The Scottish Reformation Part 5

"Quos uersiculos pessimus quidam haereticus, Luthera.n.u.s, iuuenilis fortasis Poeta VVittembergensis, ita de uerbo ad uerb.u.m inuert.i.t.

"Percipimus modo quod Papalis curia curat Munera, nec gratis dat sua pauperibus Eximium decus hoc fecit te scandere rerum Copia, non uirtus, fraus tua, non tua laus.

Omnipotens Deus hic faciat te uiuere paruo Tempore, nec stabilis sit tua conditio."]

[62] Hamilton Papers, ii. 38.

[63] Maxwell's Old Dundee prior to the Reformation, 1891, pp. 92, 395.

[64] Laing's Knox, i. 126. [Calderwood (i. 186) and Spottiswoode (i.

150) have _burning_ for _h.o.r.n.yng_.]

[65] Laing's Knox, i. 126.

[66] [Knox calls it "the East Porte of the Toune" (Laing's Knox, i.

129). Maxwell says that the Port which stood in the Seagate would alone correspond to that described by Knox; and he adds: "The Port yet standing in the Cowgate--which, because of its a.s.sociation with the honoured name of George Wishart, only was left when some of the others were demolished--really cannot be identified as his preaching-place, and should not carry the inscription which has been recently put over its archway" ('History of Old Dundee,' 1884, pp. 220-222).]

[67] Laing's Knox, i. 130.

[68] Gude and G.o.dlie Ballatis, 1897, p. 165.

[69] Laing's Knox, i. 130, 131. The name of this priest is given as Sir _John_ Wightone, or Weighton, by Knox, Calderwood, and Spottiswoode.

Maxwell cannot find a priest of this name among those ministering in Dundee in 1550 ('Old Dundee prior to the Reformation,' 1891, p. 87, n.) The _James_ Wichtand who was reader at Inchture and Kinnaird in 1574 (Wodrow Miscellany, p. 353) is said to have held a chaplaincy in Dundee before the Reformation. But Dr Laing holds that there was a Sir _John_ Wighton, a chaplain in Dundee, who obtained the vicarage pensionary in the parish church of Ballumby in 1538, and who appears to have been incarcerated in St Andrews Castle in the cardinal's absence in 1543 (Laing's Knox, vi. 670).

[70] Lemon's State Papers, v. 377.

[71] Laing's Knox, i. 536. [Maxwell gives a detailed account of this other George Wishart in his 'Old Dundee prior to the Reformation,' 1891, pp. 91-95.]

[72] Cattley's Foxe, v. 635.

[73] Cattley's Foxe, v. 635. [Foxe is here quoting the account in the black-letter tract printed in or about 1547, which Knox deemed important enough to copy from Foxe into his own pages.]

[74] Gude and G.o.dlie Ballatis, 1897, p. 180.

[75] Lorimer's Scottish Reformation, 1860, pp. 153, 154.

[76] Wedderburn and Wishart seem also to have been acquainted with Coverdale's Bible of 1535.

[77] See my Introduction to 'The Gude and G.o.dlie Ballatis,' 1897, p.

x.x.xviii, n.

[78] No doubt the initial Catechism was in use also. It has been conjectured that the Catechism may even have been printed separately, and that the first part of the following entry may refer to it: "The catechisme in two partes; the first in Scotch poetry, having a kalender before it. The second part in Latin and Scotis prose, ent.i.tuled Catechismus ecclesiae Geneuensis.... Edinburgh: Imprinted by John Ross for Henrie Charteris, 1574" (d.i.c.kson and Edmond's Annals of Scottish Printing, 1890, p. 334).

[79] [Reprinted under the editorial care of Dr Mitch.e.l.l in 1897 for the Scottish Text Society.]

[80] Lorimer's Knox and the Church of England, 1875, pp. 290-292.

[81] Wodrow Miscellany, pp. 295-300.

CHAPTER V.

KNOX AS LEADER OF OUR REFORMATION.

As stated towards the close of my last lecture, the sword-bearer of Wishart stood forth at once "to wield the spiritual sword which had fallen from the master's grasp, and to wield it with a vigour and trenchant execution superior even to his."

