Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: John Knox. Engraved by B. Holl, from a Picture in the
Posession of Lord Somerville.]
JOHN KNOX.
BY
WM. M. TAYLOR, D.D., LL.D.,
_Author of "Limitations of Life," etc._
WITH STEEL PORTRAIT ENGRAVED BY B. HOLL, FROM
A PAINTING IN THE POSSESSION OF
LORD SOMERVILLE.
NEW YORK:
A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON,
714 BROADWAY.
1885
COPYRIGHT, 1885,
BY A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON.
{v}
PREFACE.
The sources from which the following narrative has been derived are (1)
the splendidly edited and complete edition of Knox's Works in six
volumes, by Dr. David Laing; (2) the Memoir of the Reformer, by Dr.
Thomas McCrie, forming the first volume of the collected works of that
eminent theologian; (3) the monograph by the late Professor Lorimer,
D.D., entitled "John Knox and the Church of England"; and (4) the
Histories of the Period, more especially that of Scotland, by John Hill
Burton, vols. iii. and iv., and that of England, by J. A. Froude, vols.
v. and vi. Some assistance also has been derived from "The Scottish
Reformation," by Professor Lorimer; and the two sketches by Carlyle,
the one in his "Heroes and Hero Worship," and the other in his essay on
the Portraits {vi} of John Knox, have been both helpful and suggestive.
Quotations have been generally indicated, but this acknowledgment must
cover any accidental omission to give to each author his due; and for
the rest the reader may be assured that while no material fact has been
omitted, nothing has been recorded for which ample authority could not
be given. The figure has been felt to be too large for the canvas to
which we have been restricted, but we have sought to reproduce, as
faithfully as possible the man as he was, and if we may succeed in
removing any of the unreasonable prejudice, with which many still
regard the Scottish Reformer, the story of his life will not be retold
by us in vain.
W. M. T.
NEW YORK.
{vii}
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
EARLY LIFE AND CALL TO THE MINISTRY, 1505-1547 . . . . . . . . 1
CHAPTER II.
IN THE FRENCH GALLEYS, 1547-1549 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
CHAPTER III.
MINISTRY IN BERWICK-ON-TWEED, 1549-1550 . . . . . . . . . . . 29
CHAPTER IV.
KNOX AND THE ENGLISH BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER, 1551-1553 . . . . 42
CHAPTER V.
LAST DAYS IN ENGLAND, 1553 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
CHAPTER VI.
FIRST DAYS IN EXILE, 1554 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
CHAPTER VII.
THE TROUBLES AT FRANKFORT, 1554-1555 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MINISTRY AT GENEVA, 1555-1559 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
{viii}
CHAPTER IX.
RETURN TO SCOTLAND, 1559 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
CHAPTER X.
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH, 1560 . . . . . . . 136
CHAPTER XI.
KNOX AND QUEEN MARY STUART, 1561-1563 . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
CHAPTER XII.
MINISTRY AT EDINBURGH, 1564-1570 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
CHAPTER XIII.
LAST DAYS, 1570-1572 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
{1}
CHAPTER I.
EARLY LIFE AND CALL TO THE MINISTRY, 1505-1547.
On the sixteenth day of January, 1546, George Wishart delivered a
remarkable sermon in the church of Haddington. Two things had combined
to produce special depression in his heart. Shortly before he entered
the pulpit a boy had put into his hands a letter informing him that his
friends in Kyle would not be able to keep an appointment which they had
made to meet him in Edinburgh. This news so saddened him that he
expressed himself as "weary of the world," because he perceived that
"men began to be weary of God." Nor was his despondency removed when
he rose to preach, for instead of the crowds that used to assemble to
hear him in that church, there were not more than a hundred persons
present. It was thus made apparent to him that the efforts of his
enemies for his overthrow were now to be successful, and so instead of
treating the second table of the law as he had been expected to do, he
poured forth a torrent of warning and denunciation, not unlike some of
the fervid {2} utterances of the old Hebrew prophets. The effect
produced was all the more solemn, because he evidently felt that he was
bearing his last public testimony against the evils of his times.
When he had concluded he bade his friends farewell, and to John Knox,
who throughout his sojourn in Lothian had attended him, armed with a
two-handed sword, as a protection against the assassination with which
he had twice been threatened, and who had pressed to be allowed to
accompany him to Ormiston, where he was to spend the night, he said,
"Nay, return to your bairns" (pupils), "and God bless you! One is
sufficient for one sacrifice."
