Rev H M Cartwright
5. The method of his preaching. William Taylor records the well-known fact that “it was his habit to speak from a few notes which were made on the margin of his Bible, and which remained the sole written memoranda of his discourse. . . . Yet [his sermons] were as carefully premeditated as if they had been written. . . . He prepared with care . . . and remembered with accuracy. He did not speak extemporaneously, in the sense of never having thought upon his subject until he was required to speak, but he had fixed beforehand his line of thought, and there is reason to believe also, in many cases, the very words in which he had determined to express himself. Yet, though he premeditated very carefully, he was able also to introduce what was given to him at the moment.”
Depending on the Spirit as he did, Knox, in his thorough preparation for preaching, drew on his knowledge of the Biblical languages and of the theological writers of ancient and modern times and used the commentaries available to him. Though he was by his circumstances a man of action, he was very much a diligent student. Taylor draws attention to one of his letters in which “he describes himself as ‘sitting at his books’ and contemplating
1This is the final section of a paper presented to the Theological Conference in 2010. The second part, on the content of Knox’s preaching, appeared in last month’s issue.
Matthew’s Gospel by the help of ‘some most godly expositions, and among the rest Chrysostom'”.
It was his aim in his sermons to be an expositor and open up the mind of the Spirit in His Word. It seems that his sermons, which could sometimes last for over two hours, generally fell into two parts: the first, in which he carefully expounded the text in its original context; and the second, in which he applied the teaching to the hearers.
It was his custom, when opportunity afforded, to preach through books of the Bible, or extended sections of them, in series of sermons. We first find him as a tutor going through the Gospel of John with his pupils and interested hearers. At other times he is working his way through Daniel or Haggai. Provision was made in The First Book of Discipline for “the plain reading and interpretation of the Scripture” in the parish churches, so that “by frequent reading, this gross ignorance which in this cursed Papistry hath overflowed all, may partly be removed. We think it most expedient that the Scripture be read in order: that is, that some one book of the Old or New Testament be begun and orderly read to the end. And the same we judge of preaching where the minister for the most part remains in one place. For this skipping and divagation from place to place of Scripture, be it in reading or be it in preaching, we judge not so profitable to edify the Kirk as the continual following of one text.” Such a method was considered desirable among a people who might not have access to the Scriptures otherwise.
A F Mitchell draws attention to the insistence of The Book of Common Order that “even the ordinary ministers of the church must all be well qualified to preach the gospel of salvation, as many of the common people were unable to read, and could only be saturated with its teaching by the living voice of the preacher”. Although hearers today can read and there is much instructive literature available, we should not underestimate the extent to which many are dependent upon the pulpit for their understanding of the truth.
However, he frequently preached from occasional texts to which he was directed as appropriate for particular times and places. These he approached in the same way, seeking carefully to unfold the mind of the Spirit and to bring it home to the minds and consciences of the hearers so as to affect their experience and conduct. He did not take passages out of the context in which they were set and apply them to dissimilar situations. He brought out the meaning of the text in its original setting and then took care, as Taylor puts it, “to establish the parallelism between the original case referred to by the sacred writer and that to which he applied it”. It was then that “he set himself to enforce its practical bearing on the circumstances of his hearers and his times”. He was always the expositor of the Word of God.
His style was plain and to the point, Taylor attributes to him the first recorded use of the common expressions, calling “a fig a fig”, and “a spade a spade”, and records his own saying that “from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other inspired writers, he had learned, plainly and boldly, to call wickedness by its own terms”.
6. The manner of his preaching. Everyone is acquainted with the teenage James Melville’s description of John Knox preaching in St Andrews in 1571. In English it reads: “I heard him teach there the prophecies of Daniel that summer and the winter following. I had my pen and my little book, and took away such things as I could comprehend. In the opening up of his text he was moderate the space of half an hour; but when he entered to application he made me so [thrill] and tremble, that I could not hold a pen to write. He was very weak. I saw him, every day of his doctrine, go slowly and warily, with a furring of matricks about his neck, a staff in one hand, and good, godly Richard Ballantyne, his servant holding up the other oxter, from the abbey to the parish kirk and, by the same Richard and another servant, lifted up to the pulpit, where he behoved to lean at his first entry; but ere he had done with his sermon he was so active and vigorous that he was like to ding the pulpit in blads [beat the pulpit in pieces] and fly out of it.”
William Taylor suggests that the pulpit “was the glass which focused all his powers into a point and quickened them into an intensity which kindled everything it touched. It brightened his intellect, enlivened his imagination, clarified his judgement, inflamed his courage, and gave fiery energy to his utterances. . . . There, over and above the fervid animation which he had in such large measure, and the glow of enthusiasm which fills the soul of the orator as he addresses an audience, he had the feeling that he was called of God to be faithful, and that lifted him entirely out of himself. He spoke because he could not but speak, and his words went in to men, Like these modern missiles which burst within the wounds which they have made, so his words exploded within the hearts of those who received them and set them on fire with convictions that flamed forth in conduct. It was apparently impossible for anyone to listen to him without being moved either to antagonism or to agreement, or – for he could be tender also – to tears.”
Knox exemplified the counsel which he gave from his deathbed to his successor Lawson: “My dearest brother Lawson, fight the good fight of faith, and do the work of the Lord joyfully and resolutely”. As M’Crie puts it, “his ministerial functions were discharged with the greatest assiduity, fidelity and fervour. No avocation or infirmity prevented him from appearing in the pulpit. Preaching was the employment in which he delighted, and for which he was qualified by an extensive acquaintance with the Scriptures and
by the happy art of applying them in the most striking manner to the existing circumstances of the Church and of his hearers. His powers of alarming the conscience and arousing the passions have been frequently celebrated, but he excelled also in unfolding the consolations of the gospel and in calming the breasts of those who were agitated by a sense of guilt or suffering under the ordinary afflictions of life. When he discoursed of the griefs and joys, the conflicts and triumphs, of genuine Christians, he described what he had himself known and experienced.”
