II. Knox Sounds Keynote of Scottish Reformation From Daniel 7

JOHN KNOX (1505-1572), the Reformer of Scotland and founder of the Church of Scotland, was born at the village of Gifford, a suburb of Haddington, sixteen miles east of Edinburgh. After being educated at the school of Haddington, Knox was sent, in 1522, to the University of Glasgow, where he studied under John Major, the most famous teacher of his day in Scotland. After he left college Knox did not come into prominence until about 1546. During this time he took priest’s orders. It is supposed that the study of the ancient fathers shook his attachment to the church of Rome as early as 1535, but he did not become an avowed adherent of the Reformed faith until 1545. His religious transition was first from Scholasticism to the fathers, and then to the Scriptures. In 1544, or earlier, he became tutor to several sons of prominent families. At this period Knox met George Wishart, by whom he Was greatly influenced. ^{5McCrie, op. cit., pp. 17, 18, 23, 24, 370; Introductory section in Works of John Knox, ed. by David Laing, vol. 1, pp. xiii, xiv; Brown, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 4-27, 66.}PFF2 445.1

In 1547, when Knox was forty-two, John Rough, a Protestant preacher, and the occupants of the castle of St. Andrews, then an asylum for the persecuted, observing Knox’s manner of teaching, urged him to preach. He was overwhelmed by the unexpected and solemn call, and demurred. But he soon responded, and his first sermon in the parish church of St. Andrews sounded the keynote of the Scottish Reformation—that the Church of Rome is the Antichrist of Scripture prophecy. ^{6McCrie, op. cit., pp. 46-51; Wylie, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 484; Brown, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 76.}PFF2 445.2

1. EXILED TWICE TO CONTINENT THROUGH PERSECUTION

Others had condemned papal abuses and demanded reforms, but Knox called insistently for repudiation and separation. A storm of persecution arose, and began to beat against Knox. The castle of St. Andrews was soon besieged by the French, prior to which time Knox preached with power and converted many. In July, 1547, the castle was captured by men from the French fleet, and Knox carried captive to Rouen, France. Following this, he spent nineteen months in slavery in French galleys. ^{7McCrie, op. cit., pp. 52-56, 60, 399.}PFF2 445.3

In 1549 Knox was released, and immediately went to Eng land, where the religious changes under Edward VI were well on their way to success. Soon afterward he was sent by the English council to preach at Berwick. According to his own account, Knox must have moved from Berwick to Newcastle early in1551. At this time he was already one of the important figures in the party of religious reform. In that same year Knox seems to have been made a royal chaplain, and was associated with Cranmer. He assisted in the revision of the Prayer Book in 1552, and also of the Articles of Religion. He was offered an English bishopric, but declined it, preferring to hold himself aloof from an office which might compromise him. ^{8Ibid., pp. 60-108, 415, 416; Brown, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 104-186. In the call to Frankfurt am Main the first name signed is that of “Iohn Bale.”}PFF2 446.1

Soon after, upon the accession of Mary Tudor, Knox was forced to retire to the Continent, fleeing first to Dieppe early in 1554, and then visiting Calvin at Geneva and Bullinger at Zurich. In the same year he accepted a call to become pastor of the English congregation at Frankfurt am Main, but controversies in connection with vestments, ceremonies, and the use of the Book of Common Prayer led to his retirement from that city after less than six months’ service. He then returned to Geneva, where he found a more congenial field of labor. ^{9William Lee, “Knox, John,” The New Schaff-Herzog, vol. 6, p. 363.}PFF2 446.2