The good man's presentiment was all too surely realized. Before
midnight the house in which he slept was surrounded by a band of which
the Earl of Bothwell was the head, and he was given up by his host to
that nobleman, only however on the receipt of a pledge, over which
"hands" were "struck," to the effect that his personal safety should be
secured, and he should not be delivered into his enemies' power. But
promises in these days were not of much account, and Bothwell was
easily prevailed upon to give him up to Cardinal Beaton, who took him
first to Edinburgh Castle, and afterwards to St. Andrews. There, in
defiance of the protest of the Regent, he was hurriedly subjected to
the form of a trial by the cardinal, and being, of course, found
guilty, he was executed at the stake on the first of March.
{3}
Thus it is, as the body-guard of Wishart, that we get our first glimpse
of John Knox in history; and very characteristic of the man this first
appearance was. He comes upon the scene as unheralded as Elijah, and,
like him too, he is seen from the first to be set for the defence of
the truth. He was a sword-bearer all through; only when he laid aside
the two-handed brand which he carried before Wishart, he took in its
stead "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."
Before proceeding to tell the stirring story of his life, however, it
may be well to take a brief survey of the condition of Scotland at the
moment when he stepped into the arena of its national strife.
Little more than three years before the date of Wishart's execution,
the Queen of Scotland had given birth to that Mary Stuart, whose
character has been the puzzle of historians, and whose chequered career
has been the theme of poets almost ever since. Her father, James V.,
broken-hearted by the utter defeat of his army by the English at the
battle of Solway Moss, died only a few days after his daughter's birth.
Thus it came about, that in a critical time which tested the
statesmanship of the world's strongest rulers, alike in England,
France, Germany, and Spain, Scotland had a baby sovereign, and the
controlling of its affairs became an object of keen competition between
contending parties. The queen-mother, Mary of Guise, a woman of marked
ability, of much cunning, and of little principle, was, both from
national and religious leanings, on {4} the side of the Catholic party.
Of that party the head at this time was David Beaton, Archbishop of St.
Andrews, and a Cardinal of the Church. This artful prelate, "the
nephew of his uncle," was possessed of eminent talents, but was
characterized by cruelty, licentiousness, and unscrupulousness. He had
prevailed on James V. to violate the promise which he had made to his
uncle, Henry VIII., to meet him at Newcastle. The haughty Tudor had
now broken with the Romish see, and was anxious, if possible, to induce
his nephew to follow his example. But the cardinal, as great a master
of intrigue as was the English king himself, had succeeded in keeping
the Scottish monarch from putting himself under the spell of his
uncle's influence, and Henry, exasperated at his defeat, sent into
Scotland an army, whose success at Solway Moss led indirectly, as we
have seen, to the death of James. When that event occurred, Beaton
produced a forged will, purporting to be the last testament of the
king, and nominating him as Regent with three of the nobles as his
assistants. On the strength of that document he had himself proclaimed
as Regent at the Cross of Edinburgh. But the validity of the
instrument was annulled by the Scottish Parliament; and in the spring
of 1543, James, Earl of Arran, heir presumptive of the crown, was
appointed to the dignity which the cardinal had so eagerly, and so
unrighteously sought to make his own.
This nobleman, "notorious," as Burton says, "for fickleness," had been
at first on the side of the Reformation, {5} and was then assiduously
courted by Henry VIII. He had even consented to the marriage of the
baby queen to the young English Prince Edward. But the influence of
the queen-mother and the cardinal, backed by that of his own natural
brother, the Abbot of Paisley, together with the unjust and impolitic
demands of the English monarch himself, combined to turn him from his
original leanings. He publicly abjured the Protestant faith, and was
received into the bosom of the Catholic Church. He broke off all
negotiations for a matrimonial alliance between the royal houses of
England and Scotland, and ultimately consented to the betrothal of Mary
to the Dauphin of France. The result of these proceedings was a
protracted war with England, during which Scotland was repeatedly
invaded, and portions of it devastated by the southern forces.
But while these political and international intrigues, in which it must
be confessed that there was little scrupulousness on either side, were
going on, a great spiritual movement was making quiet progress among
the people. The Reformation from Popery had begun in Scotland also.
