3. John Knox and the Final Steps of Reformation
Rev D W B Somerset
(1.) A separate congregation. This brings us to John Knox and the congregation in St Andrews in 1547. There is no need to go over the history in detail. Cardinal Beaton was assassinated on 29 May 1546, and the assassins and others congregated in the Castle. Knox joined them in April 1547 and after six weeks was called to be their minister. This was the first regular Protestant congregation in Scotland and the first call to the ministry, and Knox, appropriately, was the first settled minister. There was the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Lord’s Supper, received in a sitting posture. The people from the town could come to the Castle for public worship, and on some occasions Knox preached in the town. So here we have full separation from the Church of Rome at last. Furthermore Knox, at least, never went back.
Knox’s opposition to Romanism was clearer even than Wishart’s. Thomas M’Crie, senior, gives an account of his first public sermon in St Andrews, on Daniel 7:24-25: “After an introduction, in which he explained the vision, and showed that the four empires, emblematically represented by four different animals, were the Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman, out of the ruins of the last of which empires, the power described in his text arose, he proceeded to show that this was applicable to no other power but that of the degenerate Romish Church. He compared the parallel passages in the New Testament, and showed that the king mentioned in his text was the same elsewhere called the man of sin, the Antichrist, the Babylonian harlot; and that this did not mean any single person, but a body or multitude of people under a wicked head, including a succession of persons, occupying the same station. In support of his assertion that the papal power was antichristian, he described it under the three heads of life, doctrine, and laws.
“He depicted the lives of the popes from ecclesiastical history, contrasted their doctrine with that of the New Testament, particularly in the article of justification, and their laws enjoining holy days, abstinence from meats, from marriage etc, with the laws of Christ. He quoted from the canon law the blasphemous titles and prerogatives ascribed to the Pope, as an additional proof that he was described in his text. In conclusion, he signified that if any present thought that he had misquoted, or misinterpreted the testimonies which
1The last part of a paper presented at the 2010 Theological Conference. The previous article provided a historical survey of the pre-Reformation period
he had produced from the Scriptures, history, or writings of the doctors of the Church, he was ready upon their coming to him, in the presence of witnesses, to give them satisfaction. There were among the audience, his former preceptor, Major, the members of the university, the sub-prior of the abbey, and a great number of canons and friars of different orders.
“This sermon, delivered with a great portion of that popular eloquence for which Knox was afterwards so celebrated, made great noise, and excited much speculation among all classes. The former Reformed preachers, not excepting Wishart, had contented themselves with refuting some of the grosser errors of the established religion. Knox struck at the root of popery, by boldly pronouncing the Pope to be Antichrist, and the whole system erroneous and antisciptural. The comment of the people of St Andrews was that previous Reformers has ‘only sned the branches of Papistry; he struck boldly at the root to destroy the whole.’”
At the same time, Knox engaged in public debates with John Annand and Friar Arbuckle. In these, Knox maintained nine points, amongst which were the following: “(1) No mortal man can be head of the Church; (2) The Pope is an Antichrist, and so no member of Christ’s mystical body; (5) The mass is abominable idolatry; (6) There is no purgatory; (7) Praying for the dead is vain, and to the dead is idolatry”. Here again, we have a complete rejection of Romanism.
Knox’s ministry in the Castle was brief because the Castle surrendered to the French on 31 July 1547. Knox was captured and put to work as a galley slave.
(2.) The Mass identified as idolatrous. The next significant event was Knox’s speech in Newcastle on 4 April 1550 “to give his confession why he affirmed the mass idolatry”. This was first published in 1556 and is discussed at some length by Peter Lorimer in John Knox and the Church of England (published in 1875). Lorimer compares Knox’s arguments with Cranmer’s Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament which was published in July 1550, just a few months after Knox’s dispute. He notes that Knox’s position is essentially Puritan (and indeed he claims Knox as the founder of Puritanism) in that, for Knox, idolatry is whatever is not commanded by God. Cranmer, on the other hand, takes a more restricted and “Anglican” view, though they both agree that the mass is idolatry. To quote the Thirty-first article: “The sacrifices of the masses, in the which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.” This particular dispute continued after the Reformation with the publication in 1563 of Knox’s “reasonings” with Quintin Kennedy, the Abbot of Crossraguel.
(3.) Knox’s preaching tour of 1555-56. The next step was Knox’s preaching
tour in Scotland from September 1555 to June 1556. Apart from the fact that numerous important people were converted or strengthened, such as the (later) Regent Moray, the Earl of Argyle and other nobles, the tour was also significant because Knox urged that Protestants should separate themselves entirely from the mass. He particularly mentions a meal at the House of Dun, where John Erskine, John Willock, Maitland of Lethington and others were present, at which this point was argued. Up till that time many had assembled privately in “privy kirks” but had also continued to attend mass. Knox argued from Scripture that this attendance at mass must stop, and evidently argued with great effect. He also administered the Lord’s Supper wherever he went. Thus there was now a separate Protestant Church in numerous parts of Scotland.
