Its Influence not unmixed.
Had the principles thus laid down been more clearly kept in view by the framers of the Second Book of Discipline, its influence for good on Scottish Christianity would have been more unmixed than it has been. Had they been more consistently acted on by Rutherfurd and his associates, who consented to their formal insertion in our later standards, many sad troubles which then and afterwards befel the church, for which they lived and laboured, would have been altogether avoided, or more easily provided against; but as it is, great misunderstandings have certainly arisen. The two Books of Discipline have been too much read apart, instead of being regarded as complementary each of the other; and while all that is liberal and progressive tends, I think, more and more to rally round the one, I believe that much that is narrower, but still earnest and resolutely Christian, will continue to draw its inspiration from the other.
The Second Book of Discipline, as well as the First, failed to commend itself to the ruling powers, and to obtain a place in its full form on the statute book. Those of its clauses relating to the functions of the several church courts were inserted almost word for word in the Act of the Scottish Parliament of 1592, reckoned the charter of the presbyterian church. It was, however, several times ratified by the General Assembly, and was partially carried out by its authority from the time of its ratification; and to this extent it, as well as the First Book of Discipline, appears to have been fully recognised. The question of its authority was very fully argued in the famous Auchterarder case. The counsel for the presbytery and the minority of the judges did not venture to argue, however, that as a whole the Second Book of Discipline had received the sanction of the state save in irregular times; but they contended that the notes, contained in Spottiswoode's History, of the clauses respecting which the king and the commissioners of Parliament had come to agreement with the ministers, should be accepted as determining the extent to which it was law. It was affirmed, however, by the majority of the judges that only the clausesIts Theory of the Church.actually inserted in the Act of Parliament could be so regarded, and it has since been maintained by Mr Peterkin that the alleged notes of agreement between the king and the church's commissioners are not actually found in the manuscript copy of the History which is preserved in the Advocate's Library.[272]The general theory of the church, however, which may be said to underlie the most important statement of the Second Book of Discipline, is not materially different from that which finds expression in the First. "The kirk of God," it is said, "is sumtymes largelie takin for all them that professe the Evangill of Jesus Christ, and so it is a company and fellowship, not onely of the godly, but also of hypocrites professing alwayis outwardly ane true religion. Uther tymes it is takin for the godlie and elect onlie, and sumtymes for them that exercise spiritual functionamongis the congregation of them that professe the truth."[273]These last, ministers, doctors, elders, and deacons, are taken to represent the church in its wider sense, and must have a lawful calling from it. This lawful calling is said to consist of two parts—viz., election and ordination. Election is defined to be the choosing out of a person or persons most able for the office that is vacant, by the judgment of the eldership and consent of the congregation to which the person or persons are appointed. Ordination is defined as the separation and sanctifying of the person appointed of God and His kirk after he be well tried and found qualified. The ceremonies of ordination are declared to be fasting, earnest prayer, and imposition of the hands of the eldership. Then follow two of the most important paragraphs in the Book, which come nearest to supplying that which I deem defective in it, a clear and distinct admission that human rulers in the church as well as in the state have but limited powers. "All thir [i.e., those various kinds of office-bearers], as they must be raisit up be God and be Him made able for the wark quhairto they ar callit, so aught they [to] knaw their message to be limitit within God's Word, without the quhilk bounds they aught not to passe. All thir sould tak these titils and namesonlie ... quhilk the Scriptures gevis unto them, as these quhilks import labour, travell and wark; and ar names of offices and service, and not of idlenes, dignitie, warldlie honour or preheminence, quhilk be Christ our Maister is expresslie reprovit and forbidden.... And generallie thir twa things aught they all to respect, the glorie of God, and edifieing of His kirk, in discharging their dewties in their callings."[274]
Institution of the Presbytery.
