.[4] It did not, when the invention of printing put it in its power, make any effort to circulate among them the Holy Book, that they might read therein, in their own tongue, the message of God's love. No doubt it had its pictures and images, its mystery plays and ceremonies, which it deemed fit books for children and the unlearned. But it forgot that these children were growing in capacity, even if allowed to grow up untrained; that "to credulous simplicity was succeeding a spirit of eager curiosity, an impatience of mere authority, and a determination to search into the foundation of things"; and that, if it was to maintain its place, it must not only keep abreast but ahead of advancing intelligence and morality. But the old church began greatly to decline just as the laity began to rise. Bishop Kennedy, I suppose, was almost its last preaching bishop; and the character of the preaching, so far as preaching was still continued by the friars and some of the inferior clergy, was not generally fitted to supply the lack of Bibles and catechisms, and other vernacular books of instruction. It never grappled, as it ought, with the problem of lightening the burdens it had long exacted of the peasantry; but refused almost to the last moment to ease even the most galling of them. It never grappled, as it ought, with the problem of the education of the masses; and what was done for those of the community in more fortunate circumstances was done more by the efforts of a few noble-minded individuals than by any corporate action of Church or State. There is not among all its codes of canons anything approaching to the clear ringing utterances of our First Book of Discipline concerning the necessity and advantages of education.[5]

[Sidenote: Lethargy of the Medieval Church.]

Not only had the life powers of the medieval church been exhausted and decay set in, but corruption, positive and gross corruption, had reached an alarming height. There were the indolence and neglect of duty which wealth too often brings in its train; the covert secularising of that wealth, just as in the old Celtic church, by various devices, to get it into the hands of unqualified men and minors; luxury, avarice, oppression, simony, shameless pluralities, and crass ignorance; and above all that celibate system, which nothing would persuade them honestly to abandon, though it had proved to be a yoke they could not bear, and was producing only too generally results humiliating and disastrous to themselves and to all who came under their influence. The proof of this does not rest merely or even mainly on the statements of Knox, Alesius, and Spottiswood, nor on the representations of Lindsay and the Wedderburns. The fact, as both the late Dr David Laing and Dr Joseph Robertson have shown, and the late Bishop Forbes has sorrowfully acknowledged, is confessed and deplored in the canons of their councils, in the Acts of the Scottish Parliament, and in the writings of their own best men.[6] The harsh measures to which men themselves so vulnerable had recourse to maintain their position, the relentless cruelties they perpetrated on men of unblemished character, amiable disposition, deep-seated conviction and thorough Christian earnestness, could not fail in the end to turn the tide against them, and arouse feelings of indignation which on any favourable opportunity would induce the nation to sweep them away.

[Sidenote: Corruption of the Medieval Church.]

The corruptions in the doctrine of the church were hardly less notable than those in the lives of its clergy. The sufficiency and supremacy of the written Word of God were denied, and co-ordinate authority was claimed for tradition. The Virgin Mary and the saints departed were asserted to share the office which Scripture reserves for the one Mediator between God and man. Penances and other external acts of work-righteousness were alleged to co-operate in the pardon of sin with the "one obedience" by which "many are made righteous." The sacraments were asserted to produce their effect ex opere operato,—not by the working of the Spirit in them that by faith receive them. Belief in the literal transubstantiation of the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper was rigidly enforced and substituted for that spiritual presence and spiritual manducation which the earlier church had maintained. The doctrine of a purgatory after this life was invented, and the virtue of masses for the dead therein detained was persistently taught and required to be believed. The Roman church was affirmed to be the mother and mistress of the churches, and its head to be the successor of St Peter and the Vicar of Christ.

[Sidenote: The Reforming Priests.]

