month of February preceding, archbishop Cranmer had been directed by
the council to present him to the vacant living of All‑Hallows, in the
city.[149] This proposal, which originated in the personal favour of
the young king, was very disagreeable to Northumberland, who exerted
himself privately to hinder the appointment. But the interference of
this nobleman was unnecessary; for Knox declined the living when it
was offered to him, and, being questioned as to his reasons, readily
acknowledged that he had not freedom in his mind to accept of a fixed
charge in the present state of the English church. His refusal, with
the reasons which he had assigned for it, gave offence, and, on the
14th of April, he was called before the privy council. There were
present the archbishop of Canterbury, Goodrick, bishop of Ely and
lord chancellor, the earls of Bedford, Northampton, and Shrewsbury,
the lords treasurer and chamberlain, and the two secretaries of state.
They asked him, why he had refused the benefice provided for him in
London. He answered, that he was fully satisfied that he could be more
useful to the church in another situation. Being interrogated, if it
was his opinion, that no person could lawfully serve in ecclesiastical
ministrations according to the present laws of that realm, he frankly
replied, that there were many things in the English church which
needed reformation, and that unless they were reformed, ministers
could not, in his opinion, discharge {99} their office conscientiously
in the sight of God: for no minister had authority, according to the
existing laws, to prevent the unworthy from participating of the
sacraments, which was “a chief point of his office.” Being asked,
if kneeling at the Lord’s table was not a matter of indifference, he
replied, that Christ’s action at the communion was most perfect, and
in it no such posture was used; that it was most safe to follow his
example; and that kneeling was an addition and invention of men. On
this article, there was a smart dispute between him and some of the
members of the council. After long reasoning, he was told that they
had not sent for him with any bad design, but were sorry to understand
that he was of a judgment contrary to the common order. He said he was
sorry that the common order was contrary to Christ’s institution. The
council dismissed him with soft words, advising him to use all means
for removing the dislike which he had conceived to some of the forms
of their church, and to reconcile his mind, if possible, to the idea
of communicating according to the established rites.[150]
Scruples which had resisted the force of authority and argument, have
often been found to yield to the more powerful influence of lucrative
and honourable situations. But whether, with some, we shall consider
Knox’s conduct on this occasion as indicating {100} the poverty of
his spirit,[151] or shall regard it as a proof of true independence
of mind, the prospect of elevation to the episcopal bench could not
overcome the repugnance which he felt to a closer connexion with
the church of England. Edward VI., with the concurrence of his privy
council, offered him a bishopric. But he rejected it; and in the
reasons which he gave for his refusal, declared the episcopal office
to be destitute of divine authority in itself, and its exercise in
the English church to be inconsistent with the ecclesiastical canons.
This is attested by Beza, a contemporary author.[152] Knox himself,
in one of his treatises, speaks of the “high promotions” offered him
by Edward;[153] and we shall find him, at a later period of his life,
expressly asserting that he had refused a bishopric. Tonstal having
been sequestered upon a charge of misprision of treason, the council
came to a resolution, about this time, to divide his extensive diocese
into two bishoprics, the seat of one of which was to be at Durham,
and of the other at Newcastle. Ridley, bishop of London, was to be
translated to the former, and it is highly probable {101} that Knox
was intended for the latter. “He was offered a bishopric,” says Brand,
“probably the new founded one at Newcastle, which he refused――_revera
noluit episcopari_.”[154]
It may be proper, in this place, to give a more particular account of
Knox’s sentiments respecting the English church. The reformation of
religion, it is well known, was conducted on very different principles
in England and in Scotland, both as to worship and ecclesiastical
polity. In England, the papal supremacy was transferred to the prince,
the hierarchy, being subjected to the civil power, was suffered
to remain, and, the grosser superstitions having been removed,
the principal forms of the ancient worship were retained; whereas,
in Scotland, all of these were discarded, as destitute of divine
authority, unprofitable, burdensome, or savouring of popery,
and the worship and government of the church were reduced to the
primitive standard of scriptural simplicity. The influence of Knox
in recommending this establishment to his countrymen, is universally
allowed; but, as he officiated for a considerable time in the church
of England, and on this account was supposed to have been pleased
with its constitution, it has been usually said, that he afterwards
contracted a dislike to it during his exile on the continent, and
having imbibed the sentiments of Calvin, brought them along with him
to his native country, and organized the Scottish church after the
Genevan model. {102} This statement is inaccurate. His objections
to the English liturgy were increased and strengthened during his
residence on the continent, but they existed before that time. His
judgment respecting ecclesiastical government and discipline was
matured during that period, but his radical sentiments on these heads
were formed long before he saw Calvin, or had any intercourse with the
foreign reformers. At Geneva he saw a church, which, upon the whole,
corresponded with his idea of the divinely authorized pattern; but he
did not indiscriminately approve, nor servilely imitate, either that
or any other existing establishment.[155]
As early as the year 1547, he taught, in his first sermons at
St Andrews, that no mortal man could be head of the church; that
there were no true bishops, but such as preached personally without a
substitute; that in religion men were bound to regulate themselves by
divine laws; and that the sacraments ought to be administered exactly
according to the institution and example of Christ. We have seen that,
in a solemn disputation in the same place, he maintained that the
church has no authority, on pretext of decorating divine service,
to devise religious ceremonies, {103} and impose upon them arbitrary
significations.[156] This position he also defended in the year 1550,
at Newcastle, and on his subsequent appearance before the privy
council at London. It was impossible that the English church, in
any of the shapes which it assumed, could stand the test of these
principles. The ecclesiastical supremacy, the various orders and
dependencies of the hierarchy, crossing in baptism, and kneeling
in the eucharist, with other ceremonies――the theatrical dress, the
mimical gestures, the vain repetitions used in religious service, were
all condemned and repudiated by the cardinal principle to which he
steadily adhered, that, in the church of Christ, and especially in the
acts of worship, every thing ought to be arranged and conducted, not
by the pleasure and appointment of men, but according to the dictates
of inspired wisdom and authority.