It is generally supposed that it is in this Second Book of Discipline that we have the first clear institution of that church court which we now call the presbytery, and it admits of no dispute that it was in the year 1581, after the final adoption of the Book by the Assembly, that an attempt was made, with consent of the crown, regularly to divide the country into presbyteries. These, however, though marked out on paper in that year, were in point of fact only gradually set up, and in general they arose out of, and absorbed into themselves, the previously existingexercise, which the First Book of Discipline had sanctioned and recommended to meet weekly for the study and interpretation of the Scriptures.[275]The introduction of what are called, but erroneously, lay elders[276]to the place they have so long worthilyfilled in the presbyteries was a still more gradual process. The presbytery of St Andrews, even down to the close of the sixteenth century, appears to have contained no elders save thedoctors, under which name were comprehended the masters of the university, both professors of divinity and professors of philosophy, and even the doctor or master of the grammar-school. The question, however, has been raised whether it is really the presbytery or the kirk-session which is meant by the wordeldership, which is generally applied in the Second Book of Discipline to that court to which it asserts that it belongs to see that the Word of God is purely preached within its bounds, the sacraments rightly administered, the discipline maintained, and the ecclesiastical goods rightly distributed; to take care that the ordinances made by provincial, national, and general assemblies are duly executed; and also to make constitutions which concernτὸ πρéπονin the kirk,[277]—all which duties by the Act of Parliament are expresslyEldership or Presbytery.assigned to the presbytery.[278]This question has been keenly debated down to our own day. The weight of authority is certainly very decidedly in favour of the opinion which identifies this eldership with the presbytery. Among recent authorities we have Dr David Laing and Dr Cook of Haddington on this side, in opposition to the late Principal Cunningham of St Andrews; and among those of a somewhat earlier time we have Principal Lee, Dr M'Crie, and the late Dr George Cook of St Andrews pronouncing in favour of the same view. If we go to older authorities again, we have Spottiswoode, the episcopal historian, and Calderwood, the presbyterian, at one in supporting it. I know of no considerable authority in the seventeenth century which has been adduced on the other side, save that of Henderson, whose statement, however, is rather inferential than direct. In fact, the eldership is used in the Second Book of Discipline itself as a convertible term with presbytery, and is often so used in the acts of contemporary assemblies. When presbyteries came to be set up, they are sometimes designated by the name of eldership, and sometimes by that of presbytery; and where our present authorised version of Scripture reads "with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery," the Genevan version reads, "with thelaying on of the hands of the companie of the eldership."[279]
The Kirk-Session.
The only other alternative is that suggested by the late Procurator Cook, that in the Second Book of Discipline the functions of the two courts were as yet undistributed; and that when they came to be legally distributed by the Act of Parliament of 1592, those which the framers of the Second Book assigned to the eldership were in nearly its very words appropriated to the presbytery, and a much more limited province assigned to the kirk-session—the court called by the Puritans of the south by the name of the Lesser Presbytery. Perhaps it may be regarded as a rather curious confirmation of this theory of Procurator Cook's, that what he supposes to have been first intended by the framers of the Book as a common court is asserted by Gillespie, the ablest of their successors in the following century, to have been really characteristic of the presbytery of the primitive church. Whatever may be thought of his argument in vindication of what he calls the two presbyteries, the fact remains that he explicitly admits there was but one in the primitive church;[280]and this will be all the moreremarkable if, with Mr Cook, we hold that what the framers of the Second Book of Discipline really designed was one presbytery or eldership governing a larger or smaller number of churches in common; and that we owe the distribution of the power between the two courts rather to the Act of Parliament than to the Second Book of Discipline. I agree with Gillespie, however, that in the circumstances of the church in a thoroughly Christianised country it would have been a matter to be regretted if every congregation had not had its session or lesser presbytery, with such definitely limited powers as by the Act of Parliament, and by the later acts of the church, are entrusted to it; and I am not sure that we do not owe this arrangement to the episcopal rather than to the presbyterian party, and that it was a concession made by them as the only presbytery they could well acknowledge, if they were to leave any function for the bishop at all in this court. At least the rough draft of the clause of the subsequent Act of Parliament in regard to the kirk-session appears first in the conference held between the two parties, and is then noted as having had the express approval of the king and commissioners of Parliament,[281]whichwas not at that time, nor till considerably later, secured to the clauses in the Act affirming the powers of the larger presbytery.
