J H Merle d’Aubigné
Pope Paul III was alarmed by England’s separation from Rome; he feared lest Scotland, whose king was Henry VIII’s nephew, should follow his example. The Pope was anxious to have one man there who should be absolutely devoted to him and he created David Beaton cardinal in December 1538. Two points above all were offensive to Beaton in evangelical Christians: one, they were not submissive to the Pope; the other, they censured immorality in the clergy, for his own licentiousness drew such rebukes on himself. One matter occupied his mind: the destruction of all liberty. Endowed with intelligence, ability, and energy, he had all the qualities needed to ensure success.
To suppress evangelical Christianity, which upheld the supreme authority of the divine Word, Beaton needed royal support. His first step must therefore be to make himself master of the King. This was not difficult. The nobility had rights which the crown wished to take away. The King and the Cardinal were naturally impelled to unite against the Gospellers and the nobles. Dissolute as a man, prodigal as a king, and superstitious in religion, James V fell easily under the sway of superior minds, especially if they promised him money, and this Beaton did. Let the property of those condemned to death for their faith – even of those who, after embracing the Reform, abjured it – be confiscated for his majesty’s benefit. In Scotland it was agreed not to harass those poor Christians who had nothing to leave at their death. Why seize these lean sheep? The knife must be laid on the fat ones – those which have a rich fleece. For about four years the sword had not been drawn from its scabbard, and the horror excited by the persecution of 1534 had, it seemed, subsided. The gospel had reaped advantage from the lull: the number of those who confessed Christ as their only Saviour had increased, and thus the irritation of the priests was soon aroused again.
Martin Balkerley, a wealthy citizen of Edinburgh, was confined in the castle when David Beaton went to Rome to be made cardinal. He had already acquired great influence; as coadjutor to his uncle, the Archbishop of St Andrews, who was then advanced in years and in ill health, the administration of all ecclesiastical affairs was already in his hands. Balkerley, imprisoned for reading the prohibited books, complained: “I have done nothing but refuse to give up my book of matins to the officer”. The King sent him back
1Abridged from The History of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, vol 6. Last month’s chapter described the trial of Thomas Forrest of Dollar, and the marriage of James V to Mary of Guise, an ominous move.
to Beaton, who then referred the case to the Privy Council. The Council promised the accused his liberty if he paid a ransom of £1000 sterling, an enormous sum according to the value of money at that period. This ransom was paid on 27 February 1539, but Balkerley remained in prison. It was not enough. Beaton, who had then been cardinal for a month or two, demanded an additional £2000. Three rich Scots offered themselves as bail on March 7, pledging themselves that the prisoner would do the King’s will. Five days later he was set at liberty. Thus the sum of £3000 was at length thought sufficient to expiate the crime of reading the New Testament.
Beaton did not again think it necessary to have recourse to the Privy Council. His arrogance increased and, wherever he went, he had a cross carried before him. He claimed to be master of souls and to dispose of the lives of men. The money which he had so shamefully acquired served only to stimulate his desire to get more by the same means. Several eminent and wealthy citizens, belonging to the elite of Scotland, were thrown into prison. In the towns of Stirling, Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee, numerous families were left desolate.
Henry VIII saw signs of an impending attack in these acts of his nephew’s government, and he sent the Duke of Norfolk to the north of England to watch Scotland. Norfolk perceived two opposite currents. “The clergy of Scotland,” he wrote to London, “be in such fear that their King should do there as the King’s highness hath done in this realm,2 that they do their best to bring their master to the war; and . . . a great part of the temporality there would their King should follow our example, which I pray God give him grace to come unto.” Soon Norfolk learnt that a proclamation had been published at Edinburgh and in all parts of Scotland, enjoining every man between the ages of 16 and 60 to be ready to set out; and that the Cardinal had gone to the continent to make sure of aid for Scotland from both the King of France and the Pope.