Yet it must never be forgotten that, even in these degenerate days, there were those among the ministers of the church who wept in secret over the abominations that were done, who longed for the dawn of a better day, and, in their parishes or cloisters or colleges, sought to prepare the way for it, and who succeeded in doing so with many of their younger comrades, and only made up their minds in the end to abandon the old church when all their efforts for its revival proved vain. Nay, the men who initiated and carried to a successful issue the struggle for a more thorough reformation than the others desired, the martyrs, confessors, and exiles, were almost all from the ranks of the priesthood of the old church—from the regular as well as from the secular priesthood; from the Dominican and Franciscan monasteries as well as from the Augustinian abbeys; and from none more largely than the Augustinian Priory of St Andrews, and the College of St Leonard founded in connection with it, notwithstanding that its prior for the time being was so far from what he ought to have been. At least twenty priests joined the reformed congregation of St Andrews in 1559-60, and among them more than one who had sat in judgment on the martyrs and assisted in their condemnation.[7] A much larger number were ultimately admitted as readers in the Reformed Church.

[Sidenote: Precursors of the Reformation.]

How was the great revolution which was to bring the church back from these corruptions of life and doctrine prepared for? Ebrard supposes that witnesses for holy living and simple faith, but partially connected with the dominant church, were never from Celtic times entirely wanting in Britain; and it may have been that, through Richard Rolle and a few other hermits, the feeble spark in the smoking wick continued to smoulder on till it was blown into a flame by Wycliffe. At any rate it was blown into a flame by him and his poor priests; and from their time witness after witness arose to contend for the right of the laity to read the Word of God, and to maintain that men were saved by the merits of Christ and should pray to Him alone, that there was no purgatory in the popish sense, and that the pope was not the Vicar of Christ. Wycliffe's poor priests, when persecuted in the south, naturally sought shelter among the moors and mosses of the north. The district of Kyle and Cunningham was "a receptakle of Goddis servandis of old," where their doctrines were cherished till the dawn of the Reformation. In 1406 or 1407 James Resby, one of these priests, is found teaching as far north as Perth, and for his teaching he was accused and condemned to a martyr's death. A similar fate is said to have befallen another in Glasgow about 1422, in all probability the Scottish Wycliffite whose letter to his bishop has recently been unearthed in a Hussite MS. at Vienna; and in 1433 Paul Craw or Crawar, a Bohemian, for disseminating similar opinions, was burned at the market cross in St Andrews. These were not in all probability the only grim triumphs of Laurence, Abbot of Lindores, one of the first rectors in the University of St Andrews, who during so many years "gave no rest to heretics," but they are all of whom records have been preserved to our time. The fact that every Master of Arts in the University of St Andrews had to take an oath to defend the church against the Lollards,[8] and the other fact that the Scottish Parliament in 1425 enjoined that every bishop should make inquiry anent heretics and Lollards, and that where any such were found, they should be punished as the law of holy church requires,[9] speak more significantly of the alarm they had occasioned than these sporadic martyrdoms. Still more, perhaps, does the abuse Fordun, or rather his continuator, heaps on them, bear witness to the alarm they had caused. Yet at the very close of the century, and in the old haunt, we find no fewer than thirty processed, and through the kindness of the king more gently dealt with than the ecclesiastical authorities wished; three of the most resolute—namely, Campbell of Cessnock, his noble wife, and a priest who officiated as their chaplain and read the New Testament to them—being released when at the stake.

[Sidenote: John Major.]

