Reformation Church History

Transcription

1 Reformation Church History CH502 LESSON 17 of 24 W. Robert Godfrey, PhD Experience: President, Westminster Seminary California We turn our attention in this lecture to the subject of the Reformation in Scotland. This subject is especially significant to Presbyterians, those descendants of the Church of Scotland in the United States. But it is of interest to all who are interested in the Reformation, because it is another manifestation of the particular ways in which the Reformation had to adjust to a particular culture, to a particular political situation, and to the nation of Scotland. So we need to remember that Scotland in the sixteenth century was still considered quite a wild and woolly place. It was culturally and economically somewhat underdeveloped compared with other nations in Europe. It was certainly inferior in population and wealth to England, and, as we ve seen before, England itself in the first part of the sixteenth century was not one of the first-ranked powers of Europe. Traditionally Scotland had looked to France as its closest ally. This in part was because England was a close and somewhat ambitious neighbor, and the Scots had felt that through what came to be known as the old alliance with France, they could keep England at bay. The church in Scotland in the Middle Ages had flourished. It had become dramatically wealthy. Estimates ranged that the church owned fully 50 percent of all the real estate in Scotland. And by the eve of the Reformation, the church had become not only wealthy but also corrupt. The political history of Scotland, especially as it relates to the monarchs, shows a romantic and dramatic sort of history. James IV died in battle in 1513 at Flodden Field. He was married to Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII s sister. And that s why his greatgrandson eventually came to the throne as James I of England. James IV s son, James V, died in 1542 at Solway Moss. He was married into the Guise family in France. And they had had, before his death, a daughter. At one week old then, the daughter of James V in 1542 came to the throne of Scotland and is known to history as Mary Queen of Scots. And so Scotland found itself in 1542 with 1 of 14

2 an infant queen, with a queen mother, Mary of Guise, strongly allied to France and to French politics. The development then of the political scene in Scotland remained closely linked to France and the fortunes of the French monarchy. The Reformation first began to make its appearance in Scotland in the 1520s brought by Lutheran merchants and mariners as John Knox would later talk about the earliest origins and penetration of the Reformation into Scotland. And a more reformed brand of the Reformation preaching began to appear in the 1540s and found a willing group of listeners, not only among common people where the Reformation in many countries spread initially through what we might tend to think of as the middle-class artisan group of society in particular but also among the lesser nobility. There were those who were alienated both from the wealth and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland and somewhat alienated from the power and influence of the French in Scotland. And, therefore, there was a sort of preparation made in the background and minds of some of these Scottish nobles that an alliance with Protestantism would give them some leverage against the crown and some of its pretentions. In many ways, the Scottish Reformation can best be seen through the eyes of John Knox. John Knox is perhaps the most famous of the figures associated with the Scottish Reformation. He s often called the father of Presbyterianism. He himself wrote an important history of the Scottish Reformation and for many years was its most prominent leader and figure. Both in his own lifetime and since, John Knox has been a controversial figure. He certainly was in no sense a plaster saint or a model saint. He did not lead an uncontroversial life. His career was stormy at many points. For example, when he was fifty years old, he married a sixteen-yearold girl, which caused a lot of comment in his own time. It was all apparently perfectly moral, but the disparity of ages caused some to think that this was not appropriate for a minister to do. There are other ironies connected with John Knox s life as the father of Presbyterianism. It s ironic that he was never a member of a presbytery, and he almost was made a bishop. He s most famous as the father of the Reformation in Scotland, and yet nearly half of his public ministry was conducted outside of Scotland. And so there are all sorts of anomalies and strange phenomena in the life of John Knox. But he certainly is a characteristic figure of this rough and ready Scotland of the sixteenth century. 2 of 14

