Part 13

The late visit of our Reformer was of vast consequence. By his labours on this occasion, he laid the foundations of that noble edifice which he was afterwards so instrumental in completing. The friends of the protestant doctrine were separated from the corrupt communion to which, in a certain degree, they had hitherto adhered; their information in scriptural truth was greatly improved; and they were brought together in different parts of the nation, and prepared for being organized into a regular church, as soon as providence should grant them external liberty, and furnish them with persons qualified for acting as overseers. Some may be apt to blame him {191} for abandoning with too great precipitation the undertaking which he had so auspiciously begun. But, without pretending to ascertain the train of reflections which occurred to his mind, we may trace, in his determination, the wise arrangements of that providence which watched over the infant Reformation, and guided the steps of the Reformer . His absence was now no less conducive to the preservation of the cause, than his presence and personal labours had lately been to its advancement. Matters were not yet ripened for a general reformation in Scotland; and the clergy would never have suffered so zealous and able a champion of the new doctrines to live in the country. By retiring at this time, he not only preserved his own life, and reserved his labours to a more fit opportunity, but he also averted the storm of persecution from the heads of his brethren. Deprived of teachers, they became objects of less jealousy to their adversaries; while in their private meetings, they continued to confirm one another in the doctrine which they had received, and the seed lately sown had sufficient time to take root and spread.

Before he took his departure, Knox gave his brethren such directions as he judged most necessary, and most useful to them, in their present circumstances. Not satisfied with communicating these orally, he committed them to writing in a common letter, which he either left behind him, or sent from Dieppe, to be circulated in the different quarters where he had preached. In this letter, he warmly recommends to every one the frequent and careful perusal of the {192} scriptures. He inculcates the duty of attending to religious instruction and worship in each family. He exhorts the brethren to meet together once every week, if practicable, and gives them directions for conducting their assemblies, in the manner best adapted to their mutual improvement, while destitute of public teachers. They ought to begin with confession of sins, and invocation of the divine blessing. A portion of the scriptures should then be read; and they would find it of great advantage to observe a regular course in their reading, and to join a chapter of the Old and of the New Testament together. After the reading of the scriptures, if an exhortation, interpretation, or doubt, occurred to any brother, he might speak; but he ought to do it with modesty, and a desire to edify or to be edified, carefully avoiding “multiplication of words, perplexed interpretation, and wilfulness in reasoning.” If, in the course of reading or conference, they met with any difficulties which they could not solve, he advised them to commit these to writing, before they separated, that they might submit them to the judgment of the learned; and he signified his own readiness to give them his advice by letter, whenever it should be required. Their assemblies ought always to be closed, as well as opened, by prayer.[281] There is every reason to conclude, that these directions were punctually complied with; this letter may therefore be viewed as an important document regarding the state of the {193} protestant church in Scotland, previous to the establishment of the Reformation, and shall be inserted at large in the notes.[282]

Among his subsequent letters are answers to questions which his countrymen had transmitted to him for advice. The questions are such as might be supposed to arise in the minds of pious persons lately made acquainted with scripture, puzzled with particular expressions, and at a loss how to apply some of its directions to their situation. They discover an inquisitive and conscientious disposition; and at the same time, illustrate the disadvantages under which ordinary Christians labour when deprived of the assistance of learned teachers.[283] Our Reformer’s answers display an intimate acquaintance with scripture, and dexterity in expounding it, with prudence in giving advice in cases of conscience, so as not to encourage a dangerous laxity on the one hand, or scrupulosity and excessive rigidness on the other.

{194} PERIOD V.

FROM THE YEAR 1556, WHEN HE RETURNED TO GENEVA, AFTER VISITING SCOTLAND, TO MAY 1559, WHEN HE RETURNED TO SCOTLAND FOR THE LAST TIME.

KNOX reached Geneva before the end of harvest, and took upon him the charge of the English congregation there,[284] among whom he laboured during the two following years. This short period was the most quiet of his life. In the bosom of his own family, he experienced that soothing care to which he had hitherto been a stranger, and which his frequent bodily ailments now required. Two sons were borne to him in Geneva. The greatest affection to him, and cordiality among themselves, subsisted in the small flock under his charge. With his colleague, Christopher Goodman, he lived as a brother; and he was happy in the friendship of Calvin and the other pastors of Geneva. So much was he pleased with {195} the purity of religion established in that city, that he warmly recommended it to his religious acquaintances in England, as the best Christian asylum to which they could flee. “In my heart,” says he, in a letter to his friend Mr Locke, “I could have wished, yea, and cannot cease to wish, that it might please God to guide and conduct yourself to this place, where, I neither fear nor eshame to say, is the most perfect school of Christ that ever was in the earth since the days of the apostles. In other places I confess Christ to be truly preached; but manners and religion to be so sincerely reformed, I have not yet seen in any other place beside.”[285]