Reforming tendencies in the sixteenth century, it has been said, first showed themselves in Scotland in the reassertion of "those principles, catholic but anti-papal," which had been maintained in the preceding century in the Councils of Constance and Basle. The decisions of the former were received in Scotland in 1418, and allegiance to Benedict XIII. was finally renounced.[10] A Scottish doctor[11] had taken a rather prominent part in the proceedings of the latter, though the Scottish Church, like the others, ultimately fell away from that council and the pope elected by it, and under Bishop Kennedy was reconciled to the Roman See and to Pope Eugenius.[12] Scotland had had no Grosteste, no Anselm or Bradwardine among its prelates in the middle ages, no Wycliffe among its priests. Duns Scotus, the one theologian before the sixteenth century who claimed Scottish birth and European fame, never seems to have taught in his native land. Chief among its doctors in the beginning of the sixteenth century stood John Major, a native of East Lothian, who taught with distinguished success, first in Paris, then in Glasgow, after that in St Andrews, then once more in Paris, and finally in St Andrews again. Melanchthon, while ridiculing his scholastic ways, places him at the head of the doctors of the Sorbonne. The remembrance of his early labours in Montaigu College had not died out when Calvin entered it, and probably he had returned to it before Calvin left. Patrick Hamilton and Buchanan may possibly have been brought into contact with him while there, as they, Alesius, and John Wedderburn afterwards were in St Andrews, and John Hamilton and Knox in Glasgow. He was a true disciple of D'Ailly and Gerson, but like them was warmly attached to the dominant church and opposed to the heretics of his time. He taught, as they had done, that the church, assembled in general council, may judge and even depose a pope and reform abuses in the church; that papal excommunications have no force unless conformed to justice, and do not necessarily prevent a man who dies under them from going to heaven. He sharply censured the vices of the Roman court, and of the bishops and clergy of his time, particularly those of his native land. He is especially severe in censuring their immorality and ignorance; and, like Wycliffe, condemns the monks and friars for inveigling into their order young novices who had no vocation for a celibate life, and ought rather to have been encouraged to enter into honest wedlock. But he was a stern opponent of heresy—Lutheran as well as Wycliffite—a subtle defender of Roman doctrine; and in dedicating to Archbishop Betoun his Commentary on St Matthew's Gospel, he congratulated him on the success of his cruel measures against Hamilton and the heretics.[13]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] As Lord Acton has so well said, "The modern age did not proceed from the medieval by normal succession, with outward tokens of legitimate descent. Unheralded, it founded a new order of things, under a law of innovation, sapping the ancient reign of continuity. In those days Columbus subverted the notions of the world, and reversed the conditions of production, wealth, and power.... Luther broke the chain of authority and tradition at the strongest link; and Copernicus erected an invincible power that set for ever the mark of progress upon the time that was to come.... It was an awakening of new life; the world revolved in a different orbit, determined by influences unknown before. After many ages, persuaded of the headlong decline and impending dissolution of society, and governed by usage and the will of masters who were in their graves, the sixteenth century went forth armed for untried experience, and ready to watch with hopefulness a prospect of incalculable change" (Lecture on the Study of History, 1895, pp. 8, 9). "There are no true 'cycles' in human development; history never repeats itself; the Greco-Roman world has only distant analogies with the Feudal-Catholic world, just as this has only distant analogies with the Revolutionary world. The great phases of human civilisation are contrasted rather than compared; they differ as infancy, childhood, manhood, and senility differ in the individual" (Harrison on "Freeman's Method of History," in the 'Nineteenth Century' for November 1898).

[2] Miss Winkworth's Christian Singers of Germany, pp. 110, 111.

[3] Ibid., p. 117.

[4] [Hamilton's Catechism, which was not intended for indiscriminate circulation among the laity, was not published until 1552; and The Twopenny Faith was not issued until the spring of 1559.]

[5] [For these utterances see infra, chap. viii. sec. iv.]

[6] Because of its permanent importance, I deem it best to insert here a note from my Introduction to 'The Gude and Godlie Ballatis,' p. lxiv: "We do not need to call in Knox, or Lindsay, or the satirists, in evidence of this humbling fact. The testimony of their own councils, of the Acts of Parliament, and of some of their best men, as Principal Hay in his congratulatory address to Cardinal Betoun, and Ninian Winzet in the sad appeals and confessions inserted in his 'Tractates,' as well as that of impartial modern historians like Tytler and Dr Joseph Robertson, is more than sufficient to establish it beyond contradiction. The testimony of Conaeus, who died when about to be raised to the purple, covers almost all that Alesius and Knox have averred: 'In multorum sacerdotum aedibus scortum publicum ... nec a sacrilego quorundam luxu tutus erat matronarum honos aut virginalis pudor.' More notable still is the representation given in the 'Memoire' addressed to the Pope by Queen Mary and the Dauphin, evidently at the instance of Mary of Guise, in which the spread of heresy is expressly attributed to the ignorance and immorality of the clergy. See Appendix B, vol. ii., of Mr Hume Brown's recent biography of Knox."

