In 1525, the Scottish Parliament passed the following Act and I'm going to read it to you in full.

It is a statute and ordained that for as much as damnable opinions of heresy are spread in diverse countries by the

heretic Luther and his disciples, and this realm and legions have firmly persisted in the holy faith since the same was first received by them,

and never as yet admitted any opinions contrary to the Christian faith,

but ever have been clean of all such filth and vice.

Therefore, that no manner of person stranger that happens to arrive with their ships within any part of this realm shall bring with

them any books or works of the said Luther and his disciples."

And then it goes on to say that if a person is caught with any of these books, their entire ship will be taken and they will be thrown into prison.

So there it is, this act by the Scottish Parliament in 1525 that says

Scotland is Roman Catholic, it has been Roman Catholic, it is Roman Catholic and it always

will be Roman Catholic and there will be no

toleration of Luther and his ideas here. Well what the Scottish Parliament did not

take into account was that Luther's ideas wouldn't come from a stranger.

In fact, they'd come to Scotland from one of their very own.

And their very own, in this case, is none other than Patrick Hamilton.

Patrick Hamilton was born of nobility.

He went on to study at Paris and then at Louvain. In 1520 back at Paris he was first exposed to

Luther's ideas. After a few years of study he went back to Scotland and he began teaching in the area of St Andrews and not

only was he teaching but he also put out a little book comes down to us in history

is simply called Patrick's Places.

And in that book, Patrick has a dialogue, as it were,

between the law and the gospel.

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