Chapter XXI (2)

It seems that Winzet had some influence in the court of Queen Mary, and he continued his attacks on the leaders of the Protestants. His “Last Blast of the Trumpet of God’s Word,” printed at Edinburgh, 31st July, 1562, was directed “against the usurped authority of John Knox and his Calvinistic brethren, intruded preachers, etc.” Only a fragment of five leaves of the original edition is known to be extant. As mentioned in a preceding chapter, the printer of the book was seized and imprisoned, and Winzet narrowly escaped. He gained a ship bound for Flanders, and reached Antwerp on the 13th of September, and immediately proceeded to Louvain. His _Book of Four Score and Three Questions_ was published at Antwerp in 1563, to which he added a postscript personally addressed to John Knox. For some time he was connected with the University of Paris; and in 1577 Winzet was appointed Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of St. James, at Ratisbon, by a bull of Pope Gregory XIII. At Ratisbon Winzet continued to labour industriously till his death, which occurred on the 21st of September, 1592, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. His writings consists of certain tracts, already mentioned, and _The Book of Four Score and Three Questions_, proposed to the Calvinistic preachers in Scotland, and written in the vernacular: these were reprinted in a volume issued by the Maitland Club in 1835. He also translated into Scots the once well-known work on dogmatics, entitled, _Commonitorium pro Catholicæ fidei antiquate et univeritate, adversus profanas omnium Hæreseon nouationes_, written in the fifth century by Vincentius, Abbot of the monastery of Lerinum; and Winzet, in the title page to his translation, called it “a right goldin buke, written in Latin about eleven hundred years past,” and he prefaced it with an address to Mary Queen of Scots. He was further credited with making translations of Optatus, Tertullian, and other fathers, which are not now known to exist. But two of his Latin treatises have been preserved――one entitled _Flagellum Sectariorum_, and the other _Velitatio adversus Georgium Buchananum_. The first treated the question whether obedience should be shown to kings or ministers; he handled this subject because the teaching of the Calvinists tended to unsettle all legitimate authority, and in his treatment of the subject he showed considerable research; it also dealt with the subject of the Vocation of the Calvinistic ministers. The second was a political pamphlet of one hundred and thirty-three pages――an answer to Buchanan’s _Dialogue De Jure Regni apud Scotos_――and it was published in 1582. Winzet’s argument against Buchanan was that kings must be paramount, and that the people had no right to rebel against them, until the Church declared a king unfit to rule.

The Scottish Text Society issued an excellent edition of Winzet’s works in 1888‒90, which contains his writings and translations in the Scottish language, and also a useful glossary, valuable introductions, and notes.

Kennedy was the fourth son of Gilbert, the second Earl of ♦Cassillis, and was appointed abbot in 1548. He attended the Provincial Council of the clergy held in Edinburgh in 1549, and had the reputation of being a learned man. His treatise entitled, “A Compendious Tractive, conform to the Scriptures of Almighty God, Reason and Authority,” etc., was published in 1558. It was praised by his friends, and in latter times by Bishop Keith, and others. It is hardly necessary to say, that the Abbot’s chief and final argument was whatever the Church of Rome said must be true and right. Kennedy’s “Tractive” was answered by John Davidson, principal of the University of Glasgow, in a book printed at Edinburgh in 1563.¹ The Abbot’s next work was an “Oration,” printed in the year 1561, mainly intended to demolish a position held “by a famous preacher called John Knox.” After some correspondence had passed between Kennedy and Knox, a public discussion took place between them, on the subject of the Mass, at Maybole, in September, 1562, when the discussion lasted three days, and ended as disputes of the kind usually end, without either of the parties convincing the other. In 1563, Knox published a curious and rather interesting narrative of this three days’ talk. The following are the concluding sentences:――“And therefore, must I say, the Mass standeth groundless, and the greatest patron thereof, for all his sicker riding, hath once lost his stirrups, yea, is altogether, set beside his saddle. And yet the common brute goes, that you, my Lord, your flatterers and collaterals, brag greatly of your victory obtained in disputation against John Knox; but I will not believe you to be so vain, unless I shall know the certainty by your hand writ. Let all men now judge upon what ground the sacrifice of the Mass stands. The heavenly Father hath not planted within his Scriptures such a doctrine; it follows, therefore, that it ought to be routed out of all godly men’s hearts.”²

♦ “Cassilis” replaced with “Cassillis”

¹ _Knox’s Works_, Volume VI., pages 153‒155. The Writings of
Kennedy were printed in the first volume of the Wodrow
Miscellany, together with some correspondence that passed
between him and John Willock. Davidson’s answer to Kennedy’s
book is also printed in this Miscellany.

