Chapter 9 Other Reformers
John Knox
During the sixteenth century, Scotland was one of the poorest and most backward countries in Europe. Physically, the land was stubborn and yielded its fruit only after painstaking labor. Far to the north of most of Europe, Scotland seemed almost passed by during the centuries while Europe was coming to new life again. Nevertheless, this oft degraded country had a great part to play in the Reformation, and succeeded in supplying for that great movement one of the brightest stars in the person of John Knox.
Politically, Scotland's main importance was that it often became the center of Anglo-French rivalry, and even before the Reformation defined the distinctions that later became religious. Scottish leaders were always either noted as being pro-English or pro-French.
John Knox (1505-1572), was Scotland's most powerful political and religious leader for the last twelve years of his life. He is reputed to be the only man that Mary, Queen of Scots, feared.
Knox preached that Romish traditions and ceremonies should be abolished as well as "that tyranny which the pope himself has for so many ages exercised over the church" and that he should be acknowledged as "the very antichrist, and son of perdition, of whom Paul speaks."
In public challenge, Knox said, "As for your Roman Church, as it is now corrupted - I no more doubt but that it is the Synagogue of Satan; and the head thereof, called the Pope, to be that man of Sin of whom the Apostle speaketh."
Yet Knox got off to a relatively slow start, and while he didn't begin his preaching career in Scotland until after the age of 40, and suffered an apoplectic stroke nine years later from which he never fully recovered, his few short years guaranteed the freedom of Protestantism in Scotland, a victory which has unfortunately been given away by liberal and ecumenical Scottish churchmen in later years.
When Pope John Paul II visited Edinburgh in 1982, he was received by the leader of the supposedly Protestant Church of Scotland at the foot of the statue of John Knox, which, had it been given temporary life, would have undoubtedly kicked both pope and compromiser out of the church.
The beginning of Protestantism in Scotland can be traced to the 1520's. However, the first significant incident in the history of the Scottish Reformation was the death of the first Protestant martyr, the fiery evangelist George Wishart, who was burned at the stake at St. Andrews in 1546.
But first let us set the political stage for this drama. The ruler of Scotland in 1542 was James V. He and his wife, Mary of Guise, welcomed a daughter into the world, but James died a few days after her birth. She was named Mary and, as she was the rightful heir to the throne, she succeeded to the throne as an infant. During the years of her infancy Scotland was torn apart by the struggle for power between the chancellor David Cardinal Beaton and the Scottish lords, led by the Earl of Arran.
Beaton and Mary of Guise were pro-France, and the lords were sympathetic to the Reformation, even though they often quarreled with the Protestant pastors. Mary was only four years old when George Wishart was martyred; John Knox was 31 and recorded the trial and burning of the first Scottish Christian martyr.
The detail with which John Knox wrote of this incident shows the impact it must have had upon his life. One of Wishart's accusers is called "a monster", another, "a sow", and Knox pictured one of the accusers as a bear with frothing mouth as he calls Wishart "runagate, traitor and a thief."
One of the accusations was, "Thou false Heretic did say that a priest standing at the altar saying the Mass was like a fox wagging his tail in July."
Wishart answered that the figure of speech he used was that outward moving of the body without the inward moving of the heart is nothing less than the playing of an ape.
When challenged as to why he said there was no Purgatory, Wishart simply explained that he had searched in vain for the word in the Bible, and, not finding it, determined not to preach it, for, he said, "without the express witness and testimony of scripture I dare affirm nothing."
His last words challenged the people to "teach the bishops the Word of God." Some took this charge too literally, and breaking into the Castle of St. Andrews, they attacked the hated Cardinal Beaton. James Melville, described as "a man of nature most gentle and most modest," interrupted those who were striking at the Cardinal in anger, and, pointing his sword at Beaton, said, "Repent thee of thy former wicked life, but especially of the shedding of the blood of that notable instrument of God, Master George Wishart, which albeit the flame of fire consumed before men, yet cries it a vengeance upon thee, and we from God are sent to revenge it." Having further stated that death was his portion because of his enmity against God and His Gospel, the gentle Melville thrust him through with the sword and they threw his body out of the window.