3 And he was a preacher very much in the tradition of Ezekiel 33:7: a watchman set by God to trumpet alarm. Knox saw himself that way. One of his recent biographers, W. Stanford Reid, whose biography is entitled The Trumpeter of God [New York: Scribner, 1974], certainly saw him that way. Knox said of himself in his own ministry that he considered himself rather called of my God to instruct the ignorant, comfort the sorrowful, confirm the weak, and rebuke the proud by the tongue and lively voice in these corrupt days than to compose books for the age to come. John Knox did write some books, but he was not primarily a prolific author as some of the Reformers were. And it was indeed particularly as a preacher and as a counselor and as a pastor that he made his mark on the life of the church in Scotland. Much about Knox s own background is not very clear, that is, about his early life. He was born in Scotland, presumably somewhere around 1513 to He was probably ordained a priest in the Roman Catholic Church. He seems not to have come from the nobility but probably from the middle class. He seems to have been rather well-educated and to have been religious even before he became a Protestant. But there is not too much of which we re certain about Knox s early life. We re not even certain exactly when he became a Protestant, probably somewhere around 1543 and possibly somewhat under the influence of the great Scottish preacher, George Wishart. Wishart began to preach openly and publicly in Scotland the doctrines of particularly Reformed or Calvinistic Christianity in 1543, and for the next three years of his life appeared at great risk to himself openly and publicly preaching the reform. It may have been under his influence that Knox was converted. It certainly is true that Knox became a loyal associate and assistant to Wishart and accompanied him to many of the places in which he preached. Knox would later describe John 17 as the passage of Scripture that seems most to have influenced him in his earliest days. That s interesting because John 17:3 appears to have been John Calvin s favorite verse: This is eternal life to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. That seems to have made a profound impact upon John Knox. And as he lay on his deathbed and asked Scripture to be read to him and asked particularly for John 17, he remarked, That is where I first cast my anchor. And so Knox seems to have been converted in this context of a more open, militant kind of Protestantism that was insisting on its rights to preach and to declare the gospel. 3 of 14

4 Wishart himself was arrested for his preaching in January of 1546, was held in prison, was tried, was condemned to death, and was publicly strangled and then burned at the stake. John Knox was a witness to this martyrdom and certainly [this] was one of the events of his earlier life that led to a lasting and deep-seated hatred of the Roman Catholic Church and all that it stood for in the heart of Knox. The response of certain Protestant leaders, particularly lay leaders in the Scottish Reformation movement to the martyrdom of George Wishart, was very sharp indeed. Some of them broke into the castle at Saint Andrews of the Cardinal [David] Beaton and murdered him partially in revenge for the martyrdom of George Wishart. This was in May of 1546, only a few months after the death of Wishart. The murder of Beaton was remarkable, because Beaton was not only the leading churchman of Scotland, the primate of Scotland, and a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, but he was also a leading government official, the key advisor to the regent. And so the murder of Beaton was not only sacrilege in the murder of a priest but was also treason in the murder of one of the great political officials of the realm. John Knox was not himself involved in this murder. But when he learned that it had taken place and that those who had committed the murder were holding the castle and hoping to use it as a source of resistance against the crown, John Knox entered the castle to join the defenders. This was in April of And the 150 defenders found in that castle called him to be their minister. And so in a somewhat inauspicious beginning although heroic beginning, Knox began his public career as a preacher. His first sermon was preached on Daniel 7:24 25, particularly the twenty-fifth verse: You shall speak words against the Most High and shall wear out the saints of the Most High and shall think to change the times and the law. The application of this verse was that Daniel was prophesying the days of the pope, and it was the pope who would speak words against the Most High and would wear out the saints of the Most High and would change the times and the law. And so the pope was the antichrist. The pope was the manifestation of antichrist. This was a view that was gaining prevalence in Protestant circles at the time. And why was the pope antichrist? The pope had imposed idolatry upon the church, the worshiping of images, and the worshiping of bread. And the pope had obscured the true doctrine of salvation, which was justification by faith alone. And so the application of the sermon was that Protestants were called to resist both the idolatry and the false teaching on justification of the Roman church and particularly as that teaching was handed down by the pope, who 4 of 14

5 was antichrist himself. The Protestants,when they spoke of the pope as antichrist, meant that the institution of the papacy had developed into a manifestation of the antichrist, not necessarily that a single individual pope was the particular antichrist. The castle at Saint Andrews was eventually taken by royalist troops. And Knox, along with most of the surviving defenders, were sent to be galley slaves. A galley slave s life was not a very promising life, often did not last very long, and the galleys were about 150 feet long and about 50 feet wide and often contained around three hundred slaves, so that situation was very cramped and not very healthy. But Knox seems to have been able to assert himself as something of a leader among the slaves even in those difficult circumstances. There was a story told that seems to be about Knox that there was a time when some of the Catholic- French crew and officers of the ship brought down a picture of the virgin Mary and insisted that the Protestant slaves kiss the picture of the virgin. This was sort of their effort at Roman Catholic evangelism, I guess. And one of the slaves, and it seems most likely it was John Knox, took the picture in his hand. There was kind of a hushed questioning silence. Would this leader of the slaves now betray his faith and kiss the image of the virgin? And he looked at the image and said, Let our lady now save herself. She is light enough. Let her learn to swim, and tossed the image overboard so that there were acts of heroism even in these most difficult circumstances on the galley slave. And it was remarkable that Knox survived. He survived in part because he was ransomed by English authorities who bought him out of the slavery of the galleys and delivered him to England. In our discussion of the English Reformation, we made brief reference to Knox. But his years in England were important and influential years. He was there from March 1549 until 1553 after King Edward VI s death. His early years were spent particularly working as a faithful pastor in the north of England near the Scottish border. But his talent drew him to the attention of the leadership of the church, and he was consulted particularly in the preparation of the second Edwardian Book of Common Prayer, the 1552 book, and consulted with the formation of what were then called The Forty-Two Articles of the Church of England. And it was at that time that he was offered a bishopric. It appears that he turned down that offer because he felt that the Reformation in England was not going far enough and fast enough, and he wanted to continue his own work. 5 of 14

