66 speaking in Mary's reign, exaggerates Knox's influence when he says that a runagate Scot did take away the adoration or worshiping of Christ in the sacrament, by whose procurement that heresy was put into the last communion book; so much prevailed that one man's authority at that time." At any rate Knox's five years in England were by no means unfruitful. KNOX ON THE The most of the next five years (1554-59) he spent on the Continent, for a while pastor of an English congregation in Frankfort, and after that holding the same office in Geneva. In CONTINENT. this latter city Knox spent the happiest and most peaceful years of his life. There he had what was really the first Puritan congregation in history, and there he was able to carry out his own views as to church government and worship without fear either of Catholic nobles or avaricious half-Protestant lords.' The church order he drew up was that afterward adopted in Scotland; the Psalms of his Genevan church were the model for the English and Scotch versions; and, above all, the "Genevan Bible, prepared by the members of Knox's congregation at the very time he was their minister, continued for three quarters of a century thereafter to be the household book of the English-speaking nations."* A VISIT TO A visit to Scotland in 1555 was not without results. In his Letter of Wholesome Counsel to the nobles and other laymen he urges Scripture study: "Within your own houses, I say, in some cases, ye are bishops and kings; your wife, children, servants, and family are your bishopric and charge; of you it shall be required how carefully and diligently ye have always instructed them in God's true knowledge, how that ye have studied in them to plant virtue and repress vice. And therefore, I say, ye must make them partakers in reading, exhorting, and in making common prayers, which I would in every house were used once a day at least." He marked out a course for the reformed congregations which was a remarkable revival of the Pauline assemblies, but which he himself did not repeat in all its apostolic freedom when the Reformation was actually established in Scotland. This was left to Wesley to restore in the class meeting. "I think it necessary that for the conference [comparing] of Scriptures assemblies of brethren be had. The order therein to be observed is expressed by St. Paul, after confession' and 'invocation' let some place of Scripture be plainly and distinctly read, so much as shall 1 P. Hume Brown does justice to this aspect of Knox's life-i, 203 ff. be thought sufficient for one day or time, which ended, if any brother have exhortation, question, or doubt, let him not fear to speak or move the same, so that he do it with moderation, either to edify, or to be edified. And hereof I doubt not but great profit shall shortly ensue; for, first, by hearing, reading, and conferring the Scriptures in the assembly, the whole body of the Scriptures of God shall become familiar, the judgments and spirits of men shall be tried, their patience and modesty shall be known, and finally the gifts and utterance shall appear." If any difficulty of interpretation occurs it shall be "put in writing before ye dismiss the congregation," with the view of consulting some wise adviser. Many would be glad to help them. "Of myself I will speak as I think; I will more gladly spend fifteen hours in communicating my judgment with you, in explaining as God pleases to open to me any place of Scripture, than half an hour in any matter beside." Why did not Knox carry out this scriptural program in the sequel? Was he afraid of the contentiousness of the northern mind and that pride of opinion which in exaggerated form has sometimes marked the perfervid Scot? Or did his experience with the continental Anabaptists and other enthusiastic religionists convince him that a more rigid form of service and doctrine was necessary for the times? No doubt it was this latter, as his letter "To the Brethren," from Dieppe, reveals.' 1 Works, iv, 261. CHAPTER XI. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PROTESTANTISM IN SCOTLAND. IN spite of discouragements the reformed faith was winning its way. Many of the nobles and prominent men were irrevocably committed to it, and it only needed a few earnest preachers to go through the country in order to bring over the common people. Knox's rousing letters from the Continent were the next best thing to his personal presence. The Protestant lords and gentry met in Edinburgh and entered into a solemn compact to stand together for truth and right. This is the first of the "covenants" which mark the critical periods of Scottish history, and is one of the most notable as well as most noble documents in history: FIRST COVE- "We perceiving how Satan, in his members the Antichrists of our time, cruelly doth rage, seeking to downthrow and destroy the evangel of Christ and his congregation, ought according to our bounden duty to strive in our Master's cause even unto death, being certain of the victory in him the which, our duty being well considered, we do promise before the majesty of God and his congregation, that we by his grace shall with all diligence continually apply our whole power, substance, and very lives to maintain, set forward, and establish the most blessed word of God, and his congregation; and shall labor at our possibility to have faithful ministers purely and truly to minister Christ's evangel and sacraments to his people. We shall maintain them, nourish them, and defend them, the whole congregation of Christ, and every member thereof, at our whole powers, and wairing [expending] of our lives against Satan and all wicked power that does intend tyranny and trouble against the aforesaid congregation. Unto the which holy word and congregation we do join us; and also do renounce and forsake the congregation of Satan, with all the superstitions, abominations, and idolatry thereof. And moreover shall declare ourselves manifestly enemies thereto by this our faithful promise before God, testified to his congregation, by our subscription at these presents. At Edinburgh the 30 day of December, 1557 years. God called to witness." 