The Scottish pulpit from the reformation to the present day

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Preface

The design of these sketches is neither to give a full account of Scottish Ecclesiastical History nor to furnish complete biographies of the men who have been prominent in the Scottish pulpit since the Reformation. My aim has simply been to put the preachers in the environment of their times, to bring out the characteristics by which they were distinguished, and to give point to such lessons from their work as may be useful in our own age.

The form in which the sketches are presented was determined by the fact that they were originally addressed to the students of Yale Theological Seminary in the spring of 1886, when I had the honor of holding, for the second time, the appointment of " Lyman Beecher Lecturer" in that institution.

For reasons which are too obvious to need to be formally stated, I have not attempted to 'deal with living Scottish preachers, many of whom are worthy of a place beside the foremost of those whom I have specified ; and if some names which might have been expected to find a place in such a review as I have attempted are not re-

6 PREFACE.

ferred to, I hope that the limits within which I felt myself restricted in such a brief course will be deemed sufficient to account for the omission.

The facts given and the dates mentioned have in all cases been faithfully verified, but it is scarcely possible that no error has crept in, especially as so many works, most of them, alas ! without any index, had to be searched for the purpose of insuring accuracy.

I have to acknowledge my obligation for valuable hints as to sources of information which I received from my honored friends, Principal Cairns, of Edinburgh ; Professor William Graham, of the Presbyterian College, London ; and President McCosh, of Princeton.

The preparation of the volume has been throughout a labor of love, into which perhaps there has entered also somewhat of national enthusiasm and pride; and if it shall prove in any way serviceable to the great cause to which I have given my life, I shall be abundantly rewarded.

WM. M. TAYLOR.

5 West Thirty-fifth Street, New York, 1887.

Contents

PAGE

I. Introductory and Historical 9

II. John Knox as a Preacher 45

II. John Knox As A Preacher

We begin with John Knox, not only because through his instrumentality under God the Reformation in Scotland was mainly secured, but also because there are traces of his influence as a preacher to be discovered in the discourses of his successors down almost to the present day. He inaugurated a style which to the readers of these times seems much less antiquated than that of some subsequent periods, because at every era of crisis and revival in the land the earnest evangelical leaders who sought to conserve what he had gained went back to him as their model, and drew inspiration from his works. His " History of the Reformation " holds its place to this day among the books in the " cupboard libraries " of the Scottish peasantry, and even so lately as the time of the Disruption a volume of selections from his writings had a circulation of forty-four thousand copies, principally among the same class. Nor is it difficult from the study of these to discover in what particulars he, as it were, set the fashion for the preachers who came after him. But before we attempt to point these out we must first mark well the genesis of this particular method in himself, and for that purpose we need to take a brief review of his personal history.

Knox did not become a preacher until he had attained the age of forty-two. Born in 1505, he is found among the incorporated students of the University of Glasgow in 1522; and after his education was finished he seems to have entered the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church, and to have continued in it up, at least, to 1543, for his name is found as notary affixed to a document which is still extant, and which bears that date. His first known public appearance on the side of Protestantism was in the beginning of 1546, when he attended George Wishart to Haddington as the bearer of a large two-handed sword to protect him from assault. His proper vocation, however, at this time was that of a teacher of youth, and to that, at Wishart's entreaty, he returned on the night of that martyr's apprehension. Up to that date, therefore, he had not entered upon the Protestant ministry, and as the manner of his call thereto had much to do with the power of his preaching all through his later life, we cannot afford to ignore it in this place.

It was "on this wise." After the assassination of Cardinal Beaton the Castle of St. Andrews remained for a season in the hands of the men who had planned and carried out the " removal " of that prelate. It thus became a place of refuge for the Protestants, even if they did not all approve of the deed which had given them possession of the stronghold. Knox had nothing to do with the murder of the cardinal, but for his ow r n safety and that of his pupils he took them with him into the Castle of St. Andrews about the Easter of 1547, and there conducted his regular tutorial work with them from day to day. What that was he has thus described : " Beside their grammar and other humane authors he read unto them a catechism, an account whereof he caused them to give publicly in the parish church of St. Andrews. He read, moreover, unto them the Gospel of John, proceeding where he had left off at his departure from Longniddry, where before his residence was, and that lecture he read in the chapel at a certain hour." These public exercises were regularly attended by a large number of those who were sojourning within the castle, and the result was that Henry Balnaves, a distinguished Scottish priest, Sir David Lindsay, the poet, and others, recognizing his fitness for the work, urged him most earnestly to enter on the ministry of the Gospel. But he strenuously refused, declaring that " he would not run where God had not called him." They were not, however, to be thus gainsaid, and therefore they arranged that on a certain day John Rough, who was pastor of the Castle church, should, in the name and behalf of the Church, give him unexpectedly a public call to the ministry.