6 One legacy left in The Book of Common Prayer that s particularly notable is what came down in history known as The Black Rubric. Rubric is a word derived from the Latin word for red. A rubric in a printed book was literally the red print as opposed to the black print. The black print was the material that was to be read in the course of the service, whereas the red print was the stuff that was to give direction to the minister as to how he should act and where he should stand and what he should do next. So the black material was the actual form of the prayers, and the red print was the direction to the clergymen and to the congregation. One of Knox s great concerns about the form of communion in the second Edwardian prayer book was that people still were to receive communion kneeling. Knox argued that since in the Middle Ages kneeling at communion had been an act of worship of Christ on the altar, worship of Christ in the transubstantiated bread, he felt they should stop the practice of kneeling so that there would be no temptation to idolatry. The other members of the committee on The Book of Common Prayer were unwilling to go that far, but they did say they would add a rubric to the book saying that the act of kneeling was not an act of worship but only an act of respect for the holiness of the occasion. That decision was made so late in the preparation of the book that it could not be printed in red even though it was a rubric, so it was printed in black and hence the name The Black Rubric, a continuing influence then of a kind of low-church point of view in the Church of England coming from John Knox, the father of Presbyterianism. Knox was one of those who became a Marian exile in 1553, fleeing from England when Bloody Mary came to the throne and recognizing that she would pursue the repression of Protestantism. For a time he ministered in an English refugee church in Frankfurt, Germany. But there tensions developed between those who, like Knox, wanted to see further reform in the worship of the church in particular, a further stripping away of anything that was like Roman Catholic worship, an impulse that we can say anticipates the later Puritan concerns in the English church. So there were Knox and those on the one hand who wanted further reformation, and then there were others in the congregation who felt that it was up to the government to reform the church, and until the government undertook that task they ought to stay with the kind of worship that the government had approved before Mary came to the throne. 6 of 14

7 Rather than prolong the disputes and unhappiness in that congregation, in 1555 Knox went to Geneva, and he ministered to an English refugee congregation there from 1555 to This was an important period in Knox s life. It was a good period, a confident period, a positive period in his life. And he was very much taken with what Calvin was doing in Geneva with the reform of the church there, with the general improvement of the religious and political life in Geneva. It was Knox who would observe that since the days of the apostles there had been no more Christian community in the history of the world than Geneva in those years. He was able to introduce an order of worship very much on his own design, and he called that order of worship the interpretation of Scripture. You can see in that very title how much Knox wanted to stress the fact that his worship service was a worship service of instruction and was centered on the Scripture and its teaching. The form of the service was simple. It seems to have begun with a confession of sins. Then there was a singing of a psalm. There was a prayer of invocation for the Lord s blessing. Then came the sermon. After the sermon apparently Knox had a question-and-answer session. He seems to have anticipated modern developments and wanted very much to be clear that the message he was preaching was getting across, so he wanted to give people opportunity to ask questions so he could check their understanding. Then came a pastoral prayer, another psalm was sung, and then the benediction. So it was a simple, straightforward service focused very much around the word sung and the word preached and the word understood. Knox because of his toughness and because of the tough leadership that he exercised later in Scotland in particular has sometimes had a reputation of being perhaps even unfeeling or that all of his feelings at least were always on the militant side. But we see in Knox and in his writings also the reality of pastoral tenderness. We see the reality of his own struggles with the faith and with sin. And he was indeed received by those in his congregations as a fine, sensitive pastor. He once wrote, I know how hard the battle is. I know the anger, wrath, and indignation which it conceiveth against God [that is, his own doubt, his own battle against sin)] calling all His promises in doubt and being ready every hour utterly to fall from God against which rests only faith. Wherein, if we continue our most desperate calamities shall He turn to gladness and to a prosperous end. And so Knox recognized in his own Christian experience the struggle against sin, the problems of doubt, and his need to turn in faith always again to 7 of 14

