It does not appear that there were any protestants in Dieppe when Knox first visited it. But he had now the satisfaction of officiating in a reformed church, recentlyplanted in that town. In the course of the year 1557, a travelling merchant from Geneva, named John Venable, had come to Dieppe, and by his conversation and the circulation of books, imparted the knowledge of the protestant doctrine to some of the inhabitants. At his request, they were visited by Delajonché, pastor at Rouen, who applied to the ministers of Geneva to furnish them with a preacher. They sent André de Sequeran, sieur d’Amont, who, having removed in the course of a few months, was succeeded by Delaporte, one of the pastors of the church of Rouen. Knox having come to Dieppe at this time, was chosen colleague to Delaporte; and under their ministry the Reformation was embraced by some of the principal persons of the town, and among the rest by M. de Bagueville, a descendant of Charles Martel.A surprising change was soon observed on the morals of the inhabitants, which had formerly been very dissolute; and the church at Dieppe continued long in a flourishing condition.[295]
Being disappointed in his expectation of letters from Scotland, Knox determined to relinquish his journey, and return to Geneva. This resolution doesnot accord with the usual firmness of our Reformer, and is not sufficiently accounted for in the common histories. The protestant nobles had not retracted their invitation; the discouraging letters which he had received, were written by individuals without any authority from the rest; and if their zeal and courage had begun to flag, his presence was the more necessary to recruit them. From the letters which he wrote to his familiar acquaintance, I am enabled to state the motives by which he was actuated in making this retrograde step. He was perfectly aware that a violent struggle must precede the establishment of the Reformation in his native country; he knew that his presence in Scotland would excite the rage of the clergy, who would make every effort to crush their adversaries, and to maintain the lucrative system of superstition; and he dreaded that civil discord, and tumult, and bloodshed, would ensue. The prospect of these things rushed into his mind, and (regardless of public tranquillity as some have pronounced him to be) staggered his resolution to prosecute an undertaking, which, in his judgment, was not only lawful, but laudable, and necessary. “When,” says he, “I heard such troubles as appeared in that realm, I began to dispute with myself as followeth: ‘Shall Christ, the author of peace, concord, and quietness, be preached where war is proclaimed, sedition engendered, and tumults appear to rise? Shall not his evangel be accused as the cause of all this calamity which is like to follow? What comfort canst thou have to see theone half of the people rise up against the other, yea, to jeopard the one to murder and destroy the other?But, above all, what joy shall it be to thy heart, to behold with thy eyes thy native country betrayed into the hands of strangers, which to no man’s judgment can be avoided; because that those who ought to defend it, and the liberty thereof, are so blind, dull, and obstinate, that they will not see their own destruction?’”[296] To “these and more deep cogitations,” which continued to distract his mind for several months after he returned to Geneva, he principally imputed his abandonment of the journey to Scotland. At the same time, he was convinced that they were not sufficient to justify his desisting from an undertaking recommended by so many powerful considerations. “But, alas!” says he, “as the wounded man, be he never so expert in physick or surgery, cannot suddenly mitigate his own pain and dolour, no more can I the fear and grief of my heart, although I am not ignorant of what is to be done. It may also be, that the doubts and cold writing of some brethren did augment my dolour, and somewhat discourage me that before was more nor feeble. But nothing do I so much accuse as myself.” Whatever were the secondary causes of this step, I cannot help again directing the reader’s attention to the wisdom of providence, in throwing impediments in his way, by which his return to Scotland was protracted to a period, before which it might have been injurious, and at which itwas calculated to be in the highest degree beneficial, to the great cause that he meant to promote.
In judging of Knox’s influence in advancing the Reformation, we must take into view not only his personal labours, but also the epistolary correspondence which he maintained with his countrymen. By this he instructed them in his absence, communicated his own advice, and that of the learned among whom he resided, upon every difficult case which occurred, and animated them to constancy and perseverance. During his residence at Dieppe, he transmitted to Scotland two long letters, which deserve particular notice. The one, dated on the 1st of December, is directed to the protestants in general; the other, dated on the 17th of that month, is addressed to the nobility. In both of them he prudently avoids any reference to his late disappointment.
In the first letter he strongly inculcates purity of morals, and warns all who professed the reformed religion against those irregularities of life, which were employed to the disparagement of their cause, by two classes of persons;—by the papists, who, although the same vices prevailed in a far higher degree among themselves, represented them as the native fruits of the reformed doctrine;—and by a new sect, who were enemies to superstition, but who had deserted the reformed communion, and were become scarcely less hostile to it than the papists. The principal design of this letter was to put his countrymen on their guard against the arts of this last class of persons and to expose their leading errors.
The persons to whom he referred went under the general name of anabaptists, a sect which sprung up soon after the commencement of the Reformation under Luther, and, breaking out into the greatest excesses, produced violent commotions in different parts of Germany. Being suppressed in the place of its birth, it spread through other countries, and secretly made converts by high pretensions to seriousness and Christian simplicity; the spirit of wild fanaticism, which at first characterised its disciples gradually subsiding after the first effervescence. Extravagancies of a similar kind have not unfrequently accompanied great revolutions; when the minds of men, released from the fetters of implicit obedience, and dazzled by a sudden illumination, have been disposed to fly to the extreme of anarchy and turbulence. Nothing proved more vexatious to the original reformers than this. It was urged by the defenders of the old system as a popular argument against all change. The extravagant opinions and disorderly practices of the new sect, though disowned and opposed by all sober protestants, were artfully imputed to them by their adversaries. And many who had declared themselves friendly to reform, alarmed, or pretending to be alarmed, at this hideous spectre, drew back, and sheltered themselves within the sacred pale of that church, which, notwithstanding her notorious dissensions, errors, and corruption, both in head and members, continued to arrogate to herself exclusively the properties of unity, universality, and perpetual infallibility.