Westminster Theory of the Church.
I have said elsewhere that in chapters xxv. and xxvi. of the Westminster Confession of Faith we have a doctrine affirmed as to the church and the communion of saints which seems to me to be more thoroughly catholic than that which is set forth in the Articles of the Irish Episcopal Church, of the teaching of which the compilers of our Confession have so largely availed themselves. In addition to one invisible church to which all the true elect of God are affirmed to belong, and particular visible churches composed ofprofessingChristians in particular nations (both of which are expressly owned in both formularies), the Westminster Confession recognises one visible church to which all throughout the world who professfaith in Christ are to feel that they belong, and with the members of which they are bound, as God gives them opportunity, to cultivate union and communion. "The catholic or universal church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the Gospel (not confined to one nation as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, and of their children, and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. Unto this catholic visible church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God for the gathering and perfecting of the saints in this life to the end of the world; and doth by His own presence and Spirit, according to His promise, make them effectual thereunto. This catholic church hath been sometimes more, sometimes less, visible; and particular churches which are members thereof are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the Gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them.... Allsaints that are united to Jesus Christ their head, by His Spirit and by faith, have fellowship with Him in His graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory. And, being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other's gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good." In other words, every true member of the church, be he hearer or office-bearer, holds his place in the body for the good of all, and is bound to use his gifts and opportunities to promote, as far as he can, the spiritual and temporal good of all. A single sentence from the Westminster Directory for Church Government is all I need to give, in supplement of this statement of the Confession, to put you in full possession of their authors' views and aspirations. "When their number [i.e., the membership of a congregation] is so great that they cannot conveniently meet in one place, it is expedient that they be divided according to the respective bounds of their dwellings into distinct and fixed congregations for the better administration of such ordinances as belong unto them, and the discharge of mutual duties; wherein all, according to their several places and callings, are to labour to promote whatever appertains to the power of godliness and credit of religion, that the wholeland, in the full extent of it, may become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ."
Ideal Presbytery.
The sum of all this may be given in the words of Henderson, in the conclusion of his treatise on 'The Government and Order of the Church of Scotland,' the only other treatise which has any right to be set alongside of the Books of Discipline. "In the authoritie of these assemblies, parochial, presbyteriall, provinciall, and nationall, and in the subordination of the lesser unto the greater, or of more particular elderships to the larger and generall eldership, doth consist the externall order, strength, and steadfastnesse of the Church of Scotland.... Here there is a superiority without tyrannie, for no minister hath a papall or monarchicall jurisdiction over his own flock, far lesse over other pastors and over all the congregations of a large dioces. Here there is paritie without confusion and disorder, for the pastors are in order before the elders, and the elders before the deacons; the church [i.e., each congregation] is subordinate to the presbyterie, the presbyterie to the synod, and the synod to the nationall assembly. One pastor also hath priority [of esteem] before another, for age, for zeale, for gifts, for his good deservings of the church, each one honouring him whom God hath honoured, and as he beareth the image ofGod which was to bee seen among the apostles themselves. But none hath power or jurisdiction above others: even as in nature one eye hath not power over another, only the head hath power over all, even as Christ over His church.... And lastly, here there is a subjection without slaverie, for the people are subject to the pastors and assemblies, yet there is no assemblie wherein everie particular church hath not interest and power; nor is there anything done but they are, if not actually, yet virtually called to consent unto it."[282]This is presbytery in theory, and there is no reason why we should not approximate to the ideal in practice more closely than some recent representations imply, save that we come short of what we ought to be as men and as Christians, and that would suffice to mar any form of government that could be devised by the wit of men.
We owe it to the Rev. Christopher Anderson, the author of the 'Annals of the English Bible,' that attention has been once more turned to the deeply interesting story of Alexander Alane, or Alesius. Principal Lorimer, in his 'Scottish Reformation,' has thrown further light on him. And Dr Merle D'Aubigné, who appears to have minutely examined most of his tracts and commentaries, has wrought into his graphic but imaginative narrative much of the information which they have been the chief means of handing down to us. It was after his expatriation that he received from Melanchthon the name of Alesius, or the wanderer.
