Part 2

Critical situation in which Knox found matters at his arrival――dissimulation of the Queen Regent――differences between her and Archbishop Hamilton accommodated――a provincial council of the clergy――reconciliation of the two archbishops――remonstrance presented by some members of the popish church――canons of the council――treaty between the regent and clergy for suppressing the Reformation――proclamation by the queen against the protestants――the preachers summoned to stand trial――Knox’s letter to Mrs Locke――clergy alarmed at his arrival――he is outlawed――he {xxi} repairs to Dundee――protestants of the north resolve to attend the trial of their preachers――send information of this to the Regent――her duplicity――Knox preaches at Perth――demolition of the monasteries in that town――unjustly imputed to Knox――Regent threatens the destruction of Perth――protestants resolve to defend themselves――a treaty――Knox’s interview with Argyle and Prior――treaty violated by the Regent――the name of the Congregation given to the protestant association――Lords of the Congregation invite Knox to preach at St Andrew’s――archbishop opposes this by arms――intrepidity of Knox――he preaches at St Andrew’s――magistrates and inhabitants agree to demolish the monasteries and images, and to set up the reformed worship――their example followed in other parts of the kingdom――apology for the destruction of the monasteries――Lords of the Congregation take possession of Edinburgh――Knox is chosen minister of that city――Willock supplies his place after the capital was given up to the Regent――archbishop Hamilton preaches――Knox undertakes a tour of preaching through the kingdom――his family arrive in Scotland――Christopher Goodman――settlement of protestant ministers in principal towns――French troops come to the assistance of the Regent――Knox persuades the Congregation to seek assistance from the court of England――apologizes to Elizabeth for his book against female government――undertakes a journey to Berwick――succeeds in the negotiation――reasons for his taking a part in political managements――embarrassments in which this involved him――prejudices of the English court against him――their confidence in his honesty――his activity and danger――Lords of Congregation consult on the deposition of the Regent――Knox advises her suspension――influence of the reformation on civil liberty――political principles of Knox――resistance to tyrants not forbidden in the New Testament――disasters of the Congregation――their courage revived by the eloquence of Knox――his exertions in Fife――treaty between Elizabeth and Congregation――expedition of the French troops against Glasgow――English army enter Scotland――death of the Queen Regent――intrigues of the French court――civil war concluded――exertions of protestant preachers during the war――increase of their number――conduct of popish clergy――their pretended {xxii} miracle at Musselburgh――meeting of parliament――petition of Protestants――Protestant Confession of Faith ratified by parliament――retrospective view of the advancement of the Reformation, Page 245

NOTES. Page 335

{1} THE LIFE OF JOHN KNOX.

PERIOD I.

FROM THE YEAR 1505, IN WHICH HE WAS BORN, TO THE YEAR 1542, WHEN HE EMBRACED THE REFORMED RELIGION.

JOHN KNOX was born in the year one thousand five hundred and five. The place of his nativity has been disputed. That he was born at Gifford, a village in East Lothian, has long been the prevailing opinion; but some late writers, relying upon popular tradition, have fixed his birth‑place at Haddington, the principal town of the county. The house in which he is said to have been born is still shewn by the inhabitants, in one of the suburbs of the town, called the Gifford‑gate. This house, with some adjoining acres of land, continued to be possessed, until about fifty years ago, by a family of the name of Knox, who claimed affinity with the Reformer. I am inclined, however, to prefer the opinion of the {2} oldest and most credible writers, that he was born in the village of Gifford.[2]

His father was descended from an ancient and respectable family, who possessed the lands of Knock, Ranferly, and Craigends, in the shire of Renfrew. The descendants of this family have been accustomed to enumerate among the honours of their house, that it gave birth to the Scottish Reformer, a bishop of Raphoe, and a bishop of the Isles.[3] At what particular period his paternal ancestors removed from their original seat, and settled in Lothian, I have not been able exactly to ascertain. His mother’s name was Sinclair.[4]

Obscurity of parentage can reflect no dishonour upon the man who has raised himself to distinction by his virtues and talents. But though our Reformer’s parents were neither great nor opulent, the assertion of some writers that they were in poor circumstances, is contradicted by facts.[5] They were able to give their son a liberal education, which, in that age, was far from being common. In his youth, {3} he was put to the grammar‑school of Haddington; and, after he had acquired the principles of the Latin language, his father sent him, in the year 1521, to the university of Glasgow.[6]

