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All that was wanting now was the voice of the living
Reformer. Luther's Tracts and Tyndale's Testaments could do much, but
they could not do every thing. The evangelical preacher, the godly
confessor, the invincible Martyr of Christ's Holy Gospel must speak to
the nation, before the nation's heart could be stirred to its depths.
And already such a man stood ready to enter upon his work. Not many wise
men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are
called to such service ; but one such had been chosen to be the First
Preacher and Martyr of the Scottish Reformation.
Patrick Hamilton was of noble birth and lineage; his
father, Sir Patrick, was an illegitimate son (afterwards legitimated) of
the first Lord Hamilton who received in marriage the Princess Mary,
daughter of king James the Second ; his mother was Catherine Stewart,
daughter of Alexander, Duke of Albany, second son of the same king. One
of his uncles, by the father's side, was James Hamilton, first Earl of
Arran, one of the most powerful nobles of the kingdom, and closely
allied to the royal family; and he stood in a similar relation, by the
mother's side, to John, Duke of Albany, a prince of the blood, who was
Regent of the kingdom during the minority of James V.
Neither the date nor the place of his birth is
accurately known ; but there is good ground to believe that he was born
at Stonehouse, near Glasgow, in the year 1504. He enjoyed every
advantage of early education which the country could afford. In his
father, he had before his eye the brightest example in the kingdom of
all knightly qualities ; and in his relatives, Gavyn Douglas, Provost of
the Collegiate Church of St. Giles', Edinburgh, and Lord Sinclair of
Newburgh, he had opportunities of conversing with two of the most
learned and accomplished of Scottish scholars.
As a younger son of the family he was early destined
to the Church. In 1517, he was appointed Titular Abbot of Feme, a
Praemonstratensian Abbey in Rosshire; and probably in the same year, he
left Scotland to prosecute his studies in the University of Paris. It
had always been supposed that he was a student of the University of St.
Andrews, but quite recently his name was discovered in a register of the
Magistri Jurati of Paris, under the year 1520; and this discovery
throws important light upon the way in which he arrived at the knowledge
of evangelical truth. There were numerous disciples both of Erasmus and
Luther in that great school, at the time of Hamilton's residence there.
The flames of controversy, enkindled by the new learning and the new
theology, were raging in Paris during those very years; and when
Hamilton returned to Scotland in 1523, he was already a pronounced
Erasmian, in regard not only to his love of ancient literature, but also
to his conviction of the need of Ecclesiastical Reform. We are told by
Alexander Alesius, that "he was a man of excellent learning, and was for
banishing all sophistry from the schools, and recalling philosophy to
its sources; i. e. to the original writings of Aristotle and
Plato." The same author informs us that though Hamilton was an Abbot, he
never assumed the monastic habit; "such," he remarks, "was his hatred of
monkish hypocrisy." Instead of going to reside with the monks of his own
Abbey of Feme, he was incorporated, in 1523, as a Master of Arts with
the University of St. Andrews, and took up his abode in that city.
It required the study and reflection of several years
to develop the young disciple of Erasmus into the decided adherent of
Luther. Hamilton could not have yet openly declared for the Reformation,
when he was admitted to Priest's Orders, probably in 1526 ; but the
motives which induced him to take upon him priesthood, reveal the
evangelical spirit which was secretly gathering strength in his heart.
"It was," says John Frith, the English Martyr, "because he sought all
means to testify the truth, even as Paul circumcised Timothy to win the
weak Jews." He did not yet understand that the faithful ministry of
God's word was utterly irreconcilable with the service of the Church of
Rome. It was about the beginning of 1527, that rumours first reached the
Archbishop of St. Andrews that Hamilton had openly espoused the cause of
Luther; and Beaton instantly took steps to bring him to a strict
account. Such a preacher of heresy was formidable indeed. In a country
where noble birth and powerful connexions had still more influence in
society than in any other kingdom of Europe, a preacher of Lutheranism,
with royal blood in his veins, and all the power of the Hamiltons at his
back, was a more dangerous enemy of the Church than Martin Luther
himself, in person, would have been. The moment was critical; no time
must be lost. Beaton made immediate inquisition into the truth of the
information which had reached him, and having found the young preacher "infamed
with heresy, disputing, holding, and maintaining divers heresies of
Martin Luther and his followers, repugnant to the faith," he summoned
him to appear before his tribunal. Patrick Hamilton had prepared himself
to preach the truth, but he did not yet feel himself able to die for it.
He had already the faith of an Evangelist, but not quite yet the faith
of a Martyr. Early in 1527 he withdrew from Scotland, and repaired to
the evangelical schools of Germany; two friends and an attendant
accompanied him.