Patrick Hamilton, its protomartyr, had been put to death in 1528; but
the smoke of his burning, to borrow the well-known words of one of the
elder Beaton's own servants, "had infected all on whom it blew"; and
the books of the German Reformers, together with the English Testaments
of William Tyndale, had wrought like hidden leaven, especially among
the more intelligent of the community. {6} Thus we account for the
fact that, in spite of legal prohibitions and public executions, the
knowledge of evangelical truth was diffused, even when there was no
living voice to proclaim it publicly in the hearing of the multitudes;
so that when a man like Wishart did make his appearance, he found
crowds to listen to him appreciatively both in Dundee and Ayr. The
Lollards of Kyle had still worthy descendants in that historic
district; and the merchants in towns like that of Leith, whose commerce
brought them into contact with men from Hamburg, Antwerp, and the
cities of the Rhine, were disposed to welcome the new doctrines. Among
the nobles, men like Glencairn and Errol and Ruthven ranged themselves
on the side of the Reformers; while the influence of a satirist like
Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, and a scholar like Henry Balnaves of
Halhill, was given heartily to their cause.
But next only to the diffusion of the Scriptures among the people, the
greatest factor in the production of the Reformation in Scotland was
the degraded condition into which in that country the Church of Rome
itself had sunk. "That which decayeth is ready to vanish away." There
were no longer in it the elements of vitality. It was past purifying,
and had to be swept clean out. Its corruptions were too open to be
denied, and too gross to be defended. The grasping selfishness and
shameless licentiousness of the upper clergy were equalled only by the
ignorance and general incompetence of the lower, so that there had
sprung up among the people generally a {7} hatred of the order to which
both belonged. This was deepened and intensified by the spirit in
which the first efforts of the Reformers had been met, for in Scotland
as elsewhere the prison and the stake were the short and easy answers
made by papal intolerance to all the arguments which the preachers
brought against the errors of Romanism. But these were answers which
only turned more general attention to the statements of the Reformers,
and gave wider circulation to their words. The storm of contrary wind
unfurls the banner, and makes thereby its inscription the more legible,
and in the same way the persecution of those who proclaimed the truth
only fell out to the furtherance of that which it was designed to
arrest.
But Cardinal Beaton's conscience was too hard to feel the crime, and
his eye was too dim to see the blunder which he was committing in
putting Wishart to death. He looked only at immediate results, and
thought perhaps that by silencing the preacher he could arrest the
influence of the words which had already gone from him. But in reality
he was himself standing above a mine which before long exploded for his
own destruction. His checkmating of Henry VIII. so exasperated that
monarch that he entered into correspondence, through his agent Sir
Robert Sadler, with certain Scotsmen whose disaffection to the cardinal
was well known, and who, at his suggestion, or at least with his
concurrence and approval, perhaps also with his reward, entered into a
conspiracy to "take him out of the way." {8} Accordingly on the morning
of the 29th of May, just three months after the martyrdom of Wishart,
Cardinal Beaton was assassinated by a company of men headed by Norman
Leslie. That the wily priest had himself been guilty of attempts to
get rid of his adversaries by the same unscrupulous means is not to be
denied. It is equally certain that, as things then were, it would have
been impossible to bring him to trial for any of his enormities. But
still the manner of his "taking off" is not only utterly indefensible,
but also worthy of the deepest reprobation, and it is too true, as Dr.
Lorimer has said, that "the exasperation of feeling called forth by a
deed so daring and criminal gave rise to proceedings against the
conspirators which, being extended to all their abettors real or
supposed, had the effect of retarding the progress of the Reformation
for many years, and of weighing it down with a load of opprobrium from
the effects of which it could only slowly recover."[1]
Foreseeing that they would be the objects of bitter attack, the
conspirators, after they had done their bloody work, resolved to keep
possession of the Castle of St. Andrews which they had so unexpectedly
seized, and there they were speedily joined by at least one hundred and
forty persons, numbering among them Kirkaldy of Grange, Melville of
Raith, Balfour of Mount-quhany, and many gentlemen of Fife and the
neighbouring {9} counties. They put the castle into a state of
defence, and were besieged by an army under command of the Regent
Arran, against whom they held out, more perhaps from the incompetence
of the besiegers than from the skill or strength of the besieged, until
the end of January, 1547. At that date the siege was suspended under
an agreement which stipulated that the Castle was still to remain in
the hands of its defenders, on the conditions that they should hold it
for the Regent and not deliver it to England; and that they should not
be required to surrender it even to the Regent until he had obtained
from Rome absolution for those who had been implicated in the murder of
the cardinal. Upon his side the Regent agreed to withdraw his forces
to the south of the Forth, and from the beginning of the year on till
the following June the inmates of the Castle were permitted to go out
and in at their pleasure, and to receive all that came to them.