But neither the enjoyment of personal accommodations, nor the pleasures of literary society, nor the endearments of domestic happiness, could subdue Knox’s ruling passion, or unfix his determination to revisit Scotland, as soon as an opportunity should offer, for advancing the Reformation among his countrymen. In a letter written to some of his friends in Edinburgh, March 16, 1557, he expresses himself in the following manner: “My own motion and daily prayer is, not only that I may visit you, but also that with joy I may end my battle among you. And assure yourself of this, that whenever a greater number among you shall call upon me than now hath bound me to serve them, by his grace it shall not be the fear of punishment, neither yet of the death temporal, that shall impede my coming to {196} you.”[286] A certain heroic confidence, and assurance of ultimate success, have often been displayed by those whom providence has raised up to achieve great revolutions in the world; by which they have been borne up under discouragements which would have overwhelmed men of ordinary spirits, and emboldened to face dangers from which others would have shrunk appalled. Knox possessed no inconsiderable portion of that enthusiastic heroism which was so conspicuous in the German reformer. “Satan, I confess, rageth,” says he, in a letter written at this time; “but potent is he that promiseth to be with us, in all such enterprises as we take in hand at his commandment, for the glory of his name, and for maintenance of his true religion. And therefore the less fear we any contrary power; yea, in the boldness of our God, we altogether contemn them, be they kings, emperors, men, angels, or devils. For they shall be never able to prevail against the simple truth of God which we openly profess; by the permission of God they may appear to prevail against our bodies, but our cause shall triumph in despite of Satan.”[287]

Soon after the above letter had been written, two citizens of Edinburgh, James Syme and James Barron, arrived at Geneva with a letter and credentials, from the earl of Glencairn, and lords Lorn, Erskine, and James Stewart; informing him, that the professors of the reformed doctrine remained steadfast, that its adversaries were daily losing credit in the nation, {197} and that those who possessed the supreme authority, although they had not yet declared themselves friendly to it, continued to refrain from persecution; and inviting him, in their own name, and in that of their brethren, to return to Scotland, where he would find them all ready to receive him, and to spend their lives and fortunes in advancing the cause which they had espoused.[288]

Knox, at the same time that he laid this letter before his congregation, craved the advice of Calvin and the other ministers of Geneva. They gave it as their opinion, “that he could not refuse the call without showing himself rebellious to God, and unmerciful to his country.” His congregation agreed to sacrifice their particular interest to the greater good of the church; and his own family silently acquiesced. Upon this, he returned an answer to the letter of the nobility, signifying that he meant to visit them with all reasonable expedition. The congregation chose as his successor William Whittingham,[289] a learned Englishman, with whom he had been long united by the ties of friendship and congeniality of sentiment. Having settled his other affairs, he took an affectionate leave of his friends at Geneva, and went to Dieppe, in the month of October. But on his arrival there, he received letters from Scotland, written in a very different strain from the former. By these he was informed, that new consultations had been held among the protestants in that country; that some of them began {198} to repent of the invitation which they had given him to return; and that the greater part seemed irresolute and faint‑hearted.

