The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎623r] (136/239)

SCOTLAND AND JOHN KNOX.
105
We have no intention of palliating the more serious weak
nesses of character to which we have referred. Knox is too great
for an apology. His faults were the defects of his virtues; the
coarseness of language is closely allied to his robust sense of humour,
and is part of the vehemence of his whole character; the unfair
ness of word and deed, the sharp practice which we reluctantly
admit, is no less part of the man than the fire and enthusiasm
with which he championed his cause. It may be a contradiction
of character and temperament, but if so, it is a contradiction to
which there are many parallels in history. The evil is there ; but
it is not the main fact about the man. John Knox was not a
venal liar like George Buchanan; he was not open to the charge
of self-seeking like Cranmer; he was not mean like Lesley, or un
scrupulous as Thomas Cromwell or Elizabeth were unscrupulous.
Where shall we look for his equal among the men of his day?
There was none whose hands were cleaner than those of Knox;
none whose heart was so pure as his.
If Knox’s character has been but imperfectly realised, the work
he accomplished has also been misunderstood, though in less
degree. These misapprehensions are not only widespread in
England; they are also popularly current in Scotland, in spite of
the teaching of generations of learned professors of Church History.
It should scarcely be necessary to insist that Knox did not in
troduce Presbyterianism into Scotland, although that error is to
be found in at least one recent book. The machinery of Scottish
Presbyterianism was the work of Andrew Melville. More general
is the confusion between the sacramental doctrine of Knox and
that of English Puritanism, an error related to the still more
common confusion between Calvinism and Zwinglianism. When
Archbishop Laud made his foolish attempt to force his Liturgy
upon the Scottish people, strong suspicions of Popery were pro
duced by the language of the Communion Office—“ that our sinful
bodies may be made clean through His body, and our souls washed
through His most precious blood.” Bow, who more particularly
objected to these words, was not a typical Scottish Presbyterian,
but his language shows that some members of the Church had
even then travelled some distance from the Knoxian position.
It is difficult for the lay mind to discover any real difference be
tween the words just quoted and Knox’s own statement : “ that
we, being fed with His flesh and refreshit with His blood, may be
renewit both unto trew Godliness and to immortalitie.” Once
more, it is frequently said that the Scottish Beformation was a
protest against the power of the priesthood. In one sense this
is true, but the claims of the clergy of the Beformed Church were
not less dangerous to civil liberty and freedom of conscience than