In the midst of the gross spiritual darkness in Scotland in the first part of the sixteenth century, some bright lights began to shine. Yet the darkness was still intense; in 1549 a council of the unreformed Church acknowledged two causes of what they deemed heresy in Scotland: “The corruption of morals and profane obscenity of life in churchmen of almost all ranks, together with crass ignorance of literature and all the liberal arts”.1 This being so, no one could have much hope of being shown the way of salvation in public worship, which largely consisted in the idolatrous formalities of the mass.
Among the bright lights was George Wishart, whose faithful preaching resulted in the conversion of many. One morning not long before his martyrdom, after spending part of the night in earnest prayer, he expressed his hope that Scotland “shall be illuminated with the light of Christ’s gospel as clearly as ever was any realm since the days of the Apostles”.2 But he was sure that he did not have long to preach. Soon afterwards he was arrested and sentenced to a barbarous death outside the castle of St Andrews.
After reaching the place of burning, he addressed those who were standing around: “I exhort you that you love the Word of God and suffer patiently and with a comfortable heart, for the Word’s sake, which is your undoubted salvation and everlasting comfort. . . . For the Word’s sake and true evangel [gospel], which was given to me by the grace of God, I suffer this day by men, not sorrowfully, but with a glad heart and mind. . . . I know surely, and my faith is such, that my soul shall sup with my Saviour Jesus Christ this night . . . for whom I suffer this” (p 218). For Wishart, the Word of God had been the basis both of his beliefs and his comfort as, in Dundee, Ayrshire and elsewhere, he proclaimed the good news of salvation from sin, by faith in Jesus Christ alone. And the Word of God – not Roman tradition or papal pronouncements or the decisions of councils – still formed the basis for what he believed and was the source of his comfort as he faced the eternal world.
1Quoted in J H S Burleigh, A Church History of Scotland, OUP, 1960, p 136.
2David Calderwood, The History of the Kirk of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1842, vol 1, p 191. All other page references in this article are to this volume. Spelling has been modernised.
This was true of all his fellow Reformers, including John Knox, who sailed into Leith from his exile on the Continent on 2 May 1559. The following day he wrote to a friend in England: “I see the battle shall be great, for Satan rages even to the uttermost, and I am come, I praise my God, in the brunt of the battle. For my fellow preachers have a day appointed to answer before the Queen Regent” (p 440). Knox was keen to support them by his presence, and he was even more anxious to proclaim the truths of God’s Word. Soon he was preaching in Perth, with momentous consequences for the Reformation. For Knox, preaching the Word of God was the means of fighting against Satan and his forces.
Four months after his arrival in Scotland, Knox was reporting from St Andrews, to his English friend, the recent arrival of French forces to support the Queen Regent in her defence of the Roman Catholic status quo. Although, in human terms, these forces were stronger than any the Protestant movement could field against them, Knox remained hopeful: “We do nothing but go about Jericho, blowing with trumpets, as God gives strength, hoping [for] victory by His power alone” (p 516). It was an apt comparison; Israel’s forces may have looked ridiculous as they made their daily circuit of the walls of Jericho, and just as ridiculous as they made their seventh circuit of the city on the final day. While they could not demolish the walls by blowing trumpets, they acted at God’s command. And God followed their obedience with an act of mighty power; He brought down the walls of Jericho and made the conquest of the city straightforward.
Similarly, in the Reformation movement in Scotland, the preaching of the Word was the key human instrument – rather than battles or political manoeuvring – that brought about the establishment of scriptural religion in 1560. And behind the human instrument we should see divine activity bringing conviction of the truth, as Wishart and Knox and others went about Jericho and blew their trumpets – in other words, as they made known the mind of God about the kind of religion which should be followed.
Of necessity Knox preached against idolatry, particularly the mass, but he sought to proclaim the whole counsel of God. In November 1559 he was in Stirling expounding the words of Psalm 80:4: “O Lord God of hosts, how long wilt Thou be angry against the prayer of Thy people?” He commented on the awfulness of fighting against “the temptation that God turns away His face from our prayers”. He made this application: “The difference between the elect and reprobate [was] that the elect, sustained by the secret power of God’s Spirit, did still call upon God, albeit He appeared to contemn their prayers, which is a sacrifice most acceptable to God and is, in a manner, even to fight with God and to overcome Him, as Jacob did in wrestling with the
Angel. But the reprobate, being denied of their requests at God’s hand, do either cease to pray, and altogether contemn God, who strictly commands us to call upon Him in the day of our adversity, or else they seek counsel at the devil for that which they see they cannot obtain from God” (pp 555-6).
Here was preaching which, with God’s blessing, could sustain the hearts of His children in a time when the success of the Protestant movement in Scotland was still uncertain. But in 1560, exactly 450 years ago, there was clear evidence that God had indeed heard the prayers of His children and that the preaching of the Word had led to the collapse of the walls of Jericho. The Reformation had been successful; the mass had been abolished; Scotland was now firmly Protestant. The change in the national religion was prominently illustrated by one simple change in church furniture: the pulpit was now in a central position instead of the altar. The idolatrous mass had been removed and the preaching of the pure Word of God was now central to public worship. Preachers were few, but anyone listening to a sermon in a Scottish church could be sure that they were being shown the truth about the way to heaven; Scotland had received “the light of Christ’s gospel”.
God’s Church in Scotland has had many ups and downs since 1560. And it is again in a perilously weak condition. This weakness is exemplified by the proposed visit of the Pope in September, when he is expected to be entertained by the Queen in the Palace of Holyroodhouse. A visit from the Man of sin cannot, to put it mildly, be helpful to true religion at any time, but it is particularly inappropriate at this time, when the organisation of which he is the head is so much associated in the public mind with reports of sexual abuse, particularly of children – and especially when the Pope’s own handling of such allegations is being called into serious question.
Circumstances may be very different in Scotland today from what they were in the early sixteenth century; now there is no lack of education, for instance – though immorality is rife in all sections of society. But what does Scotland need today, when the walls of the Jericho of false religion and unbelief are so strong? Again the trumpets need to be blown outside the walls and the children of God to persevere in prayer, however much they may feel that God is turning away His face from their petitions. They need to bear in mind that an answer will result, not from the number or the earnestness of their prayers, though their prayers should be both many and earnest. They will be heard only for the sake of the great Intercessor who sits upon the throne in heaven. He is the Head of the Church and is to reign until all His enemies are made His footstool (Ps 110:1). Although to blow the gospel trumpet seems so foolish to most people today, the power of the Holy Spirit will yet make it effective in destroying the strongholds of Satan. Let us remember 1560.