8 God. He recognized his own sinfulness also in his ministry. He said, Although I never lack the presence and plain image of my own wretched infirmity, yet seeing sin so manifestly abound in all estates, I am compelled to thunder out the threatenings of God against obstinate rebels. In doing that, I sometimes am wounded myself knowing myself criminal and guilty in many, yea in all things that in others I reprehend. And so you can see he saw himself as one who preached not only to others but also to himself that he needed the Word of God and the reforming work of that Word of God as well. In Geneva, Knox was not only a pastor ; he also saw himself as having something of a prophetic role. He saw himself called to comment on the hour and the day in which he lived. And one of the most famous ways he did that was in 1558 he published a work entitled The First Blast on the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. In that work he was sounding an alarm. He was again being the trumpeter of God. And this time he felt the trumpet needed to be sounded because of the influence of idolatrous women in Europe. As he surveyed the European scene in 1558, he saw that the greatest influence in France at the French court was the queen, Catherine de Medici. When he looked to Scotland, he saw the regent Mary of Guise ruling for her daughter, Mary Queen of Scots. And when he looked to England, worst of all he saw Bloody Mary on the throne. His analysis was that in each instance, idolatry was being supported and fomented by a woman who in an unnatural way was leading the country. That, as Knox argued, was unnatural for a woman to be a ruler in that sort of place. And the very unnaturalness of it was proven by the fact that these women were all promoting idolatry and godless religion. In Knox s own thought, this promotion of idolatry was so serious that Christians ought to have the right to resist idolatry and to resist a government that fomented idolatry even by force of arms. In his work Faithful Admonition, Knox had written, Let a thing be here noted, that the prophets of God sometimes may teach treason against kings. And yet neither he nor such as obey the words spoken in the Lord s name by him offend God. Here is a very radical position, a position not like the one of Calvin that said in extreme situations of tyranny a citizen with constitutional authority to do so may resist a tyrant by force of arms. There Calvin was not arguing that a Christian as a Christian can take up arms but that rather a citizen with a certain constitutional responsibility can take up arms. Here Knox is going much further. 8 of 14

9 And Knox is arguing that sometimes the defense of true religion requires the taking up of arms. And in that, he may seem to be more inspired by Old Testament religion than by New. Certainly it presents quite a radical picture beyond what Calvin or Luther would have approved of. But what Knox is responding to is what he sees as the deplorable state of persecution which is going on in Europe against true believers and the extent to which what he regards as godless rulers are being used to oppose the truth and to persecute the brethren. Calvin, on hearing what Knox had said in the First Blast on the Trumpet, referred to the work as thoughtless arrogance. And so Calvin was distressed by the extent of the work and the ferocity of it. It turned out that the work was also rather poorly timed. The work appeared just as Bloody Mary died and Elizabeth came to the throne in England. Elizabeth never quite forgave John Knox for blasting away against the regiment of women. Elizabeth was one who always felt she sat, especially in the early years, somewhat uncertainly on her throne. And therefore she was mightily offended by any kind of writing or position that would further increase her insecurity. When she heard of Knox s blast against the monstrous regiment of women, she was furious. Even though Knox tried to sort of make it up and say that what he was talking about was particularly idolatrous women, Elizabeth was never very happy with him. This could be seen in the fact that when Knox wanted to return to Scotland in 1559 Elizabeth refused to allow him to travel overland through England to get there. He had to sail directly from the continent to Scotland. Knox returned to Scotland in 1559 at a most propitious time. There was growing resentment and bitterness against the regent and against the French alliance and the French presence. And there was a growing desire on the part of the nobility to see changes. Those who had continued in Scotland and had preached the Reformation had seen fruit to their labor, and Protestantism had become quite a significant minority movement, although a minority movement [that] had gained such staunch following that in the Scottish parliament it held a majority. And so with the urging of John Knox on his return in 1559, parliament began to act. Parliament first of all adopted what is known to history as the First Scots Confession, a Protestant confession of faith which was to lead the realm from that point on religiously. 9 of 14