At this time Knox was full forty years of age, having been born at Giffordgate, in Haddington, in 1505. He probably received the rudiments of his education there, and matriculated at the University of Glasgow in 1522. Some suppose that he may have followed Major to St Andrews in 1523, or may have come there later, to study theology or to act as a private tutor to some young men studying at that university. But there is no reference to him in the university books, nor mention of his presence by any one then resident. From 1522 up to 1545-46, when he appears as sword-bearer to Wishart, his life is to us almost a blank.

But as Minerva was said to have come full armed from the brain of Jupiter, so did Knox then start up as leader of our Reformation, fully equipped and singularly matured. Whatever his early training may have been, he had by that time thoroughly mastered the subjects in controversy between the two churches, and possibly, as Bayle supposes, had made himself aquainted in his retirement with the writings of that great doctor of the western church to whom Luther, Calvin, and Alesius were largely indebted. I believe no man in recent times has in brief s.p.a.ce sketched his character, both on its brighter and darker sides, with less partisan feeling than Dr Merle D'Aubigne, when he says: "The blood of warriors ran in the veins of the man who was to become one of the most intrepid champions of Christ's army.... He was active, bold, thoroughly upright and perfectly honest, diligent in his duties, and full of heartiness for his comrades. But he had in him also a firmness which came near to obstinacy, an independence which was very much like pride, a melancholy which bordered on prostration, a sternness which some took for insensibility, and a pa.s.sionate force sometimes mistakenly attributed to a vindictive temper."[82] According to Calderwood, he received his first "taste of the truthe" from the preaching of his fellow-countryman, Thomas Guilliame or Williams, a black friar, who in 1543 became one of the chaplains of the regent, and shortly after, being inhibited to preach, retired into England.[83] The good seed sown by him was watered by Wishart, and grew up apace, "first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear."

[Sidenote: Tragedy of the Cardinal.]

On 29th May 1546, while the applause of priests and friars was still ringing in his ears, and he was proudly congratulating himself on the progress of his new fortifications, and the success of all his measures to secure the triumph of his party and his own complete personal ascendancy, the cardinal was suddenly surprised by conspirators in his stronghold, and cut off by "a fate as tragical and ignominious" as almost "any that has ever been recorded in the long catalogue of human crimes."[84] Only the deep feeling of relief thus given from merciless oppression could prompt or excuse the lines of Sir David Lindsay--

"As for the Cardinal, I grant He was a man we weill culd want, And we'll forget him sune; But yet I think the sooth to say, Although the loon is weill away, The deed was foully dune."[85]

When it became known that the conspirators who a.s.sa.s.sinated Betoun meant to hold the castle of St Andrews, they were joined by a considerable number of their friends from among the reforming gentry of Fife, and gradually by others from a greater distance who were friendly to the Reformation and the English alliance, and in consequence were then being subjected to many annoyances at the hands of the regent and his new following. Among these last, about Pasche 1547--in charge of his pupils, the sons of certain lairds in East Lothian--came John Knox, whose life, ever since he had cast in his lot with Wishart, had been made so miserable to him by the regent's b.a.s.t.a.r.d brother[86]--the aspirant to the vacant archbishopric--that, but for this refuge unexpectedly opened to him, he would have found it necessary to leave his native land and follow Alesius, Fyfe, and others to Germany or Switzerland. At the time when he arrived in St Andrews there was a truce between the regent and the occupants of the castle, and with the latter the inhabitants of the city had pretty free intercourse. The reforming citizens resorted at times to the services in the chapel of the castle; and John Rough, the chaplain of the garrison, under the powerful protection he enjoyed, occasionally forced his way into the parish church and preached there to the a.s.sembled citizens.

[Sidenote: His Call to the Ministry.]

