Reformation Day: Patrick Hamilton

Happy Reformation Day! For those who don’t know, Reformation Day is a holiday that has been celebrated in October since the mid 1500s, to various degrees in various places, to remember the revival that took place during the Protestant Reformation.

Anyway, recently I was reading about Patrick Hamilton. My favourite Patrick is the one who was a missionary to Ireland, but this Patrick is pretty amazing too – and he was Scottish. Patrick Hamilton is believed to be the first martyr in Scotland during the Reformation. He was burned at the stake in St. Andrews, Scotland, in 1528.

I thought this quote from Hamilton was quite interesting. He’s talking about the error that some people make, thinking that the Old Testament is all “Law” while the New Testament is all “Gospel”. Check it out:

Many there be, who, reading the book of the New Testament, do take and understand whatsoever they see contained in the said book to be only and merely the voice of the gospel: and contrariwise, whatsoever is contained in the compass of the Old Testament (that is, within the law, histories, psalms, and prophets),to be only and merely the word and voice of the law. Wherein many are deceived; for the preaching of the law, and the preaching of the gospel, are mixed together in both the Testaments, as well the Old as the New; neither is the order of these two doctrines to be distinguished by books and leaves, but by the diversity of God’s spirit speaking unto us.

For sometimes in the Old Testament God doth comfort, as he comforted Adam, with the voice of the gospel. Sometimes also in the New Testament he doth threaten and terrify, as when Christ threatened the Pharisees. In some places again, Moses and the prophets play the Evangelists; insomuch that Jerome doubteth whether he should call Isaiah a prophet or an evangelist. In some places likewise Christ and the apostles supply the part of Moses; as Christ himself, until his death, was under the law (which law he came not to break, but to fulfil), so his sermons made to the Jews, run all for the most part, upon the perfect doctrine and works of the law, showing and teaching what we ought to do by the right law of justice, and what danger ensued in not performing the same: all which places, though they be contained in the book of the New Testament, yet are they to be referred to the doctrine of the law, ever having them included a privy exception of repentance and faith in Christ Jesus. …

Many publicans and sinners were unkind, unmerciful, and hard hearted to their fellow servants; and yet many of them repented, and by faith were saved, etc. The grace of Christ Jesus work in us earnest repentance, and faith in him unfeigned. Amen!

Patrick Hamilton