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IV.

JOHN KNOX IN ENGLAND,' AND HIS INFLUENCE ON ITS EARLY PRESBYTERIAN WORSHIP.

A NEW force in a Presbyterian direction is the appearance of John Knox in England. Released from the French galleys, early in 1549, through the intervention of the English King and his Council, Knox devoted five of his best years, 1549 to 1553, to their service in England. These five years, two of them in Berwick, two in Newcastle, and one about London, are very noteworthy for our purpose, though he himself, in his Historie, dismisses them in a few lines.

"The said Johne was first appointed preacher to Berwick then to Newcastell ; last he was called to London and the south partes of England, whar he remained to the death of King Edward the Sext.” 3

In accordance with Bucer's recommendation, a large body of travelling or circuit preachers had been called into requisition, and received special licence to evangelize in different parts of the kingdom. A list of eighty names has come down to us,* that of Knox being sixty-fourth in chronological order; and among the names are three other Scottish preachers doing the

Besides the classic Life by Dr. McCrie and the fine edition of Knox's collected Works by Dr. David Laing, our special authority is Dr. Lorimer's valuable monograph John Knox, and the Church of England, 1875; see also Lord Moncrieff's The Influence of Knox and the Scottish Reformation on England, 1860, and the chapter on "Knox and the English Reformers," in Bishop Wordsworth's Discourse on Scottish Reformation.

2 How Knox regained his liberty, at the earnest and repeated application of Edward VI. to the French Court, is now set at rest by a letter which may be seen in Tytler's England under Edward VI., vol. i. p. 295.

3 Knox's Historie of the Reformation, Book I. This work of marvellous vigour even for Knox, and full of his own grim humour, did not appear till 1584, twelve years after his death. It is specially to be noted that, though published at Edinburgh, it was printed in London, and was sought to be suppressed in 1587, by Archbishop Whitgift ordering the seizure and destruction of copies.

4 Preserved in Record Office, and printed by Dr. Laing in preface to vol. vi. of Knox's Works.

same faithful work in England, John Rough, John McBriar, and John Willock, personal friends, and associated with himself in various ways. The following is the first entry of Knox's official status on the Privy Council Register :

Sunday the 7th April, 1549. Warrant to the Receiver of the Duchy for 5lib. to John Knock preacher by way of reward.”

A month before this the first English Prayer Book was issued under royal and parliamentary sanction, but into some of the remoter parts of the kingdom it seems never to have penetrated. It came into very meagre use throughout the northern counties, where the old faith retained a firm hold. The Council of the North, with the comparatively mild but stiffly conservative Tunstall as Bishop of Durham, was not forward in pressing the new enactment; and a licensed preacher like Knox was left to continue those modes of worship he had meanwhile been using, very much at his own discretion; especially as a visible reformation of morals, with peace and order, had been effected under his vigorous and popular ministration. Long after, in defending himself against charges of raising disturbance and sedition, he declared to Queen Mary herself,

"I shame not further to affirm that God so blessed my weak labours that in Berwick, where commonly before there used to be slaughter by reason of quarrels that used to arise among the soldiers, there was as great quietness all the time I remained there as there is this day in Edinburgh.” 3

That the Word, which he preached with fidelity and zeal,

1 It was John Rough's sermon, years ago, at St. Andrew's that had been the means of making Knox enter upon his public ministry. Rough's career is narrated by Foxe in his Acts and Monuments (vol. iii. pp. 722–724), and has some remarkable passages. Being disappointed when young of his inheritance, he joined the Black Friars in Stirling; and through the influence of the Regent Arran he became chaplain to the Archbishop of St. Andrew's. A visit to Rome issued, as with Luther, in his revulsion from the Papacy; and in a few years we trace him at Carlisle, Berwick, Newcastle, and elsewhere in the North of England, vigorously preaching the Gospel. On Mary's accession he escaped from Hull to Friesland; but returning covertly, he became minister of one of the secret congregations in London, and was burnt at Smithfield with others of that martyr Church which he loved and laboured for, even unto death, as is pathetically told by Foxe.

In an age when spelling was little cultivated, the name, like others, assumes a variety of forms; and he himself spells it Knokks and otherwise indifferently. 3 Works, vol. ii. p. 277 et seq.

was accompanied with rare spiritual power in convincing sinners and drawing them to Christ, is abundantly attested. In Berwick, as elsewhere, Knox put forth his wonderful gift of vivifying his texts and making Scripture speak to the conscience on matters of the hour with its own self-witnessing Divine authority and application. The corruptions and superstitions of popish error were exposed with no less moral enthusiasm than unsparing severity. Bishop Tunstall, alarmed at what he heard from his clergy of the bold preacher's powerful denunciation of the Mass, yet afraid to interfere with one who was directly under the sanction of the Lord Protector and Privy Council, got the matter introduced to the "Council of the North for Public Affairs"; and Knox was summoned to attend at Newcastle and give an account of his preaching. The Council of the North had its head-quarters at York; but it held Annual Sessions for a month at a time in Hull, Durham, and Newcastle. Whatever may have been the designs, sinister or otherwise, of the Bishop and his party, the Council seems to have been animated with no unfriendly feeling towards him; and Knox gladly availed himself of such an opportunity to set forth his views.

