The few quiet years which Knox and his fellow-exiles passed at Geneva were to be richly blessed to themselves and to their fatherland. He, at least, had not gone there to have his views of Christian doctrine or church order formed or materially changed. He went to see the pure reformed faith (which he and Calvin in common believed, and independently had drawn from the Holy Scriptures and from the writings of the great doctor of the ancient church) exhibiting its benign influence in quickening to higher life, and moulding into a united community the volatile citizens of Geneva. He came to have his wearied spirit revived and refreshed by communion with devoted Christian brethren; and, by witnessing the success of their labours, to be nerved for further achievements in the service of their common Lord and for the good of his native land.
Genevan Benefits.
It was there that Puritanism was organised as a distinct school, if not also as a distinct party, in the church. If it had done nothing more than what it was honoured to do in the few peaceful years our fathers were permitted to spend in that much loved city by the bright blue waters of the Leman Lake, it would have done not a little for which the church and the world would have had cause to be grateful to it still. There were first clearly proclaimed in our native language those principles of constitutional government, and the limited authority of the "upper powers," which are now universally accepted by the Anglo-Saxon race. There was first deliberately adopted and resolutely put in practice among British Christians a form of church constitution which eliminated sacerdotalism, and taught the members of the church their true dignity and responsibility as priests to God and witnesses for Christ in the world. There was first used that Book of Common Order which was long to be the directory for public worship in the fully reformed Church of Scotland, and whose simple rites Bishop Grindal was forced to own, in his controversy with the English Puritans, he could not reprove. There was nearly completed, after the model of the French version, the English Metrical Psalter. There was planned and executed a translation of the Scriptures into our mother tongue, which for nearly half a century continued to hold its place alongside of others executed at greater leisure and more favoured by authority.[92] That was how our reformer and his tireless associates occupied themselves when left freely to follow their own bent. That was how he was ultimately prepared for the great work he was to accomplish in his native country when finally invited to return to it.
Immediately after the accession of Elizabeth to the English throne in the autumn of 1558,[93] the English exiles on the Continent began to break up their congregations and return to their native land. Those at Geneva were among the first who commenced to do so; but those of them who had been occupying themselves in that translation of the Bible into English which was to prove such a blessing to their countrymen decided to remain where they were until they had finished that work.[94] Those who returned were at first favourably received by the queen and her advisers, and taken into service in the reconstituted church; but when it was found that they were generally averse to comply fully with the ceremonies which she fostered, a change took place.
Returns to Scotland.
Knox, who does not seem to have been one of the translators, appears to have left Geneva among the earliest. In February 1558-59 we find that he had gone to Dieppe, whence, while assisting in the French Protestant services, he sent a request to Cecil for leave to pass through England on his way to Scotland, and to converse with him on some matters which deeply concerned the welfare of the Protestants in both realms.[95] But his 'First Blast of the Trumpet' was an insult which Elizabeth could not brook, and so, after waiting in vain for the desired permission for a reasonable time, he set sail from Dieppe for Scotland, and arrived in Edinburgh on the 2nd of May 1559, much to the consternation of the popish council then assembled in the city. It dissolved forthwith; but care was taken to get Knox's name, as that of an already condemned heretic, added to the list of Protestant preachers then under summons to appear before the queen regent and her council to answer for their persistence in preaching.[96] Knox at once resolved to throw in his lot with his brethren, and went north to Dundee where the zealous Protestants of Fife, Angus, and Mearns were already assembling, determined to make common cause with their preachers, and to go forward in peaceful form to Stirling in order that they might do so, and leave the queen and her council in no doubt as to the position which they were henceforth to occupy towards her and them. They accordingly marched forward from Dundee to Perth, and sent on Erskine of Dun to Stirling to apprise the queen and council of their attitude and intentions. It is said that she promised Erskine that the prosecution of the preachers would be abandoned, but they were condemned in absence and outlawed, and the breach between the two parties thus became irrevocable. Nothing remained for the queen, from her point of view, but to prosecute the matter to the bitter end, if thereby she might succeed in silencing and repressing the Protestants.
