History of the Reformation and Reformed Churches — Unit 5: John Knox and the Scottish Reformation

Key Verse

"We ought to obey God rather than men." (Acts 5:29, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Describe the early Scottish martyrs and the life of John Knox up to his return to Scotland in 1559.

2. Explain how the Reformation of 1560 was achieved and what the Scottish Parliament decided.

3. Describe the Scots Confession of 1560 and the First Book of Discipline.

4. Explain how the Church of Scotland came to be governed by kirk sessions, presbyteries, synods and the General Assembly, and name Andrew Melville's part.

5. State the main criticisms of Knox, including his book against rule by women and his quarrels with Mary, Queen of Scots, and give the Reformed answer.

The Voice of This Course

This unit is written from inside the Reformed tradition for Reformed students. The Church of Scotland is the mother of the Presbyterian family, and many of the churches you know trace their form of government to it. We honor Knox and his fellow reformers. We also describe Knox honestly, as a courageous and sometimes severe man whose words and acts we cannot all defend. Where historians criticize him, we state their view fairly and answer from Scripture.

Scotland Before the Reformation

In the early sixteenth century the Church in Scotland was rich and powerful. A large part of the land belonged to bishops and abbeys. Many church offices were given to the sons of nobles who did not live as pastors, and many parish priests were poorly taught. These abuses were not the only reason for reform. Many Scots, as elsewhere in Europe, wanted to hear the gospel in their own language and to read the Bible for themselves.

Evangelical ideas reached Scotland in the 1520s through books and students who had been abroad. The authorities punished them severely. In 1528 Patrick Hamilton, a young nobleman and scholar who had taught Luther's doctrine of justification by faith, was burned at St Andrews. In 1546 the preacher George Wishart, who had been influenced by the Swiss Reformed teaching, was also burned there. Each death made the cause better known. Later in 1546 a group of Protestant men killed Cardinal David Beaton, the church leader who had overseen Wishart's trial. We do not defend that murder. The gospel is not advanced by assassination (2 Corinthians 10:4).

The Making of John Knox

John Knox was born around 1514 in the area of Haddington, east of Edinburgh. The exact year is uncertain. He was trained as a priest and worked as a notary and as a tutor to the sons of local gentlemen. He became a follower of George Wishart and even carried a sword to guard him during Wishart's preaching tours. Wishart told him to go back to his pupils, and soon afterwards Wishart was arrested and executed.

After Wishart's death, the men who had killed Beaton took the castle of St Andrews. In 1547 Knox joined them with his pupils. The congregation there called him to be their preacher. He accepted, with tears, it is said, and began to preach with great force. In that year a French fleet, sent to help the Scottish government, took the castle. Knox was captured and spent nearly two years as a galley slave in French ships. This suffering shaped him. He was freed in 1549 through the work of the English government.

Knox then served in England under Edward VI, where he preached in Berwick and Newcastle and was made one of the king's chaplains. He was consulted on the revision of the English Prayer Book and declined the offer of a bishop's office. When Mary Tudor, a Catholic, became queen in 1553, he fled to the Continent. He pastored an English-speaking exile congregation, first at Frankfurt and then at Geneva. In Geneva he met Calvin and learned from the Genevan church.

The Book Against Women Rulers

In 1558 Knox published, from his exile, a pamphlet entitled The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. Its subject was not the role of women in the church but the rule of women over nations. Knox wrote against Mary Tudor in England and Mary of Guise, the regent in Scotland, and held that rule by a woman was contrary to Scripture and to nature. The book was published at the worst possible time for him. Elizabeth, a Protestant, became queen of England in the same year, and she was offended by the pamphlet. Knox afterwards wrote to Elizabeth to explain himself, but he never withdrew his arguments entirely.

This book raises a fair question for historians and for us, and we state it as it is asked. Critics say that Knox's argument was a harsh and foolish attack on women that damaged the Protestant cause, and that it shows a narrow and bitter spirit. Defenders say that he was speaking in a time of persecution when two queens were harming his church, and that he was voicing the opinion of most men of his age, Catholic and Protestant. Our answer is that the Reformed faith does not rest on this book. The question of who may serve as a civil ruler is a different one from who may hold office in the church. Reformed churches have differed, then and now, about the civil question, and Course 4 will treat the question of church office fairly. We do not follow Knox's pamphlet. Our rule is Scripture, and we judge Knox by it.

The Reformation Achieved, 1559 to 1560

Knox returned to Scotland in May 1559 and preached at Perth against idolatry. His sermon was followed by an outbreak of image-breaking, and civil war began between the Protestant nobles, called the Lords of the Congregation, and the regent Mary of Guise, who was supported by French troops. The Protestants asked for help from England. English forces joined them, and in June 1560 Mary of Guise died. In July 1560 the Treaty of Edinburgh arranged for French and English troops to leave Scotland.

In August 1560 the Scottish Parliament, meeting without a monarch, took three great steps. It adopted a Protestant confession of faith, the Scots Confession. It abolished the authority of the Pope in Scotland. And it forbade the celebration of the Mass. Knox was made the minister of St Giles in Edinburgh, and he remained there to the end of his life.

Historians ask whether this was truly a popular movement or only a political change led by nobles who wished to seize church wealth and by foreign troops. This is a fair question. Some nobles did take church lands for themselves, and the political situation mattered a great deal. Our answer is that these things were true, but they are not the whole story. Years of preaching, Bible reading in the English or Scots language, and the courage of the martyrs had won many ordinary Scots to the gospel. The Parliament acted because there were many Protestants in the country, and in the years that followed the congregations took root. The Reformation in Scotland was both political and spiritual, but the church that lived on was built by the preaching of the Word.