This highly distinguished but long forgottenalumnusof St Andrews University was born in Edinburgh on the 23rd of April 1500, of honest parents, and received the first rudiments of hiseducation in his native city. It was probably while he was still there that he had vouchsafed on his behalf those wonderful interpositions of Providence, which remained through life engraven on his heart, and which he thus relates in his preface to his Commentary on the Second Epistle of Paul to Timothy, published at Leipzig in 1551. "Certe ab infantia [Diabolus] me saepe incautum opprimere voluit, et perdere non tam insidiis et crudelitate hostium, quam praecipitio in ignem et aquam. Verum ille, qui servavit me inter omnia pericula et infantem de gradibus patris mei cadentem in acervum lapidum advectorum ad extruendum supremum tabulatum in aedibus, et reptantem manibus in cacumine altissimi montis, ex cujus declivi vel praerupto, divinitus in alterum latus in quo facilis erat descensus, subito perveni."[283]With even more than his usual licence, Dr D'Aubigné thus recounts this adventure: He "was fond of going with other boys of his own age to the heights which environ Edinburgh. The great rock on the summit of which the castle stands, the beautiful Calton Hill, and the picturesque hill called Arthur's Seat, in turnHis miraculous Escape.attracted them. One day, it was in 1512, Alexander and his friends, having betaken themselves to the last-named hill, amused themselves by rolling over and over down a slope which terminated in a precipice. Suddenly the lad found himself on the brink; terror deprived him of his senses; some hand grasped him and placed him in safety, but he never knew by whom or by what means he had been rescued. The priests gave the credit of this escape to the paper with which they had provided him, but Alexander himself attributed it to God and his father's prayers."[284]
Alesius, or Alane as he was still called, being of good abilities, was early sent to the university, and seems to have been one of the first set of students who entered St Leonard's College (the college founded by Prior John Hepburn, with the consent of Archbishop Alexander Stuart) after its opening in 1512. His studies appear to have been prosecuted there in the usual way, and in 1515 he became a determinant, or took the degree of B.A.;[285]and, probably after acting for a few years as a regent in the college, he was drafted as a novice into the priory, and ultimately became one of its canons. When John Major came to St Andrews in 1523 as principal of the Pædagogium, he, like Hamilton and some others who ultimately shared the same opinions, studied theology under him, and made great progress, especially in the study of the schoolmen and the fathers of the Christian church. He was, like most of the young scholastics of his time, fond of disputation; and if he listened to those lectures on the gospels which Major gave to the press some years after, he probably imbibed from his teacher that combative attitude towards the newDiscussions with Patrick Hamilton.opinions which at this period of his life he showed. D'Aubigné says: "His keenest desire was to break a lance with Luther.... As he could not measure himself personally with the man whom he namedarch-heretic, Alesius had refuted his doctrine in a public discussion held at the university. The theologians of St Andrews had covered him with applause.[286]... Alesius, alive to these praises and a sincere catholic, thought that it would be an easy task for him to convince young Hamilton of his errors.... Armed cap-a-pie, crammed with scholastic learning, and with all the formulæ 'quo modo sit, quo modo nonsit,'" he had various discussions with him. "Hamilton had before him nothing but the Gospel, and he replied to all the reasonings of his antagonist with the clear, living, and profound word of the Scriptures.... Alesius, struck and embarrassed, was silenced, and felt as if 'the morning star were rising in his heart. It was not merely his understanding that was convinced, the breath of a new life penetrated his soul."[287]He continued from time to time to visit the reformer while he lived, and to cherishhis memory after he had been so cruelly put to death.