So, after having preached a sermon on the election of ministers, Rough, in the presence of all the congregation, turned to Knox and said, " Brother, ye shall not be offended, albeit that I speak unto you that which I have in charge, even from all those that are here present, which is this : In the name of God and of His Son Jesus Christ, and in the name of those that presently call you by my mouth, I charge you that ye refuse not this holy vocation, but that, as ye tender the glory of God, the increase of Christ's kingdom, the edification of your brethren, and the comfort of me, whom you understand well enough to be oppressed by the multitude of labors, that ye take upon you the public office and charge of preaching, even as ye look to avoid God's heavy displeasure, and desire that He shall multiply His graces with you." Then turning to the congregation, he said, " Was not this your charge to me V 9 They answered, " It was, and we approve it." The suddenness and solemnity of this call thoroughly unmanned Knox, who burst into a flood of tears and hastened to his closet, where we may well believe that he sought light from God. The result was that he was led to take up that work which he laid down only with his life. Not from the impulse of caprice, or because he desired the position of a preacher, but because he could not otherwise meet the responsibility which God had laid upon him, did he enter upon the work of the pulpit. He became a minister, not because he must be something, but because he could not be anything else without disobedience to God. He was to do a work for his countrymen not unlike that which Moses did for his kindred, and so, like Moses, he was called to it in the full strength of his manhood, and he entered upon it with the full persuasion that necessity was laid upon him, and woe was unto him if he preached not the Gospel. That not only made him a preacher, but it also helped very largely to make him such a preacher as he afterwards became.

Not long, however, was he permitted at this time to continue in the work which was thus begun; for in the month of July of that same year a French fleet invested the castle, whose defenders very soon surrendered, and Knox, being carried off a prisoner to France, was held for nineteen months as a galley-slave. After enduring great hardships he was liberated in the early part of 1549, when he went to England, where, under Edward the Sixth, he labored for some years, first in Berwick, then in Newcastle, and finally as a royal chaplain, with a commission which sent him to preach in different parts of the kingdom. After the accession of Mary Tudor to the throne, however, it was no longer safe for him to remain in England ; and in the end of 1553 he removed to the Continent, where, after spending some time with Calvin in Geneva, he became one of the ministers of a church of English refugees which had been formed in Frankfort-onthe-Main. But troubles with the High -Church portion of the congregation, on which we cannot enter here, led him to return to Geneva, w T here he

JOHN KNOX AS A PKEACHER. 51

was chosen to be one of the pastors of the English Church that had been formed in that city. We mention these particulars because there is no doubt that the experiences through which Knox had passed in these different circumstances, and the wisdom which he had acquired through converse with some of the greatest of the Reformers both in England and on the Continent, contributed very much to the power of his ultimate ministry in Scotland. With him everything he had and learned was made to contribute to the pulpit. That was the throne of his peculiar and pre-eminent power, and the treasures of travel, as well as the accumulations of study and observation, were made to minister to his efficiency therein.

From the latter part of 1559 till his death in 1572 he continued to labor in Scotland. For the greater portion of that time he was pastor of St. Giles's Church, Edinburgh ; and it may be interesting to read the record of his stated labors there, at least for the first few years. He preached twice every Sunday, and three times during the week besides. He met regularly once a week with his elders for the oversight of the flock, and attended weekly the assembly of ministers for what was called " the exercise on the Scriptures." Add to these that he was frequently appointed to perform in distant parts of the country duties akin to those of a superintendent, and we can understand how it came that his people gave him a colleague in 1563 to relieve him of some of the work by which he was oppressed.

