Calvin had died in 1564, but the Genevan Church and Beza were still umpires, whose decision was eagerly sought, quibbled over, and disputed. The French Puritans, in fact, extremely detested the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Thus, in 1562, De la Vigne, a preacher at St. Lô, consulted Calvin about the excesses of certain Flemish brethren, who adhered to “a certain bobulary (bobulaire) of prayers, compiled, or brewed, in the days of Edward VI.” The Calvinists of St. Lô decided that these Flemings must not approach their holy table, and called our communion service “a disguised Mass.” The Synod (Calvinistic) of Poictiers decided that our Liturgy contains “impieties,” and that Satan was the real author of the work! There are saints’ days, “with epistles, lessons, or gospels, as under the papacy.” They have heard that the Prayer Book has been condemned by Geneva. [{260a}]
The English sufferers from our Satanic Prayer Book appealed to Geneva, and were answered by Beza (October 24, 1567). He observed, “Who are we to give any judgment of these things, which, as it seems to us, can be healed only by prayers and patience.” Geneva has not heard both sides, and does not pretend to judge. The English brethren complain that ministers are appointed “without any lawful consent of the Presbytery,” the English Church not being Presbyterian, and not intending to be. Beza hopes that it will become Presbyterian. He most dreads that any should “execute their ministry contrary to the will of her Majesty and the Bishops,” which is exactly what the seceders did. Beza then speaks out about the question of costume, which ought not to be forced on the ministers. But he does not think that the vestments justify schism. In other points the brethren should, in the long run, “give way to manifest violence,” and “live as private men.” “Other defilements” (kneeling, &c.) Beza hopes that the Queen and Bishops will remove. Men must “patiently bear with one another, and heartily obey the Queen’s Majesty and all their Bishops.” [{260b}]
As far as this epistle goes, Beza and his colleagues certainly do not advise the Puritan seceders to secede.
Bullinger and Gualterus in particular were outworn by the pertinacious English Puritans who visited them. One Sampson had, when in exile, made the life of Peter Martyr a burden to him by his “clamours,” doubts, and restless dissatisfaction. “England,” wrote Bullinger to Beza (March 15, 1567), “has many characters of this sort, who cannot be at rest, who can never be satisfied, and who have always something or other to complain about.” Bullinger and Gualterus “were unwilling to contend with these men like fencing-masters,” tired of their argufying; unable to “withdraw our entire confidence from the Bishops.” “If any others think of coming hither, let them know that they will come to no purpose.” [{261a}]
Knox may have been less unsympathetic, but his advice agreed with the advice of the Genevans. Some of the seceders were imprisoned; Cecil and the Queen’s commissioners encouraged others “to go and preach the Gospel in Scotland,” sending with them, as it seems, letters commendatory to the ruling men there. They went, but they were not long away. “They liked not that northern climate, but in May returned again,” and fell to their old practices. One of them reported that, at Dunbar, “he saw men going to the church, on Good Friday, barefooted and bare-kneed, and creeping to the cross!” “If this be so,” said Grindal, “the Church of Scotland will not be pure enough for our men.” [{261b}]
These English brethren, when in Scotland, consulted Knox on the dispute which they made a ground of schism. One brother, who was uncertain in his mind, visited Knox in Scotland at this time. The result appears in a letter to Knox from a seceder, written just after Queen Mary escaped from Lochleven in May 1568. The dubiously seceding brother “told the Bishop” (Grindal) “that you are flat against and condemn all our doings . . . whereupon the Church” (the seceders) “did excommunicate him”! He had reviled “the Church,” and they at once caught “the excommunicatory fever.” Meanwhile the earnestly seceding brother thought that he had won Knox to his side. But a letter from our Reformer proved his error, and the letter, as the brother writes, “is not in all points liked.” They would not “go back again to the wafer-cake and kneelings” (the Knoxian Black Rubric had been deleted from Elizabeth’s prayer book), “and to other knackles of Popery.”
In fact they obeyed Knox’s epistle to England of January 1559. “Mingle-mangle ministry, Popish order, and Popish apparel,” they will not bear. Knox’s arguments in favour of their conforming, for the time at all events, are quoted and refuted: “And also concerning Paul his purifying at Jerusalem.” The analogy of Paul’s conformity had been rejected by Knox, at the supper party with Lethington in 1556. He had “doubted whether either James’s commandment or Paul’s obedience proceeded from the Holy Ghost.” [{262a}] Yet now Knox had used the very same argument from Paul’s conformity which, in 1556, he had scouted! The Mass was not in question in 1568; still, if Paul was wrong (and he did get into peril from a mob!), how could Knox now bid the English brethren follow his example? [{262b}] (See pp. 65-67 supra.)
To be sure Mary was probably at large, when Knox wrote, with 4000 spears at her back. The Reformer may have rightly thought it an ill moment to irritate Elizabeth, or he may have grown milder than he was in 1559, and come into harmony with Bullinger. In February of the year of this correspondence he had written, “God comfort that dispersed little flock,” apparently the Puritans of his old Genevan congregation, now in England, and in trouble, “amongst whom I would be content to end my days. . . . ” [{263a}]
In January 1570, Knox, “with his one foot in the grave,” as he says, did not despair of seeing his desire upon his enemy. Moray was asking Elizabeth to hand over to him Queen Mary, giving hostages for the safety of her life. Moray sent his messenger to Cecil, on January 2, 1570, and Knox added a brief note. “If ye strike not at the root,” he said, “the branches that appear to be broken will bud again. . . . More days than one would not suffice to express what I think.” [{263b}] What he thought is obvious; “stone dead hath no fellow.” But Mary’s day of doom had not yet come; Moray was not to receive her as a prisoner, for the Regent was shot dead, in Linlithgow, on January 23, by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, to the unconcealed delight of his sister, for whom his death was opportune.
The assassin, Bothwellhaugh, in May 1568, had been pardoned for his partisanship of Mary, at Knox’s intercession. “Thy image, O Lord, did so clearly shine on that personage” (Moray)—he said in his public prayer at the Regent’s funeral [{263c}]—“that the devil, and the people to whom he is Prince, could not abide it.” We know too much of Moray to acquiesce, without reserve, in this eulogium.