The Scottish Reformation / Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics

by Alexander F. Mitchell

Among those who had to leave England about the same time were John M'Alpine[313] and John Fyffe—or, as they were henceforth to be surnamed by Melanchthon, Joannes Macchabaeus and Joannes Fidelis—both, like Alesius himself, Scotsmen, the former having been prior of the Dominican monastery at Perth, and the latter an alumnus and teacher in St Leonard's College. They had, along with several other known favourers of the Reformation, been obliged to leave Scotland at an earlier period, and after finding a temporary shelter in England, apparently at Salisbury, under the protection of Bishop Shaxton, who was then a favourer of the reformed opinions, were, like Alesius himself, to find their ultimate home and special work on the Continent—the one in the University of Copenhagen, the other in the University of Frankfort on the Oder. They seem to have gone first to Wittenberg, and while the others for a time resumed their studies there, Alesius almost immediately on his return was selected by Melanchthon to accompany him to the colloquy at Worms, and then to that at Regensburg, which were attended not only by the Lutheran and the Catholic theologians, but also by Bucer, Calvin, and other reforming divines of Strassburg. So it came about that Alesius, who had suffered exile in the cause of the Reformation in Scotland, and still had striven to promote it, was probably the first of our countrymen to be brought into contact with Calvin, who was ultimately to exercise so marked an influence on the form and mode of that Reformation, and who too was then an exile both from his native land and from the scene of his earlier labours. To the last Alesius seems to have been the one of his pupils to whom the gentle and timid Melanchthon most closely clung, and it was by his recommendation that in the very year of his return to the Continent he was promoted to be Professor of Divinity in the University of Frankfort on the Oder. And it is something of which a Scotchman and a St Andrean may be proud, that the university of that little principality of Brandenburg, which has since expanded into the great kingdom of Prussia, was indebted for two of its first Protestant professors of divinity to Scotland and to St Andrews.

Leaves Frankfort for Leipsic.

His stay at Frankfort, however, was but short, a controversy having arisen between him and one of his colleagues about the propriety of attaching civil punishments to adultery and other offences against the seventh commandment. In 1542, or early in 1543, he resigned his professorship, and transferred his family to Leipsic. Melanchthon, who, though concurring in his opinions, blamed his hasty resignation, yet exerted himself to procure an appointment for him in the great Saxon university; so also did Ludovicus Fachsius, at once the Burgomaster and the head of the Faculty of Law, of whose kindness he makes special mention in the dedication to his sons of his edition of Melanchthon's Catechism, which he had used when superintending their religious instruction.[314]

The remaining twenty-one years of his life were spent busily and usefully in this famous university, though he suffered somewhat severely during the Schmalkaldic war and the seige of Leipsic. It was there that most of his theological treatises were elaborated and published. He was twice at least chosen Rector of the university—viz., in 1555 and in 1561.[315] In 1542, as already stated, he published in Latin the arguments he had used in his disputation with Stokesley, Bishop of London, on the authority of the Word of God, and against the doctrine of the seven sacraments, both confirming his former arguments as to the rights of the Christian laity, and maintaining the supremacy of Scripture over tradition. He had previously published his inaugural dissertation in the University of Frankfort, 'De restituendis scholis,' in which he advocated at length the great need for university training for the ministers of the protestant churches, and gave a detailed account of his own opinions, which he affirmed were then in full accord with those of the Lutheran churches. In 1543, probably before he was fully settled at Leipsic, it is said that on hearing the news of the favourable change which had taken place in Scotland on the death of James V. and the accession of Arran to the regency, he, like many other Scottish exiles, had serious thoughts of returning home, and availing himself to the uttermost of this unexpected opportunity which seemed to be opening for carrying forward the work of the Reformation in the land which was still dear to him. But before he had fully made up his mind to follow this course, he fortunately heard that the fickle regent had already begun to change his policy, and that though the privilege of freely reading the Scriptures in the vernacular, for which he had so earnestly contended, was legally secured, the triumph of the Reformation was by no means so near at hand as at first he had been led to suppose.The Perth Martyrs. Shortly after this, roused by the tidings of fresh persecutions which had reached him from Scotland, and especially by the account of the cruel executions of the humble martyrs of Perth by the cardinal and his party on St Paul's day, 1543-44, Alesius on 23rd April wrote to Melanchthon in the following terms:—

"Three days ago there were here several countrymen of mine, who declare that the cardinal rules all things at his pleasure in Scotland, and governs the governor himself. In the town of St Johnston he hung up four respectable citizens, for no other cause than because they had requested a monk, in the middle of his sermon, not to depart in his doctrine from the sacred text, and not to mix up notions of his own with the words of Christ. Along with these a most respectable matron, carrying a sucking child in her arms, was haled before the tribunal and condemned to death by drowning. They report that the constancy of the woman was such that, when her husband was led to the scaffold and mounted the ladder, she followed and mounted along with him, and entreated to be allowed to hang from the same beam. She encouraged him to be of good cheer, for in a few hours, said she, I shall be with Christ along with you. They declare also that the governor was inclined to liberate them, but that the cardinal suborned the nobles to threaten that they would leave him if the condemned were not put to death. When the cardinal arrived with his army at Dundee, from which the monks had been expelled, all the citizens took to flight; and when he saw the town quite deserted he laughed, and remarked that he had expected to find it full of Lutherans."[316]

He pleads for National Union.