He rejoiced that liberty and encouragement were given to preach the
pure word of God throughout the extensive realm of England; that
idolatry and gross superstition were suppressed; and that the rulers
were disposed to support the Reformation, and even to carry it farther
than had yet been done. Considering the character of the greater part
of the clergy, the extreme paucity of useful preachers, and other
hinderances to the introduction of the primitive order and discipline
of the church, he acquiesced in the authority exercised by a part of
the bishops, under the direction of the privy council, and endeavoured
{104} to strengthen their hands, in the advancement of the common
cause, by painful preaching in the stations which were assigned to
him. But he could not be induced to contradict or to conceal his
fixed sentiments, and he cautiously avoided coming under engagements,
by which he must have assented to what, in his decided judgment, was
either in its own nature unlawful, or injurious in its tendency to
the interests of religion. Upon these principles, he never submitted
to the unlimited use of the liturgy, during the time that he was in
England,[157] and refused to become a bishop, or to accept a parochial
charge. When he perceived that the progress of the Reformation was
arrested, by the influence of a popish faction, and the dictates of a
temporizing policy; that abuses, which had formerly been acknowledged,
began to be openly vindicated and stiffly maintained; above all, when
he saw, after the accession of Elizabeth, that a retrograde course
was taken, and a yoke of ceremonies, more grievous than that which the
most sincere protestants {105} had formerly complained of, was imposed
and enforced by arbitrary statutes, he judged it necessary to speak in
a tone of more decided and severe reprehension.
Among other things which he censured in the English ecclesiastical
establishment, were the continuing to employ a great number of
ignorant and insufficient priests, who had been accustomed to nothing
but saying mass and singing the litany; the general substitution of
the reading of homilies, the mumbling of prayers, or the chanting
of matins and even‑song, in the place of preaching; the formal
celebration of the sacraments, unaccompanied with instruction to the
people; the scandalous prevalence of pluralities; and the total want
of ecclesiastical discipline. He was of opinion, that the clergy ought
not to be entangled, and diverted from the duties of their office, by
holding civil places; that the bishops should lay aside their secular
titles and dignities; that the bishoprics should be divided, so that
in every city or large town there might be placed a godly and learned
man, with others joined with him, for the management of ecclesiastical
matters; and that schools for the education of youth should be
universally erected through the nation.[158]
Nor did the principal persons who were active in effecting the English
reformation differ widely from Knox in these sentiments, although
they might not {106} have the same conviction of their importance,
and of the expediency of reducing them to practice. We should mistake
exceedingly, if we supposed that they were men of the same principles
and temper with many who succeeded to their places, or that they were
satisfied with the pitch to which they had carried the reformation of
the English church, and regarded it as a paragon and perfect pattern
to other churches. They were strangers to those extravagant and
illiberal notions which were afterwards adopted by the fond admirers
of the hierarchy and liturgy. They would have laughed at the man who
seriously asserted, that the ecclesiastical ceremonies constituted
any part of “the beauty of holiness,” or that the imposition of the
hands of a bishop was essential to the validity of ordination; and
they would not have owned that person as a protestant who would
have ventured to insinuate, that where these were wanting, there
was no Christian ministry, no ordinances, no church, and perhaps――no
salvation. Many things which their successors have applauded, they
barely tolerated; and they would have been happy if the circumstances
of their time would have permitted them to introduce alterations,
which have since been cried down as puritanical innovations. Strange
as it may appear to some, I am not afraid of exceeding the truth
when I say, that if the English reformers, including the protestant
bishops, had been left to their own choice,――if they had not been held
back and retarded by a large mass of popishly affected clergy in the
reign of Edward, and restrained by the supreme civil authority {107}
on the accession of Elizabeth, they would have brought the government
and worship of the church of England nearly to the pattern of other
reformed churches. If the reader doubts this, he may consult the
evidence produced in the notes.[159]
Such, in particular, was the earnest wish of his majesty Edward VI.,
a prince who, besides his other rare qualities, had an unfeigned
reverence for the word of God, and a disposition to comply with its
precepts in preference to custom and established usages; and who
showed himself uniformly inclined to give relief to his conscientious
subjects, and sincerely bent on promoting the union of all the
friends of the reformed religion at home and abroad. Of his intention
on this head, there remain the most unquestionable and satisfactory
documents.[160] Had his life been spared, there is every reason
to think that he would have accomplished the correction or removal
of those evils in the English church, which the most steady and
enlightened protestants have lamented. Had his sister Elizabeth been
of the same spirit with him, and prosecuted the plan which he laid
down, the consequences would have been most happy both for herself and
for her people, for the government and for the church. She would have
united all the friends of the Reformation, who were the great support
of her authority. She would have weakened the interest of the Roman
catholics, whom all her accommodating measures could not gain, nor
prevent from {108} repeatedly conspiring against her life and crown.