The vehemence of his preaching when exposing and condemning sin did not arise from self-righteous satisfaction with himself but from the acquaintance he had with sin in himself. In a letter to Mrs Bowes he wrote: “Albeit I never lack the presence and plain image of my own wretched infirmity, yet seeing sin so manifestly abound in all estate, I am compelled to thunder out the threatenings of God against the obstinate rebels, on doing whereof (albeit as God knoweth I am no malicious nor obstinate sinner) I sometimes am wounded, knowing myself criminal and guilty in many, yea in all (malicious obstinacy laid aside) things that in others I reprehend. . . . I am worse than my pen can express. . . . There is no vice repugnant to God’s holy will, expressed in His law, wherewith my heart is not infected.” His vehemence in denouncing sin was that of a man who knew and repented daily of sin in his own heart and life.
It appears that Knox forgot himself in his message, or his message took such possession of him that it affected the manner of his preaching. Taylor uses the expression “sermon-possessed” and suggests that when a man is possessed by what he is saying, as Knox so obviously was, “without any consciousness on his part of what he is doing, it speaks through him – that is, not through his words only, but through his entire personality – and bears him along as with an overflowing flood”.
Knox preached in dependence upon the Holy Spirit. He said himself of these days that “God gave His Holy Spirit to simple men in great abundance”. John Calvin wrote to him in November 1559 expressing his pleasure and that of all the pious people to whom he gave the news, at hearing of the success which had crowned his labours in Scotland: “As we are astonished at such incredible progress in so brief a space of time, so we likewise give thanks to God, whose singular blessing is so signally displayed therein. This affords you ample matter for confidence for the future, and ought to animate you to overcome all opposition.” He adds a comment which shows how well acquainted he was with Knox: “As I am not ignorant how strenuous you are in stirring up other, and what abilities and energies God has endowed you with for going through with this task, I have deemed it superfluous to stimulate the
brethren”. Yet his natural talents would not have produced the results which followed his labours had they not been used by the Lord.
7. The outcome of his preaching. The outcome of his preaching was such as could only be accounted for by the fact that it came to the people of his generation as it did to the Thessalonians to whom Paul writes, not in word only, “but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance”.
While various factors contributed to the success of the Reformation in Scotland, it can be said with confidence that the establishing of a Church founded on the basis of the Bible, with preaching and practice governed by the Word of God, must be traced principally to the preaching of John Knox, and of others who declared the gospel which he proclaimed.
From the very beginning of his ministry, his preaching was blessed to the awakening and conversion of sinners and to the instruction and encouragement and motivating of the Lord’s people. The hunger for the preaching and the effect it had often amazed himself. In St Andrews in the early days, in exile on the continent and in England, during his temporary visits to Scotland and after he settled permanently here, it seems that the word of the Lord had free course and was glorified (2 Th 3:1).
He was very conscious that he was but the instrument raised up to help meet the need of souls awakened by God’s grace to seek the word at his mouth. On one of his temporary visits to Scotland he was amazed “to contemplate and behold the fervent thirst of our brethren, night and day sobbing and groaning for the bread of life . . . their fervency here doth so ravish me that I cannot but accuse and condemn my slothful coldness”. Perhaps we do not always realise sufficiently how much influence the pew has on the pulpit and how much the preacher owes to the yearnings which the Lord has created in the souls of some among the hearers.
Many were delivered from the darkness of their natural state, in which Rome had left them. The Reformation was not only the deliverance of the Scottish people and church from the shackles of Rome but the deliverance of many individual souls from their bondage to sin.
Often his preaching was used to rekindle the hope and courage of dispirited Protestants, as when the congregation had retreated before the forces of their enemies from Edinburgh to Stirling in dismay and despondency and he preached a sermon which rekindled their zeal and resolve. You remember the message which Randolph sent to Cecil in England in October 1561: “I assure you, the voice of one man is able in one hour to put more life in us than five hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears”.
Conclusion. It may be thought that what we have been saying about John Knox, about his content and method at least, is just what could be said about
the ideal entertained with regard to any gospel minister today. But it has to be said that, if these have been characteristics of the Reformed ministry in Scotland, hopefully even to the present time, the instrumentality of John Knox in bringing this about must be acknowledged. He it was in Scotland, instrumentally, who restored the pulpit to its place in the Church and the inspired and authoritative Word of God to its place in the pulpit, and restored the biblical idea of the gospel minister as a man whom God has separated and called by His grace and in whom God has been pleased to reveal His Son that he might go and preach Him wherever he is sent.
William Taylor claims that “there are traces of his influence as a preacher to be discovered in the discourses of his successors almost to the present day”.2 The characteristics of Scottish preaching in which Taylor saw the lasting influence of Knox were “its expository character, its vehemence of manner and its unflinching courage”.
Knox speaks to us down through the ages. One of the things he says to ministers is: “Let us be frequent in reading (which also over many despise), earnest in prayer, diligent in watching over the flock committed to our charge, and let our sobriety and temperate life shame the wicked and be example to the godly”.3
The nearer we get to the real man and preacher, John Knox, the more we realise just how searching and humbling looking in such a mirror can be.