Before long Norfolk saw the sad effects of the intrigues of the clergy. Not a day passed but some gentlemen and priests, who were compelled to flee the country because they had the audacity to read the Holy Scriptures in English, came to him for refuge. “If we should be captured,” they told him, “we should be executed.” In the midst of these persecutions and preparations for war, James, initiated in the art of Roman policy, spoke in terms of peace. “You may be sure,” he told an English agent, “that I shall never break with the King, my uncle.” But Norfolk was not deceived; he felt the greatest distrust of the influence of Mary of Guise. “The young Queen”, he wrote, “is all papist.” Norfolk was not wrong. The Cardinal, having won over the King by flattery
2Henry VIII had separated from the Pope; many of the laity in Scotland wished to do so too.
and by the heavy fines extorted from the evangelical Christians, was eager to take advantage of his success to destroy the Reform and satisfy some grudges of long standing.
One Gospeller who had left very unpleasant memories in Beaton’s mind was good Dean Forrest, who had boldly said that he had never found either a bad epistle or a bad gospel. The Cardinal was only waiting for an opportunity to arrest him and others. He had not long to wait. When the vicar of Tullybody, near Stirling, married, Forrest attended the ceremony, as well as a monk named Beverage, a priest Sir Duncan Sympson, a gentleman named Robin Forrester and three or four other people of Stirling. At the marriage feast, at the beginning of Lent, they had eaten flesh, according to that word of Paul: “Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat”. On 1 March 1539, or possibly the previous day, they were all seized and taken before the Cardinal and the Bishops of Glasgow and Dunkeld, who indulged in practices far more criminal than eating what God made for that purpose.
The official accuser, John Lauder, one of Beaton’s underlings, addressed Forrest rudely: “False heretic, thou sayest it is not lawful to kirk-men to take their teinds [tithes] and offerings and corpse-presents”. And Dean Forrest replied, “Brother, I said not so: but I said it was not lawful to kirkmen to spend the patrimony of the kirk as they do, as on riotous feasting and on fair women, and at playing at cards and dice: and neither the kirk well maintained nor the people instructed in God’s Word nor the sacraments duly administered to them as Christ commanded”.
Accuser: “Dare thou deny that which is openly known in the country, that thou gave again to thy parishioners the cow and the upmost cloths, saying you had no right to them?”
Dean: “I gave them again to them that had more mister [need] than I.”
Accuser: “Thou false heretic, thou learned all thy parishioners to say the Paternoster, the creed, and the Ten Commandments in English.”
Dean: “Brother, my people are so rude and ignorant, they understand no Latin, so that my conscience provoked me to learn them the words of their salvation in English, and the Ten Commandments, which are the law of God, whereby they might observe the same. I teached the belief, whereby they might know their faith in God and Jesus Christ His Son, and of His death and resurrection. Moreover I reached them and learned them the Lord’s own prayer in the mother-tongue, to the effect that they might know how they should pray.”
Accuser: “Why did you that? By our acts and ordinances of our holy father the Pope?”
Dean: “I follow the acts of our master and Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the
Apostle Paul, who saith that he had rather speak five words to the understanding and edifying of his people than ten thousand in a strange tongue which they understand not.”
Accuser: “Where finds thou that?”
Dean: “In my book here, in my sleeve.”
At these words the accuser, rushing at a bound on the Dean, snatched from his hands the New Testament and, holding it up, said with a loud voice: “Behold, sirs, he has the book of heresy in his sleeve that makes all the din and play in our kirk”.
Dean: “Brother, ye could say better if ye pleased, nor to call the book of the evangel of Jesus Christ the book of heresy.”
“It is enough to burn thee for”, said the accuser coolly.
Five of these pious men were immediately condemned to death and were taken the same day to the castle hill, where the piles were ready; and the King, following the example of Francis I, was present with his court at this cruel execution. Those who went first to the stake piously consoled those who were to follow them. “At the beginning of 1539,” says Buchanan, “many suspected of Lutheranism were arrested; five were burnt at the end of February, nine recanted, and others were sentenced to banishment.”