10 The parliament then proceeded officially to abolish papal power in Scotland arguing that the papacy and its agents no longer were recognized in law as legitimate representatives of the church or of Christ. All of their legal privileges were removed. And third, the parliament acted to outlaw the conducting of the Mass in Scotland. Now these were most remarkable acts of the parliament especially when you remember that Protestantism was still a minority in Scotland. That means that there were also many who remained formally attached to the Roman church that were not deeply attached by devotion. But it shows the way in which through the urging of the ministers and of Knox in particular, the parliament was willing to act and to take political leadership for the accomplishment of the religious reform of the church. Those acts of parliament, it was debated by Roman Catholics, were not really legal. According to English and Scottish constitutional theory, laws were made by [the ruler] in parliament. That is, parliament was not able to act on its own, but theoretically laws became law only when approved by the queen and the parliament. In this case, however, the queen was out of the country; Mary Queen of Scots, though now almost eighteen years old, had been raised in France and was in France. And the parliament insisted that it would act on its own in her absence. With this new opportunity, the Protestants decided that they needed organization. And they prepared what was known as a book of discipline. The Book of Discipline then laid down the basic structure and organization of the new Church of Scotland, the new Protestant church in Scotland. Several crucial things were laid down in that book that were to be very influential in years to come. Very importantly, from the Protestant point of view there was asserted the right of the local congregation to call its minister. Ministers were not to be appointed by bishops and certainly not by the pope, but the fundamental approval of a call was to be vested in the congregation. Interestingly, The Book of Discipline also says nothing about presbyteries or even a general assembly, but it does talk about superintendents in the church. These superintendents were apparently to function something like bishops, although without the title bishop, and in this period of difficulty and transition were to provide leadership and direction for varieties of ministers under them. The first regular general assembly of the Church of Scotland met in December of And one of the issues that was discussed before the calling of the general assembly was whether the queen had to call the general assembly. There had 10 of 14

11 been convocations of the clergy in the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, and that had usually been called by the monarch. And the question now was, If the Church of Scotland is now Protestant, does the monarch still have those rights and prerogatives in relation to our church? And should we appeal to the queen then to call the general assembly? Knox was opposed to this and, speaking very much in the tradition of Calvin, wanted to find ways and means in which the church could maintain its independence from political domination. Knox in striking words declared, Take from us the freedom of assemblies, and you take from us the gospel. That s a remarkable claim. But Knox felt strongly that if the church was not free to assemble, to discuss true doctrine, to govern itself, then eventually the gospel itself would be lost. The Book of Discipline not only gave the right of congregations to call their ministers and called for superintendents to supervise the church, but it also called for all the church property, that is, all the property of the old church, to be given over to the new church. The purpose of this was so that with the need to have many ministers who could preach in many parts of the country, there would be adequate income to pay the ministers and to see to the education of those not yet ordained. The government, the nobility in control of parliament, was absolutely unwilling to give all of the land that had belonged to the old church to the new church. And this was a call that the church kept making but largely went on deaf ears. The church often had to struggle with its own finances and how to adequately support itself. The Book of Discipline also contained a call for general education. It recognized not only the importance of an educated clergy but also the importance of lay people being able to read the Bible and in that way thoughtfully to engage in true religious practices. And it s interesting to note that the major motivation for the acquiring of literacy in the West came from the Protestant Reformation and from the desire to see people able to read the Bible. It was in Scotland and in some territories of Germany that in the West universal literacy was first attained. And so the concern for people to be able to read the Bible and to understand true religion became a major motivating factor in the development of education as a common privilege in society. 11 of 14

12 Knox s early experience then with the parliament, with the spread of the church, with the acts or organizing the church and forbidding the practice of Roman Catholicism were very encouraging to him, but soon things were to begin to change. And indeed by 1561, Mary Queen of Scots had decided to return from France to Scotland and take up personal rule there. The reason for this decision on her part was at least in part related to the death of her husband. Mary had been married in her young years to King Francis II of France. He was the eldest son of King Henry II of France and Catherine de Medici, the queen of France. When Francis II had come to the throne in 1560, his young wife, Mary Queen of Scots, seemed to be a rather glittering jewel in the French court. She was queen of France and queen of Scotland, and the future looked bright for her. And it appeared to many that her responsibilities in France would keep her out of Scotland, and this was something that Knox was eager to see happen, although some also feared that her being married to the king of France might increase his interest in and concern for Scotland. In any case, all of those fears came quickly to an end, all those hopes also quickly to an end when after only a few months on the throne, King Francis II died, and Mary was left a very young widow in the rather uncomfortable court of her mother-in-law. And so she decided in 1561 to return to Scotland. She too applied to Elizabeth for a safe conduct to travel through England, and Elizabeth also denied her request. And Mary also then had to sail directly from the continent to Scotland and arrived in Scotland on a rather dark and gloomy day which led Knox to remark, She brings with her only sorrow, dolour, darkness, and impiety. It was not a particularly auspicious beginning, but Knox did not expect any great good to come from his relationships with Mary. He remained a most staunch critic of her and of her behavior. Mary, it turns out, had not been raised all her life in court for nothing and was rather clever and diplomatic in her procedures. When being informed by the Protestant nobility of what the parliament had accomplished, she did not affirm it or reject it but declared that she was most willing to grant toleration to Protestants. Clearly, her intention was to play a kind of waiting game. She hoped to charm the nobility. She hoped to gain supporters among the nobility and then in time be able to restore the old religion. One of her chief assets was the fact that she was single. And many among the nobility thought that she might be willing to marry him and that he then might become king of Scotland. She was able rather effectively to begin to 12 of 14