[7] [So early as the 23rd of June 1559, Knox wrote to Mrs Anna Lock: "Diverse channons of Sanct Andrewes have given notable confessiouns, and have declared themselves manifest enemies to the pope, to the masse, and to all superstitioun" (Laing's Knox, vi. 26). In all probability some of these canons were included among the fourteen canons of St Andrews Priory who are mentioned as Protestants in January 1571-72, and of whom twelve were then parish ministers ('Booke of the Universall Kirk,' Bannatyne Club, i. 222). None of these fourteen is found signing the General Band of 13th July 1559, which in St Andrews was adopted as "the letters of junctioun to the Congregatioun"; but eighteen priests did sign it; and of the other thirteen ecclesiastics who there made sweeping recantations, at least six may be held to have joined the congregation, for they not only confessed that "we haif ower lang abstractit ourselfis and beyne sweir in adjuning us to Christes Congregatioun," but they promised "in tyme cuming to assist in word and wark with unfenyiet mynde this Congregatioun" ('Register of St Andrews Kirk-Session,' Scot. Hist. Soc., i. 10-18). In 1573 it was stated that "the most part of the persons who were channons monks and friars within this realme have made profession of the true religion" ('Booke of the Universall Kirk,' i. 280).]

[8] [Enacted by the University on 10th June 1416 (M'Crie's Melville, 1824, i. 420).]

[9] [Enacted by Parliament on 12th March 1424-25 (Acts of Parliament, ii. 7).]

[10] Robertson's Concilia Scotiae, vol. i. p. lxxviii.

[11] [For an account of this Scottish cleric—Thomas, Abbot of Dundrennan—who so greatly distinguished himself at the Council of Basle, see 'Concilia Scotiae,' vol. i. pp. xcvii-xcix.]

[12] [The bull of Eugenius the Fourth, addressed to Bishop Kennedy, and dated 6th July 1440, orders the excommunication of the followers of the anti-pope, Felix the Fifth, elected by the Council of Basle, to be published in Scotland (Ibid., p. c.)]

[13] [Dr Mitchell, no doubt, had the Commentary itself before him. Those who have not access to it will find the dedication in the Appendix to Constable's 'Major,' Scot. Hist. Soc., pp. 447, 448.]



CHAPTER II.

PATRICK HAMILTON.

It has not been very clearly ascertained how or when the opinions and writings of Luther were first introduced into Scotland. M. de la Tour, who in 1527 suffered in Paris for heresy, was accused of having vented various Lutheran opinions while in Edinburgh in attendance on the Duke of Albany. This, of course, must have been before 1523. On the 9th June 1523, the same day that John Major was received as Principal of the Paedagogium, or St Mary's College,[14] Patrick Hamilton was incorporated into the University of St Andrews;[15] and on 3rd October 1524 he was admitted as a member of the Faculty of Arts. If he did not from the latter date act as a regent in the University, he probably took charge of some of the young noblemen or gentlemen attending the classes. At that date he was probably more Erasmian than Lutheran, though of that more earnest school who were ultimately to outgrow their teacher, and find their congenial home in a new church.

[Sidenote: His Studies.]

