Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/144

 132 K N X his servant, and Patrick, his puple,&quot; are entered as members of the English congregation. In Geneva the Scotch Reformer laboured with voice and pen till 1559. The literary works of that period, in addition to ten Familial Epistles, include Letters to his Brethren and the Lords pro fessing the truth in Scotland, three in number, 1557 ; An Apology for the Protestants ivho are holden in prison at Paris, 1557 ; The Appellation from the Sentence pronounced by the bishops and clergy, 1558 ; A letter addressed to the Commonality of Scotland, 1558 ; An Epistle to the inhabit ants in Newcastle and Berwick, 1558 ; and A brief exhorta tion to England for the speedy embracing of the Gospel, 1559. Judged by the excitement it created, the most outstanding writing of this period is The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women ; and it cannot be denied that this publication was un seasonable, and might be expected to expose the author to the resentment of two queens during whose reign it was his lot to live. Indeed the sounder of the First Blast would seem to have realized that it was &quot; blown out of season,&quot; for, whereas his purpose was &quot; thrice to blow the trumpet in the same matter, if God so permit,&quot; and on the last occasion to reveal his name, the intention was never carried into effect. The resentment to which his blast against feminine government gave rise in queenly breasts did not soon subside ; one immediate effect was that, when Knox resolved to return to Scotland, and applied to the English Government for permission to pass through the sister kingdom, the application was refused. Impatient of delay hs sailed from Dieppe direct for Leith, and, landing at that port in safety, reached Edinburgh on 2d May 1559. From this time to the close of his life the biography of the Reformer becomes inseparably connected with the history of Scotland. Within a few days of his arrival in Scotland, through the representations of the Romanist clergy to the queen-regent, Knox was proclaimed an outlaw and a rebel ; but, undeterred by considerations of personal danger, he lost no time in joining the leaders of the Protestant party then assembled in Dundee. From Dundee he went with them to Perth, where his preaching was the antecedent though not the cause of a tumult which resulted in the altar, images, and other ornaments of the church being torn down, and the houses of the grey and black friars being laid in ruins. St Andrews is the next place of importance at which Knox joined the Protestants, at this time called the congregation, the lay leaders of the party, mostly noblemen, being known as the lords of tho congregation. Here Knox announced his intention to preach in the cathedral church ; and, undismayed by the threats of the archbishop, unmoved by the remonstrances of his friends, he carried his purpose into effect, preaching on four successive days, and with such signal effect that the provost, bailies, and inhabitants agreed to set up the Reformed worship iu the town, stripped the church of images and pictures, and pulled duwn the monasteries. By the end of June Knox was again in Edinburgh, preach ing in St Giles s and the abbey church; and on the 7th July he was elected minister of Edinburgh. When the army of the queen-regent took possession of the capital, and the lords of the congregation agreed to leave it, they took their minister with them from a regard alike to the danger to which he would be exposed if left behind and the service it was in his power to render the Protestant cause. The result abundantly verified the wisdom of the step, for, set free from city labours, Knox travelled over a great part of Scotland, and visited the towns of Kelso, Jedburgh, Dumfries, Ayr, Stirling, Perth, Brechin, Montrose, Dundee, and St Andrews, with marked results in the diffusing of knowledge and the strengthening of the hands of fellow Protestants. By the end of April 1560 we find him once more in Edinburgh, having rendered important service to the Protestant leaders in their negotia tions to procure aid from England, and, of necessity rather than from choice, acting the part of a politico-ecclesiastic. The most elaborate theological writing of the Scottish Reformer, although written before his final return to Scotland, was published in this year, 1560, at Geneva. It is An Answer to the Cavillations of an Adversary respect ing the doctrine of Predestination^ The event of greatest political importance in this same year 1560 was the assembling of the Scottish parliament at Edinburgh, on 1st August. A petition having been presented by the Protestants of the country, craving the abolition of Popish doctrine, the restoration of purity of worship and discipline, and the appropriating of ecclesias tical revenues to the support of the ministry, the promotion of education, and the relief of the poor, the ministers and barons were required to lay before parliament a summary of Reformed doctrines. &quot; Within foure dayis &quot; this was done. The confession was read before the whole parliament, and after reasoning and voting was ratified by Act of Parliament, and the Protestant religion formally established. The Con- fessioun of faith prof essit and belevit be the Protestants ivithin the Realme of Scotland, &c., in the composing of which no small share must have fallen to the minister of Edinburgh, is inserted by him at length in book iii. of his llistorie. Between the dissolution of parliament and the first meeting of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on the 20th December, Knox and three other ministers were engaged in drawing up the plan of ecclesiastical government known as the Book of Policy, or First Book of Discipline. This standard document, approved by the General Assembly and subscribed by a majority of the members of privy council, is also incorporated in Kuox s llistorie. The youthful, widowed, and fair Queen Mary, having arrived in Scotland in August 1561, lost no time in send ing for Knox to the palace of Holyrood, in order that she might hold with him the first of those four or five dialogues which historians have rendered with dramatic effect not always consistent with historical accuracy. The charge brought against the Reformer of treating his sovereign with rudeness and disrespect in the course of those interviews has been thoroughly disproved by his biographer giving . the details of what passed as furnished by one of the parties in his Hist-orie, and is quite discredited by such a judge as Thomas Carlyle. In the following year Knox found a more congenial sphere for the exercise of his logical and dialectic skill in a disputation with Quintiue Kennedy, abbot of Crossrag- well, in the neighbourhood of May bole, Ayrshire. The abbot had set forth a number of articles respecting the mass, purgatory, praying to saints, the use of images, and other points which he declared his intention to open up more fully in his chapel at Kirkoswald. But when Knox, who happened to be in the vicinity, appeared on the Sabbath specified, the abbot deemed it prudent to absent himself, and Knox preached in his stead. This led to correspondence which resulted in arrangements for a disputation taking place. The disputants met at Maybole on the 28th September 1562 and the two following days at 8 A.M., in the house of the provost. Forty persons on each side were admitted as witnesses of the dispute, &quot; with so many mo as the house may goodly hold, be the sight of my lord of Cassilis &quot; (nephew of Kennedy). As usually is the case in such contentions, both sides claianed to be vic torious ; but, to counteract the one-sided reports circulated by the abbot and his friends, Knox published, in 1563, an account of the dispute taken from the records of the notaries present, to which he added a prologue and short marginal notes.