This intelligence exceedingly disconcerted and embarrassed him. He instantly dispatched a letter to the nobility who had invited him, upbraiding them for their timidity and inconstancy. The information which he had just received, had (he said) confounded him, and pierced his heart with sorrow. After taking the advice of the most learned and godly in Europe, to satisfy his own conscience and theirs as to the propriety of this enterprise, the abandonment of it must reflect disgrace either on him or them――it argued either that he had been marvellously forward and vain, or that they had betrayed great imprudence and want of judgment in the invitation which they had given him. To some it might appear a small matter that he had left his poor family destitute of a head, and committed the care of his little but dearly‑beloved flock to another; but, for his part, he could not name the sum that would induce him to go through that scene a second time, and to behold so many grave men weeping at his departure. What answer could he give to those who enquired, why he did not prosecute his journey? He could take God to witness, that the personal inconveniences to which he had been subjected, and the mortification which he felt at the disappointment, were not the chief causes of his grief. He was alarmed at the awful consequences which would ensue――at the bondage and misery, spiritual and temporal, which they would entail on themselves {199} and their children, their subjects and their posterity, if they neglected the present opportunity of introducing the gospel into their native country. In his conscience, he could exempt none that bore the name of nobility in Scotland from blame in this affair. His words might perhaps appear sharp and indiscreet; but charity would construe them in the best sense, and wise men would consider that a true friend cannot flatter, especially in a matter which involves the salvation of the bodies and souls, not of a few persons, but of a whole realm. “What are the sobs, and what is the affliction, of my troubled heart, God shall one day declare. But this will I add to my former rigour and severity; to wit, if any persuade you, for fear or dangers to follow, to faint in your former purpose, be he esteemed never so wise and friendly, let him be judged of you both foolish and your mortal enemy.――I am not ignorant that fearful troubles shall ensue your enterprise, as in my former letters I did signify unto you. But, O! joyful and comfortable are those troubles and adversities which man sustaineth for accomplishment of God’s will revealed in his word. For how terrible soever they appear to the judgment of natural men, yet are they never able to devour nor utterly to consume the sufferers; for the invisible and invincible power of God sustaineth and preserveth, according to his promise, all such as with simplicity do obey him.――No less cause have ye to enter in your former enterprise, than Moses had to go to the presence of Pharaoh; for your subjects, yea, your brethren, are oppressed――their bodies and {200} souls holden in bondage; and God speaketh to your consciences (unless ye be dead with the blind world), that ye ought to hazard your own lives, be it against kings or emperors, for their deliverance. For only for that cause are ye called princes of the people, and receive honour, tribute, and homage at God’s commandment,――not by reason of your birth and progeny (as the most part of men falsely do suppose), but by reason of your office and duty; which is, to vindicate and deliver your subjects and brethren from all violence and oppression, to the uttermost of your power.”[290]

Having sent off this letter, with others written in the same strain, to Erskine of Dun, Wishart of Pitterow, and some other gentlemen of his acquaintance, he cherished the hope that he would soon receive more favourable accounts from Scotland, and resolved in the meantime to remain in France.[291] The reformed doctrine had been early introduced into that kingdom; it had been copiously watered with the blood of martyrs; and all the violence which had been employed by its enemies had not been able to extirpate it, or to prevent its spreading among all ranks. The Parisian protestants were at present smarting under the effects of one of those massacres, which so often disgraced the Roman catholic religion in that country, before as well as after the commencement of the {201} civil wars. Not satisfied with assaulting them when peaceably assembled for worship in a private house, and treating them with great barbarity, their adversaries, in imitation of their pagan predecessors, invented the most diabolical calumnies against them, and circulated the report that they were guilty of abominable practices in their religious assemblies.[292] The innocent sufferers had drawn up an apology, in which they vindicated themselves from the atrocious charge; and Knox, having got this translated into English, wrote a preface and additions to it, with the intention of publishing it for the use of his countrymen.[293]

{202} Having formed an acquaintance with many of the protestants of France, and being able to speak their language, he occasionally preached to them in passing through the country. It seems to have been on this occasion that he preached in the city of Rochelle, and having alluded to his native country in the course of his sermon, told his audience that he expected, within a few years, to preach in the church of St Giles, in Edinburgh.[294]

It does not appear that there were any protestants in Dieppe when Knox first visited it. But he had now the satisfaction of officiating in a reformed church, recently {203} planted in that town. In the course of the year 1557, a travelling merchant from Geneva, named John Venable, had come to Dieppe, and by his conversation and the circulation of books, imparted the knowledge of the protestant doctrine to some of the inhabitants. At his request, they were visited by Delajonché, pastor at Rouen, who applied to the ministers of Geneva to furnish them with a preacher. They sent André de Sequeran, sieur d’Amont, who, having removed in the course of a few months, was succeeded by Delaporte, one of the pastors of the church of Rouen. Knox having come to Dieppe at this time, was chosen colleague to Delaporte; and under their ministry the Reformation was embraced by some of the principal persons of the town, and among the rest by M. de Bagueville, a descendant of Charles Martel. A surprising change was soon observed on the morals of the inhabitants, which had formerly been very dissolute; and the church at Dieppe continued long in a flourishing condition.[295]