Patrick Hamilton was born in 1503 or 1504 at Stonehouse in Lanarkshire, or at Kincavel near Linlithgow. His father, a natural son of the first Lord Hamilton, had been knighted for his bravery, and rewarded by his sovereign with the above lands and barony. His mother was a daughter of Alexander, Duke of Albany, the second son of James II., so that he had in his veins the noblest blood in the land. His cousins, John and James Hamilton, were in due time raised to episcopal rank in the unreformed church of Scotland, and several others of his relations received high ecclesiastical promotion. Marked out for a similar destiny, Patrick was carefully educated, and, according to the corrupt custom of the time, was in his fourteenth year appointed to the Abbacy of Ferne in Ross-shire, to enable him to maintain himself in comfort while continuing his studies abroad. Like many of his aristocratic countrymen he went first to the University of Paris, and probably to the College of Montaigu, where Major, the great Scottish scholastic doctor, was then teaching with much eclat, and gathering round him there, as afterwards at St Andrews, an ardent band of youthful admirers, several of whom in the end were to advance beyond their preceptor, and to lend the influence of their learning and piety to the side of Luther and the reformers. Before the close of 1520 he took the degree of M.A. at the University of Paris, and soon after left Paris for Louvain, to avail himself of the facilities for linguistic studies provided there, or to enjoy personal intercourse with Erasmus, the patron of the new learning. He is said while there to have made great progress in the languages and in philosophy, and to have been specially attracted towards the philosophy of Plato. With the Sophists of Louvain, as Luther terms them, he could have had no sympathy. But there were some there, as well as at Paris, whose hearts God had touched, to whom he could not fail to be drawn. He may even have met with those Augustinian monks of Antwerp whom these Sophists so soon after his departure sent to heaven in a chariot of fire, and whose martyrdom unsealed in Luther's breast the fount of sacred song. In the autumn of 1522, or the spring of 1523, he returned to Scotland, and, after a brief visit to his relatives in Linlithgowshire, appears to have come on to St Andrews. Probably, along with Alesius, Buchanan, and John Wedderburn, he there heard those lectures on the Gospels which Major afterwards published in Paris and dedicated to the Archbishop of St Andrews and other prominent churchmen in Scotland. But his sympathies were more with the young canons of the Augustinian priory than with the Old Scholastic; and probably it was that he might take a place among the teachers of their daughter college of St Leonard's that he was received as a member of the Faculty of Arts. Skilled in the art of sacred music, which the alumni of that college were bound specially to cultivate, he composed what the musicians call a mass, arranged in parts for nine voices, and acted himself as leader of the choir when it was sung in the cathedral. He is said to have taken on him the priesthood about this time, that he might be formally admitted "to preach the word of God." But he was not then of age for priests' orders, and Dr David Laing is doubtful if he was in orders at all, and certainly no mention is made of his degradation from orders before his martyrdom, and the final summons of Betoun seems to imply that he had never been authorised to preach at all.

[Sidenote: Parliament and Heresy.]

The years 1525 and 1526 were very unquiet years in Scotland, various factions contending with varying success for the possession of the person of the young king. It was on the 17th July of the former year that his Parliament passed its first Act against the new opinions, in which, after asserting that the realm had ever been clean "of all sic filth and vice," it enacted, "that na maner of persoun strangear that hapnis to arrife with their schippis within ony part of this realm bring with thaim ony bukis or werkis of the said Lutheris his discipillis or servandis, desputt or rehers his heresyis or opunyeouns bot geif [i.e., unless] it be to the confusioun therof, and that be clerkis in the sculis alanerlie, under the pane of escheting of ther schippis and gudis and putting of ther persouns in presoun."[16] In consequence of a letter from the pope, urging the young king to keep his realm free from stain of heresy, the scope of the Act was extended in 1527 by the chancellor and Lords of Council so that it might apply to natives of the kingdom as well as to strangers resorting to it for purposes of commerce.[17]

[Sidenote: James Betoun's Motives.]

In 1526 the primate, Archbishop James Betoun, uncle of the cardinal, having taken a keen part in the political contentions of the day with the faction which lost, had to escape for a time from St Andrews, and, disguised as a shepherd, to tend a flock of sheep for three months on the hills of Fife, on the high grounds of Kennoway, immediately to the east of where the railway now reaches its summit level.[18] It was at this juncture that copies of the New Testament of Tyndale's translation were brought over from the Low Countries by the Scottish traders to the seaports of Aberdeen, Montrose, St Andrews, and Leith. Most of them are said to have been taken to St Andrews and put in circulation there in the absence of the archbishop. One was present there at that time who had long treasured the precious saying of Erasmus, "Let us eagerly read the Gospel, but let us not only read, but live the Gospel"; and who seized the golden opportunity to impress the saying on others, and invite longing souls to quench their thirst at those wells of living water which had so marvellously been opened to them for a season. During the months when the primate was in concealment, and in those which followed his return, Patrick Hamilton came out more earnestly than he had done before as an evangelist and an advocate of the great truths, for which ultimately he was to be called to lay down his life. His conduct could not long escape the notice of the returned archbishop. I do not suppose that he was naturally cruel, nor after his recent misfortunes likely, without consideration, to embroil himself with the Hamiltons, with whom in the tortuous politics of the times he had often acted. But he had those about him who were less timid and more cruel, especially his nephew, the future cardinal. He was himself ambitious and crafty, and about this very time was exerting all his influence to obtain special favours from the pope without the sanction of the king.[19] He knew that the holy father had written the sovereign requiring him to keep his realm free from heresy, and no doubt he and his scheming nephew thought that by their zeal in this matter they would discredit the opposition of the king and his advisers to their ambitious schemes at the papal court. Still, he was anxious to perform the ungrateful task in the way least offensive to the Hamiltons. So while issuing his summons against the reformer to appear and answer the charges which had been brought against him, he did not attempt at once to restrain his personal liberty; he would rather, if he could, rid the kingdom of his presence without imbruing his hands in his blood. And that was the result actually attained.