"The 4th of April in the year 1550 was appointed to John Knox to give his confession why he affirmed the Mass idolatry, which day in the presence of the Council and congregation, amongst whom was also present the Bishop of Durham with his doctors, in this manner he beginneth."

Such is the note prefixed to the famous discourse which he delivered on this memorable occasion before a vast and influential congregation that crowded the great Church of St. Nicholas, and which is preserved in his noble "Vindication" beginning with these characteristic words:

"This day I do appeir in your presence, Honourable Audience, to gif a reasone why so constantlie I do affirm the Mass to be and at all times to haif been Idolatrie and abomination befoir God."

This term, "idolatrie," went straight to the mark, and became, with other things in the discourse, a most effectual weapon, and a very sledge-hammer in strong and earnest

hands. Hitherto people's ears had not been accustomed to so pronounced and decisive a style of utterance; and he who rang it out with such effectiveness, and supported it with unfaltering force of conviction, as well as with ample resources of learning, logic, and telling sarcasm, was felt to be a man who should come to the front, and do yeoman service in the cause of reformation. At the close of 1550, or early in 1551, Knox was planted in the more prominent post of Newcastle-on-Tyne; and in December, 1551, he was declared one of the six Royal Chaplains to Edward VI.,1 a position in which he was enabled to exercise no small influence, both as a preacher at Court, and as an adviser in reviewing the Articles and the new edition of the Prayer Book. But before coming to these points, or speaking of the influence Knox exerted on the Liturgy and Articles of the Anglican Communion, we must advert to the most outstanding and characteristic feature of his English ministrythe usage he adopted in administering the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. Not only did he substitute the common loaf for "wafer-breads," and thereby anticipate what was ultimately allowed by the Second Prayer Book in 1552, but he had boldly introduced the practice of sitting instead of kneeling, by the congregation in the act of communicating and passing the elements along the table-pews. Thus, so early as 1550, Knox had begun in the Church of England the distinctively Presbyterian and Puritan usage of after times; and this he did, not in defiance of law, but according to a discretion or variety allowed him, when usages were unsettled and the Mass itself was quietly practised in many corners.

"Kneeling at the Lord's Supper I have proved by doctrine to be no convenient gesture for a table. . . . And therefore, kneeling in that action appearing to be joined with certain dangers, no less in maintaining superstition than in using Christ's holy institution with other gestures than either He used or commanded to be used, I thought good amongst you to avoid, and to use sitting at the Lord's table, which ye did not refuse, but with all reverence and thanksgiving to God for His truth,

An annuity of £40 per annum was settled on him shortly, until provided with a benefice.

F

knowing, as I suppose, ye confirmed the doctrine with your gestures and confession."1

2

This was the position adopted, as we have seen, in the Church of the Strangers by A'Lasco; it was preferred and almost certainly practised by Bishop Hooper, and was not unknown in other quarters, as for instance, among the Benchers of the Temple, who continued till at least Whitgift's time to receive the Communion sitting. Thus Thomas Becon, Cranmer's chaplain, in his Displaying of the Popish Mass, which he was brave enough to issue in Queen Mary's reign, says, "O, how oft have I seen, here in England, at the ministration of the Holy Communion, people sitting at the Lord's table after they have heard the sermon;" and he argues for this usage throughout the whole tract, as had been done by such a good Church

1 Lorimer's Knox and the Church of England, p. 261. This passage is from a letter of "Johne Knox to the Congregatioun of Berwick." The writings of Knox which have reference to his labours in England, besides the "Vindication,” and an official letter to be afterwards noted, are these-the three found by Dr. Lorimer:

1. The practice of the Lord's Supper used in Berwick by John Knox, 1550. 2. Memorial or Confession to the Privy Council of Edward VI., 1552. 3. Johne Knokks to the Congregation of Berwick. From London, 1552. Other three from Dieppe in 1554, during his early exile in Mary's reign:

4. A godlie letter of warning or admonitionne to the faithful in London, Newcastle and Berwick.

5. Two Comfortable Epistles to his afflicted Brethren in England.

6. A faithful Admonitionne to the Professors of God's Truth in England.

And two others of later date from the Continent:

7. An Epistle to the Inhabitants of Newcastle and Berwick, 1558.

8. A brief Exhortation to England for the Speedy Embracing of the Gospel, 1559, at Geneva.

He certainly wrote other letters to English Presbyterian friends in Elizabeth's reign; but these unfortunately have not been found.

The following is a passage from Hooper's great sermons on Jonah, preached at Court during Lent, 1550. In discoursing on the Lord's Supper, he declares that "the outward behaviour and gesture of the receiver should want all kind of suspicion, show, or inclination of idolatry. Wherefore, seeing kneeling is a show and external sign of honouring and worshipping, and heretofore hath grievous and damnable idolatry been committed by honouring of the Sacrament, I would wish it were commanded by the magistrate that the communicators and receivers should do it standing or sitting. But sitting, in mine opinion, were best, for many considerations. Christ and His Apostles used this Sacrament, at the first, sitting. Let us submit ourselves and think what Christ and His Apostles have used, it can in no ways be bettered by us. And you, my gracious Lord and King, restore the right use of the Supper of the Lord as Josias did the right use of the Paschal Lamb, after the Word of God."-Early Writings of Bishop Hooper, pp. 536, 587. (Parker Society.)

3 Prayers and other Pieces of Thomas Becon, S.T.P. (Parker Society.)

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