Thus the Castle of St. Andrews became for the time a kind of sanctuary
for all who were seeking relief or refuge from the oppression of the
rulers in Church and State; and at the following Easter, which fell
that year on the 10th of April, John Knox entered its gates under
circumstances which he himself has thus described: "At the Pasch after,
came to the Castle of St. Andrews John Knox, who, wearied of removing
from place to place by reason of the persecution that came upon him by
this Bishop of St. Andrews, was determined to have left Scotland and to
have visited the schools of Germany {10} (of England then he had no
pleasure by reason that the Pope's name being suppressed, his laws and
corruptions remained in full vigour). But because he had the care of
some gentlemen's children, whom certain years he had nourished in
godliness, their fathers solicited him to go to St. Andrews, that
himself might have the benefit of the castle, and their children the
benefit of his doctrine, and so (we say) came he the time foresaid, to
the said place, and having in his company Francis Douglas of
Longniddry, George his brother, and Alexander Cockburn, eldest son to
the laird of Ormiston, began to exercise them after his accustomed
manner."[2]
Knox was at this time in the prime and vigour of his manhood, being
forty-two years of age. He was born in 1505 at Gifford-gate, a suburb
connected with Haddington by the old stone bridge across the Tyne. His
parents were not distinguished either for rank or fortune, for one of
his adversaries affirms that he was "obscuris natus parentibus" (born
of obscure parents), and even one of his admirers says that "he
descended but of lineage small." His father was William Knox, and his
mother's name was Sinclair. Both of them apparently belonged to
families that were in some way feudatories to the Earls of Bothwell,
for at the Reformer's first interview with that earl, whose name is so
tragically {11} coupled with Queen Mary's, he said, "Albeit that to
this hour it hath not chanced me to speak to your lordship face to
face, yet have I borne a good mind to your house; ... for, my lord, my
grandfather, goodschir (_i.e._, according to Mr. Laing, maternal
grandfather) and father have served your lordship's predecessors, and
some of them have died under their standards." He received his
earliest education at the Grammar School of Haddington, and passed when
he was about sixteen years of age to the University of Glasgow, in the
register of which his name appears among those of the students who were
incorporated on the 25th October, 1522.
At that time and for a year later John Major, or Mair, Doctor of the
Sorbonne, was Principal of the Glasgow University and Professor of
Divinity in the same. He had some opinions, both ecclesiastical and
political, which were considerably in advance of his age, and it has
been supposed that Knox may have received from him some of those
principles which he afterwards so ably advocated. But perhaps too much
has been made of this by the Reformer's biographers, for Major remained
only one year in Glasgow after Knox had been registered as a student at
the University; and though he held some liberal notions in politics, he
was in theology to the last a rigid scholastic. Moreover, he was so
far from being a zealous promoter of the cause of the Reformation that
his name appears as a judge on several of the tribunals at which the
early Scottish {12} confessors were condemned to banishment or death.
Taking these things into consideration along with the youth of Knox
when he first entered college, it will appear hardly likely that he
received from Major anything more than a general impulse in the
direction of liberty and liberality, which prepared him to look with
favour on the efforts of those who, though they might be called
innovators, were in reality only seeking to get back to the original
simplicity of the gospel, and the primitive purity of the Church.
Knox left Glasgow without taking the degree of Master of Arts, and
there is no evidence whatever for the statement sometimes made that he
was afterwards connected with the University of St. Andrews. In fact
we lose sight of him entirely for a period of eighteen years from the
time of his leaving Glasgow. During that interval he was ordained a
priest, though by whom, or at what precise date, it is now impossible
to determine; but his signature has been found,[3] as notary, to an
instrument in the charter-room at Tyninghame, bearing date March 27,
1543, a fact which establishes that up till that time he retained his
character as a priest and had the papal authority to act as a notary.
With these functions he seems to have combined that of a teacher of
youth, for at the time we come upon him in connection with Wishart, he
had under his charge some young men of good family in the land.