13 undermine Knox s influence and to begin to neutralize some of the noble opposition by dangling before them the possibility of advancement in wealth and in power in the realm. She even tried to charm Knox from time to time after news had been received in Scotland, for example, in 1562 of a massacre of a group of Protestants in France, Mary had a ball at the palace and danced until late at night. Knox interpreted this as a celebration of the massacre of Protestants and criticized her publicly in one of his sermons. Mary was not used to ministers criticizing monarchs in their sermons, and she called him to visit her at the palace and tried to charm him and said to him that in the future if he had complaints or concerns about her behavior, he would be most welcome to come and talk privately with her about anything that concerned him. Knox responded in rather typically trumpeting fashion. He informed her, I have been called to a public ministry, not to wait at princes doors to whisper in their ears. This may have been one of the interviews that left Mary in tears as several of her interviews with Knox did. But Knox was aware of the way in which she was trying to undermine his authority and to reduce him to a sort of a court chaplain and undermine his free privileges as a preacher as he saw them. Mary had other avenues by which she sought to reverse the acts of parliament in favoring Protestantism and outlawing Roman Catholicism. And one of the ways in which she did that was she insisted on the right to have the Mass celebrated in her own private chapel. Knox sputtered and fumed about this and said that the Mass had been outlawed in Scotland as a whole and that the Mass could not be conducted, therefore, in the queen s private chapel. But the nobility by and large reasoned that after all she was the queen and that they could hardly keep her from practicing her own religion in her own private chapel. Knox said that the law was the law, and she was obligated to keep it like everybody else. But Mary prevailed, and she continued to have Mass celebrated in her own private chapel. Then she began to tour through Scotland, and she began to take priests with her. And wherever she would stop, she would have a priest celebrate Mass. And then she would leave a priest there to go on celebrating Mass when she traveled further. Here was a rather clever ploy on her part to gradually reintroduce the Mass in various parts of the realm by establishing, in effect, her own chapels there. Knox succeeded with others in convincing the nobility that this should not be tolerated and was clearly in violation of the law of A number of the priests and her 13 of 14

14 followers were arrested where they were holding Mass. Mary complained bitterly about this, and Knox responded, Ye are bound to keep laws unto your subjects. Ye crave of them service. They crave of you protection and defense against wicked doers. Now, Madame, if ye shall deny your duty unto them, think ye to receive full obedience of them? I fear, Madame, ye shall not. And here sounds that staunch element of Knox s thought about the rights of resistance against a monarch, a kind of contract theory of governmental relations that the monarch is as much bound as the people. And if the monarch fails, the people can resist. In due time, though, Mary succeeded in alienating much of Knox s support among the nobility. Especially after 1564, that support declined dramatically for Knox. A part of it was Mary s effective use of her own charm. Part of it was her use of her financial resources to appeal to the greed of the nobility, which was considerable. And part of it was that Knox remained uncompromising in his demands, and the nobility began to feel that they were excessive. In fact, Knox saw rather clearly the growing dangers of Mary s undermining of the Reformation. Knox continued to feel that the church needed to be making progress in Reformation. And Knox, like most sixteenth-century thinkers, felt that only one religion could be tolerated in any realm. He was most desirous of seeing the Church of Scotland, that is, the Reformed Church of Scotland, making advances in declaring the gospel in preaching the Word and reaching out to convert all that they could to the true faith of the Scripture. We ll continue with our look at the Scottish Reformation in the next lecture. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 14 of 14