“Among the persons who accompanied Queen Mary from France
was her preacher and confessor, Réni Benoist. He was
a divine of some note, and produced two or three small
treatises, in a vain endeavour to conciliate differences
of opinion in matters of religious faith and practice.
One of these was a Latin epistle, addressed to the most
learned John Knox and other Protestant ministers, dated
from Holyrood House, the 10th of November, 1561. It was
translated by a certain friar, and was ‘greatly boasted of’
or commended. At the urgent request of some of his brethren,
David Ferguson, minister of Dunfermline, wrote an answer,
passage by passage, to what he calls ‘this pithless Epistle.’
This answer, including the Epistle itself, was printed
soon after, but it is of such rarity that only one single
copy has been discovered; but having recently been reprinted;
it is now beyond the chance of destruction.” _Knox’s Works_,
Volume VI., pages 151‒152. It was reprinted by the Bannatyne
Club, 1860.

² _Works_, Volume VI., pages 219‒221.

The latest of Knox’s writings was a tract published in vindication of the reformed religion, in answer to a letter of Tyrie, a Jesuit.¹ It was composed in 1568, and printed at St. Andrews ♦in 1572. Knox gives a portion of Tyrie’s letter in separate paragraphs, then his own comments follow, and thus each in turn succeed the other to the end of the discussion. The Jesuit began by asking――“What words, if any, would apply to those new formed Kirks, and especially of your invisible Kirk of Scotland, not yet eight years old, he is convicted.... Wherefore if ye cannot show what place of the world afore three hundred years your Kirk was into, it follows of necessity, that it is not a kirk.” The argument is the very old one, namely, that there is but one Church――the Roman Church. Knox answers this point at great length, and closes with these words:――“We say yet again, that whensoever the Church of Rome shall be reduced to the state in which the Apostles left her, we are assured that she shall vote in our favour, against all such as shall deny us to be a Church, if God continue us in the simplicity which this day is mocked of the world.”² The other points which the Jesuit advances touching the Reformed Church, are forms of the arguments always used by the Roman Catholic writers. Such as, that the Protestant Church had no succession from Christ; that there is a continual succession of doctrine which has never varied in the Catholic Church, but has prevailed in all ages. With more truth and reason, he refers to the differences of the Protestants among themselves, and specially notes the contrast between some of the congregations of Germany and those of Scotland. Immediately after Knox’s answer, Tyrie prepared a refutation, which was published at Paris in 1573, but ere this Knox was dead. In March, 1574, the General Assembly had under consideration an answer to James Tyrie’s book, composed by John Duncanson, minister of the King’s household.³

¹ James Tyrie was born near Perth in 1543, and it is supposed
that he spent some time at the University of St. Andrews.
Early in the year 1563 he left Scotland with Father Edmund
Hay, the Jesuit, to follow his theological studies at the
University of Louvain. In August of that year he visited
Rome, and there joined the society of Jesus. He was
afterwards appointed professor of philosophy and theology
in the Jesuit College of Clermont, at Paris. His elder
brother, David Tyrie of Drumkilbo, embraced the reformed
faith, and the Jesuit was naturally anxious to reclaim him
to the mother Church, and addressed to him several letters,
including the one submitted to Knox. Tyrie in 1590 became
Provincial of the Jesuits in France; he was in Rome in
1591; and two years later he was appointed assistant to
the General of the Jesuits for the provinces of France and
Germany. He died at Rome in March, 1597, leaving behind him
for publication several manuscripts to the library of the
professed house “Il Geni.” Knox’s _Works_, Volume VI., pages
475‒478.

♦ duplicate word “in” removed

² Knox’s _Works_, Volume VI., pages 486‒497.

