SEIZED WITH ALARM. 501 and was keeping Christmas with the Queen in Edinburgh, he MDXXVII.-MDXXVIII. CONSTERNATION OF THE AUTHORITIES IN SCOTLAND-THE NEW TESTAMENT NCE more the analogy between England and Scotland is presented to our view. Under the English history we had occasion to observe, that as early as 1520, some alarm had been felt respecting what was called Lutheranism, the phrase of the day for any approach to Scriptural truth, even though the party molested might never have heard of Luther's name, or, at least, read a page of his writings. So Scotland was soon seized with similar alarm, and by the 17th of July, 1525, an Act of Parliament had passed, enacting, that "no manner of persons, strangers, that happen to arrive with their ships, within any part of this realm, bring with them any books or works of the said Luther, his disciples or servants," on pain of imprisonment, besides the forfeiture of their ships and goods. Now, whether what was taking place last year as to books imported was known, we have no positive evidence; but at all events, by the autumn of this and that not owing to strangers. In the month of August 1527, there was year fresh alarm, the Earl of Angus having got himself appointed to be Chancellor, with Dunbar, the Bishop of Aberdeen and uncle of Dunbar the Archbishop of Glasgow, to assist him; Angus and Gov. State Papers, iv., pp. 461, 463. the Lords of Council added the following clause to the Act of 1525" And all other, the king's lieges, assistaries to such opinions, be punished in seemable wise, and the effect of the said Act to strike upon them." Thus, between July 1525 and September 1527, as it was determined to extend those penalties to natives of Scotland, we have sufficient proof that importations by them had been going on; but while there were, very probably, some other publications, it is not a little extraordinary, that the only books which can now be traced, or distinctly specified, should be those of the New Testament itself of Tyndale's version. Never, then, let it be overlooked, that if the provisions of this Act were followed out, there existed a time in the history of our country, when, if a vessel arrived at Leith or St. Andrews, at Dundee, Montrose, or Aberdeen, with copies of the New Testament on board, the ship and cargo were liable to confiscation, and the captain to imprisonment! A battle was now to be fought and won, in the north as well as in the south of Britain. But again, as in England, serious and long-continued persecution did not commence till after the Scriptures had arrived; so it was in Scotland. Copies had soon found their way, and not in vain, to the canons of Cardinal College, Oxford; but so they had to the canons of St. Andrews, as well as other parties. The explosion at Oxford occurred in February 1526, and by February 1528, at the very moment when Tunstal and his vicar-general were sitting in severe judgment on the book in London, the New Testament will now be very pointedly referred to, and condemned, within the walls of the Metropolitan Church in Scotland. The occasion of this, the first storm, is well known. It followed the arrival from abroad, about the autumn of 1527, and the subsequent exertions of one of the loveliest and most interesting of all characters in early Scottish history-Patrick Hamilton. Of the noble army of Martyrs on British ground, during the sixteenth century, he was to be the youthful and heroic leader. He was born in 1504, the son of Sir Patrick Hamilton of Kincavil, a son of Lord Hamilton who was brother-in-law to James III. His mother was a daughter of John Duke of Albany, brother to the same monarch, so that by both parents he was related to the royal family of Scotland. His father was killed in the High Street of Edinburgh in a feud between the Earls of Arran and Angus. Patrick, intended for the Church, was educated under the well-known John Major at St. Andrews. There receiving the knowledge of the Word of God, he could not conceal his sentiments, and had to leave with several others for the Continent. This was in 1525, and he was about two years abroad. That he visited Luther and Melancthon at Wittenburg, though not certain, is probable. But at Marburg, from which he returned direct to Scotland, he was intimate with Francis Lambert, John Fryth, and William Tyndale. Though affectionately warned by these friends, and dissuaded from rushing into certain danger, he was pressed in spirit to revisit his country, which he did in 1527. While at Marburg, he wrote his well-known treatises in Latin, "De Lege et Evangelio," and "De Fide et Operibus," called afterwards, "Patrick's Places." These, soon after his departure, Fryth translated into English, as he says, "to the profit of my nation; to whom I beseech God to give light, that they may espy the deceitful paths of perdition, and return to the right way which leadeth to life everlasting." He speaks of his friend as "that excellent and welllearned young man Patrick Hamilton, born in Scotland, of a noble progeny, who, to testify the truth, sought all means, that he might be admitted to preach the pure Word of God." Hamilton, on his arrival, had proceeded first to his brother's house in Linlithgowshire, Sir James having succeeded his father as Sheriff of that county; and here, as the sequel proved, he had preached, and conversed not in vain, as well as elsewhere. On the one hand, it has been said of him, that he did not fail to lay