Of his sermons only one complete specimen, printed under his own supervision, remains. He was too busy a man to write much for the press ; and if he had not been called in question by the Privy Council for something in that discourse which had wounded the pride of the young Darnley, who happened to be present on the occasion of its delivery, we should not have had even that from his own pen. He tells us in the preface to it that " he considered himself rather called of God to instruct the ignorant, comfort the sorrowful, confirm the weak, and rebuke the proud by tongue and living voice, in these most corrupt times, than to compose books for the age to come; and seeing that so much is written (and that by men of most singular condition), and yet so little well observed, he decreed to contain himself within the bounds of that vocation whereunto he felt himself specially called." But while all that is true, we Lave in his letters to his old parishioners in Berwick and Newcastle, and in some others of his works, sufficient hints let fall to indicate how he prepared for the pulpit, while in the statements of his contemporaries we have one or two very graphic descriptions of his manner in it.

He was a diligent student. In one of his letters he describes himself as "sitting at his books" and contemplating Matthew's Gospel by the help of "some most godly expositions, and among the rest Chrysostom." In another he writes : " This day ye know to be the day of my study and prayer to God." And in one of his interviews with Queen Mary he excuses himself from going to her privately when he had occasion to condemn her policy, by alleging that he was not appointed to go to every man in particular, and saying, "Albeit I am here now at your Grace's command, yet cannot I tell what other men shall judge of me, that at this time of day am absent from my book and waiting upon the court." He made good use, therefore, we may be sure, of that "warm study with deals" which was constructed for him at the expense of the City Council of Edinburgh, and which is still to be seen in his house at the Netherbow.

He had a competent knowledge of Greek. Hebrew he learned after he had passed his fiftieth year, and while he sojourned in Geneva ; and the mention of Chrysostom and other expositors in the quotation just given shows that he was ready and able to accept light from works which are still sealed books to many.

But the fruit of his study was never a fully writ* ten out discourse. As we learn from an incidental sentence in his " Faithful Admonition unto the Professors of God's Truth in England," it was his habit to speak from a few notes which were made on the margin of his Bible, and which remained the sole written memoranda of his discourse. He never wrote his sermons before preaching, and seldom, if ever, except on the occasions already alluded to, wrote them after. Yet they were as carefully premeditated as if they had been written, and he could apparently recall them, almost verbatim, for a long time afterwards. Thus we find in some of his addresses to his friends in Berwick, Newcastle, and in England generally, long. quotations from discourses which had been delivered years before; and on one occasion when he had been, as he claimed, misreported to Queen Mary, he went over the whole sermon there and then before her and the members of her court, and his repetition was declared to be accurate by those who had heard it in the church. This indicates both that he prepared with care and that he remembered with accuracy. He did not speak extemporaneously, in the sense of never having thought upon his subject until he was required to speak ; but he had fixed beforehand his line of thought, and there is reason to believe, also, in many cases, the very words in which he had determined to express himself. Yet, though he premeditated very carefully, he was able also to introduce what was given to him at the moment; for when, on one occasion, Kirkaldy appeared in the cathedral with a retinue of armed men, as if to intimidate him, he did not hesitate to bring into the body of his sermon a very stern rebuke of that which he regarded as a serious offence on the part of one who had been a companion with him in the galleys of France.

The form of his discourses was expository. This is evident not only from that one which he printed in self-vindication, but also from the others which he has referred to and described in portions of his writings. He set himself at first calmly, clearly, and fully to explain the meaning of the passage on which he was engaged. He was particular to bring out its application to the occasion in reference to which it was employed by the sacred writer. In this portion of the discourse there was evidence of considerable scholarship, immense familiarity with Scripture, good acquaintance with ancient history, and great fervor of spirit. Having thus brought out the meaning of the passage, he then set himself to enforce its practical bearing on the circumstances of his hearers and his times, taking care first to establish the parallelism between the original case referred to by the sacred writer and that to which he applied it. This was the tip of the arrow, to which all else was but its feather; and in the shooting of that arrow he spared neither age nor sex, neither rank nor class. Wherever he saw an evil which the principle in his text condemned, he brought it to bear with all his might thereon. He recognized the explanation of the present in the old inspired record of the past ; and reading Scottish history in the light of that of the Israelites, he found constant opportunity for this kind of practical application.

His expositions were frequently consecutive, and

JOHN KNOX AS A PKEACHER. 57

carried on through a whole book of Scripture. When the famous Parliament of 1560 was in session he was "lecturing" through the prophecies of Haggai, and had suggested thereby many powerful and pungent things bearing on the reorganization of the Scottish Church, on which the States of the Realm were then engaged. There is evidence, also, that he favored as a general thing the practice of continuous exposition, as being fraught with profit both to preacher and hearer ; for in the First Book of Discipline, which was drawn up mainly by him, we have the following direction regarding the public reading of the Scriptures: "We think it most expedient that the Scriptures be read in order — that is, that some one book of the Old and the New Testament be begun, and orderly read to the end. And the same we judge of preaching, where the minister for the most part vemaineth in one place ; for this skipping and divagation from place to place, be it in reading, be it in preaching, we judge not so profitable to edify the church as the continual following of one text."