Knox was no sooner settled in St Andrews than he resumed the system he had followed with good effect in East Lothian, causing his pupils to give account of their catechism in public to all who chose to come, and opening up in a plain and colloquial manner the Gospel of St John. His great ability and success as a teacher, and his wonderful gift of persuasive speech, thus became generally known. After private but unsuccessful efforts had been made by Balnaves and others to induce him to become colleague to John Rough, a formal call to the ministry was, with the counsel of Sir David Lindsay,[87] publicly addressed to him from the pulpit by Rough, in the name of the rest, and he was solemnly adjured not to despise the voice of G.o.d speaking to him. Thus honourably called to a.s.sume the office of a public preacher in that reformed congregation, he at last entered on the work with all his heart, and made full proof of his ministry before the a.s.sembled citizens in their parish church, as well as before the rude garrison in the castle chapel. He administered the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the simple form he always used, and continued the public catechising of his pupils, which the people of the town heard repeated till they had the substance of his teaching by heart, and thus was spread a knowledge of Gospel truth even among those who could not read. A very graphic account is given in his History of the sermons, catechisings, and disputations he held with the popish champions, by means of which the new doctrines gained a hold on the minds of the citizens of St Andrews which they never wholly lost. But times of trial were to come ere the cause should finally triumph in that city, or in his native land; and the earnest preacher, whose mouth G.o.d had opened in that old parish church, was to be taught by sad experience how hard it is to leave all and simply follow Christ, ere he was to be privileged to see the full fruit of his labours.

[Sidenote: A Galley-slave.]

Those who had presumed to take into their hands "the sword of G.o.d" as they called it, and to mete out to the tyrant cardinal the punishment which human justice was too weak to award, were made to feel that they who take the sword must expect to suffer from the sword. They had been able to withstand the power of the regent and the attacks of his unskilful captains; but help and skill at last came to the aid of these from their co-religionists abroad--chief among them being a militant ecclesiastic ent.i.tled Prior of Capua--and the succour promised to the garrison by England having been again and again delayed, they were obliged to surrender the castle to the representative of the French king.[88] The occupants of the castle--those who had come to it for shelter, as well as those who were really guilty of the murder--were deprived of liberty, and dealt with as criminals of the worst cla.s.s. For nineteen months[89] our reformer had to work as a chained slave on board the French galleys, generally at Rouen or Dieppe, though sometimes a cruise was taken to more distant waters. Once, at least, he was brought within sight of the towers of the city where he had begun his ministry; and then he solemnly affirmed that he believed G.o.d would once more allow him to proclaim His word there. Even then he maintained unshaken faith in G.o.d, and at times indulged in sallies of pleasantry against his popish custodiers; but he would have been more than human if the iron had not entered into his soul, and if traces of the sternness thence arising had not long been visible in his character.

[Sidenote: His Work in England.]

Early in 1549 he was, by English influence, released from his captivity in the French galleys, and from his exile.[90] He proceeded first to London, and thereafter to Berwick, with the approval of the English Privy Council. There he was as near to his persecuted fellow-countrymen as it was safe for him to go, and there many of them might resort to him; and in fact so many did so, that the president of the English Northern Council became anxious for his transference farther south.

There also, through the appointment of the Privy Council, a wide field of usefulness was opened to him among the English. Into this he entered with his whole soul, preaching the Gospel with great boldness and success not only to the garrison and citizens of Berwick, but also in the surrounding districts; and proving himself a true successor of those early Scottish missionaries who had originally won over to the Christian faith the heathen Saxons of Northumbria. At Newcastle, in 1550, he discussed, before Tonstal, Bishop of Durham, his doctors, and the Northern Council, the idolatry of the ma.s.s; and in the spring of 1551 he removed his headquarters to that more central and influential town, extending his labours at times, no doubt, into Yorkshire, as well as into Northumberland and c.u.mberland.

His fame as an eloquent preacher, and able and ready defender of the doctrines of the Reformation, spread southwards; and at the close of 1551, or early in 1552, he was appointed one of the royal chaplains of Edward VI. In the autumn of 1552 he was summoned to the south, and preached with great power and faithfulness before the king and his court. He persistently advocated, along with the other royal chaplains, those thoroughgoing Protestant doctrines which, in the north, he had previously held and taught and carried out in practice. In conjunction with the other five royal chaplains, he was called to give his opinion of the Articles then proposed to be adopted as the creed of the English Church, and of the revised Communion Office then prepared to take the place of that of 1549. His objections to the act of kneeling in receiving the elements in the Lord's Supper helped to procure the insertion of that rubric which high-churchmen term "the black rubric."