Mary of Guise, who was the regent at this time, asked for assistance from France. The French fleet captured the Cardinal's castle which was still being held by the Protestants. Although Knox had not taken part in the Cardinal's death, he was in full accord with this deed, and was in the castle when the French fleet took it. As a result he was consigned to the galleys for a year as punishment. This year gave Knox much time to think, and the fact that his galley was called "The Virgin" did not increase his love for Romanism.
In 1548, Scotland signed a treaty with France, and one of the conditions was that Mary should be betrothed to the dauphin, Francis, heir to the throne of France. Although merely five years old at the time, Mary went to France and, ten years later, married Francis and and became Queen of France in 1559.
In 1549, the English government had obtained the release of Knox and his fellow-Protestants. They wanted Knox to head Protestantism in Scotland, but instead, he preached in Berwick, Newcastle and London, after which he made his way to the south parts of England, where he remained until the death of Edward VI. Then, at the ascension of Mary Tudor, he fled England.
Eventually he found his way to Geneva where he studied extensively in the school of Calvin. In Geneva Knox wrote his treatise First Blast Of The Trumpet Against The Monstrous Regimen Of Women, an unkind reference to the two Marys, Mother and Daughter, who held sway in Scotland. Knox insisted that people are justified in rebelling against a godless government.
He remained in private study for some time, and then was called to minister to an English congregation in Frankfurt. He returned temporarily to Scotland in 1557, but had to leave again because of the tremendous opposition.
Queen Elizabeth's coronation in 1558 enabled John Knox to return to Scotland. In Perth in May 1559, he preached a sermon which stirred up sectarian strife in Scotland once again. The Protestants appealed to Queen Elizabeth for help, as they were no match for the well equipped Catholic French soldiers, and although Elizabeth did not agree with Knox's form of Christianity and had been insulted by Knox's tirade against women rulers, she felt it politically expedient to give the Protestant cause in Scotland some support. After all, as repugnant as the "thundering Scot", Knox, was, it was better that his form of Protestantism rule in Scotland than to have a land dominated by the French.
Within a month after his return to Scotland, John Knox addressed a statement to the Scottish lords, with a message that he desired them to bring to Mary of Guise, Queen Regent of Scotland. She, being a staunch Roman Catholic, opposed all Protestant reform in Scotland, but Knox warned her that she was fighting "not against man only, but against the eternal God and his invincible verity." He therefore exhorted her to desist from persecution and repent. Mary died shortly thereafter.
In less than a year, a group of Scottish nobles pledged themselves to earnestly work for the Reformation cause. In their statement at Leith on April 27, 1560 they agreed to stand "that the truth of God's Word may have free passage within this realm."
In July 1560, the Treaty of Edinburgh was signed, resulting in a Protestant confession of faith. Papal jurisdiction in Scotland was outlawed, and performance of the mass became idolatry.
The wording of the statement of the Protestant leaders requesting the establishment of the Reformed Faith did not beat around the bush. It said that the Church of Rome (the Roman Kirk) had "many pestiferous errors." Transubstantiation, Adoration of the Host, Justification by works, Indulgences and Purgatory were noted to be contrary to the Scriptures and therefore should be abolished. They maintained that the ancient truths of New Testament Christianity were completely lost in the worship of "that Roman harlot and her sworn vassals," and that there were few within the realm of Scotland who lived more immorally than the Roman Clergy.
They concluded their statement with a broadside against the very heart of Romanism, the Papacy. "That man of Sin often most falsely claims to himself the titles `The Vicar of Christ, the Successor of Peter, the Head of the Kirk; that he cannot err; that all power is granted unto him, etc.' and (thereby) the true ministers of God have been neglected."
In 1560, Mary's husband, Francis II of France, died, and the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici, ascended to the throne. Mary returned to Scotland in 1561 to find the Protestant cause well entrenched. Her mother, Mary of Guise, had reigned 1554 to 1560, and when she died in June 1560, the French position collapsed.