The state of learning in Scotland at that period, and the progress which it made in the subsequent part of the century, have not been examined with the attention which they deserve, and which has been bestowed on contemporaneous objects of inferior importance. There were unquestionably learned Scotsmen in the early part of the sixteenth century; but most of them owed their chief acquirements to the advantage of a foreign education. Those improvements, which the revival of literature had introduced into the schools of Italy and France, were long in reaching the universities of Scotland, though originally formed upon their model; and, when they did arrive, they were regarded with a suspicious eye, and discountenanced by the clergy. The principal branches cultivated in our universities were the Aristotelian philosophy, scholastic theology, and canon law.[7]

{4} Even in the darkest ages, Scotland was never altogether destitute of schools for teaching the Latin language.[8] It is probable that these were at first attached to monasteries; and it was long a common practice among the barons to board their children with the monks for their education.[9] When the regular clergy had degenerated, and learning was no longer confined to them, grammar‑schools were erected in the principal towns, and taught by persons who had qualified themselves for this task in the best manner that the circumstances of the country admitted. The schools of Aberdeen, Perth, Stirling, Dumbarton, Killearn, and Haddington, are particularly mentioned in writings about the beginning of the sixteenth century. The two first of these acquired the greatest celebrity, owing to the skill of the masters who presided over them. In the year 1520, John Vaus was rector of the school of Aberdeen, and is commended by Hector Boece, the learned principal of the university, {5} for his knowledge of the Latin tongue, and his success in the education of youth.[10] At a period somewhat later, Andrew Simson acted as master of the school of Perth, where he taught Latin with applause. He had sometimes three hundred boys under his charge at once, including sons of the principal nobility and gentry; and from his school proceeded many of those who afterwards distinguished themselves both in church and state.[11]

These schools afforded the means of instruction in the Latin tongue, the knowledge of which, in some degree, was requisite for enabling the clergy to perform the religious service. But the Greek language, long after it had been enthusiastically studied on the continent, and after it had become a fixed branch of education in the neighbouring kingdom, continued to be almost unknown in Scotland. Individuals acquired the knowledge of it abroad; but the first attempts {6} to teach it in this country were of a private nature, and exposed their authors to the suspicion of heresy. The town of Montrose is distinguished by being the first place, as far as I have been able to discover, in which Greek was taught in Scotland; and John Erskine of Dun is entitled to the honour of being regarded as the first of his countrymen who patronised the study of that elegant and useful language. As early as the year 1534, this enlightened and public‑spirited baron, on returning from his travels, brought with him a Frenchman skilled in the Greek tongue, whom he settled in Montrose; and, upon his removal, he liberally encouraged others to come from France and succeed to his place. From this private seminary many Greek scholars proceeded, and the knowledge of the language was gradually diffused over the kingdom.[12] After this statement, I need scarcely add, that the Oriental tongues were at that time utterly unknown in Scotland. I shall afterwards have occasion to notice the introduction of the study of Hebrew.

Knox acquired the Greek language before he arrived at middle age; but we find him acknowledging, as late as the year 1550, that he was ignorant of Hebrew,[13] a defect in his education which he exceedingly {7} lamented, and which he afterwards got supplied during his exile on the continent.

John Mair, better known by his Latin name, Major, was professor of philosophy and theology at Glasgow, when Knox attended the university. The minds of young men, and their future train of thinking, often receive an important direction from the master under whom they are educated, especially if his reputation be high. Major was at that time deemed an oracle in the sciences which he taught; and as he was the preceptor of Knox, and of the celebrated scholar Buchanan,[14] it may be proper to advert to some of his opinions. He had received the greater part of his education in France, and acted for some time as a professor in the university of Paris, where he acquired a more liberal habit of thinking and expressing himself on certain subjects, than was yet to be met with in his native country, and in other parts of Europe. He had imbibed the sentiments concerning ecclesiastical polity, maintained by John Gerson and Peter D’Ailly, who so ably defended the decrees of the Council of Constance, and the liberties of the Gallican church, against the advocates for the uncontrollable authority of the Sovereign Pontiff. He taught that a General Council was superior to {8} the pope, and might judge, rebuke, restrain, and even depose him from his dignity; denied the temporal supremacy of the bishop of Rome, and his right to inaugurate or dethrone princes; maintained that ecclesiastical censures, and even papal excommunications, had no force, if pronounced on irrelevant or invalid grounds; he held that tithes were not of divine right, but merely of human appointment; censured the avarice, ambition, and secular pomp of the court of Rome, and of the Episcopal order; was no warm friend of the regular clergy; and advised the reduction of monasteries and holidays.[15]