The same day orders were issued to confiscate the property of those who had been declared heretics. The King, the Cardinal and their subordinates took their reward out of the penalties. The illustrious Buchanan, now 32 years of age, was himself in prison at that time. After attending the University of Paris, he had returned to Scotland and had been named tutor to the Earl of Moray, an illegitimate son of James V. He was a poet as well as a historian, and there was something sharp and biting in his temperament, peculiarly apt for satire. He had not spared the clergy in his poetry, above all in his satire against the Franciscans. It was for this last poem that he was imprisoned, and there was not a man in all Scotland whose death was more eagerly desired by the Romish party. It was said that the Cardinal offered the King a considerable sum of money to this end.
Buchanan was carefully watched in the prison of St Andrews, some of the guards even spending the night in his cell. The death of five martyrs showed him clearly enough the fate which awaited himself. One night, probably in March 1539, he perceived that his keepers had fallen asleep. He tiptoed towards the window, climbed the walls and succeeded, although with difficulty, in getting out. Thus, by the aid of God and stimulated by the desire of saving his life, “he escaped the rage of those that sought his blood”. He betook himself to France, taught for several years in the College de Guienne at Bordeaux and afterwards in a college in Paris. Many Gospellers followed Buchanan’s
example that same month. As for himself, he appears at that period of his life to have been nothing more than one of the numerous poets and prose-writers who were attacking the vices and the follies of the Romish clergy. But while attacking superstition, Buchanan did not fall, as many did, into infidelity; he adhered heartily at a later period to the evangelical reform, and Knox bears noble witness to him.
Beaton, while sacrificing many victims, had lit a fire on elevated ground, “to the effect that the rest of the bishops might show themselves no less fervent to suppress the light of God”. That signal was not made in vain. In the town of Ayr a young gentleman named Kennedy, about 18 years of age, had received a liberal education and had tasted of the gospel, without, however, attaining a well-grounded faith. Gifted with a poetic gift, he had not spared the ignorance of the priests. He was seized and cast into prison.
In the same diocese, of Glasgow, there lived in a convent of the Cordeliers one of those enlightened and pious monks who shone like stars in the deep night of the age. His name was Jerome Russel; his character was good, his wit ready, and his mind enriched with literary acquirements. The Archbishop of Glasgow, Gawin Dunbar, was of a less persecuting spirit than Beaton, and as Lord Chancellor he was invested with the highest authority in the state. In the summer of 1539, Beaton, although designated cardinal, had not yet had that dignity conferred on him. He could not have dared to appear in the diocese of Glasgow with his cross borne before him. But it was not enough for him to know that the learned Russel and the young Kennedy were in prison, he must get them burnt. He sent to Glasgow his favourite agent Lauder and two others, charging them to obtain from the Archbishop the promise “that he would imbrue his hands in the blood of the friends of God”. Knox therefore calls these three men Satan’s sergeants.
Having reached Glasgow, the three men demanded of the Archbishop far more than he could lawfully grant: he was not only to have the two evangelical Christians examined, he must put them to death. What reproaches he would incur if he protected heretics! What praises he would win if he were ardent in serving the Church! Dunbar yielded, and Russel and Kennedy were brought before the court, over which the Archbishop presided, and proceedings began. Thanks to the inventive zeal of Lauder and his colleagues, numerous charges were brought forward against the accused. Kennedy had an upright soul, but had rather an inclination to the faith than faith itself. The imposing display of judicial pomp, the gravity of the accusations, the severity of the punishment which was preparing, all disturbed the young man. He was distressed and, being sharply pressed to retract what he had written, he was intimidated and went astray.
On the other hand, Russel’s faith was the fruit of close examination of the Word of God and had been established by long-continued studies. He appeared full of decision; he replied with wisdom to his accusers, defended by powerful proofs the doctrines he professed, and repulsed with calmness, dignity and intrepidity the false accusations of his enemies. His words had an unlooked-for result: they reawakened the conscience of his young companion. The Spirit of God, the Spirit of all consolation, worked in him. The Christian life, which had scarcely begun in his heart, now expanded. “He felt himself as it were a new creature; his mind was changed,” a living faith filled his heart; he was confirmed in his resolution. From that time he no longer hesitated to give up his life for the truth.