³ _Ibid._, pages 497‒511, 475‒476; _Book of the Universal
Kirk_, pages 289, 361.

The longest of Knox’s polemical works is his treatise on predestination, published at Geneva in 1560. It was directed against an anonymous adversary, and its full title was, “An Answer to a great number of blasphemous cavillations written by an Anabaptist and an adversary to God’s eternal predestination; and confuted by John Knox, minister of God’s word in Scotland; wherein the author so discovers the craft and falsehood of that sect, that the godly, knowing that error, may be confirmed in the truth by the evident word of God.”¹ At that time the doctrine of predestination itself, as well as other tenets of the Anabaptists, had evoked much controversy. But, before saying anything about Knox’s contribution to the mass of this class of theological literature, it is necessary to refer briefly to the writings of Calvin himself, and to those of some of his predecessors and contemporaries.

¹ Knox’s _Works_, Volume V. “And, that it was prepared for the
press before his final return to Scotland is sufficiently
clear, when we consider how fully his time was afterwards
occupied, and this renders it probable that it may have been
chiefly written at Dieppe in 1559, during the interval of
his application for permission, which was denied him, to
pass through England on his way to his native country. That
the author had no opportunity of correcting the sheets while
at press seems also evident.... This task of revising the
work at press seems to have been done by William Whittingham,
an Englishman.” Dr. Laing, pages 15‒17. Knox’s treatise on
predestination was reprinted in 1591.

At an early stage in the history of Christian doctrine the idea of an eternal decree of God began to arise. The notion of predestination was held with varying degrees of definiteness, and it early became associated with the freedom of the will. But the crude psychology of the Fathers was entirely subordinated to the assumed necessities of the conditions of salvation.¹ About the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth centuries conflicting doctrines touching sin, grace, and liberty, were advanced and maintained. Original sin was supposed to have entailed utter ruin upon the human race; but Celestius and Pelagius both denied the natural depravity of man; and it was out of these controversies that the doctrine of predestination, or the eternal decree sprang. When St. Augustine carried the notion of original sin to its logical consequences, he arrived at the following statement of his doctrine:――“As all men have sinned in Adam, they are justly exposed to the vengeance of God, because of this hereditary sin and guilt of sin.” He could see nothing in the natural power of man to choose between good and evil, but only a liberty to do evil, since the regenerated man alone can will aright. In short, Augustine held that all mankind were in a state of depravity; that those alone will be saved to whom the grace of God is imparted: in this way he led up to the eternal decree.²

¹ Several theories of the mind, or the soul, and the relation
between the soul and the body, were held during the early
centuries of Christianity. Some considered the soul as
forming the medium between the purely spiritual in man,
the ideal principle of reason, and the merely animal or
the grosser and sensual elements of his nature. They also
fancied that this threefold notion of the organ of the
human mind was supported by Scripture. Several of the
early Fathers, especially those of the Alexandrian school,
adopted the triple division of the mind; while others, like
Tertullian, adhered to the old opinion that man consists of
soul and body only. A few of the Gnostic sects carried the
triple notion so far as to divide men themselves into three
classes, according as the one or the other of the three
constituents prevailed to the apparent exclusion of the
others. “Accordingly, it is not every man who is composed
of three parts, but he only who has received the gift of the
Holy Spirit, as the third part.”――Hagenbach’s _History of
Doctrines_, Volume I., pages 141‒143, 180, 183, 184; 1846;
also Baur.

This is not the place to enter into a full exposition of the
curious theories of the mind which prevailed in the early
centuries of the Christian era. It may be stated, however,
that the anthropology of the Fathers was very different from
that of the present time; although the problems demanding
explanation were much the same, the modern conceptions
of mind and matter have little or no resemblance to the
ideas of Origen, Tertullian, Augustine, and the rest of
the Fathers. Touching the origin of the soul itself, there
were three principal theories:――1, The pre-existence of all
souls; 2, The continual creation of souls by divine agency;
3, The traduction of souls by natural procreation. Of these
in their order: The first theory taught that all the souls
and finite spirits in the universe were formed simultaneously
at the beginning, and prior to the creation of matter: the
intellectual universe thus preceded the sensible universe.
The souls of men, therefore, existed before the creation
of Adam. This theory is allied to the Pythagorean and
Platonic speculations. The second theory maintained that God
immediately created a new soul in every instance that a new
human being was born. The body, however, was not created in
this manner, it was naturally propagated. The third theory
held that both the soul and the body of the human individual
are propagated. But the last view fell into disrepute;
and in the Middle Ages, the notion of the special and the
continual creation of new souls generally prevailed.