His opinions respecting civil governments were analogous to those which he held as to ecclesiastical polity. He taught that the authority of kings and princes was originally derived from the people; that the former are not superior to the latter, collectively considered; that if rulers become tyrannical, or employ their power for the destruction of their subjects, they may lawfully be controlled by them, and proving incorrigible, may be deposed by the community as the superior power; and that tyrants may be judicially proceeded against, even to capital punishments.[16]

The affinity between these sentiments, and the political principles afterwards avowed by Knox, and defended by the classic pen of Buchanan, is too {9} striking to require illustration. Some of them, indeed, had been taught by at least one Scottish author, who flourished before the time of Major; but it is most probable that the oral instructions and writings of their master first suggested to them the sentiments which they so readily adopted, and which were afterwards confirmed by mature reflection, and more extensive reading; and that, consequently, the important changes which these contributed to accomplish, should be traced in a certain measure to this distinguished professor. Nor, in such circumstances, could his ecclesiastical opinions fail to have a proportionate share of influence on their habits of thinking with respect to religion and the church.

But though, in these respects, the opinions of Major were more free and rational than those generally entertained at that time, it must be confessed, that the portion of instruction which his scholars could derive from him was extremely small, if we allow his publications to be a fair specimen of his academical prelections. Many of the questions which he discusses are utterly useless and trifling; the rest are rendered disgusting by the most servile adherence to all the minutiæ of the scholastic mode of reasoning. The reader of his works must be content with painfully picking a grain of truth from the rubbish of many pages; nor will the drudgery be compensated by those discoveries of inventive genius and acute discrimination, for which the writings of Aquinas, and some others of that subtle school, may still deserve to be consulted. Major is entitled to praise, for exposing to {10} his countrymen several of the more glaring errors and abuses of his time; but his mind was deeply tinctured with superstition , and he defended some of the absurdest tenets of popery by the most ridiculous and puerile arguments.[17] His talents were moderate; with the writings of the ancients, he appears to have been acquainted only through the medium of the collectors of the middle ages; nor does he ever hazard an opinion, or pursue a speculation, beyond the limits which had been marked out by some approved doctor of the church. Add to this, that his style is, to an uncommon degree, harsh and forbidding; “exile, aridum, conscissum, ac minutum.”

Knox and Buchanan soon became disgusted with such studies, and began to seek entertainment more gratifying to their ardent and inquisitive minds. Having set out in search of knowledge, they released themselves from the trammels, and overleaped the boundaries, prescribed to them by their timid conductor. Each following the native bent of his genius and inclination, they separated in the prosecution of {11} their studies. Buchanan, indulging in a more excursive range, explored the extensive fields of literature, and wandered in the flowery mead of poesy; while Knox, passing through the avenues of secular learning, devoted himself to the study of divine truth, and the labours of the sacred ministry. Both, however, kept uniformly in view the advancement of true religion and liberty, with the love of which they were equally smitten; and as, during their lives, they suffered a long and painful exile, and were exposed to many dangers, for adherence to this kindred cause, so their memories have not been divided, in the profuse but honourable obloquy with which they have been aspersed by its enemies, and in the deserved and grateful recollections of its genuine friends.[18]

But we must not suppose, that Knox was able at once to divest himself of the prejudices of his education and of the times. Barren and repulsive as the scholastic studies appear to our minds, there was something in the intricate and subtle sophistry then in vogue, calculated to fascinate the youthful and {12} ingenious mind. It had a shew of wisdom; it exercised, although it did not enrich, the understanding; it even gave play to the imagination, while it served to flatter the pride of the learned adept. Once involved in the mazy labyrinth, it was no easy task to break through it, and to escape into the open field of rational and free inquiry. Accordingly, Knox continued for some time captivated with these studies, and prosecuted them with great success. After he was created Master of Arts, he taught philosophy, most probably as a regent of one of the classes in the university.[19] His class became celebrated; and he was considered as equalling, if not excelling his master, in the subtleties of the dialectic art.[20] About the same time, although he had no interest but what was procured by his own merit, he was advanced to clerical orders, and was ordained a priest, before he reached the age fixed by the canons of the church.[21] This must have taken place previous to the year {13} 1530, at which time he had arrived at his twenty‑fifth year, the canonical age for receiving ordination.