[Sidenote: Final Return to Scotland.]

Some of Hamilton's opponents even, touched by his youth, his illustrious descent, his engaging manners and noble character, joined with his friends in urging him to avoid by flight the danger which impended. He yielded to their counsels, and, along with two friends and a servant, made his escape to the Continent. The story of his residence there has been graphically told by Principal Lorimer and Dr Merle D'Aubigne; and the latter has the merit of explaining why Hamilton did not carry out his original intention of visiting Luther and Melanchthon at Wittenberg, as well as Frith, Tyndale, and Lambert at Marbourg. At the very time he arrived on the Continent, the plague was raging in Wittenberg. "Two persons died of it in Melanchthon's house." Luther himself was suddenly taken ill. "All who could do so, and especially the students, quitted the town."[20] Thus the absence of documents bearing on his alleged sojourn at the Saxon university is naturally explained. He went to the younger University of Marbourg in Hesse, and prepared there, and publicly disputed, those theses that most fully and systematically set forth the doctrines which he mainly taught, and for which at last he suffered. He was warmly beloved by Lambert of Avignon, who was then the most distinguished theological professor in the infant university, as well as by others with whom he was brought into contact; and he would have been gladly retained by them, could he have been persuaded to remain in Germany: but his heart yearned to return to his native land, and once more proclaim there the truths which had now become to him more precious and engrossing than before. His faith had been confirmed, and his spirit quickened, by living for a time among earnest and decided Christians; and in the autumn of 1527 he set out once more for Scotland, prepared for any fate that might await him, not counting even life dear unto him if he might finish his course with joy, and bear faithful witness to his Master's truth, where before he had shrunk back from an ordeal so terrible. He appears first to have resorted to his native district, and made known to relatives, friends, and neighbours about Linlithgow that Gospel of the grace of God which gave strength and peace to his own spirit. In his discourses and conversations he dwelt chiefly on the great and fundamental truths which had been brought into prominence by the reformers, and avoided subjects of doubtful disputation. His own gentle bearing gained favour for his opinions and success in his labours, and it won for him the heart of a young lady of noble birth, to whom he united himself in marriage, following in this the example of Luther and others of the German reformers.

[Sidenote: In St Andrews.]

Archbishop Betoun being then on the other side of the Forth, in the neighbouring abbey of Dunfermline, could not fail to hear of his doings or to desire to silence him. But neither could he fail, in the state of the political parties in Scotland at the time, to recognise "that a heretic with the power of the Hamiltons at his back was more to be dreaded than Luther himself," and must be dealt with very cautiously. It was long supposed that, if not at the king's express desire, as Bishop Lesley seems to suggest,[21] then certainly from his own wariness, the archbishop did not at first venture formally to renew his old summons, but invited the reformer to St Andrews to a friendly conference with himself and other chiefs of the church on such points as might seem to stand in need of reform, and that Hamilton accepted the invitation. At first, it has been said, he was well received: "All of them displayed a conciliatory spirit; all appeared to recognise the evils in the church; some of them seemed even to share on some points the sentiments of Hamilton."[22] He left the conference not without hope of some other than the sad issue he had at first anticipated. He was permitted for nearly a month to move about with freedom in the city, to dispute in the schools of the university, and privately to confer with all who chose to resort to him at the lodging which had been provided for him. It was evidently the intention of those who were deepest in the plot against him, that he should have ample time allowed him to express his sentiments fully and unmistakably, and even should be tempted by dissemblers, like Friar Campbell, to unbosom himself in private on matters as to which he refrained from saying much in public—the many alterations required in doctrine and in the administration of the sacraments and accustomed rites.