² Hagenbach’s _History of Doctrines_, Volume I., pages 297,
300‒302, 304. “According to Augustine, not only was physical
death a punishment inflicted upon Adam and all his posterity,
but he looked upon original sin itself as being in some
sense a punishment of the first transgression, though it
was also a real sin, and can therefore be imputed to every
individual. But it is on this point, viz., the imputation
of original sin, that his views differed from all former
opinions, however strict they were. He endeavoured to clear
himself from the charge of Manichæism (in opposition to
Julian) by designating sin not a substance, but a vitium,
a languor; he even charged his opponent with Manichæism.”
――_Ibid._, page 302. See also Wiggers.

Pelagius and Celestius, on the other hand, held, along with other heresies, that every human being is a moral agent, and must be accountable for himself; hence it naturally followed that sin was a voluntary act of the individual. According to this ethical view, every infant is in the same state as Adam was before the fall; so that neither sin nor virtue is innate, but the one as well as the other develops itself when man comes to exercise his liberty, for which he alone is responsible. Touching liberty and grace, however, Pelagius admitted that man in his moral efforts had need of the Divine aid; the grace of God assisted man in various ways, although he thought that it is something external, merely added to a man’s own efforts. In short, Pelagius’s theory assumed that man had it in his power to choose between good and evil. These opinions were condemned at Carthage in 412; again, in a synod of the North-African bishops at the same place, in 418. The controversy was hot, and the Emperor Honorius put a check to his external manifestation.¹

¹ Hagenbach’s _History of Doctrines_, Volume ♦I., pages 200,
300, 302. The chief tenets of Pelagius, the heresiarch of
the fifth century, have been summarised as follows:――“1.
Adam was created mortal, so that he would have died whether
he had sinned or not. 2. Adam’s sin has only affected
himself, and not the human race. 3. New-born infants are in
the same condition in which Adam was before the fall. 4. The
whole human race dies neither in consequence of Adam’s death,
nor of his transgression; nor does it rise from the dead
in consequence of Christ’s resurrection. 5. Infants obtain
eternal life, though they should not be baptized. 6. The
Law is as good a means of grace as the gospel. 7. There were
some men, even before the appearance of Christ, who did not
commit sin.”――Wiggers, Volume I., page 60. Gieseler, section
87. Some of Pelagius’s writings are preserved, among others,
a treatise on “Free Will.” Many works were written against
the Pelagians.

♦ volume number added by transcriber.

Still the peculiar views of Augustine were not recognised in the east; even in the west his notion of predestination never became universally popular in the Roman Catholic Church. As we approach the Reformation period it is evident that the doctrines of Augustine did not prevail. Instead of free grace through the mercy of God and the merits of Christ, the supererogatory works of the saints formed a ladder by which the greatest sinner might easily mount to heaven, provided he paid enough for the privilege, or left his lands to the Church. It was therefore natural that the Reformers should look back to the belief of the primitive Church, and receive with gladness some of the tenets of St. Augustine.