The radical error of this sect, according to the more improved system held by them at the time of which I write, was a fond conceit of a certain ideal spirituality and perfection, by which they considered the Christian church to be essentially distinguished from the Jewish, which was, in their opinion, a mere carnal, secular society. Entertaining this notion, they were naturally led to abridge the rule of faith and manners, by confining themselves almost entirely to the New Testament, and to adopt their other opinions concerning the unlawfulness of infant baptism, of civil magistracy, national churches, oaths, and defensive war.But besides these tenets, the anabaptists were, at this period, generally infected with the Pelagian heresy, and united with the papists in loading the doctrines which the reformers held respecting predestination and grace with the most odious charges.[297]
Our Reformer had occasion to meet with some of these sectaries both in England and on the continent, and had ascertained their extravagant and dangerous principles. In the year 1553, one of them came tohis lodging in London, and, after requiring secrecy, gave him a book, written by one of the party, which he pressed him to read. It contained the following proposition, “God made not the world, nor the wicked creatures in it; but these were made by the devil, who is therefore called the God of this world.” He immediately warned the man against such gross doctrine, and began to explain to him the sense in which the devil is called “the god of this world” in scripture.“Tush for your written word!” replied the enthusiast, “we have as good and as sure a word and veritie that teacheth us this doctrine, as ye have for you and your opinion.”[298] Being apprised that persons who had imbibed these opinions were creeping into Scotland, Knox was afraid that they might insidiously instil their poison into the minds of some of his brethren. He refuted their opinion respecting church‑communion, by showing that they required a purity which had never been found in the church, either before or since the completion of the canon of scripture. In opposition to their Pelagian tenets, he gave the following statement of his sentiments: “If there be any thing which God did not predestinate or appoint, then lacked he wisdom and free regimen; or, if any thing was ever done, or yet after shall be done, in heaven or in earth, which he might not have impeded, (if so had been his godly pleasure,) then he is not omnipotent; which three properties, to wit, wisdom,free regimen, and power, denied to be in God, I pray you what rests in his godhead? The wisdom of our God we acknowledge to be such, that it compelleth the very malice of Satan, and the horrible iniquity of such as be drowned in sin, to serve to his glory and to the profit of his elect. His power we believe and confess to be infinite, and such as no creature in heaven or earth is able to resist. And his regimen we acknowledge to be so free, that none of his creatures dare present them in judgment, to reason or demand the question, why hast thou done this or that?But the fountain of this their damnable error, (which is, that in God they can acknowledge no justice except that which their foolish brain is able to comprehend,) at more opportunity, God willing, we shall intreat.”[299]
He assigns his reasons for warning them so particularly against the seduction of these erroneous teachers. Under the cloak of mortification, and the colour of a godly life, they “supplanted the dignity of Christ,” and “were become enemies to free justification by faith in his blood.” The malice of papists was now visible to all the world; the hypocrisy of mercenary teachers and ungodly professors would soon discover itself; and seldom had open tyranny been able to suppress the true religion, when it had once been earnestly embraced by the body of any nation or province. “But deceivable and false doctrine is a poisonand venom, which, once drunken and received, with great difficulty can afterward be purged.”Accordingly, he charged them to “try the spirits” which came to them, and to suffer no man to take the office of preacher upon him of his own accord and without trial, or to assemble the people in secret meetings; else Satan would soon have his emissaries among them, who would “destroy the plantation of our heavenly Father.”[300] His admonitions, on this head, were not without effect; and the protestants of Scotland, instead of being distracted with these opinions, remained united in their views, as to doctrine, worship, and discipline.
His letter to the protestant lords breathes an ardent and elevated spirit. Its object was to purify their minds from selfish and worldly principles—to raise, sanctify, and christianize their views, by exhibiting and recommending to them the examples of those great and good men whose characters were delineated, and whose deeds were recorded, in the sacred annals. The glory of God, the advancement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the salvation of themselves and their brethren, the emancipation of their country from spiritual and political bondage—these, and not their own honour and aggrandizement, or the revenging of their petty private feuds, were the objects which they ought to keep steadily and solely in view.
In this letter, he also communicates his advice on the delicate question of resistance to supreme rulers.They had consulted him on this subject, and he had submitted it to the judgment of the most learned men on the continent. Soon after they had agreed to the marriage of their young queen to the dauphin of France, the Scots began to be jealous of the designs of the French court against their liberties and independence. Their jealousies increased after the regency was transferred to the queen dowager, who was wholly devoted to the interest of France, and had contrived, under different pretexts, to keep a body of French troops in the kingdom. It was not difficult to excite to resistance the independent and haughty barons of Scotland, accustomed to yield a very limited and precarious obedience even to their native princes. They had lately given a proof of this by their refusal to co‑operate in the war against England, which they considered as undertaken merely for French interests. And, encouraged by this circumstance, the duke of Chastelherault had begun, under the direction of his brother, the archbishop of St Andrews, to intrigue for regaining the authority which he had reluctantly resigned.