open the corruptions of the Church, and the errors by which the souls of men were ruined; but, on the other, that he had not attacked the hierarchy as an Establishment, nor its claims to infallibility. He certainly had not commenced with denunciation, but by preaching the truth itself, by enforcing the reading of the Scriptures, with the necessity of repentance towards God, and faith in Christ in order to good works. His discrimination as to the Law and the Gospel, as to Faith and its fruits, was evidently of the first order, very far above the age in which he suffered; and as to his mode of procedure, it seems to have exactly corresponded with the counsel which Tyndale gave to Fryth himself, five years after, as already explained. The Bellum Sacramentarium, or the bitter strife about ordinances, had commenced on the Continent in 1524, or before Hamilton's reaching Germany, and it was still raging there; but the zeal of our first martyr was not to be spent on the ceremonial or outward form of Christianity. His was a controversy with the heart, addressed to the soul and spirit of man within him; and for proof we only need to observe the points which he regarded to be "undoubtedly true," and from which all the terrors of the stake could not, for one moment, move him. They were simply these "1. That the corruption of sin remains in children after their baptism. 2. That no man by the power of his free will can do any good. 3. That no man is without sin so long as he liveth. 4. That every Christian may know himself to be in a state of grace. 5. That a man is not justified by works, but by faith only. 6. That good works make not a good man, but that a good man doeth good works; and that an ill man doeth ill works; yet the same ill works, truly repented of, make not an ill man. 7. That faith, hope, and love, are so linked together, that he who hath one of them, hath all; and he that lacketh one, lacketh all." All others he denominated "disputable points," though such as he could not condemn; but the above he regarded as vital truths. The youth of Hamilton and his rank, his fine talents and his views of Divine truth, had all combined in producing an immediate impression; while the power of his family, of which the Earl of Arran was the chief, and who had so resented the death of Patrick's father, must have rendered any open hostility more difficult. The recent union also of Arran with the Earl of Angus, the present possessor of all power, to say nothing of Beaton himself, so lately in disgrace, and Lord Chancellor no more, one should have imagined would have still farther increased the difficulty. These circumstances, however, clearly show the height to which alarm had been excited, or, in other words, the powerful result of this young man's exertions. After the Scriptures had come, it was like a voice crying, "Arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." The panic among the leaders of "the old learning" must have been both great and general, before decided steps were taken; and these, at last, were accordingly distinguished, not only by deep dissimulation, but Satanic haste. Invited to St. Andrews by a special message from the Primate, who, with solemn promises of safety, said, he only wished to converse with him, Hamilton went without hesitation. Beaton received him with a hypocritical show of kindness, assigned him a lodging in the city, and so left him to be fully ensnared by a Dominican friar, Alexander Campbell, with whom he had come in contact before his departure for the Continent. Only a very short time was required to draw from the ardent and zealous youth ample ground for accusation to the Archbishop; more especially as Campbell, who was the Prior of his order, had pretended to admit the force of all that Hamilton advanced. In fact, he had been only a few days in St. Andrews, when, under night, he was apprehended in bed and carried to the Castle; and the very next day he was before Beaton, with thirteen different articles laid to his charge, by the man who seems to have long thirsted for his blood. Though drawn into some general conversation at this moment, the youthful martyr, with the finest discrimination, separating the truths from the errors, had evidently resolved to die for the confession of the former, rather than the denial of the latter, and therefore he abode by the seven points already mentioned. So Fox informs us that "learned men who communed and reasoned with him, do testify, that these were the very articles for which he suffered." Meanwhile, with a hypocritical show of moderation, Beaton remitted the articles entire to the judgment of fourteen theologians, such as they were, not forgetting, however, to include among the number his base persecutor, Campbell. Within only a day or two more, these men returned their censure, condemning the whole articles as heretical, before a solemn meeting in the Cathedral. This happened on Saturday the 28th of February, 1528; and now, on the same day, the prisoner, after all that had been promised by Beaton, was to be tried, condemned, and reduced to ashes, before the sun went down! They trod in the footsteps of the Pharisees of old, for the next day was the Sabbath! That no small sensation had been created by the youthful and heroic martyr, we only need to glance at the mighty array brought together to condemn him, after a mock trial. Beaton durst not send to the King, and say, as Amaziah the priest did |