It was not long, however, till his studies received a new direction, which led to a complete revolution in his religious sentiments, and had an important influence on the whole of his future life. Not satisfied with the excerpts from ancient authors, which he found in the writings of the scholastic divines and canonists, he resolved to have recourse to the original works. In them he found a method of investigating and communicating truth, to which he had hitherto been a stranger, and the simplicity of which recommended itself to his mind, in spite of the prejudices of education, and the pride of superior attainments in his own favourite art. Among the fathers of the Christian Church, Jerom and Augustine attracted his particular attention. By the writings of the former, he was led to the Scriptures as the only pure fountain of Divine truth, and instructed in the utility of studying them in the original languages. In the works of the latter, he found religious sentiments very opposite to those taught in the Romish church, who, while she retained his name as a saint in her calendar, had banished his doctrine, as heretical, from her pulpits. From this time, he renounced the study of scholastic theology; and although not yet completely emancipated from superstition, his mind was fitted for improving the means which Providence had prepared, for leading him to a fuller and more comprehensive view of the system of evangelical religion. It was about the year 1535, when this {14} favourable change commenced;[22] but, it does not appear that he professed himself a protestant before the year 1542.

As I am now to enter upon that period of Knox’s life at which he renounced the Roman Catholic communion, and commenced Reformer, it may not be improper to take a survey of the state of religion in Scotland at that time. Without an adequate knowledge of this, it is impossible to form a just estimate of the necessity and importance of that reformation, in the advancement of which he laboured with so great zeal; and nothing has contributed so much to give currency, among Protestants, to prejudices against his character, as ignorance, or a superficial consideration of the enormous and almost incredible abuses which then prevailed in the church. This must be my apology for a digression which might otherwise be deemed superfluous or disproportionate.

* * * * *

The corruptions by which the Christian religion was universally disfigured, before the Reformation, had grown to a greater height in Scotland, than in any other nation within the pale of the Western Church. Superstition and religious imposture, in their grossest forms, gained an easy admission among a rude and ignorant people. By means of these, the clergy attained to an exorbitant degree of opulence and power; which were accompanied, as they always have been, {15} with the corruption of their order, and of the whole system of religion.

The full half of the wealth of the nation belonged to the clergy; and the greater part of this was in the hands of a few individuals, who had the command of the whole body. Avarice, ambition, and the love of secular pomp, reigned among the superior orders. Bishops and abbots rivalled the first nobility in magnificence, and preceded them in honours: they were Privy‑Councillors, and Lords of Session, as well as of Parliament, and had long engrossed the principal offices of state. A vacant bishopric or abbacy called forth powerful competitors, who contended for it as for a principality or petty kingdom; it was obtained by similar arts, and not unfrequently taken possession of by the same weapons.[23] Inferior benefices were openly put to sale, or bestowed on the illiterate and unworthy minions of courtiers; on dice‑players, strolling bards, and the bastards of bishops.[24] Pluralities were multiplied without bounds, and benefices, given _in commendam_, were kept vacant, during the {16} life of the commendator, nay, sometimes during several lives;[25] so that extensive parishes were frequently deprived for a long course of years, of all religious service,――if a deprivation it could be called, at a time when the cure of souls was no longer regarded as attached to livings originally endowed for that purpose. The bishops never, on any occasion, condescended to preach; indeed, I scarcely recollect an instance of it, mentioned in history, from the erection of the regular Scottish Episcopacy, down to the era of the Reformation.[26] The practice had even gone into desuetude among all the secular clergy, and was {17} wholly devolved on the mendicant monks, who employed it for the most mercenary purposes.[27]

The lives of the clergy, exempted from secular jurisdiction, and corrupted by wealth and idleness, were become a scandal to religion, and an outrage on decency. While they professed chastity, and prohibited, under the severest penalties, any of the ecclesiastical order from contracting lawful wedlock, the bishops set an example of the most shameless profligacy before the inferior clergy; avowedly kept their harlots; provided their natural sons with benefices; and gave their daughters in marriage to the sons of the nobility and principal gentry, many of whom were so mean as to contaminate the blood of their families by such base alliances, for the sake of the rich doweries which they brought.[28]

Through the blind devotion and munificence of princes and nobles, monasteries, those nurseries of {18} superstition and idleness, had greatly multiplied in the nation; and though they had universally degenerated, and were notoriously become the haunts of lewdness and debauchery, it was deemed impious and sacrilegious to reduce their number, abridge their privileges, or alienate their funds.[29] The kingdom swarmed with ignorant, idle, luxurious monks, who, like locusts, devoured the fruits of the earth, and filled the air with pestilential infection; with friars, white, black, and grey; canons regular, and of St Anthony, Carmelites, Carthusians, Cordeliers, Dominicans, Franciscan Conventuals and Observantines, Jacobins, Premonstratensians, monks of Tyrone, and of Vallis Caulium, and Hospitallers, or Holy Knights of St John of Jerusalem; nuns of St Austin, St Clair, St Scholastica, and St Catherine of Sienna, with canonesses of various clans.[30]