The happiness which he had lost came back to him; his countenance brightened; his tongue was loosed; there was a radiance in his whole person. Falling on his knees, he exclaimed with joy: “O eternal God, how wondrous is that love and mercy that Thou bearest unto mankind, and unto me the most caitiff [despicable] and miserable wretch above all others; for even now, when I would have denied Thee and Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, my only Saviour, and so have casten myself in everlasting damnation, Thou by Thine own hand hast pulled me from the very bottom of hell, and makest me to feel that heavenly comfort which takes from me that ungodly fear wherewith before I was oppressed. Now I defy death.” Then, rising, he turned towards his persecutors and said, “Do what ye please; I praise God I am ready”.
Kennedy’s prayer touched the Archbishop of Glasgow. He was disturbed. “It is better to spare these men,” said he; “executions such as those which have taken place only do harm to the cause which they are meant to serve.” The Cardinal’s agents resolved to frighten the prelate, whose weakness they well knew and they cried out earnestly: “Take care what ye are doing, my lord. Will ye condemn all that my Lord Cardinal and the other bishops and we have done? If so ye do, ye show yourself enemy to the kirk.” Fear fell on the Archbishop. Repressing the pity which had touched him and silencing his conscience for the sake of preserving his reputation and his comfortable and easy life, he gave way.
Russel had remained calm till then, but exasperated by the accusations of his enemies, indignant at the weakness of the Archbishop, and confident in his own innocence, he said with dignity: “This is your hour and power of darkness; now sit ye as judges, we stand wrongly accused, and more wrongly to be condemned; but the day shall come when our innocence shall appear, and that ye shall see your own blindness, to your everlasting confusion. Go forward, and fulfill the measure of your iniquity.” Russel and Kennedy, condemned to the flames, were immediately handed over to the secular power.
The next day, as they passed to the place of execution, Russel thought that he perceived some apprehension in his friend. “Brother,” said he, “fear not; more potent is He that is in us than is he that in the world. The pain that we shall suffer is short and shall be light, but our joy and our consolation shall never have end.” They who heard it were wonderfully affected. When the two martyrs arrived at the pile, they fell on their knees and prayed; then, rising, they were bound to the stake without uttering a word and endured the fire with patience, showing no sign of fear. “They won the victory over death,” says a historian, “looking with faith for everlasting habitations.”
Summer Visit to Odessa Mission
Rev Neil M Ross
A communion season was held in the first week of June in our small congregation in Odessa. Mr Edward Ross arrived at our Mission there a week earlier to do some work and to conduct one of the Sabbath services. He was joined later by Rev Neil Ross for the week of the communion season. It was a pleasant, and we trust a profitable, occasion. We worshipped in the fine new church hall in the Mission Centre, gathered around the preaching of the gospel from Wednesday to the following Monday and remembered the death of the Saviour on Sabbath.
We also had a meeting of the Field Committee, when we processed pending items of Mission business. It had been hoped that on this occasion we would finally complete the legal documentation relating to the Church’s ownership of the centre, and that the other signatories on behalf of the Church, Rev D A Ross and Rev W A Weale, would be in Odessa with us. However, the wheels of state bureaucracy moved too slowly for this to be achieved at present and, in any case, Rev D A Ross was unable to travel to Odessa because of illness.
The congregation is now fully registered with the State Committee of Nationalities and Religions under the name of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ukraine, and as being under the church government of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Ukrainian law does not allow us to register under the name, “The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland” (as we were able to do in, for example, Kenya).
Now that balance in the Church’s Eastern Europe Mission Fund has thankfully increased we were able to commission the erection of the boundary security wall and gates (to replace the temporary fence surrounding the Mission building). Hopefully they should be completed within a few weeks.
The Mission administrator, Mr Igor Zadorozhnyy, and the Clerk of the
Field Committee, divinity student Mr Dmytro Levytskyy, gave us first-hand information on the Mission’s outreach work. Mr Zadorozhnyy had reported to the last meeting of Synod that in the past year the Mission has freely distributed almost 1300 Bibles and pieces of literature and 11 000 Words of Life scripture calendars (kindly donated by the Trinitarian Bible Society) to people in the Ukraine and beyond. Since making that report he has pressed on with responding to the many requests which continue to come in for Bibles and literature.