She would have put an end to those dissensions among her protestant
subjects, which continued during the whole of her reign, which she
bequeathed as a legacy to her successors, and which, being fomented
and exasperated by the severities employed for their suppression,
burst forth at length, to the temporary overthrow of the monarchy,
as well as of the hierarchy, whose exorbitancies it had patronised
and whose corruptions it had sanctioned and maintained;――dissensions,
which subsist to this day; which, though softened by the partial
lenitive of a toleration, have gradually alienated from the communion
of that church a large proportion of the people, and which, if a
timely and suitable remedy be not applied, may ultimately undermine
the foundations of the English establishment.
During the time that Knox was in London, he had full opportunity for
observing the state of the court; and the observations which he made
filled his mind with the most anxious forebodings. Of the piety and
sincerity of the young king he entertained not the smallest doubt.
Personal acquaintance heightened the idea which he had conceived of
his character from report, and enabled him to add his testimony to the
tribute of praise, which all who knew that prince had so cheerfully
paid to his uncommon virtues and endowments.[161] But the principal
courtiers, by whom {109} he was at that time surrounded, were persons
of a very different description, and gave proofs, too unequivocal to
be mistaken, of indifference to all religion, and of a readiness to
acquiesce, and even to assist, in the re‑establishment of the ancient
superstition, whenever a change of rulers should render this measure
practicable and expedient. The health of Edward, which had long been
declining, growing gradually worse, so that no hope of his recovery
remained, they were eager only about the aggrandizing of their
families, and providing for the security of their places and fortunes.
The royal chaplains were men of a very different character from those
who have usually occupied that place in the courts of princes. They
were no time‑serving, supple, smooth‑tongued parasites; they were not
afraid of forfeiting their pensions, or of alarming the consciences,
and wounding the delicate ears, of their royal and noble auditors,
by denouncing the vices which they committed, and the judgments of
Heaven to which they exposed themselves. The freedom used by the
venerable Latimer is well known from his printed sermons, which, for
their homely honesty, artless simplicity, native humour, and genuine
pictures of the manners of the age, continue still to be read with
interest. Grindal, Lever, and Bradford, who were superior to Latimer
in learning, evinced the same fidelity and courage. They censured
{110} the ambition, avarice, luxury, oppression, and irreligion which
reigned in the court. As long as their sovereign was able to give
personal attendance on the sermons, the preachers were treated with
exterior decency and respect; but after he was confined to his chamber
by a consumptive cough, the resentment of the courtiers vented itself
openly in the most contumelious speeches and insolent behaviour.[162]
From what the reader has already seen of Knox’s character, he may
readily conceive that the sermons delivered by him at court, were
not less free and bold than those of his colleagues. We may form
a judgment of them from the account which he has given of the last
sermon preached by him before his majesty; in which he directed
several piercing glances of reproof at the haughty premier and his
crafty relation, the marquis of Winchester, lord high treasurer, both
of whom were among his hearers. His text was John, xiii. 18. “He that
eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me.” It had been
often seen, he said, that the most excellent and godly princes were
surrounded with false and ungodly officers and counsellors. Having
enquired into the reasons of this, and illustrated the fact from
the scripture examples of Achitophel under King David, Shebna under
Hezekiah, and Judas under Jesus Christ, he added: “What wonder is it,
then, that a young and innocent king be deceived by crafty, covetous,
wicked, and ungodly counsellors? I am greatly {111} afraid that
Achitophel be counsellor, that Judas bear the purse, and that Shebna
be scribe, comptroller, and treasurer.”[163]
On the 6th of July, 1553, Edward VI. departed this life, to the
unspeakable grief of all the lovers of learning, virtue, and the
protestant religion; and a black cloud spread over England, which,
after hovering a while, burst into a dreadful storm, that raged during
five years with the most destructive fury. Knox was at this time
in London.[164] He received the afflicting tidings of his majesty’s
decease with becoming fortitude and resignation to the sovereign
will of Heaven. The event did not meet him unprepared: he had long
anticipated it, with its probable consequences; the prospect had
