THIS year, 1960, marks an anniversary of peculiar interest to Seventh-day Adventists. It is the four hundredth year of the Scottish Reformation, and is notable because many of the principles of religious liberty that are at stake in present world issues were fought out in Scotland in the days of John Knox. Sacerdotalism in many forms, the right to worship in forms according to conscience, the liberty to go to the state church or to stay away, to be married in one's own faith by one's own minister, et cetera—these were fought out with fierce determination in the remarkable little country north of the English border. In addition, those were the days when the old doctrine of the divine right of kings was fighting a savage but losing battle.
Three worth-while books have been written in this connection: (1) Plain Mr. Knox, by Elizabeth Whitley, published by Skeffington, London, 25/- ($3.50). (2) Tempest Over Scotland, by Norman E. Nygaard, published by Zondervan, $2.50; (3) The Story of the Scottish Reformation, by A. M. Renwick, published by Eerdmans, $1.25. This last is a paper-back and a masterpiece.
John Knox was a fearless and godly man. He faced a hopelessly corrupt Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, which involved him in conflict with prelates and royalty. Cardinal Beaton was notoriously corrupt, and the first of the above books refers to this cleric's "treasure, his wine, his women, and his seven acknowledged bastards." John Knox characteristically called him "his graceless Grace," and "the carnal Cardinal."
John Knox has been a much-maligned figure, just as Oliver Cromwell has been at the hands of Roman apologists, and largely for the same reason. Knox must be judged on the background of his dark and troubled times. He could not be cowed, nor could he be bought. He faced haughty royal women, and wrote his famous blast against the "Monstrous Regiment [rule] of Women," for which some have criticized him. But he thought at the time, that the Reformation, which was dearer than life to him, was just about defeated by Roman Catholic royalty, mainly women. Mary Tudor in England, and Mary of Guise, the mother of Mary Queen of Scots, in Scotland, to mention only two of his enemies, were formidable opponents. Mary Queen of Scots, trained in the most dissolute French court, also hated Protestantism, and she might well have killed it in Scotland but for one man—John Knox.
Neither Mary's furious anger nor her feminine tears moved the Reformer from his steadfast purpose.
"Who are you that presume to school the nobles and sovereign of this realm?" she sharply asked him.
"Madam, a subject born within the same!" he answered. Those were courageous words, and Mary snapped back: "Reasonably answered!"
Thomas Carlyle, in his Heroes and Hero Worship, made this comment on the Knox-Mary controversy: "The hapless Queen! But the still more hapless country, if she were made happy."
While John Knox was banished to servitude for nine months in the French galleys, it is said that "the scent of unwashed bodies was almost more than he could bear" (Dr. Nygaard's book above). They were filthy, lice-infested days, and when another prisoner vilified the cruel overseers, Knox commented: "Made in the image of God, nevertheless!"
When the same prisoner commented bitterly that he supposed God had some purpose in their present misfortunes, John remarked wryly: "You will become a convert to the teachings of Calvin!" Truly a man of indomitable spirit, who could cry to God in the darkest hour, "Give me Scotland, or I die!"
To read Knox's own History of the Reformation in Scotland, which is written in surprisingly racy style, is to find a book treasure, and to discover a great man in dark days.
Many who heard the fearless, challenging preaching of John Knox must have felt as did his first wife, who said when she first heard him preach, "It stirred me right down to my toes!"
Modern times surely need that kind of preaching!
H. W. Lowe