Scotland was being ruled by a coalition of Protestant lords, and Mary's unhappy marriage to Henry, Lord Darney, only made things worse. The public politics in Scotland were chaotic, and to add to the woe, Darney died under mysterious circumstances; one of the chief suspects being the Earl of Bothwell, whom Mary married three weeks after Darney's death.
Mary fled to England where she was placed under virtual house arrest by Elizabeth. The Protestant nobles wanted her killed, but Elizabeth resisted until a court ruled that Mary had been implicated in a plot against Elizabeth's life. She was beheaded at Fotheringhay, Feb. 8, 1587.
But the Reformation had taken hold in Scotland, and for the remainder of his years, John Knox guided the Kirk of Scotland. Presbyterianism had become the State Religion in 1560, and we see, in Scotland, a fierce and very definite repudiation of papal errors, and an establishment of a Reformed Faith which was to survive, unmolested, for several centuries. Recent ecumenism and modernism have taken their toll, but the true Kirk of Jesus Christ, guarded by His love, will continue to proclaim the truths of the Gospel even in times of great hardship and persecution.
John Knox suffered a great deal of privation and persecution for his stand for Christ, but today, even his enemies have little to say against him except that Priest Markoe listed his heresies in a grand little paragraph, "(he denied) the authority of the Pope, free-will, the Sacraments, purgatory, good works, and the forgiveness of sins" (meaning, of course, priestly absolution of sins).
Ulrich Zwingli
Ulrich Zwingli was born in 1484, and in his short life of less than 50 years, he made a tremendous impact on his native land, Switzerland.
In earlier years, although a Roman Catholic priest, he seemed more interested in humanism and political activity than in doctrinal matters. However, in 1522 he was converted to biblical Christianity and his first major stand was that the Bible was the sole rule of faith.
This did not endear him to the Catholics in Switzerland, and that began a nine-year battle, sometimes in debates but often on the battlefield, on which Zwingli himself was killed in battle, some say while serving as a chaplain to the Protestant troops, but, according to Hillerbrand in The Reformation, he lay dead on the field, in helmet and armor as a fighting soldier."
Zwingli presented 67 theses to the town council of Zurich, where they were accepted in 1523. The following year came the abolition of most peculiarly Roman Catholic doctrines, including the sacraments, celibacy, indulgences, veneration of images and good works for salvation. In the following year, the final heresy, the Sacrifice of the Mass, was abolished.
Some Christians today would have a difficult time accepting the martial beat of Zwingli's heart, but he was living in a day when the Church/State relationship had not been ironed out as it is today, and when it seemed the done thing for Christian States to go to war with Catholic States.
But while Christians may disagree with his political aspirations, his desire for sound doctrine was to be highly commended.
He did disagree with Luther on the Lord's Supper. Luther emphatically affirmed that Christ was bodily present in the elements, and Zwingli as emphatically denied this. After Zwingli's death, his followers reached an agreement with Calvin on the subject.
John Calvin
John Calvin was born in 1509, and probably was never ordained to the priesthood which made him unique among the early Reformers. In 1533 he declared himself to be a Protestant, and in 1536, at the age of 27, he published Institutes Of The Christian Religion.
One quarrel Roman Catholic theologian Richard McBrien seems to have with Calvinism is that, in his words, it "takes history out of human hands." Another was Calvin's teaching of predestination which comes under fire by McBrien because in it, "we can do nothing about our salvation."
Markoe mentions as a heresy the doctrine of predestination, and then adds the normal denials of any Reformer - good works, purgatory, the Sacraments and the forgiveness of sins.
In 1536 Calvin became a Protestant pastor, but two years later he was banished from Geneva. In 1541, Geneva begged Calvin to return.
Calvin was the first Protestant leader of Europe to gain partial church independence from the State.
His followers in France were called Hugenots (see Chapter 11), and in England were called Puritans.