In his style he was plain, direct, homely, sometimes humorous, and always courageous. His language, however, would seem to have been purer 3* and more free from solecisms than that of most of his contemporaries, for one of his adversaries taunts him with his " Southron tongue." But if, like Jeffrey, he had parted in any degree with his " broad Scotch," it could not be said of him, as Cockburn did of Jeffrey, that he had acquired only the "narrow English ;" for he had not polished away any of his power, and he never quailed before antagonism. At a time when anonymous writings were freely circulated against him he did not flinch, but averred that from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other inspired writers, he " had learned, plainly and boldly, to call wickedness by its own terms — a fig a fig, and a spade a spade;" thus using for the first time words which have become proverbial in the language. Occasionally, too, he brought in withering irony to bear on that to which he was opposed. His prologue to his report of his disputation with the Abbot of Crossraguel reads like a bit of a sermon on the idolatry of the Mass, and is an excellent illustration of his most trenchant manner.

Here is a specimen. He has been comparing the making of what he calls the " wafer-god " to that of the idols so sarcastically described by Isaiah in the fortieth and forty-first chapters of his prophecies, and after speaking of the workmen engaged in both, he proceeds as follows : " These are the artificers and workmen that travail in the making of this god. I think as many as the prophet reciteth to have travailed in making of the idols; and if the power of both shall be compared, I think they shall be found in all things equal, except that the god of bread is subject unto more dangers than were the idols of the Gentiles. Men made them ; men make it. They were deaf and dumb ; it cannot speak, hear, or see. Briefly, in infirmity they wholly agree, except that, as I have said, the poor god of bread is most miserable of all other idols ; for according to their matter whereof they are made, they will remain without corruption for many years; but within one year that god will putrefy, and then he must be burned. They can abide the vehemency of the wind, frost, rain, or snow; but the wind will blow that god to sea, the rain or the snow will make it dough again ; yea (which is most of all to be feared), that god is a prey, if he be not well kept, to rats and mice, for they will desire no better dinner than white, round gods enow. But oh, then, what becometh of Christ's natural body? By miracle it flies to heaven again, if the Papists teach truly, for how soon soever the mouse takes hold, so soon flieth Christ away and letteth her gnaw the bread. A bold and puissant mouse, but a feeble and miserable god ! Yet would I ask a question : ' Whether hath the priest or the mouse greater power?' By his words it is made a god ; by her teeth it ceaseth to be a god. Let them advise and answer!"

These sentences remind us of Latimer ; and there are many passages in his History of the Reformation which bubble over with humor of a similar kind ; 80 that we may be sure that it found a way also even into his sermons ; and if it did, it is not difficult to explain how "the common people heard him gladly."

The doctrinal substance of his discourses was that which we now genprally associate with the name of Calvin, though he had attained to the perception and acceptance of it long before he came into personal contact with the Genevese divine. He held fast by the Deity, atonement, and mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Luther did not proclaim the doctrine of justification by faith more energetically than he ; and in every appeal he made to his fellow-men they were sure to see that " Jesus " was " in the midst." He never put himself before his Master, or sent Lis hearers away thinking more of him than of his message. He seemed always to be absorbed in or carried away by his subject, and that is the explanation of the fervor of manner which characterized his deliver}'. Who has not read that graphic description of him in his last days by James Melville? He had been constrained to leave Edinburgh for a season, and w T as living, in broken health, in St. Andrews, where Melville was at the time a student. Thus he writes: "I heard him (Knox) teach there the prophecies of Daniel that summer and the winter following. I had my pen and my little book, and took away such things as I could comprehend. In the opening up of his text he was moderate for the space of half an hour; but when he entered on application he made me so to shiver {scottice <grue') and tremble that I could not hold my pen to write. He was very weak. I saw him every day of his teaching go slowly and warily, with a fur of martens about his neck, a staff in the one hand, and good, godly Richard Ballantyne, his servant, holding up the other armpit {scottice ' oxter'), from the abbey to the parish kirk, and by the said Robert and another servant lifted up to the pulpit, where he behooved to lean at his first entrance, but before he had done with his sermon he was so active and vigorous that it seemed as if he would knock the pulpit in pieces (scottice 'ding the pulpit in blads') and flie out of it." *