After the regent's falsehood to Erskine and persistence in her fatal policy, the reformers proceeded at once to set about such reform as they desired, and commenced rather roughly at Perth, where they had the majority of the population in Preaches in St Andrews. their favour. Knox, along with Moray, went to Fife as soon after as it became apparent that forcible measures must be taken to secure toleration for the Protestants. After a few brief visits to other towns he presented himself at the public preaching-place in St Andrews. Modern historians will not allow us to say that it was in that city that he had received his university training, or had first listened to the preaching of the reformed doctrines, or been brought to a personal knowledge of the truth; but they leave untouched, as previously stated, the more important facts that it was there, when in charge of his pupils at the university, that he had first ventured at the hazard of his life openly to make known to others that which had been blessed of God to the quickening of his own soul, and publicly to exert in the cause of the Reformation those rare gifts of telling argument and persuasive speech which were destined so signally to contribute to its ultimate and permanent triumph throughout the land. It was there, probably in the old parish church, that he had been first solemnly called to the ministry of the Word in the reformed church; and there, in the chapel of the old and now ruined castle, that he had first celebrated the Lord's Supper with the same purity and simplicity with which it was afterwards observed in the fully reformed Church of Scotland.[97] Even in exile and working as a slave in the galleys his heart had turned with special pleasure to the scene of his first labours, and he had cherished the confident expectation that God would again bring him to the place where he had first opened his mouth, and permit him again to preach from its pulpit the precious truths of His Holy Word.[98]
This expectation he believed that God had then fulfilled, and neither the threats of adversaries could make him quail from his purpose, nor the counsels of timid friends move him to let slip the opportunity which he believed God had then given him of bearing full and faithful testimony to the truth of God in that important city.[99] He therefore boldly proclaimed before the dignitaries of the church, the doctors of the university,[100] and The Victory. the magistrates of the burgh, as well as before more humble citizens, that doctrine of the grace of God which had long been his own solace and support, and was then being more generally recognised and embraced by his countrymen. Having thus seized the opportunity and improved it to the utmost, his efforts were so abundantly blessed by God that the cause of truth and right finally triumphed there. The reformed worship was by general consent peaceably set up, and the authority of the archbishop was virtually ended in the very stronghold of his power. That which, with the divine blessing, the reformer's preaching then accomplished in St Andrews, was by the same or similar means effected in the chief cities of the kingdom, and throughout the greater part of the lowlands, almost within the compass of a single year. In fact, four months after his arrival, he could write to his friends: "Nothwithstanding the fevers have vexed me, ... yitt have I travelled through the most part of this realme where (all praise be to His blessed Majestie) men of all sorts and conditiouns embrace the Truthe.... We doe nothing but goe about Jericho, blowing with trumpets as God giveth strenth, hoping [for the] victorie by His power alone."[101] The reformer's expectation of victory, and of victory by the persuasive means which Bishop Hooper affirmed were alone legitimate and in accord with Christ's will, was neither disappointed nor long deferred. The great body of the nation, with unexampled rapidity and unanimity, embraced the truth, and submitted to the discipline of their teacher, and under its salutary influence, as Stähelin in his 'Johannes Calvin' affirms, from being one of the rudest, most ignorant, indigent, and turbulent peoples, grew to be one of the most civilised, educated, prosperous, and upright which our family of nations can show.
Believing that we have no cause to be ashamed of the great revolution which was thus effected, or of aught which has legitimately followed from it, but that we need to have our pure minds stirred up by way of remembrance of the great things the Lord has done for us, I proceed to direct attention to the distinctive characteristics of the Scottish Reformation in respect of doctrine, worship, government, discipline, and church life, and the lessons which such a review should tend to rivet on the hearts of those who still hold fast its principles and long to see them more fully carried out.