produced the keenest anguish in his breast, and drawn tears from his
eyes; and he had frequently introduced the subject into his public
discourses and confidential conversations with his friends. Writing
to Mrs Bowes, some time after this, he says, “How oft have you and
I talked of these present days, till neither of us both could refrain
tears, when no such appearance then was seen of man! How oft have I
said unto you, that I looked daily for trouble, and that I wondered
at it, that so long I should escape it! What moved me to refuse (and
that with displeasure of all men, even of those {112} that best loved
me) those high promotions that were offered by him whom God hath
taken from us for our offences? Assuredly the foresight of trouble
to come.[165] How oft have I said unto you that the time would not
be long that England would give me bread! Advise with the last letter
that I wrote unto your brother‑in‑law, and consider what is therein
contained.”[166]
He remained in London until the 19th of July, when Mary was
proclaimed queen, only nine days after the same ceremony had been
performed in that city for the amiable and unfortunate Lady Jane Grey.
The thoughtless demonstrations of joy given by the inhabitants, at
an event which threatened such danger to the religious faith which
they still avowed, affected him so deeply, that he could not refrain,
in his sermons, from publicly testifying his displeasure at their
conduct, and from warning them of the calamities which they had
reason to dread.[167] Immediately after this, he appears to have
withdrawn from London, and retired to the north of England, being
justly apprehensive of the measures which might be pursued by the new
government.[168]
{113} To induce the protestants to submit peaceably to her authority,
Mary amused them for some time with proclamations, in which she
promised not to do violence to their consciences. Though aware of the
bigotry of the queen, and the spirit of the religion to which she was
devoted, the protestant ministers reckoned it their duty to improve
this respite. In the month of August, Knox returned to the south,
and resumed his labours. It seems to have been at this time that
he composed the Confession and Prayer, commonly used by him in the
congregations to which he preached, in which he prayed for queen Mary
by name, and for the suppression of such as meditated rebellion.[169]
While he itinerated through Buckinghamshire, he was attended by
large audiences, which his popularity and the alarming crisis drew
together; especially at Amersham, a borough formerly noted for the
general reception of the doctrines of Wickliffe, the precursor of the
Reformation in England, and from which the seed sown by his followers
had never been altogether eradicated.[170] Wherever he went, he
earnestly exhorted the people to repentance under the tokens of divine
displeasure, and to a steady adherence to the faith which they had
embraced. He continued to preach in Buckinghamshire and Kent during
the harvest months, although the measures of government daily rendered
his safety more precarious; {114} and in the beginning of November,
returned to London, where he resided chiefly with Mr Locke and
Mr Hickman, two respectable merchants of his acquaintance.[171]
While the measures of the new government threatened danger to all
the protestants in the kingdom, and our countryman was under daily
apprehensions of imprisonment, he met with a severe trial of a private
nature. I have already mentioned his engagements to Miss Bowes. At
this time, it was judged proper by both parties to avow the connexion,
and to proceed to solemnize their union. This step was opposed by
the young lady’s father; and his opposition was accompanied with
circumstances which gave much distress to Mrs Bowes and her daughter,
as well as to Knox. His refusal seems to have proceeded from family
pride; but there is reason to think it was also influenced by
religious considerations; as, from different hints dropped in the
correspondence about this affair, he appears to have been, if not
inclined to popery in his judgment, at least resolved to comply with
the religion now favoured by the court. On this subject I find Knox
writing from London to Mrs Bowes, in a letter, dated 20th September,
1553. “My great labours, wherein I desire your daily prayers, will
not suffer me to satisfy my mind touching all the process between your
husband and you touching my matter with his daughter. I praise God
heartily both for your boldness and constancy. {115} But, I beseech
you, mother, trouble not yourself too much therewith. It becomes me
now to jeopard my life for the comfort and deliverance of my own
flesh,[172] as that I will do by God’s grace, both fear and friendship
of all earthly creature laid aside. I have written to your husband,
the contents whereof I trust our brother Harry will declare to you and
my wife. If I escape sickness and imprisonment, [you may] be sure to
see me soon.”[173]