He was for a short time at Wittemberg, but
unfortunately no particulars have been preserved of his intercourse with
Luther and Melancthon. From Wittemberg he proceeded to Marburg, and was
present at the inauguration of the new university of Philip the
landgrave. His name still stands enrolled on the earliest page of the
academic album. Here he attached himself with peculiar love to Francis
Lambert, who presided over the Theological Faculty, and under whose
teaching his progress in evangelical divinity was signally rapid. The
master became as much attached to his disciple, as the disciple was to
the master. Lambert has left on record a highly valuable testimony to
his talents and character. "His learning," he says, "was of no common
kind for his years, and his judgment in divine truth was eminently clear
and solid ; his object in visiting the university was to confirm himself
more abundantly in the truth, and I can truly say that I have seldom met
with any one who conversed on the word of God with greater spirituality
and earnestness of feeling; he was often in conversation with me upon
those subjects." "He was the first man, after the erection of the
university, who put forth a series of theses to be publicly defended;
these theses were conceived in the most evangelical spirit, and were
maintained by him with the greatest learning; it was by my advice that
he published them." The theses here referred to were afterwards
translated into English by John Frith, and in that form have been
preserved both by Fox, the English martyrologist, and by John Knox, the
historian of the Scottish Reformation, under the name of Patrick's
Places. They form an interesting and important monument of the
earliest teaching of the Scottish reformers. Their doctrine is purely
evangelical, without exhibiting the peculiarities of either the Lutheran
or the Helvetic confession.
At the end of a six months' residence in evangelical
Germany, Hamilton felt that the time had arrived when the duty he owed
to God and his country obliged him to return home. His two friends
appear to have shrunk from the peril of accompanying him, but no
prospect of danger could now turn him aside from his high purpose of
becoming an evangelist to his native land. What a change! Six months ago
he was a fugitive, escaping from his country, because he felt himself
unequal to the mission of a Gospel martyr. But now he is in haste to
face the perils which he was then in haste to shun. How surprising ! And
yet the explanation is easy. These six months had been spent among the
most illustrious teachers and heroes of the Reformed faith. His teachers
had been all evangelical doctors of the highest eminence, and they were
all evangelical heroes, as well as doctors. It was impossible for a soul
like his to be so long in communion with souls like theirs, without
catching their spirit, and being overmastered by their inspiration.
On his arrival in Scotland, Hamilton repaired to the
family mansion of Kincavel, near Linlithgow, and it was there that he
found his first congregation. His elder brother, Sir James, was now in
possession of the family estates and honours; his mother still survived,
and he had a sister named Katherine, a lady of spirit and talent. These
near relatives and the servants of the family made up his first
audience, and his labours among them were blessed with signal success.
Both his brother and sister welcomed the truth, and were honoured in
after years to suffer much for its sake.
But he did not confine himself to the circle of
Kincavel; he began to preach the long-lost Gospel in all the country
round. "The bright beams of the true light," says Knox, "which by God's
grace were planted in his heart, began most abundantly to burst forth,
as well in public as in secret"—"Wheresoever he came," says another
historian, "he spared not to lay open the corruptions of the Roman
Church, and to show the errors crept into the Christian religion;
whereunto many gave ear, and a great following he had, both for his
learning and courteous demeanour to all sorts of people."
What he preached with so much success we may gather
from his "Places." In that little tract we come into communion with the
very soul and spirit of his brief but fruitful ministry. He preached
faith in Jesus Christ to his countrymen, as the living root of hope
and charity. He aimed at a reformation of the national Church which
began at the root, not at the branches. It was by making the root of his
country's religion and life good, that he expected to make the tree good
and its-fruit good. And his hope did not deceive him. The preacher
himself, indeed, was soon silenced and cut off, but his doctrine lived
after him, and wrought with a leaven-like virtue in the nation's heart,
till it leavened the whole lump.
Soon after his return from Germany, Hamilton, though
a priest and an abbot, took the decisive step of entering into
matrimony. His bride was a young lady of noble rank, whose name,
unfortunately, has not been preserved. The motive which Alesius assigns
for this step, was the Reformer's hatred of the hypocrisy of the Roman
Church. He seems to have felt on the occasion very much as Luther did in
similar circumstances. He wished to show by deed, as well as by word,
how entirely he had cast off the usurped and oppressive authority of the
Roman See.
But both his married life and his career as a
preacher were destined to be very brief. Early in 1528 the Archbishop of
St. Andrews resumed the proceedings against him which had
been interrupted by his flight to Germany a year before. Affecting a
tone of candour and moderation, Beaton sent him a message, desiring a
conference with him at St. Andrews, on such points of the Church's
condition and administration as might seem to stand in need of reform.