When the opinions and martyrdom of Hamilton were the subject of conversation among the canons, several of the younger of whom were attached to him, Alesius refused to condemn him. He was not yet by any means, as Dr Lorimer would have it, a Lutheran; he was not yet prepared to separate himself from the old church; but he saw and mourned over her corruptions, and longed, and in a quiet way laboured, for the removal of them, and also yearned for the revival of a more earnest Christian spirit, and more correct moral conduct among those over whom his influence extended. From that day no one could induce him to express approval of the proceedings which had been taken against Hamilton, or to pronounce an unfavourable judgment on the articles for which he had been condemned to death.
Patrick Hepburn.
This silence brought him under the suspicion of his more bigoted associates, and gave special offence to his superior, Prior Patrick Hepburn (the nephew of Prior John, who had founded St Leonard's College), a violent, coarse, immoral young noble, emulous of the debaucheries and vices, as well as of the culturedhauteur, of the young French ecclesiastics of rank among whom his youth had been passed. Knox has given agraphic if rather coarse account of the revelries of this young man and his gay associates, more in keeping with what we should have expected from the sons of Tarquin in heathen Rome than from theéliteof the young ecclesiastics of a primatial Christian city, and under the eye of an aged archbishop.[288]The representation of Alesius is only the more credible because it is the more restrained, and the one representation corroborates the other, and proves to what a low ebb morality had sunk among the ministers of the old church in Scotland before it was swept away. Not only did this bold bad man set at nought the laws of God and the canons of his church, and make a boast of doing so among his boon companions, but even when the archbishop sought to separate him from his unlawful connection, the prior collected his armed retainers, and would have fought with him had not the Earl of Rothes and the Abbot of Arbroath, the primate's hopeful nephew, come between the two bands and patched up a sort of truce between their leaders.
The Christian lives and healthful influence of the younger canons could not but be felt to be a standing rebuke by their superior, and doubtless were one main cause why he bore them so deep a grudge and gave way to such savage outburstsof temper in his intercourse with them. He is said to have denounced them, and especially Alesius, to the aged primate, and probably with the view of entrapping him into some unguarded expression of approval of the new opinions, he got him appointed to preach the sermon at the opening of a synod of bishops and priests which was held at St Andrews probably in the Lent of the year 1529. Alesius, while carefully avoiding everything which might give needless offence to his hearers, thought, to use his own words, that in such presence, and speaking in the Latin language, he would not discharge his duty unless he earnestly exhorted those set in authority over the churches to the practice of piety, the observance of good morals, the study of Christian doctrine, and the pious teaching and governing of their churches. He confesses that he earnestly inveighed against immoral priests, but he adds that as he had said nothing in a disloyal spirit, or more harshly than the facts warranted, and had attacked no one by name, the sermon gave no offence to good men. But his irate and domineering prior imagined that the sermon was specially aimed at him, and was intended to hold him up to the ridicule of the assembled prelates and clergy. Having already defied the archbishop, Hepburn could not brook such a liberty on the part of one of his own subordinates. Anopportunity soon occurred to him of paying back with interest the insult which he imagined had been done to him.
Assaulted and Imprisoned.
It so happened that the whole college of canons resolved, for many and grave reasons, to lodge a complaint with the king respecting the harshness and cruelty of their superior. When this came to Hepburn's ears, he rushed with a band of armed attendants into the sacred chapter-house where the canons were assembled, and when admonished by Alesius, who probably presided in the meeting, not in the heat of passion to be guilty of any foolish prank, he ordered the speaker to be seized by his armed attendants, and drawing his sword would have run it through him had not two of the canons forcibly dragged him back and turned aside his weapon. The affrighted and timid canon cast himself at his superior's feet and entreated him to spare his life, but in return only received a kick in the breast which nearly proved fatal to him. When he had partially recovered from this, and was being hurried off to prison, another dastardly attack was made on him, but that was parried by the prior's own retainers, who saw that he was beside himself with rage and fury. After this all the other canons were seized and imprisoned, but on the remonstrance of certain noble friends they were ordered to be releasedby the king, who was then in St Andrews and was informed of what had taken place.