It is said that the archbishop still desired that he should again save himself by flight, and there is nothing in the summons flatly inconsistent with this;[23] but he and his friends took the credit of the terrible deed as promptly as if they had planned and intended it from the first. They also assembled their armed retainers, that when the days of truce had expired they might be able to hold their prisoner against all attempts to rescue him. The reformer refused to flee, affirming that he had come to the city for the very purpose of confirming, if need be, by the sacrifice of his life, the doctrines he had taught. He even anticipated the time fixed for his appearance, and had one more conference with the archbishop and his doctors, who even then had come to a formal decision that the articles charged against him were heretical. The same evening he was seized and imprisoned in the castle, and next day was brought out for public trial and condemnation in the Abbey Church or cathedral of St Andrews.

[Sidenote: His Martyrdom.]

[Sidenote: Effects of his Constancy.]

Among the articles with which he was charged, and the truth of which he admitted and maintained, the most important were: "That a man is not justified by works, but by faith alone;" "That faith, hope, and charity are so linked together, that he who hath one of them hath all, and he that lacketh one lacketh all;" and "That good works make not a good man, but that a good man doth good works."[24] On being challenged by his accuser with having avowed other heretical opinions, he affirmed it was not lawful to worship images or to pray to the saints; and maintained that "it is reason and leisome to all men that have a soul to read the Word of God, and that they may understand the same, and in special the latter-will and testament of Christ Jesus."[25] These truths, which have been the source of life and strength to many, were to him the cause of condemnation and death; and on the last day of February 1527-28, the same day the sentence was passed, it was remorselessly executed before the gates of St Salvator's College. "Nobly," as I have said elsewhere, "did the martyr confirm the minds of the many godly youths he had gathered round him, by his resolute bearing, his gentleness and patience, his steadfast adherence to the truths he had taught, and his heroic endurance of the fiery ordeal through which he had to pass to his rest and reward." The harrowing details of his six long hours of torture have been preserved for us by his friend Alesius, himself a sorrowing witness of the fearful tragedy. "He was rather roasted than burned," he tells us. It may be that his persecutors had not deliberately planned thus horribly to protract his sufferings—though such cruelty was not unknown in France, either then or in much later times. They were as yet but novices at such revolting work, and all things seemed to conspire against them. The execution had been hurried on before a sufficiency of dry wood had been provided for the fire. The fury of the storm, which had prevented the martyr's brother from crossing the Forth with troops to rescue him, was not yet spent. With a fierce wind from the east sweeping up North Street, it would be a difficult matter in such a spot to kindle the pile and keep it burning, or to prevent the flames, when fierce, from being so blown aside as to be almost as dangerous to the surrounding crowd as to the tortured victim. They did so endanger his accuser, the traitor Campbell, and "set fire to his cowl, and put him in such a fray, that he never came to his right mind." But, through all his excruciating sufferings, the martyr held fast his confidence in God and in his Saviour, and the faith of many in the truths he taught was only the more confirmed by witnessing their mighty power on him.[26]

FOOTNOTES:

[14] See Appendix A.

[15] [The entry in the Register of the University occurs at the bottom of a page, and is preceded and followed by entries of 1521, as if it had been inserted there to save space. The entries of 1521 are distinct and easily read, but in this of 1523 the ink is very faint, and the surface of the vellum has a rubbed appearance. It runs thus: "Die nono mensis Junii anno Domini I^{m} V^{c} xxiij incorporatus erat venerabilis vir Magister noster Magister Johannes Major doctor theologus in Parisiensis et thesaurarius capelle regis. Eodem die incorporati sunt Magister Patricius Hamilton et Magister Robertus Laudar in nostra Universite" (sic).]

[16] Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, ii. 295.

[17] [The Act as thus extended was ratified on the 12th of June 1535 (Ibid., ii. 342).]

[18] Pitscottie's History, 1778, p. 216; Lesley's History, p. 136.

[19] Soliciting legatine powers over the whole of Scotland, instead of over his own province of the archdiocese, so as to render nugatory the exemption granted to the king's old tutor and favourite prelate the Archbishop of Glasgow.