1 Knox, Works, i, 273. A less formal covenant had already been entered into by the gentlemen of Mearns two years before. 1 What would not Luther have given if he could have had a declaration like that from the German princes! From the use of the word congregation to designate the assembly of God's true believers the Protestant nobles were called the lords of the congregation. MARY The next step was the resolution that common prayers be read in every church on Sunday, and that this should be done by the most qualified in the parish if the curate were incompetent. It was also resolved that preaching be "had and used privately in quiet houses, great meetings being avoided till God move the prince to grant the public preaching." The country was now ruled by Mary of Guise, widow of James V, who died in 1542, leaving as his only legitimate child the infant Mary, to be known in history as the most famous and unfortunate of the Scotch sovereigns. The French mother ruled as regent during the minority of the bairn-wily, conciliatory, not without a statesmanlike bent to compromise, but at heart a true Catholic. Several times on the verge of attempting to crush the Protestants, a show of strength on their part would lead her to withdraw her menaces and grant more concessions. Under her tentative partial toleration the reformed party consolidated and expanded. 1 OF GUISE It is well known that the towns of Europe were the centers of liberty and movements toward self-government" fortresses of freedom and the advance-guard of constitutional civilization." It was an important moment, therefore, when the congregation resolved that the brethren in every town "should assemble together. And this our weak beginning did God so bless that within a few months the hearts of many were so strengthened that we sought to have the face of a church among us." Dundee, for instance, "began to erect a face of a public church reformed." In 1558 the "first petition of the Protestants of Scotland" was presented to the regent, in which they craved a "public reformation." Even the bishops went so far as to propose that the old Church should remain established, while the Protestants might privately pray in the vulgar tongue and baptize. This the reformers declined. After a time the regent "gave us permission to use ourselves godly, according to our desires, provided we should not make public assemblies in Edinburgh or Leith "—that is, in the capital. Some think that if it had not been for the pressure of the great scheme to unite the French and Scotch crowns, and thus, with the help of Spain, to dethrone Elizabeth and bring England back to the papal 1 1 Works, i, 300. obedience, Mary of Guise would have continued her tolerant policy, and Scotland would have been the first country in the world to grant complete freedom of worship. But such a consummation under a Guise would have presaged the millennium ! MARRIAGE OF On April 24, 1558, the beautiful queen of Scotland at the age of sixteen was married to the boy heir to the French MARY QUEEN Crown-the foolish girl putting her signature to a secret deed to the effect that if she died childless both her Scotch realm and her right of succession to the English throne (she was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII) were conveyed to France. Under such golden dreams the regent mother ceased her conciliatory attitude to the Protestants, and forbade unauthorized preaching. When they reminded her of her repeated promises, she replied that "it became not subjects to burden their princes with promises farther than it pleaseth them to keep the same -an assertion that sounds well in the mouth of a Catholic Guise, and which more than one generation of men had good reason to remember under the "good old times" of the Stuarts. Knox felt that his time was come. For better or worse, he must do his work in Scotland now. An excommunicated outlaw though he was, having been already burned in effigy, he appears suddenly on the scene. "I am come, I praise my God, even in the brunt of battle; for my fellow-preachers have a day appointed to answer before the queen regent on the 10th of this instant, where I intend, if God impede not, also to be present: by life, by death, or else by both, to glorify his good name, who thus mercifully has heard my long cries." He landed May 2, 1559. A provincial council of the clergy was then sitting in Greyfriars, Edinburgh. It is said that the morning of May 3 a monk rushed in on the council RETURN TO in breathless haste, pale with terror, and exclaimed in broken words, "John Knox! John Knox is come! He slept last night in Edinburgh!" The council was panicstricken and broke up in dismay '-recalling the words of the wise man, "The wicked flee when no man pursueth" (Prov. xxviii, 1). KNOX'S SCOTLAND. Knox was again declared an outlaw, but he had departed for Dundee, and thence for Perth, then the capital of Protestantism. He preached a vehement sermon against idolatry and other Catholic abuses and false doctrines, and began to pour courage into the hearts of the reformers. He traveled through other parts of the country, preaching everywhere his fiery sermons, calling the people back to the Gospel, and denouncing the corruptions of the Church 1 Works, vi, 21. 'Hetherington, Hist. of Church of Scotland, p. 42. |