Before the expiry of that year Alesius addressed to the chief nobles, prelates, barons, and to the whole people of Scotland, his Cohortatio ad concordiam pietatis ac doctrinæ Christianæ defensionem. This piece, Dr Lorimer tells us, "is instinct throughout with the spirit of true Christian patriotism, as well as with genuine evangelical earnestness and fervour. Lamenting the distractions of the kingdom by opposing political factions—the French faction and the English—he [like the author of the Complaynt of Scotland a few years later] implores his countrymen to lay aside these divisions, and demonstrates by many examples from classical history the dangers of national disunion, and the duty of patriotic concord in defence of the safety and honour of their common country. His expostulations against the oppression and cruelty of the bishops, and his allusions to the martyrs who had suffered in the cause of truth, are full of interest; and his digression, in particular, upon the character and martyrdom of Patrick Hamilton, is a noble burst of eloquence and pathos. When he exhorts to national union he means union in the truth—union in the one great work of purifying religion and reforming the corruptions of the church of God. What urgent need there was of such a work he demonstrates at much length, and with great freedom and faithfulness. Unless the church of Christ be reformed it must perish from the earth, and those are its worst enemies, not its real friends, who oppose such indispensable reform."[317] "Everywhere," he says, "we see the church driven forward to such reform. Ask even those who are most solicitous for its welfare, and they will tell you that the church can no longer be safe or free from troubles unless it be strengthened by the removal of abuses. If this, then, is a measure of absolute necessity unless we would see the whole church go to ruin; if all men confess that this should be done, if facts themselves call with a loud voice that some care should be taken to relieve the labouring [bark of the] church, to purify her depraved doctrine, and to reform her whole administration,—why, I demand, are those maligned and vilified who discover and point out the church's faults and failings? The proper remedies could not possibly have been applied till the disease was known; and yet the men who point it out, warn of its virulence and danger, and wish to alleviate or entirely remove it, are hated and He repels the Cry of Innovation. persecuted as much as if they had been themselves the cause of all." With equal vigour he repels the cry of innovation raised against the reformers and their teaching. Their work was rather an honest attempt at restoration. What they sought, he said, "was just such a change as would take place in the manners of an age if the gravity, modesty, and frugality of ancient times were to take the place of levity, lewdness, luxury, and other vices. Such a change might be termed the introduction of what was novel, but in fact it was only the reintroduction of what was old and primitive. Let us," he exclaims, "have innovation everywhere if only we can get the true for the false, seriousness for levity, and solid realities for empty dreams." "It is no new doctrine we bring, but the most ancient, nay rather the eternal truth, for it proclaims that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into the world to save sinners, and that we are saved by faith in Him. Of Him even Moses wrote, and to Him give all the prophets witness, that whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins. This is the old doctrine which runs through all the ages. Those which are really new are the doctrines which have obscured or contaminated it, brought in by those entrusted with the care of the vineyard of the Lord, and who, like the keepers of the vineyard in the Gospel parable, have maltreated and slain many of the Lord's messengers."

This was the last service, so far as we know, which Alesius was able to render to the cause of the Reformation in his native land, and it did not fail in due time to produce abundant and lasting fruit. As Major before him, so Knox after him, strenuously contended for union of Scotsmen among themselves; and after that, but only after that, for a league with England rather than with France. They laboured, and others entered into their labours, and, proceeding on the same lines on which they had worked, at last brought the conflict to a triumphant issue. Tidings of their success filled Alesius with joy in the land of his exile. Even these, however, failed in his old age to tempt him back to the home of his youth, or the scene of those early struggles which were so deeply engraven on his memory and heart. And, so far as we know, he received no call to return from those who were then at the head of affairs in Scotland, though unquestionably he was more deeply read in theology than any one of them, and though, as unquestionably, the faculty of divinity was for several years but poorly supplied in the universities of Scotland, and preachers of ability, culture, and learning were very rare in the land.

Appreciation of his Services.

His life, especially after the close of the Schmalkaldic war, seems to have passed tranquilly and happily at the great Lutheran University of Leipsic. He was loved and honoured by his colleagues and by his prince, and, as I have already hinted, he was the bosom friend and unremitting correspondent of Melanchthon. As his services had been called into requisition by the Preceptor Germaniæ at the colloquies of Worms and Regensburg, so were they sought and got at the colloquy of Saxon theologians for the preparation of the Leipsic Interim in 1548, at that of Naumburg in 1554, at that of Nuremberg in 1555, and that of Dresden in 1561. "In all these"—the Leipsic professor, who on the occasion of the first centenary of his second rectorship pronounced an oration on him, affirms that—"he so conducted himself that no one could charge him with want of perseverance in building up the truth, or of judiciousness in examining the errors of others, or of faithfulness and dexterity in the counsels he gave." M'Kenzie, who has inserted a sketch of his career in his 'Lives of Eminent Scotsmen,' assures us that in the conference of Naumburg he acquitted himself to the admiration of the whole assembly, for which he is highly commended by Camerarius in his 'Life of Melanchthon'; and further, that in the year 1555 the disciples of Andrew Osiander having raised great dissensions in the city of Nuremberg respecting the doctrine of justification, Melanchthon made choice of Alesius as the fittest person to appease them by his wisdom and learning, and that his management answered Melanchthon's expectations, though Alesius himself had previously taken a side in the controversy. In the Majoristic controversy, Alesius, like Melanchthon, so far sided with Major as to maintain against the extreme Lutherans the necessity of good works, not to justification, but to final salvation; and in 1560 he seems to have discussed this question in one of his so-called disputationes.