Popish Calumny.
The vague charges of immorality brought against the reformer by those calumniators, ancient and modern, may be dismissed at once as nothing more than the stock-in-trade of hard-pressed controversialists in the sixteenth century. Had there been the slightest foundation for them, some of Knox's many opponents in Scotland—Ninian Winzet, or the Abbot of Crossraguel, or Tyrie the Jesuit, or Hamilton himself before he left the country—would not have scrupled openly to upbraid him with them. Neither would the culprits among the Protestant clergy and laity, whom at various times he subjected to so rigorous a discipline, have borne this patiently at his hands had he himself been a known offender. It was his character which gave him his influence both at home and abroad, both with friends and with foes, and could it have been successfully assailed, it would not have been left to two Jesuits in a foreign land to lead the assault after he was silenced in death.
Such, however, I hardly need to assure you was not the end of the restorer of a really holy church in Scotland, if aught of credit is to be given to the unanimous testimony of those who attended him during his last illness and witnessed its closing scene, though it may have been the end which Popish controversialists in the sixteenth century deemed meet for him—as well as for Luther and Calvin and many more of whom the world was not worthy—as it is in one of the foulest legends with which their successors in the nineteenth century think it fair to supplement the legends of their predecessors in the sixteenth. According to them Luther was the child of a demon, not figuratively but literally; Calvin was eaten up of worms, like Herod who slew the children of Bethlehem and was smitten by the judgment of God, because (though apparently in this they confound him with a later Herod) he affected divine honours. To mention such slanders, as the sceptical Bayle has said with special reference to the case of Knox, is all that is needed to refute them. They are the product of malignity so evident that it defeats itself. I know but one parallel to them in our literature, and it has the excuse that it has come down to us from the dark ages.[251] Some would persuade us that the time has come when we might afford to forget old controversies and to shake hands with our former antagonists, but such occurrences as these tend to show that such forgetfulness and affectation of cordiality is likely to be all on one side.
And now let me simply set over against these fables, in as abridged form as I can, the unvarnished statements of Bannatyne and Smeton, the latter of which was published in reply to Hamilton who first gave shape to these charges, and which hitherto has been deemed a conclusive refutation of them.[252]
His last Illness.
On the 10th of November, the day after he inducted Lawson as his colleague, he was seized with a violent cough and began to breathe with difficulty. Many, who desired ardently, if it were possible, to detain him a little longer here, advised him to call in the assistance of skilful physicians. He readily complied with their advice, though he felt that the end of his warfare was now nigh at hand. Next day he caused the wages of all his servants to be paid, and earnestly exhorted them all to be careful to lead holy and Christian lives. On the 13th, being obliged by the increase of his malady to leave off his ordinary course of reading in the Scriptures (for every day he had been wont to read some chapters of the Old and New Testaments, especially some of the Psalms and Gospels), he directed his wife and servant to read to him each day the 17th chapter of St John's Gospel, one or other of the chapters of St Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, and the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. On the 14th he rose early, apparently supposing it had been the Lord's day, and being asked why he did so when he was so ill, he replied that he had been meditating all night on the resurrection of the Lord (the subject which would have fallen to be treated next in order by him in his ministry), and that he was now prepared to ascend the pulpit to communicate to his brethren the consolation he had enjoyed in his own soul. Next day, though very sick, he prevailed on Durie, already mentioned, and another friend, Steward by name, to remain to dinner with him, ordered a hogshead of wine in his cellar to be pierced for them, and desired His Dying Exhortations. Steward to send for some of it as long as it lasted, for he should not tarry till it was done. Little is recorded of him for several days after this, but it was probably in this interval that he was visited by many of the chief of the nobility, including the Earl of Morton, so soon to be created regent,[253] and by many members of his congregation. All of these he "solidly exhorted" and comforted. On the 20th or 21st he gave orders that his coffin should be prepared. On the 22nd he sent for the ministers, elders, and deacons of the church, that he might give them his last counsels and take final farewell of them. In the brief but solemn address which he delivered to them he called God to witness, whom he served in the Gospel of His Son, that he had taught nothing but the pure and solid doctrine of the Gospel of the Son of God, and had never indulged his own private passions, or spoken from any hatred of the persons of those against whom he had denounced the heavy judgments of God. He exhorted them to persevere in the truth of the Gospel and in their allegiance to their young sovereign, and dismissed them with his solemn blessing. To Lawson and Lindsay, whom he asked to remain behind, he gave a last earnest message for his old friend Kirkaldy of Grange, the commandant of the castle, who had gone over to the party of the queen,[254] and whose soul, notwithstanding, he said, was dear to him—as being one of his congregation in the castle of St Andrews, and a sharer in his hard lot in France—so that he would not have it perish if by any means he could save it. "Go and tell him," he said, "that neither the craggy rock in which he miserably trusts, nor the carnal prudence of that man whom he regards as a demigod, nor the assistance of foreigners, as he falsely flatters himself, shall deliver them, but he shall be disgracefully dragged from his nest to punishment and hung on a gallows in the face of the sun, unless he speedily amend his life and betake himself to the mercy of God."
His Consolation.
On the 23rd the difficulty of his breathing had greatly increased, and he seems to have thought that his end was near at hand. To one of his most intimate friends who asked him if he felt great pain, he replied that that was not reckoned as pain by him which would be the end of many miseries and the beginning of perpetual joy. And soon after, apparently supposing his end was come, he repeated the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed, adding certain paraphrases of his own on each petition of the prayer and article of the creed to the great comfort of those who stood by; and then lifting up his hands to heaven he once more said, "Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." During the succeeding night he caused the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians to be read and re-read to him, and repeatedly said to himself, "O! how sweet and salutary consolation does the Lord provide for me in this chapter." The following day, about noon, he once more sat up in bed, but owing to his extreme weakness was not able to remain long in that posture. About three in the afternoon one of his eyes failed, and his tongue performed its office less readily than before. About six in the evening he again said to his wife, "Go, read where I cast my first anchor," referring to the instructions he had given on the 13th.[255]
When this had been done, he continued for some hours in troubled slumber. It is in this occurrence alone that there can be got the slightest foundation for the slanders which his traducers have circulated. And it is only necessary to quote the account given of it by those who witnessed it to show that it was as honourable to the dying confessor as the gross misrepresentation of it was dishonourable to his opponents. During these hours he uttered frequent sighs and groans, so that those who stood by could not doubt that he was contending with some grievous temptation. When he awoke they asked him what was the cause of his distress. He answered that in the course of his life he had had many contests with his spiritual adversary. Often he had been tempted to despair of God's mercy because of the greatness of his sins, often also tempted by the allurements of the world to forget his calling to endure hardness as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. But now the cunning adversary had assailed him in another form, and endeavoured to persuade him that he had merited heaven itself and a blessed immortality by the faithful discharge of the duties of his high office. "But blessed be God," exclaimed the dying reformer, "who hath brought seasonably to my mind those passages of Scripture by which I was enabled to quench the fiery dart, 'What hast thou, that thou hast not received?' 'By the grace of God I am what I am,' and 'Not I, but the grace of God in me' ... wherefore I give thanks to my God by Jesus Christ who has been pleased to grant me the victory. And I am firmly persuaded that ... in a short time, without any great bodily pain, and without any distress of mind, I shall exchange this mortal and miserable life for an immortal and blessed life through Jesus Christ."
His Peaceful Death.