He refused both an English bishopric and a London rectory, and continued to labour on, faithfully and devotedly, as a preacher unattached. He had a presentiment that the time he would have to do so would be brief, and he improved it to the uttermost. The Reformation in England at that date had been forced on by its courtly patrons and their earnest preachers beyond what was warranted by the hold it had as yet gained on the ma.s.s of the people. When the good King Edward[91] was succeeded by the bigoted Mary, nothing remained for the Protestant bishops and preachers but either to prove the sincerity of their convictions in prison and at the stake, or to leave the country and reserve themselves in exile for happier times. Knox, as a foreigner, was especially warranted to choose the latter course; and at the urgent request of his friends in the north he did so, when it was only not yet too late to escape.

[Sidenote: Visits Scotland.]

The five years of the reformer's life which followed were not less eventful for himself nor for those of whom he now became the chosen leader. After an unsuccessful attempt to set up a substantially Puritan church among the English exiles at Frankfort, Whittingham and he obtained at Geneva, through the favour of Calvin, an asylum for themselves and their like-minded fellow-exiles, where they might be allowed peacefully to carry out their own forms of worship and discipline. But he had not been long there till, at the earnest invitation of the reforming party, he paid a visit to his native land--a visit which was memorable for its immediate, and still more for its ultimate, results. For several years the cause of the Reformation had been making quiet progress. Those who could read the Scriptures had been drinking the waters of life from the fountain-head. Those who could not, drank from the streams opened by the Reformation poets, whose verses were carefully committed to memory. Then came the voice of the living preacher, accompanied, as it had never yet been in Scotland, with the demonstration of the Spirit and with power from on high. The reformer wrote that he would be content to sing his _nunc dimittis_ after forty such days as he had had three of in Edinburgh. He prolonged for six months a visit which he had intended to complete in as many weeks; and, when he was at last recalled to Geneva by the urgent letters of the congregation there, he promised to his friends in Scotland that he would return whenever they saw meet to summon him and to a.s.sure him of protection from persecution.

The few quiet years which Knox and his fellow-exiles pa.s.sed at Geneva were to be richly blessed to themselves and to their fatherland. He, at least, had not gone there to have his views of Christian doctrine or church order formed or materially changed. He went to see the pure reformed faith (which he and Calvin in common believed, and independently had drawn from the Holy Scriptures and from the writings of the great doctor of the ancient church) exhibiting its benign influence in quickening to higher life, and moulding into a united community the volatile citizens of Geneva. He came to have his wearied spirit revived and refreshed by communion with devoted Christian brethren; and, by witnessing the success of their labours, to be nerved for further achievements in the service of their common Lord and for the good of his native land.

[Sidenote: Genevan Benefits.]

It was there that Puritanism was organised as a distinct school, if not also as a distinct party, in the church. If it had done nothing more than what it was honoured to do in the few peaceful years our fathers were permitted to spend in that much loved city by the bright blue waters of the Leman Lake, it would have done not a little for which the church and the world would have had cause to be grateful to it still.

There were first clearly proclaimed in our native language those principles of const.i.tutional government, and the limited authority of the "upper powers," which are now universally accepted by the Anglo-Saxon race. There was first deliberately adopted and resolutely put in practice among British Christians a form of church const.i.tution which eliminated sacerdotalism, and taught the members of the church their true dignity and responsibility as priests to G.o.d and witnesses for Christ in the world. There was first used that Book of Common Order which was long to be the directory for public worship in the fully reformed Church of Scotland, and whose simple rites Bishop Grindal was forced to own, in his controversy with the English Puritans, he could not reprove. There was nearly completed, after the model of the French version, the English Metrical Psalter. There was planned and executed a translation of the Scriptures into our mother tongue, which for nearly half a century continued to hold its place alongside of others executed at greater leisure and more favoured by authority.[92] That was how our reformer and his tireless a.s.sociates occupied themselves when left freely to follow their own bent. That was how he was ultimately prepared for the great work he was to accomplish in his native country when finally invited to return to it.

Immediately after the accession of Elizabeth to the English throne in the autumn of 1558,[93] the English exiles on the Continent began to break up their congregations and return to their native land. Those at Geneva were among the first who commenced to do so; but those of them who had been occupying themselves in that translation of the Bible into English which was to prove such a blessing to their countrymen decided to remain where they were until they had finished that work.[94] Those who returned were at first favourably received by the queen and her advisers, and taken into service in the reconst.i.tuted church; but when it was found that they were generally averse to comply fully with the ceremonies which she fostered, a change took place.

[Sidenote: Returns to Scotland.]