The king's order was speedily carried out in regard to all save Alesius; but he, notwithstanding all remonstrances of friends, was not only detained in custody, but was even thrust into a more filthy dungeon, called by the sufferer, in one of his treatises,teterrimo specu subtus terram inter bufones et serpentes,[289]and in another alatrinâ,[290]or sink, to which I know nothing at all corresponding in St Andrews save the underground chamber near the college hall,[291]and the roughly-hewn cavern still subsisting in the rock to the north of the house at the end of Castle Street, going down by the southern entrance by thirty or more somewhat irregular steps through the rock, and terminating in a small chamber of rounded or oval form, having an opening in its roof originally little more than a foot in diameter, but now considerably enlarged, and to which on the other side a covered passage from the castle leads down. They might well abandon hope who entered there, and possibly one at least of its uses was for literally immuring those who were never again to havefurther intercourse with their fellow-men. In this or some other equally horrible place the poor canon was confined for eighteen or twenty days; and when, after repeated remonstrances on the part of the king and the magistrates of the city, the prior was obliged to produce his victim, he enjoined him strictly on no account to utter one word about the shameful maltreatment to which he had been subjected. Alesius, however, had suffered too horribly in this place to let slip the opportunity so unexpectedly presented to him of telling the worst to the friendly magistrates, and entreating them to save him from all further risk of a repetition of this barbarous cruelty. But the magistrates, though friendly, were easily persuaded that all was now to go right. As soon, however, as they were got out of the way under this persuasion, the prior upbraided the poor canon for having divulged the whole disgusting truth which he had enjoined him to conceal, and ordered him to be again placed in confinement, in which he was left to languish for nearly a year.His Prison changed.But this confinement was in a less objectionable place, and apparently within the precincts of the priory; and when the prior was absent the canons occasionally had the prisoner brought out from his ward, and even permitted him, as in former times, to take a leading part in theservices at the altar. On one occasion the prior, coming back unexpectedly, and seeing what occurred in his absence, ordered Alesius at once into confinement, threatening on the morrow to have him off to the old filthy place where his life had been so nearly sacrificed before, and where he was to be entrusted to the care of a more remorseless jailer.
He escapes by Night.
As soon as their superior left them for the night the canons, satisfied that all hope of preserving the life of their comrade in St Andrews was at an end, and that if he did not seek safety by instant flight horrible torments and certain death awaited him, gathered round him and urged him to escape. On his expressing a wish to consult with other friends before taking a step so serious, they pressed him only the more urgently to flee and leave the country at once, as he would certainly be pursued, and, if overtaken, brought back for condign punishment. The sequel I give in his own unvarnished statement, which is to me more touching from its very simplicity than the highly embellishedrechaufféesof D'Aubigné: "Etsi maximo dolore afficiebar cum cogitarem mihi è patria, qua nihil dulcius est bene institutis naturis, discedendum esse, tamen, et necessitati, et tot bonorum virorum consiliis parendum duxi."[292]Andthen follows a parting scene only less affecting than that of St Paul from the disciples on the seashore at Tyre, and proving that even yet all good was not extinguished from the hearts of those under the rule of this vicious prior, and encouraging the hope, which was afterwards fully realised, that the best of them would ultimately find a more congenial home in a new and purified church. Only the apostle, though in a heathen land, could kneel down in open day on the seashore to pray with his friends, and they without challenge could accompany him to the ship which waited to receive him; while these men, though living in a professedly Christian land, had secretly to bring out their friend from the place of confinement and comfort him, and then send him away alone into the thick darkness to pursue his weary journey under cover of night to that broad firth which bounds Fifeshire on the north, if haply he might find on its shores some boat to ferry him across, or on its bosom some friendly craft to convey him without loss of time beyond the reach of his implacable persecutor. "Clam igitur educunt me domo, instruunt et viatico. Ita cum lachrymantes inter nos vale dixissemus, et illi suavissima commemoratione illustrium virorum et sanctorum qui similiter è patria tyrannidi cesserunt, maesticiam meam non nihillevassent, media jam nocte in densissimis tenebris solus iter ingredior."[293]Sadly he plodded on his way through the darkness, oppressed with forebodings, for he knew of no hospitable retreat in other lands; he had neither friend nor acquaintance among foreigners; he could speak no language but his native tongue and Latin; and he had some reason to fear that he might be classed with those vagabonds who had been driven out from various Continental states because of their fanatical opinions, and were justly suspected even by Protestants in Germany. But in the multitude of distracting thoughts within him he encouraged himself in the Lord his God and in Christ his Saviour. Ere morning had well dawned his journey was completed, and he got safely on shipboard, where, according to his own account,quidam homo germanus[294]—that is, according to some, a certain man a German; according to others, a certain man a kinsman—received him very affectionately, and afterwards nursed him with great kindness during the sea-sickness from which he suffered throughout the stormy voyage.