Here, then, were all the elements of pulpit power, so far as they are human, namely, competent scholarship, careful preparation, scriptural exposition, evangelical doctrine, plain speech, bold utterance, and impassioned fervor. And the effects produced attest the reality of the power. At Berwick a great transformation came over the place as the result of his two years' ministry, and his effectiveness as a preacher, both there and in Newcastle, raised him to the position of a royal chaplain. Wherever he labored, indeed, his word was with power, and the English ambassador at the Court of Scotland was speaking of what he had himself seen

* We hope none of our American readers will fall into the mistake of the Frenchman who thus ridiculously paraphrases Melville's words: "Old and broken down, and so helpless as to he hardly able to crawl along, he was raised to the pulpit by two zealous disciples, where he began his sermon with a feeble voice and slow action; but soon heating himself by the force of his passion and hatred, he bestirred himself like a madman. He broke his pulpit, and jumped into the midst of his auditors, transported by his violent declamation, and words still more violent."— &# M 'die's Life, p. 264 (note).

JOHK KNOX AS A PREACHER. 63

when he wrote to Cecil : " I assure you the voice of one man is able in an hour to put more life in us than six hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears." But indeed the Reformation in Scotland was itself very largely the result of his preaching. No doubt it was begun before he entered on the work, and there were others laboring as well as he ; but to him most of all are due the organization and conservation of the work in the formation of a National Church. By his ministry the entire face and future of Scotland were changed. She has made great progress in many directions since his day, and outgrown many of the limitations within which, perhaps, he w r ould have restricted her, but the success of his work made it possible for her to become what she is to-day. And it was as a preacher mainly that he did his work. He was a statesman, indeed, as his great scheme of education clearly proves; and the fact that his advice was sought by multitudes in difficulties is an evidence that he was a man of wisdom. But though different excellencies might come out in him on different occasions, in the pulpit they were all in exercise and always at their best. That w r as the glass which focussed all his powers into a point, and quickened them into an intensity which kindled everything it touched. It brightened his intellect, enlivened his imagination, clarified his judgment, inflamed his courage, and gave fiery energy to his utterance. He was never elsewhere so great in any one of these particulars as he was when in the pulpit, in them all; for there, over and above the fervid animation which he had in such large measure, and the glow of enthusiasm which fills the soul of the orator as he addresses an audience, he had the feeling that he was called of God to be faithful, and that lifted him entirely out of himself. He spoke because he could not but speak; and his words went in to men. Like those modern missiles which burst within the wounds which they have made, so his words exjploded icithin the hearts of those who received them, and set them on fire with convictions that flamed forth in conduct. It was apparently impossible for any one to listen to him without being moved either to antagonism or to agreement, or — for he could be tender also — to tears.

It may be said, indeed, that he allowed himself too great liberty in commenting in the pulpit on public men and national affairs ; and we may readily admit that in ordinary times and under altered circumstances it would be unwise in most preachers to do precisely as he did ; but we have to bear in mind that the crisis through which his country was passing at that time was as much religious as political, and that the pulpit was the only organ at his command. To his credit be it recorded, that he was, if not the first, at least among the very first to perceive the importance of making and guiding public opinion aright. He saw that the people were to be the ultimate arbiters of the great matters that were then in debate, and he was determined to reach them. But the daily press was not then born, few, comparatively speaking, could even read, so that pamphlets were of little use, and the public meeting had not yet come into existence. Only the pulpit was his, and so, by his five sermons a week in Edinburgh, and his frequent itinerancies through different parts of the country, he did what is now done by editors in their columns and by statesmen in their campaigns, and the like. He was not always wise, neither was he always discriminating in his utterances ; but he was always transparently honest, unflinchingly bold, and unselfishly patriotic; and when we add that all these qualities in him were raised to the white heat of enthusiasm, and fused into the unity of holiness by his devotion to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are at no loss to account for the magnitude of the work he did. He spoke and wrote and acted as ever in His sight; and more, perhaps, than any other man in modern history, he might have taken for the motto of his life the oft-repeated asseveration of Elijah, " As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand." This was the secret of his courage, the root of his inflexibility, and the source of his power.