{13}
We have no details concerning his conversion from the Romish to the
Protestant faith. According to one authority it was Thomas Guillaume
who was "the first to give Mr. Knox a taste of the truth." That
eloquent preacher,--a native of East Lothian, who had risen to a high
place in the order of the Dominicans,--had through the influence of the
party of progress been appointed chaplain to the Regent Arran at the
time when that weak ruler was favouring the Reformers. Knox himself
has described him as "a man of solid judgment, reasonable letters (as
for that age), and of prompt and good utterance; his doctrine was
wholesome without great vehemency against superstition." It does not
appear, however, from anything he says that he ever came personally
into contact with him, though it is possible that some of those clear
expositions of Scripture for which Guillaume was so esteemed may have
been heard by him, and may have produced a deep impression on his mind.
But beyond all question George Wishart was the true spiritual father of
John Knox. The preaching and companionship of that earnest man during
that journey through the Lothians, which ended in his apprehension at
Ormiston, did more for Knox than any other human instrumentality
whatever. They wrought conviction in him, and brought him out into
decision, so that from the moment when these two men parted from each
other for the last time at the church of Haddington, it was no longer
possible for Knox to return into the position of comparative obscurity
from which he had {14} emerged to become the body-guard of Wishart. He
had come prominently out on the side of the Reformation, and the
martyrdom of his teacher would only deepen his determination that he
should not go back.
But there was no need for him to throw his life away as a gratuitous
sacrifice, and therefore, when he was compelled to seek safety from his
persecutors by removing from place to place, and out of weariness was
minded to go to Germany, he consented, at the earnest solicitations of
the parents of his pupils, to find protection in the Castle of St.
Andrews. Let it be noted, however, that he did not enter that
stronghold until the 10th of April, 1547, that is, more than ten months
after Beaton's murder, and therefore he is not to be reckoned among
those who had concocted and carried out the assassination of that
prelate. He was at that date in too obscure a station to be in any
way, even the most remote, associated with those who had committed that
foul murder, and he went to St. Andrews simply that he might be able to
carry on uninterruptedly the education of his pupils. Accordingly, so
soon as he was fairly settled there, he resumed the regular routine of
his work with them. What that was he has himself informed us in these
words: "Besides their grammar and other humane authors" (that is,
authors in what were then called the humanity classes) "he read unto
them a catechism, an account whereof he caused them to give publicly in
the parish church of St. Andrews. He read moreover unto them the
Gospel of John proceeding where he" (had) {15} "left" (off) "at his
departing from Longniddry where before his residence was, and that
lecture he read in the chapel within the castle at a certain hour."
These public exercises attracted to them a large number of those who
were then sojourning in the castle, among whom were Henry Balnaves of
Halhill, a distinguished jurist, who had been already, and was to be
again, one of the judges of the court of session, and John Rough, who
was the stated preacher to the congregation within the castle. These
men were greatly impressed alike with the matter, the method, and the
manner of delivery of the lectures, and seeing his fitness for the
work, they earnestly entreated Knox to enter at once upon the office of
the ministry. But he declared that "he would not run where God had not
called him," and peremptorily refused to accede to their request. Upon
this they took counsel with Sir David Lindsay, of the Mount, and
others, and ultimately agreed that Rough, without giving any formal
warning that he was about to do anything of the kind, should address to
Knox a special public call in the name and before the face of the
congregation. Accordingly, in the presence of the people, and after
having preached a sermon on the election of ministers, Rough turned to
Knox and said, "Brother, ye shall not be offended, albeit that I speak
unto you that which I have in charge even from all those that are here
present, which is this: In the name of God and of His Son Jesus Christ,
and in the name of these that presently call you by my mouth, I charge
you that ye refuse {16} not this holy vocation, but that, as ye tender
the glory of God, the increase of Christ's kingdom, the edification of
your brethren, and the comfort of me whom you understand well enough to
be oppressed by the multitude of labours, that ye take upon you the
public office and charge of preaching even as ye look to avoid God's
heavy displeasure, and desire that He shall multiply His graces with
you." Then turning to the congregation he said, "Was not this your
charge to me?" They answered, "It was, and we approve it." The
combined suddenness and solemnity of this appeal completely unmanned
Knox. He burst into tears and hastened to his closet, where we may
well believe that he sought light from God; and the result Was that he
was led to take up that ministry which he laid down only with his life.