(4.) Band against Romanism. The next step was to draw up various “bands” or covenants against Romanism, the first one being taken by some of the nobility in 1557. In this band, they recognise “the Antichrist of their time” and they “forsake and renounce the congregation of Satan” and join themselves to the congregation of God. Similar bands were taken in 1559. Priests joining the Congregation were required to make similar renunciations. In one, they “renounce all idolatry, superstition, the mass, the Pope and all his traditions; and profess the administration of the sacraments, as they are taught and practised by the ministers, to be conformed to God’s Word”. In another, “they heartily renounce the Pope, who is the very Antichrist and suppressor of God’s glory, with all diabolic inventions such as purgatory, the mass, invocations of saints . . . worshipping of images, etc”. Thus, joining the Congregation involved separating from Romanism.
(5.) Reforming the worship in towns. The next step was the reforming of towns, so that, with the approval of the magistrates, the public worship in the town became Protestant. At the same time, the friaries were demolished so that the celebrating of mass was more difficult. This had happened in Dundee, Edinburgh (though undone), St Andrews, Perth, Brechin, Montrose, Stirling, Ayr and Aberdeen by the beginning of 1560. Furthermore, several of these towns had ministers, and even Kirk Sessions. In other smaller places it appears that the priest/minister simply started using the Church of England Prayer-book and the Book of Homilies.
(6.) The Reformation of 1560. The final step was the Reformation itself, in the summer of 1560, with the casting off of the authority of the Pope, and the outlawing of the mass. It is remarkable how completely the Church of Rome collapsed in Scotland. There was no organised resistance to the Reformation; no blood was shed after the Treaty of Edinburgh in July 1560; there were no “martyrs”; there were pockets where the mass carried on, but that
was all; and the country became Protestant. The copestone was the adoption of the Scots Confession in August 1560. In this, though the Pope was not expressly declared to be the Antichrist, yet all important Roman errors were rejected. In particular, the sacraments of Rome were to be avoided at all costs:
“We flee the doctrine of the Papistical Kirk, in participation of their sacraments, first, because their ministers are no ministers of Christ Jesus; yea (which is more horrible) they suffer women, whom the Holy Ghost will not suffer to teach in the congregation, to baptize. And, secondly, because they have so adulterated, both the one sacrament and the other, with their own inventions, that no part of Christ’s action abideth in the original purity; for oil, salt, spittle and suchlike in baptism, are but men’s inventions; adoration, veneration, bearing through streets and towns, and keeping of bread in boxes or buists [chests], are profanation of Christ’s Sacraments, and no use of the same: for Christ Jesus said, ‘Take, eat, etc; do ye this in remembrance of Me’. By which words and charge He sanctified bread and wine to be the sacrament of His body and blood; to the end, that the one should be eaten, and that all should drink of the other; and not that they should be kept to be worshipped and honoured as God, as the blind Papists have done heretofore, who also have committed sacrilege, stealing from the people the one part of the sacrament, to wit, the blessed cup.
“Moreover, that the sacraments be rightly used, it is required that the end and cause why the sacraments were instituted be understood and observed, as well of the minister as of the receivers; for if the opinion be changed in the receiver [that is, if the receiver be in error], the right use ceaseth; which is most evident by the rejection of the sacrifices (as also if the teacher teach false doctrine) which were odious and abominable unto God (albeit they were His own ordinances), because that wicked men use them to another end than God hath ordained. The same affirm we of the sacraments in the Papistical Kirk, in which we affirm the whole action of the Lord Jesus to be adulterated, as well in the external form, as in the end and opinion. What Christ Jesus did, and commanded to be done, is evident by the three Evangelists and by Saint Paul. What the priest does at his altar we need not to rehearse. The end and cause of Christ’s institution, and why the self-same should be used, is expressed in these words, ‘Do this in remembrance of Me. As oft as ye shall eat of this bread and drink of this cup, ye shall show forth (that is, extol, preach and magnify), the Lord’s death till He come.’
“But to what end, and in what opinion, the priests say their masses, let the words of the same, their own doctors and writings witness, to wit, that they, as mediators betwixt Christ and His Kirk, do offer unto God the Father a sacrifice propitiatory for the sins of the quick and the dead. Which doctrine,
as blasphemous to Christ Jesus, and making derogation to the sufficiency of His only sacrifice, once offered for purgation of all those that shall be sanctified, we utterly abhor, detest and renounce.”
The Book of Common Order of 1564 contains a prayer (going back to Bucer and Calvin) which identifies the Pope as the Antichrist, praying for deliverance from “the furious uproars of that Romish idol, enemy to Thy Christ (Latin version: Antichrist)”. This prayer was included in Carswell’s Gaelic translation of 1567 so that the first printed book in Gaelic declares the Papacy to be the Antichrist.
This view of Romanism continued to be the position of the Church of Scotland. The mass was considered so dangerous that it was illegal, and the Pope was frequently identified as the Antichrist. For instance, in a letter sent by the General Assembly to England in 1566 – pleading, unsuccessfully, with the English Bishops to deal gently with the early Puritans – the English Bishops are referred to as those “who has renounced the Roman Antichrist”.
In conclusion, the Scottish Reformers had a fairly uniform view of Romanism and the Papacy, but a developing idea of how they should respond to the evils of Romanism. The preaching tours of George Wishart in 1544-45 and John Knox in 1555-56 were of great significance in the development of the Protestant response. The astonishing thing about 1560 is that the Protestants, in separating from the Church of Rome, took the whole Church in Scotland with them.