The website of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ukraine in Russian is proving useful. It was set up more than a year ago by Mr Levytskyy, with the approval of the Field Committee; it is maintained by him and has been viewed by thousands of people. Not only does it give details of the Church services in Odessa, but it also publishes numerous articles, some of which Mr Levytskyy has translated from English to Russian. These include Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about the Church; the Deed of Separation of the Church (in English as well as Russian, the English version unexpectedly being the most-read page on the website); part of The Catechism of The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland; the article Which Church?; articles on scriptural Sabbath observance, including the leaflet One Day in Seven by Rev K D Macleod; The Regulative Principle by Rev D Campbell; and material on our form of worship in public and in the family and on our form of Church government.
On the site Mr Levytskyy has also translated and posted chapter 1 of Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology. Also displayed are several articles on Romanism, including all of Alexander Hislop’s The Two Babylons (attracting many readers); Roman Catholicism – A False Religion by Rev D Somerset; and pieces from “Protestant View” in The Free Presbyterian Magazine.
The site not only offers free Bibles and literature but also audio sermons by Free Presbyterian ministers and our creedal documents in Russian and Ukrainian for free downloading. It gives links to the UK site of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, to the Russian Wikipedia website page about the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland in Ukraine, and to Mr Zadorozhnyy’s personal website, on which he publishes his own articles on Reformed doctrine, worship and practice, and offers free Bibles and literature from the Mission.
Responses to both websites not only include requests for literature but also requests for explanations of some of the points in the articles – and answers to these requests require time and care. One correspondent in south Russia who has discovered our site now desires to be associated with the Church. He presently worships at home with his family but wishes to see a
congregation of the Church established in his town, Rossosh, and has a like-minded friend who would like to help him to achieve this.
Mr Zadorozhnyy is of the view that in central and west Ukraine there is a discernible tendency towards interest in the Reformed Faith. “Slavonic Christians are awakening from their spiritual sleep”, he wrote in his report to Synod. “The doctrines of the Reformation have awakened a considerable interest among Christians of different denominations.”
Now that the congregation is registered, they are to increase Mission work locally by tract distribution, in the hope that it will result in others coming to the church services. They are also working on a plan to send out short correspondence courses in Bible knowledge to young people and others, with the promise of a book as a reward for those who complete the course. They feel strongly that the instruction of young people should be given priority. They also expect that, as has already happened, pastors from other parts of Ukraine with whom they have been corresponding will visit them to have discussions about the Reformed faith.
On the Russian publications front, a further 1000 copies of Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith by Robert Shaw have been ordered, and a reprint (10 000 copies) of the Children’s Catechism is under way. Mrs Levytskyy has now completed translating 51 Psalms or parts of Psalms into metrical form; so it was decided to print 3000 copies of these as an A5 booklet, as the Mission has been receiving requests for copies of the Psalms we presently use in praise. We are also to proceed with the translation into Russian of The Five Points of Calvinism by R L Dabney.
May the Lord of the harvest bless these efforts in Odessa and other parts of that vast land. He alone can give the increase. Our prayer also is that Mr Levytskyy will be successful in his divinity studies, so that, God willing, he may preach the gospel to his own people and be a pastor among them in due time. We express our gratitude anew to our Odessa friends for their hospitality, to those friends in many places who have supported, and do support, the Mission by their prayers and gifts, and especially to the Divine Giver of every good and perfect gift, for providing for us and for the work far above what we ask or think. The Lord has been mindful of us; may He bless us still.
The straying bullock needs a heavy clog, and so doth a Christian whom God will keep within the bounds and limits of His commandments.
Do nothing grudgingly for God; let not His commands be grievous.
Faith purifies the heart of a believer, but the hearts of unbelievers are full of all impurity. The believer overcomes the world; the world overcomes the unbeliever. Faith makes the cross of Christ sweet and easy to the believer; unbelief makes Christ, because of the cross, bitter and distasteful to the unbeliever.
John Flavel