The English Church, on the other hand, did not encourage doctrinal discussion, but simple faith in its articles, and obedience to its rubric.
JOHN KNOX’S HOUSE.
But—which we would hardly have expected from its complex system of faith, and its niceties in phraseology—the Presbyterian Kirk produced zeal and earnest devotedness in the Scottish people. Without ordination by a bishop, whose orders were presumed to have come in direct succession from the Apostles, the ministers were held in high reverence and esteem; without printed prayers its common members learned to pray. It had its army of martyrs; except amongst Puritan Nonconformists, the Scottish Covenanters have hardly their English representatives.
John Knox largely impressed the Reformed Church with his own individuality. No doubt he was rigid, and, to our modern ideas, narrow-minded and intolerant. He would not have accomplished the work he did if he had not himself thoroughly believed in it, as the greatest work which then needed to be done. He has been blamed for speaking harsh words to Queen Mary; but he had to speak what he felt to be stern truths, for which honied words could hardly fit themselves. Mary, accustomed to fascinate the eyes and sway the wills of all who approached her, demanded of Knox:—“Who are you who dare dictate to the sovereign and nobles of this realm?” “I am, Madam,” answered Knox, “a subject of this realm.” A subject, and therefore a co-partner in the realm; to the fullest extent of his knowledge and his capabilities responsible for its right government; just as the Hebrew prophets claimed a right to stand before their kings, and, not always in smooth words, to denounce sin and hypocrisy, oppression, and backslidings from the law of God.
JOHN KNOX’S PULPIT, ST. GILES’S.
(From the Scottish Antiquarian Museum.)
For supporting the introduction of bishops into the Presbyterian Church, as impairing the republican equality of its ministers, Knox had bitterly rebuked the Regent Morton. But when, in November, 1572, the Regent stood by the grave of the Reformer, it was in a choking voice that he pronounced the grand eulogium:—“There lies he, who never feared the face of man.”