But Knox resolved to visit his native country, and in the latter part of 1555 landed on the east coast of Scotland near Berwick. Most of the winter of 1555 and 1556 he taught in Edinburgh. He was allowed to preach privately for six months in the southern part of Scotland, and he was very happy to find a number who had neither “bowed the knee” to established idolatry nor “received the mark of antichrist.” ^{10Friedrich Brandes, John Knox, der Reformator Schottlands, p. 123; McCrie, op. cit., p. 116; Brown, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 191.} Having received a call from the English church at Geneva, Knox left Scotland in July, 1556. Before this time he had married Marjory Bowes. After his farewell services in Scotland, he joined his wife and mother-in-law at Dieppe, whither he had sent them, and together they proceeded to Geneva. From 1556 to 1559, with the exception of some months spent at Dieppe (1557-1558), he was again in Geneva in close association with Calvin—whose influence on Knox was to bear much fruitage in Scotland. At Geneva he studied Hebrew and was employed as pastor of the English congregation. He also helped to make a new translation of the Bible into English, the so-called Geneva Bible. ^{11McCrie, op. cit., p. 140; Alexander Taylor Innes, “Knox, John,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 13, p. 468; Albert Henry Newman, op. cit., vol. 2. p. 241. The Geneva translation, made by English exiles during Queen Mary’s reign, was so called because done in that city. The New Testament was published in 1557 and the Old Testament in 1560. (The English Hexapla, pp. 130-135.)}PFF2 446.3

2. SCOTTISH PROTESTANTISM REARED IN PROPHETIC SETTING

In July, 1558, Knox wrote a strong appeal to the people of Scotland, entreating them to heed the Bible evidence “that the papal religion is but an abomination before God,” and to “flee out of Babylon, that ye perish not with her.” ^{12Brandes, op. cit., pp. 501, 504.} The number of Scottish Reformers increased, and their conflict with Rome reached crisis proportions. Returning to Scotland in 1559, Knox became the master spirit of the Scottish Reformation. He preached with such power and persuasion that images, ornaments of the church, shrines, and monasteries were destroyed. CHRISTOPHER GOODMAN (c. 1520-1603), his co-laborer in Geneva, joined Knox in Edinburgh. In the following year Good man was appointed to St. Andrews, where he lectured on the Apocalypse. Lord Napier and others were encouraged to search the prophecies and to write on them. ^{13McCrie, op. cit., pp. 158-179; David Stewart Erskine (earl of Buchan), and Walter Minto, An Account of the Life, Writings, and Inventions of John Napier, p. 11.} As a result of the revolt of the Scottish Protestants against the French alliance and the Church of Rome, Protestantism gained the day.PFF2 447.1

Even the popular ballads of the time show the temper and understanding of the common people concerning the pope and the papal church. Here is part of a quaint ballad of about 1560:PFF2 448.1

“The Paip, that Pagane full of pryde, He hes us blindit lang, For quhair the blind the blind dois gyde, Na wounder baith ga wrang; Lyke Prince and King, he led the Regne [ring], Of all Iniquitie: Hay trix, tryme go trix, under the grene [wod tré].PFF2 448.2

“Bot his abominatioun, The Lord hes brocht to lycht; His Popische pryde, and thrinfald Crowne, Almaist hes loste thair mycht.” ^{14A Compendious Book of Godly and Spiritual Songs, Commonly Known as “The Gude and Godlie Ballatis” (ed. Mitchell), p. 204; see Kidd, Documents, p. 695.}PFF2 448.3

The “Lords of the Congregation” entered into a “band” to “renounce the congregation of Satan,” set up a provisional re form of their own, and sent for Knox. Here was their bold declaration:PFF2 448.4

“WE, perceaving how Sathan in his memberis, the Antichristis of our tyme, cruelly doeth rage, seaking to dounethring and to destroy the Evangell of Christ, and his Congregatioun, aught, according to our bonden deuitie, to stryve in our Maisteriscaus, evin unto the death, being certane of the victorie in him.” ^{15John Knox, The History of the Reformation in Scotland, in Works, vol. 1, p. 273.}PFF2 448.5