Hamilton was not deceived by this dissimulation; he perceived clearly
the policy of his enemies, and foresaw and foretold the speedy issue of
their proceedings.- Like St. Paul, he knew well that bonds and
imprisonment awaited him in the city of the chief priests and.
Pharisees; but he felt bound in the spirit to go thither
notwithstanding, not counting his life dear unto him, that he might
finish his course with joy, and the ministry which he had received to
testify the Gospel of the grace of God.
Having arrived at St. Andrews about the middle of
January, the pretended conference took place, and was continued during
several days. The Archbishop and his coadjutors seemed to approve of the
Reformer's views on many points, and when the conference was ended, he
was allowed to move freely through the city and university, and to
declare his convictions without hindrance both in public and private. By
this dissembling and procrastinating policy his enemies gained several
important ends. They gained time for their intrigues with the political
chiefs of the country, to secure their tacit acquiescence in the
tragical issue which they were all the while preparing; and they gave
Hamilton opportunity and inducement to declare his opinions without
reserve, in a city which was crowded with their own abettors;
where every new expression of his enmity to the Church would be
instantly noted down, and converted into a weapon to destroy him.
But the cause of truth was also materially served by
this delay. The zealous Reformer turned this unexpected opportunity to
the best account. He taught and disputed openly in the university on all
the points on which he conceived a reformation to be necessary in the
Church's doctrines, and in her administration of the sacraments
and.other rites; and he continued to do so for nearly a whole month.
That busy month was a precious seed-time. At St. Andrews he was at
ecclesiastical head-quarters, and was brought into communication with a
larger variety of influential classes of men than he could have met with
in any other city of the kingdom. Regents and students, doctors and
lawyers, deans and canons, seculars and regulars, Augustinians,
Dominicans and Franciscans, all alike were reached by his voice, and
felt the power of his teaching.
At length the moment arrived when Beaton and his
advisers felt that it was safe to throw off the mask. A summons was
issued to Hamilton requiring him to appear before the Primate on a
certain day, to answer to the charge of holding and teaching divers
heretical opinions. His friends saw what was imminent, and entreated him
while yet at liberty to save his life by flight. But he firmly declined
to escape from St. Andrews. " He had come thither," he said, " to
confirm the minds of the godly by his death as a martyr to the truth ;
and to turn his back now would be to lay a stumbling-block in their
path, and to cause some of them to fall."
When he appeared before the Archbishop, he was
interrogated upon thirteen articles of heresy which were laid to his
charge. He answered that several of these articles were " disputable
points, but such as he could not condemn unless he saw better reasons
than yet he had heard; but that the first seven were undoubtedly true,
to which he was prepared to set his hand."
These seven were the following :—
That the corruption of sin remains in children after
their baptism.
That no man, by the power of his free will, can do
any good.
That no man is without sin so long as he liveth.
That every true Christian may know himself to be in
the state of grace.
That a man is not justified by works, but by faith
only.
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 make not an ill man.
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.
The whole of the articles were then remitted to the
judgment of a council of theologians, and Hamilton, in the meanwhile,
was allowed to remain at liberty.
Within a few days more, everything was ready for the
last acts of the tragedy. The Reformer was apprehended, and lodged in
the Castle of St. Andrews, and on the last day of February he was
brought before a tribunal, consisting of prelates, abbots, priors, and
doctors, which sat in the metropolitan cathedral. The theologians
presented to the tribunal their censure of the articles, "judging them
all heretical, and contrary to the faith of the Church." Then Friar
Campbell stood forward and read over the articles with a loud voice, and
charged them, one by one, upon the Reformer. "I was myself," says
Alesius, "an eye-witness of the tragedy, and heard him answering for his
life to the charges of heresy which were laid against him : and he was
so far from disowning them, that he defended and established them by
clear testimonies of Scripture, and refuted the reasonings of his
accuser." At length Campbell was silenced, and turned to the tribunal
for fresh instructions. "Desist from reasoning," cried the bishops; "add
new accusations— call him heretic to his face." "Heretic!" exclaimed the
Dominican, turning again towards the pulpit where Hamilton stood. "Nay,
brother," replied Hamilton mildly, "you do not think me heretic in your
heart; in your conscience you know that I am no heretic." The appeal
must have gone to the friar's heart, for he had professed to Hamilton,
in several private interviews, that on many points he agreed with him.