Being disappointed in his expectation of letters from Scotland, Knox determined to relinquish his journey, and return to Geneva. This resolution does {204} not accord with the usual firmness of our Reformer, and is not sufficiently accounted for in the common histories. The protestant nobles had not retracted their invitation; the discouraging letters which he had received, were written by individuals without any authority from the rest; and if their zeal and courage had begun to flag, his presence was the more necessary to recruit them. From the letters which he wrote to his familiar acquaintance, I am enabled to state the motives by which he was actuated in making this retrograde step. He was perfectly aware that a violent struggle must precede the establishment of the Reformation in his native country; he knew that his presence in Scotland would excite the rage of the clergy, who would make every effort to crush their adversaries, and to maintain the lucrative system of superstition; and he dreaded that civil discord, and tumult, and bloodshed, would ensue. The prospect of these things rushed into his mind, and (regardless of public tranquillity as some have pronounced him to be) staggered his resolution to prosecute an undertaking, which, in his judgment, was not only lawful, but laudable, and necessary. “When,” says he, “I heard such troubles as appeared in that realm, I began to dispute with myself as followeth: ‘Shall Christ, the author of peace, concord, and quietness, be preached where war is proclaimed, sedition engendered, and tumults appear to rise? Shall not his evangel be accused as the cause of all this calamity which is like to follow? What comfort canst thou have to see the {205} one half of the people rise up against the other, yea, to jeopard the one to murder and destroy the other? But, above all, what joy shall it be to thy heart, to behold with thy eyes thy native country betrayed into the hands of strangers, which to no man’s judgment can be avoided; because that those who ought to defend it, and the liberty thereof, are so blind, dull, and obstinate, that they will not see their own destruction?’”[296] To “these and more deep cogitations,” which continued to distract his mind for several months after he returned to Geneva, he principally imputed his abandonment of the journey to Scotland. At the same time, he was convinced that they were not sufficient to justify his desisting from an undertaking recommended by so many powerful considerations. “But, alas!” says he, “as the wounded man, be he never so expert in physick or surgery, cannot suddenly mitigate his own pain and dolour, no more can I the fear and grief of my heart, although I am not ignorant of what is to be done. It may also be, that the doubts and cold writing of some brethren did augment my dolour, and somewhat discourage me that before was more nor feeble. But nothing do I so much accuse as myself.” Whatever were the secondary causes of this step, I cannot help again directing the reader’s attention to the wisdom of providence, in throwing impediments in his way, by which his return to Scotland was protracted to a period, before which it might have been injurious, and at which it {206} was calculated to be in the highest degree beneficial, to the great cause that he meant to promote.

In judging of Knox’s influence in advancing the Reformation, we must take into view not only his personal labours, but also the epistolary correspondence which he maintained with his countrymen. By this he instructed them in his absence, communicated his own advice, and that of the learned among whom he resided, upon every difficult case which occurred, and animated them to constancy and perseverance. During his residence at Dieppe, he transmitted to Scotland two long letters, which deserve particular notice. The one, dated on the 1st of December, is directed to the protestants in general; the other, dated on the 17th of that month, is addressed to the nobility. In both of them he prudently avoids any reference to his late disappointment.

In the first letter he strongly inculcates purity of morals, and warns all who professed the reformed religion against those irregularities of life, which were employed to the disparagement of their cause, by two classes of persons;――by the papists, who, although the same vices prevailed in a far higher degree among themselves, represented them as the native fruits of the reformed doctrine;――and by a new sect, who were enemies to superstition, but who had deserted the reformed communion, and were become scarcely less hostile to it than the papists. The principal design of this letter was to put his countrymen on their guard against the arts of this last class of persons and to expose their leading errors.

{207} The persons to whom he referred went under the general name of anabaptists, a sect which sprung up soon after the commencement of the Reformation under Luther, and, breaking out into the greatest excesses, produced violent commotions in different parts of Germany. Being suppressed in the place of its birth, it spread through other countries, and secretly made converts by high pretensions to seriousness and Christian simplicity; the spirit of wild fanaticism, which at first characterised its disciples gradually subsiding after the first effervescence. Extravagancies of a similar kind have not unfrequently accompanied great revolutions; when the minds of men, released from the fetters of implicit obedience, and dazzled by a sudden illumination, have been disposed to fly to the extreme of anarchy and turbulence. Nothing proved more vexatious to the original reformers than this. It was urged by the defenders of the old system as a popular argument against all change. The extravagant opinions and disorderly practices of the new sect, though disowned and opposed by all sober protestants, were artfully imputed to them by their adversaries. And many who had declared themselves friendly to reform, alarmed, or pretending to be alarmed, at this hideous spectre, drew back, and sheltered themselves within the sacred pale of that church, which, notwithstanding her notorious dissensions, errors, and corruption, both in head and members, continued to arrogate to herself exclusively the properties of unity, universality, and perpetual infallibility.