In 1560 Parliament voted to establish the Scottish Confession of Faith. Papal jurisdiction was abolished in Scotland, and the de facto establishment of Protestantism was secured. ^{16McCrie, op. cit., pp. 205, 206; Robert Sangster Rait, “Scotland: History,” Encyclopaedia Britannica. vol. 20, p. 153. Article 18, of the first Confession of Faith of Scotland, adopted in August, 1560, vigorously repudiated the papal church as the synagogue of Satan: “Because that Sathan from the beginning hes laboured to deck his pestilent Synagoge with the title of the Kirk of God, and hes inflamed the hertes of cruell murtherers to persecute, trouble, and molest the trewe Kirk and members thereof, as Cain did Abell, Ismael Isaac, Esau Jacob, and the haill Priesthead of the Jewes Christ Jesus himselfe, and his Apostles after him. It is ane thing maist requisite, that the true Kirk be decerned fra the filthie Synagogues, be cleare and perfite notes, least we being, deceived, receive and imbrace, to our awin condemnatioun, the ane for the uther. The notes, signs, and assured tokens whereby the immaculate Spouse of Christ, Jesus is knawen fra the horrible harlot, the Kirk malignant, we affirme, are nouther Antiquitie. Title usurpit, lineal Descence, Place appointed, nor multitude of men approving ane error.” (The Scotch Confession of Faith, A.D. 1560, in Philip Schaff, Creeds, vol. 3, pp. 460, 461.)} The strong prophetic emphasis is seen in the Second Scotch Confession, or the National Covenant of 1580, subscribed to “by the King, the Council and Court, at Holyrood House,” in which this strong declaration appears:PFF2 448.6

“And theirfoirwe abhorre and detest all contrare Religion and Doc trine; but chiefly all kynde of Papistrie in generall and particular headis, even as they ar now damned and confuted by the word of God and kirk of Scotland. But in special, we detest and refuse the usurped authoritie of that Romane Antichrist upon the Scriptures of God.” ^{17Philip Schaff, Creeds, vol. 3. p. 481.}PFF2 449.1

Mary, Queen of Scots, returned to Scotland in 1561. It was soon obvious that the return of the queen was a menace to the Protestant cause in Scotland. Not only had Mary refused to ratify the Acts of 1560, by which Parliament had abolished the papal jurisdiction, but after her return she still withheld her ratification. ^{18Wylie, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 509; McCrie, op. cit., pp. 219, 251-256, 281.} Mary was asked to join a league of Catholic powers planned by Pius IV, the cardinal of Lorraine, the emperor, and Philip of Spain, for suppressing Protestantism, and it was generally thought that she secretly joined it. ^{19T. G. Law, “Mary Stewart,” chap. 8 in The Cambridge Modern History, vol. 3, p. 271; McCrie, op. cit., p. 288.} But in 1567 the queen was forced to abdicate in favor of her son, and the Acts of 1560 establishing the new religion were confirmed. ^{20Brown, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 244-246.}PFF2 449.2

3. ASSEMBLY NAMES PAPACY THE PROPHESIED ANTICHRIST

Those were stormy times, and there were frequent dramatic conflicts between Queen Mary and Knox, who was minister at St. Giles. But he was mainly occupied with the establishment of the Reformed Church in Scotland. The affairs of the country were now in Protestant hands, with Knox as a powerful force, his public statements virtually having the weight of public manifestos. Grindal, bishop of London, reporting by letter to Bullinger at Zurich concerning “affairs of Scotland” in 1567, cited the Acts passed in the general assembly by which the “true religion of Christ is established, and the impious superstition of the papists abolished.” The prophetic element was again in the forefront, the first and part of the second of the fifteen items being:PFF2 449.3

“1. First, then, not only are all the impious traditions and ceremonies of the papists taken away, but also that tyranny which the pope himself has for so many ages exercised over the church, is altogether abolished; and it is provided that all persons shall in the future acknowledge him to be the very antichrist, and son of perdition, of whom Paul speaks.PFF2 450.1

“2. The mass is abolished, as being an accursed abomination and a diabolical profanation of the Lord’s supper; and it is forbidden to all persons in the whole kingdom of Scotland either to celebrate or hear it.” ^{21The Zurich Letters [1st series], 1558-1579, p. 199.}PFF2 450.2

Knox continued to lecture on Daniel’s prophecies concerning the great apostasy, and still thundered against the decisions of the Council of Trent, and the slaughter of the Huguenots in France. Such was the testimony of this fearless witness. A man of courage and sagacity, and of earnestness blended with inflexible austerity, Froude called him “perhaps in that extraordinary age its most extraordinary man.” ^{22James Anthony Froude, History of England, vol. 4, p. 63.} At his funeral Morton, newly elected regent of Scotland, declared, “There lies he, who never feared the face of man.” ^{23McCrie. op. cit., p. 340.}PFF2 450.3