The Scots Confession of 1560

The Parliament asked the Protestant ministers for a confession of faith, and it was prepared in a short time by a small group of ministers, including Knox. Tradition holds that six men, all named John, wrote it in four days. The Confession has twenty-five chapters. It teaches the Trinity, the person of Christ, election, the authority of Scripture, justification, the sacraments, and the duty of obedience to magistrates.

Several things mark it as Reformed. It teaches that the true church has three marks: the true preaching of the Word, the right administration of the sacraments, and the faithful use of discipline. It teaches that in the Lord's Supper Christ is truly given to believers by the Holy Spirit, who joins heaven and earth. And it sets Scripture above every council and tradition. In its preface the authors invite anyone who finds a statement contrary to God's Word to show them from Scripture, and they promise to correct it or to give an answer from the Word. A confession that invites correction by Scripture does not usurp Scripture. It serves it.

The First Book of Discipline and the Shape of the Kirk

At the same time, the ministers wrote the First Book of Discipline (1560), a plan for the church's order and life. It proposed that every congregation have a minister, elders and deacons chosen by the people. It proposed superintendents to oversee large districts while new ministers were trained. It proposed a school in every parish, so that the children might learn to read the Bible, and universities for higher training. It also called for the care of the poor by the church. Sadly, the plan was only partly carried out, because much of the old church's wealth had passed to the nobles and the crown. This shows the limits of the Reformation: faith can reform doctrine more quickly than it can reform greed.

In December 1560 the first General Assembly of the Church of Scotland met. The assemblies became the voice of the national church. A congregation was governed by its minister and its elders, who formed the kirk session, which is the Scottish word for the "church session." The Book of Common Order, a service book based on Knox's Genevan form of worship, was widely used in the Scottish churches. Worship centered on the preaching of the Bible and the singing of the Psalms.

Knox and Mary, Queen of Scots

In 1561 the young Mary, Queen of Scots, returned from France. She was a Catholic, and she had the Mass in her private chapel. Knox preached against it and met her several times in conversations that he recorded in his History of the Reformation in Scotland. In them he spoke boldly, and the queen was sometimes moved to tears. Mary's rule ended in 1567 when the nobles forced her to give up her throne to her infant son, James VI.

Critics say that Knox was rude and harsh toward a young woman and an anointed queen, and that he should have shown more respect. Others say that he was the only man in the kingdom who dared to speak to her about God's law. We think that both statements have some truth. Scripture commands that we give honor to rulers (1 Peter 2:17), and also that we tell the truth boldly. Knox sometimes did the second without enough of the first, as his own friends admitted. His example teaches courage, and it also teaches that a preacher must take care how he speaks. Even so, the key verse remains: when a ruler commands what God forbids, we ought to obey God.

Knox grew old and sick in the 1560s and died in Edinburgh on 24 November 1572.

Andrew Melville and the Presbyterian Pattern

The next generation completed the work. Andrew Melville, a scholar who had studied at Geneva, returned to Scotland in 1574 and became a leader of the church. Under his influence, the Second Book of Discipline (1578) set out the Presbyterian pattern more fully. It taught that Christ is the head of the church and that the church has its own government, separate from the civil magistrate. It described the offices of pastor, teacher, elder and deacon. It also provided for a presbytery, which is a regional court of ministers and elders, above the local session. Thus the structure of session, presbytery, synod and General Assembly came to Scotland. The kings of the next century often wanted bishops instead, and the struggle over this lasted through the seventeenth century. Unit 7 will tell part of that story.

Pastoral Application

A pastor in a small Presbyterian church is asked by a wealthy man in the town to stop preaching about honesty in business. The man gives generously to the church and hints that his gifts may stop.

The pastor feels the pressure and thinks of Knox. First, he prays and asks one of his elders to meet with him, because in the Presbyterian way a pastor does not carry such a decision alone. Second, he rereads the passage he was to preach, and sees that the text itself speaks of honesty. He cannot change what God has said (Acts 5:29). Third, he visits the man privately before the Sunday, with kindness. He tells him that he will preach the passage, that he is not aiming at him, and that he would like to hear his questions. Fourth, he learns from Knox's weakness as well as his strength: he refuses to be silent, but he does not speak with contempt. He trusts the session to support him.

Summary

Scotland's Reformation grew from the preaching of the Word and the witness of martyrs such as Patrick Hamilton (1528) and George Wishart (1546). John Knox, after being a galley slave, a chaplain in England and a pastor in Geneva, returned in 1559 and led the Protestant cause with the Lords of the Congregation. The Treaty of Edinburgh in July 1560 ended the foreign armies, and the Parliament of August 1560 adopted the Scots Confession, abolished the Pope's authority and forbade the Mass. The First Book of Discipline planned ministers, elders, deacons, schools and care for the poor. Andrew Melville and the Second Book of Discipline (1578) established the Presbyterian pattern of sessions, presbyteries, synods and assemblies. Critics fault Knox for his book against women rulers and his harshness with Mary, Queen of Scots, and some say the Reformation was only political. We answer that the Reformation was built on preaching, that we do not follow Knox's pamphlet, and that Scripture alone is our rule.

Further Reading

• The Scots Confession (1560), a primary source.

• John Knox, History of the Reformation in Scotland, a primary source.

• The First Book of Discipline (1560) and the Second Book of Discipline (1578).

• The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), for the later standard of Scottish Presbyterians.

• John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, chapter 20 (Beveridge translation, 1845), on civil government.

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