[20] D'Aubigne's Reformation in the Time of Calvin, vi. 42, 43.

[21] [The only passage, so far as I know, in which Lesley speaks of the king in connection with the martyr is the following: "Suae pertinaciae, ac flagitii poenas igni luebat, adhortante magno Catholicae Religionis protectore Rege ipso, quem et sanguinis propinquitate attigerat" (Lesley's 'De Origine,' 1578, p. 427; 1675, p. 407). This is rendered by Dalrymple: "For his obstinacie and wickednes committed, he is burnte at command of the king selfe gret Catholik protectour, to quhom Ferne als was neir of kin and bluid" (Dalrymple's Lesley, Scot. Text Soc., ii. 215, 216).]

[22] D'Aubigne's Reformation in the Time of Calvin, vi. 57.

[23] In an old manuscript book of forms used in ecclesiastical processes by the archbishops of St Andrews before the Reformation, I found and have been able to decipher the recorded copy of the summons issued by Archbishop James Betoun against Hamilton after his return from Germany. It is addressed specially to the Dean of the Lothians, and refers only to the preaching of the reformer in West Lothian, so that there can no longer be any doubt that his compearance in St Andrews before the date appointed in the summons must be regarded as a resolute avowal of his determination to defend his teaching at all hazards. The summons is inserted at length in Appendix B. [For an account of the manuscript Formulare see Robertson's 'Concilia Scotiae,' vol. i. pp. cxcv, cxcvi.]

[24] Spottiswoode's History, i. 124, 125.

[25] Pitscottie's History, 1778, p. 206.

[26] The older sources for the facts of Patrick Hamilton's career and martyrdom are the references to them by his friend Alesius in two or three of his works, and especially in his 'Commentary on the First Book of Psalms,' under Psalm xxxvii.; by Lambert in his 'Commentary on the Apocalypse'; and by Gau in the latter part of his treatise on 'The Richt Vay to the Kingdom of Heuine'; and after those by Foxe, Knox, Calderwood, Pitscottie, and Spottiswoode in their histories. The only satisfactory formal biography of him is that by Principal Lorimer entitled, 'Patrick Hamilton, the first Preacher and Martyr of the Scottish Reformation.' His story has also been told by Dr Merle D'Aubigne, in his own dramatic way; and still more recently it has been made the subject of a veritable drama by the Rev. T. P. Johnston, minister of Carnbee.



CHAPTER III.

THE OPPRESSED AND THE OPPRESSORS.

[Sidenote: Henry Forrest.]

Archbishop Betoun thought that by Patrick Hamilton's death he had extinguished Lutheranism in Scotland. The University of Louvain applauded his deed; and so also, I regret to say, did John Major, the old Scottish Gallican, then resident at Paris, and preparing for the press his Commentary on the Gospels, the first part of which was to be dedicated to his old patron in Scotland, and was emphatically to express his approval of what that patron had done to root out the tares of Lutheranism.[27] But, according to the well-known saying, "the reek of Patrick Hamilton infected all on whom it did blow."[28] His martyr death riveted for ever in the hearts of his friends the truths he had taught in his life. This was especially the case with the younger alumni in the colleges, and the less ignorant and dissolute inmates of the priory and other monastic establishments in the city. As at a later period it was felt certain that a stern Covenanter had been detected when a suspected one refused to own that the killing of Archbishop Sharp was to be regarded as murder, so in these earlier days it was thought a sufficient mark of an incipient Lutheran if he could not be got to acknowledge that Hamilton had deserved his fate. On the charge that he had a copy of the English New Testament, and had been heard to say that Hamilton was no heretic, Henry Forrest was subjected to a rigorous imprisonment and a violent death. Forrest was a native of the county of Linlithgow, and had associated with Hamilton in St Andrews, and was the first to share his bloody baptism there. He was burned at the north kirk-style of the Abbey Church, that the heretics of Angus might see the fire and take warning from his fate.[29] One for simply touching in his sermons with a firm hand on the corruptions of the clergy had to escape for his life.[30] Another, whose history after being long forgotten has been again brought to light in our own day, for a similar offence was subjected to cruel imprisonment, and at last forced to flee from his native land.