Calvin’s _Institutes of the Christian Religion_ was first published in 1536. Although in subsequent editions it was greatly enlarged, the principles which he then enunciated were pretty consistently maintained to the end of his days.¹ Knox followed Calvin, with little deviation, in dogma and doctrine. In 1559 he was very anxious “to read Calvin upon Isaie, and his _Institutes_ revised,” but the common troubles at that time were forcing him to forego such important things.² Calvin in his _Institutes_ gives four chapters of the third book, 21‒24, to the treatment of election and predestination. He was aware of the difficulties of the subject, and discussed it with a sobriety of judgment, a sense of responsibility, and a power of intellect, rarely matched in theological literature. But the line of argument that he followed, the definite issue that he arrived at, and the evidence from Scripture which he adduced to confirm the doctrine of predestination, are not satisfactory.³ After he had expounded, illustrated, and repelled objections to the doctrine of predestination, exhibiting much power, logical skill, and ingenuity, the eternal decree is still hard to reconcile with the moral attributes of a just and beneficent God of the universe.⁴ On a pure moral principle the doctrine of the eternal decree as stated by Calvin cannot be consistently maintained. He asserts that the will of God is the supreme rule of right, and that the mere fact of his willing anything makes it to be right. Indeed, Calvin seems to have been controlled in the treatment of predestination by practical religious considerations. His point of view is unphilosophical, and moral truth and consistency were subordinated in his mind to the assumed necessities of the conditions of salvation. That God should voluntarily and knowingly condemn myriads of his creatures to endless torture, merely because He so willed it, is certainly not an elevated conception. On the other side, the doctrine of predestination afforded to all who adopted it, ample scope for insisting on the duty of submission to the will of God; and for inveighing against the pride and self-conceit of those who might pretend that their own merits entitled them to claim a right to heaven, instead of being absolutely indebted for it to God’s pleasure, grace, and benignity.

¹ The first edition of his _Institutes_, printed at Basle, is
now extremely rare, not more than half a dozen copies are
known to exist. It is a small octavo volume of 514 pages,
with five pages more of index placed at the end. The whole
work is described as one book, divided into six chapters. A
second edition appeared at Strasburg in 1539. It contained
seventeen chapters, the original matter being about doubled.
This edition is also very scarce. The other editions are
those of 1543, 1545, 1550, 1553, 1554, and an entirely
new edition in 1559, containing his last revisal, and from
it all the subsequent editions were printed. An English
translation was published at London in 1561.

Dyer, in his _Life of Calvin_, says that passages
favourable to a mild and tolerant treatment of heretics
which appeared in the earlier editions were expunged or
made more intolerant in the latter ones.――pages 357, 358.
Calvin’s final conclusions on the punishment of heretics
and allied matters are given in the fourth book of the
_Institutes_, chapter 12, section 1‒13.

² Knox’s _Works_, Volume VI., page 101.

³ When answering the objection, that predestination was a
stumbling-block, Calvin said, “I admit that profane men lay
hold on the subject of predestination to carp, or snare,
or cavil, or scoff. But if their petulance frightens us,
it will be necessary to conceal all the principal articles
of faith, because they and their fellows scarcely leave one
of them unassailed with blasphemy. A rebellious spirit will
display itself no less insolently when it hears that there
are three persons in the Divine essence, than when it hears
that God, when he created man, foresaw everything that was
to happen to him. Nor will they abstain from their jeers
when told that little more than five thousand years have
elapsed since the creation of the world; for they will ask,
Why did the power of God slumber so long in idleness? In
short, nothing can be stated that they will not assail with
derision. To quell their blasphemies, must we say nothing
concerning the divinity of the Son and the Spirit? Must the
creation of the world be passed over in silence! No. The
truth of God is too powerful, both here and everywhere, to
dread the slanders of the ungodly.”――Chapter 21, section 4.

⁴ “By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by
which He determined with Himself whatever He wished to
happen with regard to every man. All are not created on
equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life,
others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has
been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he
has been predestinated to life, or to death.” “The will of
God is the supreme rule of righteousness, so that everything
which He wills must be held to be righteous, by the mere
fact of His willing it. Therefore, when it is asked why the
Lord did so, we must answer, Because He pleased. But if you
proceed further to ask why He pleased, you ask for something
greater than the will of God, and nothing such can be found.
Let human temerity then be quiet, and cease to inquire after
what exists not, lest, perhaps, it fails to find what does
exist.”――Chapter 21, section 5.――Chapter 23, section 2.