His Dundee Friends.
On the day following his escape, when the vessel which sheltered him had already sailed, there came horsemen to the shore, sent by the prior from St Andrews, to make search for thefugitive. When they returned without success to their master, he is reported to have summoned before him a certain citizen of Dundee, whom he suspected to have aided in providing a ship for the canon. This merchant citizen[295]took with him another true-hearted favourer of the Reformation, James Scrymgeour, provost of the town; and on the former denying that he had given the assistance which he was accused of doing to Alesius, and which probably he could deny with a good conscience, his sons in St Andrews and Dundee having been too prudent to involve him in their little plot, the provost spoke out boldly to the haughty prior, and said: Why make a work about this? I, myself, if I had known that Alexander was preparing to go away, would with the greatest pleasure have furnished him both with a ship and with provisions for his voyage, that he might be put in safety beyond the reach of your cruelty. Assuredly, had he been my brother I would long ago have rescued him fromthose perils and miseries in which you have involved him.
Thus Alexander Alesius was driven from his much-loved native land, destined never to return to it more, or again to see the friends and relations to whom he was so warmly attached. "Could any one then have whispered in the ear of the disconsolate exile that he was on the road to far more extensive usefulness" and freedom; that he would gain many friends in foreign lands, and would not only be spared to labour there for more than thirty years, but would also be honoured to be the first to plead by his writings for the free circulation of the Scriptures in his native Scotland, and one of the first to help on Cranmer in England, and Hermann von Wied, the reforming Archbishop of Cologne, in Germany; that he would be privileged to attend, as one of the Protestant representatives, many of the most important colloquies of the leaders of the old and the new church on the Continent, to be the intimate friend of Luther and Melanchthon, to labour as a professor of theology in two German universities, and to live and die in the greatest honour and respect among those with whom he laboured,—"how incredible would it all have seemed to him!" Yet it was thus God meant it, and thus He brought it to pass; and if there was one among the Scottish exiles of those times who was less embitteredtowards his persecutors than another, or more ready to yield to them in things indifferent or of minor importance, if only he could gain their hearts for Christ and His cause in matters of highest moment, it was he.
Driven by the Tempest to Malmö.