But Campbell had basely consented to be an actor, and he must needs go
on with his part. "Heretic!" he exclaimed again, "thou saidst it
was lawful to all men to read the Word of God, and especially the New
Testament." "I wot not," replied Hamilton, "if I said so, but I say now,
it is reason and lawful to all men to read the Word of God, and that
they are able to understand the same; and in particular, the latter will
and testament of Jesus Christ, whereby they may acknowledge their sins,
and repent of the same, and amend their lives by faith and repentance,
and come to the mercy of God by Jesus Christ.,, "Heretic ! thou sayest
it is but lost labour to pray to or call upon saints, and in particular
on the blessed Virgin Mary, as mediators to God for us." "I say with
Paul, There is no mediator betwixt God and man, but Christ Jesus his
Son, and whatsoever they be who call or pray to any saint departed, they
spoil Christ Jesus of his office." "Heretic! thou sayest it is all in
vain to sing soul-masses, psalms and dirigies for the relaxation of
souls departed, who are continued in the pains of purgatory." "Brother,
I have never read in the Scripture of God of such a place as purgatory,
nor yet believe I that there is anything that may purge the souls of men
but the blood of Christ Jesus, which ransom standeth in no earthly
thing, nor in soul-mass, nor dirigie, nor in gold, nor silver, but only
by repentance of sins, and faith in the blood of Jesus Christ."
Such was Patrick
Hamilton's noble confession in the face of that solemn tribunal. He
spoke out the whole truth of God as he knew it, and he spoke it in love,
calling even his opprobrious and perfidious accuser, Brother.
Sentence of condemnation
was pronounced, and execution was appointed to take place that very day,
the bishops having reason to fear that an attempt would be made by armed
men to rescue their prisoner by force. The usual formalities of
degradation from the priesthood were dispensed with, and in an hour or
two after Hamilton had heard his doom in the cathedral, executioners
were preparing the stake at which he was to die, in front of the gate of
St. Salvator's College.
At noon, when the martyr
came in sight of the fatal spot, he uncovered his head, and lifting up
his eyes to heaven, addressed himself in prayer to Him who alone could
give him a martyr's strength and victory. On reaching the stake, he
handed to one of his friends a copy of the New Testament which had long
been his companion, and taking off his cap and gown, and other upper
garments, he gave them to his servant, saying, "These will not profit in
the fire, they will profit thee. After this, of me thou canst receive no
commodity, except the example of my death, which I pray thee bear in
mind. For, albeit it be bitter to the flesh, and fearful before man, yet
is it the entrance to eternal life, which none shall possess that denies
Christ Jesus before this wicked generation."
The officials of the Archbishop made a last attempt
to overcome his constancy. They offered him his life if he would recant
the confession which he had made in the cathedral. "As to my
confession," he replied, "I will not deny it for the awe of your fire,
for my confession and belief is in Christ Jesus. And as to the sentence
pronounced against me this day, I here, in presence of you all, appeal
contrary the said sentence and judgment, and take me to the mercy of
God."
The executioners then stepped forward to do their
office. Fire was laid to the pile, and exploded some powder which was
placed among the faggots, but though thrice kindled, the flames took no
steady hold of the pile. Dry wood and more powder had to be brought from
the castle. The sufferings of the martyr were thus painfully protracted.
Alesius, who was a witness of the whole scene, tells us that the
execution lasted for nearly six hours; and during all that time, he
assures us, the martyr never gave one sign of impatience or anger. When
surrounded and devoured by fierce flames, he remembered, in his torment,
his widowed mother, and commended her to the care of his friends with
his dying breath. His last audible words were, "How long, Lord, shall
darkness overwhelm this kingdom. How long wilt thou suffer this tyranny
of men Lord Jesus, receive my spirit"
"Thus tragically, but gloriously, died on the 29th
day of February, 1528, Patrick Hamilton, a noble martyr in a noble
cause. At a time when the power of the Roman Church in Scotland was yet
entire and overwhelming, it was not permitted him to serve the cause of
the recovered Gospel by the labours of a long life, but he joyfully
embraced the honour of serving it by the heroic constancy and devotion
of his death. Such a martyrdom was precisely what Scotland needed to
stir its heart Such a death had more awakening power in it than the
labours of a long life. If his spoken words had been few, they had, at
least, been pithy and pregnant, the words of the wise, which are
as goads and as nails in a sure place' and his fiery martyrdom clenched
and riveted them in the nation's heart for ever.
"At Marburg the grief of the Reformers was only
equalled by their admiration. 'He came to your university,' exclaimed
Lambert, addressing the Landgrave, not many months after, out of
Scotland, that remote corner of the world, and he returned to his
country again to become its first, and now illustrious apostle. He was
all on fire with zeal to confess the name of Christ, and he has offered
himself to God as a holy living sacrifice. He brought into the Church of
God not only all the splendour of his station and gifts, but his life
itself. Such is the flower of surpassing sweetness, yea, the ripe fruit,
which your university has produced in its very commencement. You have
not been disappointed of your wishes. You formed this school with the
desire that from it might go forth intrepid confessors of Christ, and
steadfast assertors of his truth. See ! you have one such already, an
example in many ways illustrious. Others, if the Lord will, will follow
soon.' |
