John Knox and the Reformation

ging a reluctant country into the ecclesiastical fold which the State, for the hour, happened to prefer. His task had been grateful, and his congregations, a

with such emotions as we may imagine-while the Primate of England had challenged him to a com

gs his heart burned within him many a time, and he abruptly departed from his theory of passive resistance. Now he eagerly desired to obtain, from Protestant doctors and pontiffs, support

used inconvenience to the brethren, and trouble to himself in later years. In cooler moments, and when dubious or

tholics, and if the State was Protestant, they were liable, later, under Knox, to fines, exile, and death; but power was not yet given to him. If they were Protestants under a Catholic ruler, or Puritans under Anglican authority, Knox himself had laid down the rule of their conduct in his letter to his Berwick congregation. {45} "Remembering always, beloved brethren, that due obedience be given to magistrates, rulers, and princes, without tumult, grudge, or sedition. For, howsoever wicked themselves be in life, or hows

oppose the old faith, backed by kings and princes, fire and sword? He answered the question in direct contradiction of his Berwick programme: he was now all for active resis

eath of Mary Tudor and the succession of Elizabeth-itself a poor hope in the eyes of Knox, who detested the idea of a female monarch. Might they "bow down in the House of Rimmon" by a feigned confo

not yet secure in his despotism, though he had recently burned Servetus. Next he went to Zurich,

it was a hazardous thing for the godly to resist the laws of a country. Philip the eunuch, though converted, did not drive Queen Candace out of Ethiopia. If a tyrannous

s ungodly violence"? Bullinger answered, in effect, that "it is very difficult to pronounce upon every particu

gested by the present condition of affairs in England, and about which his mind had been greatly occupied. Their views with

s not say that they agreed with him, and they certainly did not. Despite the reserve of Bulli

omas Wyatt had been put down, a blow to true religion. We have no evidence that Knox stimulated the ri

hese days." The piece presents nothing, perhaps, so plain spoken about the prophet's right to preach treason as a passage in the manuscript of an earlier Knoxian epistle of May 1554 to the Faithful. "The prophets of God sometimes may teach treason against kings, and yet neither he, nor such as obey the word spoken in the Lord's name by him, o

ance, O Lord, but let death devour them in haste . . . For there is no hope of their amendment, . . . He shall send Jehu to execute his just judgments against idolaters. Jezebel herself shall not escape the vengeance and plagues that are prepared for her portion." {49b} These passages are essential. Professor Hume Brown expresses our own sentiments when he remarks: "In casting such a pamphlet into England at the time he did, Knox indulged his indignation, in itself s

ngth later, as we shall show. In an epistle of 1554 he only writes: "Some shall demand, 'What then, shall we go and slay all idolaters?' That were

tible Catholic subjects! This was indeed a counsel of perfection; but

next, that between the sixteenth century A.D. and Jehu, had intervened the Christian revelation. Our Lord had given no word of warrant to murder or massacre! No persecuted apostle had dealt in appeals to the dagger. As for Jehu, a prophet had condemned his c

d to the Vicar of God, who should have no such dealings against "that wicked woman." To some Catholics, Elizabeth: to Knox, Mary was as Jezebel, and might laudably be assassinated. In idolaters nothing can surprise us; when persecuted they, in their unchristia

f his own party which he celebrates as "godly facts," he would have raised Protestantism to a moral pre-eminence. Dark pages of Scottish history might never have been writ

ance he dissuaded Kirkcaldy of Grange and others from stabbing the gaolers in making their escape from prison. Where idolaters in official position were co