The ship in which Alesius sailed was bound for France, probably for Dieppe or Rouen, with which towns the trade of Scotland was carried on, and where many Scottish merchants resided or had factors; but she had not gone far on her way from port when a violent westerly gale carried her across the German Ocean, drove her into the Sound, and made it necessary to get her into the harbour at Malmö in Scania, in order to refit her. There, as well as at the French ports named, there was a community of Scottish merchants, probably by this time enjoying the ministrations of John Gaw or Gall, another St Andrewsalumnus, early won over to the cause of the Reformation. The community of Malmö, a year or two before, had given its adhesion to the same cause, and its leading ministers, as well as the Scottish chaplain, were, therefore, prepared to welcome and treat with all kindness their exiled co-religionist, as he himself, twenty-five years after, feelingly narrates.[296]After being refittedat Malmö, the vessel proceeded on her voyage to France, where Alesius left, and plodding his way along the northern coast, visited Belgium, where he would meet with friendly Scots at Bruges, and probably also at Antwerp. He then passed up the Rhine to Cologne, where, as already suggested, he was favourably received by the Archbishop, Hermann von Wied, who afterwards became a friend of the Reformation, though at this time, like Alesius himself, not yet decided altogether to break with the old church. It is no doubt to this visit he refers in the following passage of the treatise from which I have repeatedly quoted: "When lately at Cologne I conversed familiarly with aHermann von Wied's Apologue.certain man of the highest learning and authority, and perceived how deeply he was grieved by the disturbed state of the church in Germany. I began to exhort him to interpose his judgment in certain matters of dispute, because I hoped that milder views might gain the ascendancy if princes and people only had such monitors excelling in learning and authority. When I had argued long in support of my opinion, heaving a sigh, but making no formal reply to my arguments, he bade me listen to an apologue: When the lion, worn out with old age, could no longer obtain his prey by hunting, he fell on the device of inviting the beasts to visit him in his den. There came to him a bear, a wolf, and a fox. The bear entered first, and being affably received by the lion, and conducted round the den, he was asked how he was pleased with the amenity of the place. Being no courtier, the bear answered bluntly that he could never stay in such a filthy hole, among heaps of decaying carcasses. The lion, enraged, chid the bear for finding fault with the amenity of the royal den, and tearing him up, cast away his carcass among the others. The wolf, who had been standing by, seeing in what danger he was, thought by artifice to soothe the haughty mind of the lion. He accordingly approached, was led round the den, and was asked whether the smell of the heap of carcasses was unpleasant to him.The wolf replied, in a carefully considered speech, that he had never seen anything more pleasant. This artifice, however, was of no avail to the wolf. The lion meted out the same treatment to him as to the bear, tearing him up for his impudent flattery. The fox, who had witnessed all this, and how both the simplicity of the bear and the flattery of the wolf had given equal offence to the lion, was in great perplexity what to answer when it came to his turn. He went forward, however, and being interrogated as the others had been whether the smell of the den was disagreeable, he replied modestly that he could not express any opinion on the point, as he was labouring under a cold in the head." Alesius waited to hear from his host the moral or application of the apologue, but this was not given by him. He preferred to leave it to his own good sense, merely counselling him to be cautious of engaging in such discussions for the present. Ultimately, however, both came to see that there is a time to speak as well as a time to keep silence; and it is interesting to note that to the last both observed similar moderation in their statements of doctrine, both evinced the same desire, by conciliation to gain opponents, rather than to provoke them, notwithstanding all the hard usage they both met with from their secular and ecclesiastical superiors.
Befriended by Melanchthon.
Soon after this Alesius appears to have passedon from Cologne to Wittenberg, and there for a time to have resumed the study of theology, as well as of Greek and Hebrew, under Melanchthon and the other gifted teachers in that university. Luther he does not seem to have met for a time, or to have been acquainted with his writings when he published hisfirst[297]treatises. Melanchthon cherished a special affection for Alesius and the Scottish exiles who soon after followed him to Wittenberg, believing that they were the descendants of those Scoti who had sent the early Christian missionaries to Germany, and that it became him to repay to them the great kindness the heathen Germans had received from their forefathers in the distant past.[298]
It was while he was thus occupied that Alesius heard of the cruel edict of the Scottish bishops, and it hardly admits of doubt that he submitted to Melanchthon, and got corrected by him, his little treatise against their decree, forbidding the New Testament Scriptures to be used by the laityin the vernacular. It is a very pithy and forcible bit of pleading for the right of the Christian laity to possess and study the Scriptures in their own tongue. This remarkable treatise struck the true key-note in the contest it ushered in, and helped it on to victory—a victory which was substantially to be gained ere Knox had taken his place among the combatants on the side of the Reformation at all.[299]
To this epistle Cochlaeus replied without loss of time,[300]and ere the year was out Alesius rejoined in that Responsio ad Cochlei calumnias,[301]in which he has given so touching an account of his own maltreatment, so interesting a statement of his own opinions in matters of faith and church polity, and so trenchant a reply to the sophistries and slanders of his opponent.[302]