Not from the impulse of caprice, or because he desired the position of
a preacher, but because he could not otherwise meet the responsibility
which God had laid upon him, did he enter upon that high and honourable
vocation. He was to do a work for his countrymen not unlike that which
Moses did for his kinsmen, and so like Moses he was called to it in the
full maturity of his powers, and entered upon it with the conviction
that God had given him his commission, and he dared not disobey.
Nor did he tarry long before he began to preach, for the call of
Providence came almost simultaneously with that of the church. It
happened just then that Mr. Rough was engaged in a controversy with a
popish {17} dean named Annand. For such a discussion Rough was but
poorly furnished, since, as McCrie says, though he was sound in
doctrine, his literary acquirements were only moderate. In his
emergency he had been much assisted by Knox, who made such good use of
the pen that he beat back his adversary from all his defences. As a
last resort Annand took refuge in the authority of the Church, upon
which Knox at once exclaimed, in the hearing of those who were present
at the discussion, that a distinction must be drawn between the true
spouse of Christ and the Church of Rome, and offered to prove by word
or writing that the Papal Church had degenerated from that of primitive
times more than the Jews who crucified the Saviour had fallen from the
ordinances of Moses. On hearing this, the people alleged that they
could not all read his writings, but could all listen to his preaching,
and therefore insisted, in the name of God, that he would let them hear
his proof of the assertion which he had made. Such an appeal was not
to be resisted, and therefore on the very next Sunday Knox entered the
pulpit, and preached (from the text Daniel vii. 24, 25) a sermon, in
which, after having given the true marks of the Church, he went on to
expose the corruptions of the Romish clergy in their lives, the
erroneous doctrine taught by them, especially in the matter of
justification, and the enslaving laws enjoined by them in regard to
days, and meats, and marriage. In particular he inveighed against the
blasphemies of popery. He identified the Papal {18} Church with the
Babylonian harlot in the book of the Revelation, and concluded by
demanding the most thorough investigation of all the statements which
he had made, and the most minute examination of the authorities whom he
had cited. This discourse was listened to by a large assembly, among
whom was John Major, his old Glasgow principal, and it produced a great
effect upon all. Some said, "Others lopped off the branches of the
papistry, but he strikes at the root to destroy the whole." Others
predicted that he would meet the fate of Wishart, who had never spoken
quite so plainly as Knox had done that day. The new archbishop of St.
Andrews, not yet consecrated to his office, expostulated with the
vicar-general of the diocese for allowing such heretical doctrines to
be promulgated without opposition, and that led to the calling of a
convention of the learned men of the abbey and the university, before
which Rough and Knox were summoned to make answer to nine articles,
involving heresies, which had been drawn from their sermons. But
nothing more serious resulted from that meeting than a debate between
Knox and a friar named Arbuckle, whose arguments Knox easily refuted,
and that too with a considerable mixture of the grim humour which ever
and anon laughs outright in the pages of his history. Clearly,
therefore, it would be a perilous thing for the Church to let such a
man do all the preaching to the people; and so orders were issued that
each of the learned men in the abbey and university should preach {19}
in his own turn on the Sundays in the parish church. This deprived
Knox of the opportunity of addressing the congregation on those days
when the greatest numbers were in attendance; but he continued his
ministry on the other days of the week, and that with such success that
although it lasted in all at this time not more than three months, many
of the inhabitants of the town renounced popery, and made confession of
the Protestant faith by partaking of the Lord's Supper in the reformed
manner, the first occasion on which the ordinance was publicly
administered in Scotland after that fashion.
Thus the beginning of Knox's work marks a distinct stage in the history
of the Scottish Reformation. At first, and under what has been called
by Lorimer the Hamilton period, peculiar emphasis was laid upon the
truths which were revived in the teaching of Luther; under the Wishart
period the doctrine of the sacraments came into prominence, and then
first the influence of Switzerland began to be felt by Scotland; but
under Knox attention was directed especially to the nature and
constitution of the church, and the first sermon which he preached, and
of which we have given the barest outline, had already in it "the
promise and the potency" of the great work which he was yet to
accomplish for his native land.
[1] "The Scottish Reformation." A Historical Sketch by Peter Lorimer,
D.D. London: R. Griffin & Co., 1860, p. 157.
[2] "The Works of John Knox," collected and edited by Dr. David Laing,
vol. i. p. 185. Once for all let it be said that in making these
quotations the spelling is modernized, but otherwise no alteration is
made.
[3] By Dr. David Laing: see "Knox's Works," vol. vi. pp. xxii. xxiii.
{20}