The doctrines of Calvin were opposed in his own lifetime by Jerome Bolsec, Sebastia Castellio, and others. Bolsec openly impugned the doctrine of the eternal decree of predestination, and fought over the points involved with Calvin himself. He had little difficulty in showing that the human mind was unable to cope with the eternal and unalterable counsel of God, or to lay down dogmatically what its issue must be in relation to mankind. Castellio vehemently attacked the Calvinistic doctrines, and especially assailed the tenet of election by grace, with the weapons of acute thought and satire. Both maintained that the eternal decree tended to fatalism, and made God the author of sin, as everything happened according to an inexorable purpose. Calvin answered both opponents, and prepared a public declaration of the doctrine of predestination, which was approved by the consistory of Geneva. The controversy, however, went on; but Calvin boldly faced all his enemies, and fought with an energy and a resoluteness which at last commanded a large measure of success.¹

¹ Dyer’s _Life of Calvin_, pages 168‒172, 265‒283, 388; Henry’s
_Life of Calvin_, Volume I., page 289.

In Geneva Calvin had many difficulties to contend against. There were anabaptists in the city who sometimes caused disturbance, and anti-Unitarian doctrines had also sprung up. After the burning of Servetus, his disciples published several libels and attacks upon Calvin. These parties were bitterly opposed to various points of his system of theology, and one of their onslaughts was written in the following strain:――“Moreover, though you affirm yours to be the true doctrine, they say that they cannot believe you. For since your God very often says one thing, and thinks and wills another, it is to be feared that you may imitate him, and deceive men in like manner. I myself was once taken with your doctrine; and though I did not quite understand it, I defended it, because I so much esteemed your authority, that it seemed to me forbidden even to think differently from you. But now, when I hear the objections of your adversaries, I know not what to reply.” He concludes with the request to Calvin, “If you have any good arguments let me know them.”¹ The anabaptists were annoying, and though often persecuted, not only in Switzerland, but also in Germany, England, and other countries, they continued to spread and multiply.

¹ Dyer’s _Life of Calvin_, pages 66, 366‒367, 446, _et seq._;
Knox’s _Works_, Volume V., pages 12‒15; Dorner’s _History
of Protestant Theology_, Volume I.; Hagenbach’s _History of
Doctrines_, Volume II., pages 200‒206.

As already mentioned, it was against one of the anabaptist class that Knox composed his book on predestination. Many of this unknown writer’s objections to the Calvinistic tenets he states with much force; and, although he insists throughout that his opponent’s inferences are not deducible from their doctrines, this is not always the case.¹ In the sixth section of his book “the adversary” advanced the following statements on the Calvinistic conception of God:――“Of all sorts and sects of men, I have judged them to be the most abhorred who are called Atheists, that is to say, such as deny that there is a God. But now, methinks these careless men are much more to be abhorred; my reason is because they be more injurious to God than the Atheists; for it is less injurious to a man to believe that he is not, than to call him a cruel man, a tyrant, and an unjust person; so are they less injurious to God who believe that he is not, than they that say he is unmerciful, cruel, and an oppressor. Now what greater cruelty, tyranny, and oppression, can be, than to create the most part of the human race to everlasting damnation? so that by no manner of way they can escape and avoid the cruel decree and sentence against them. Seeing that the philosopher Plato judged them unworthy to live and to be suffered in any commonwealth who spoke evil of God, what ought the judgment to be of such men who have so wicked an opinion of God? Whatever our judgment be of them, and whatsoever their deserving be, let us labour rather to win them than to lose them. But, forasmuch as he that touches pitch is in danger of being defiled therewith, therefore ought we to walk warily with such men that we be not defiled and infected of them; seeing that now-a-days this horrible doctrine does fester even as the disease of a canker, which infects from one member to another until it has occupied the whole body, unless it be cut away; even so this error hath already infected from one member to another a great number. The Lord grant them the true meaning and understanding of His word, whereby they may be healed and the sickness cut off, the member being saved.”

¹ Dr. Laing thought that the author of this book, which
Knox set himself to refute, was Robert Cooke, one of the
gentlemen of Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel. Knox’s _Works_,
Volume V., page 16.

Knox answers this reasoning in a carping way. He does not attempt to grapple with the real difficulty; the inconsistency of the decree of predestination and special election of only a small number of the human race to everlasting happiness; while the great majority is inevitably doomed to endless suffering. He merely says――“Because that in all this your long discourse, ye more show your malice, which unjustly against us ye have conceived, than that either you expunge our belief, either yet promote your false opinion. I will not spend time to recompense your dispute. Only this I will offer in the name of all my brethren: that if you will be able, in the presence of a lawful judge and magistrate, evidently to convict us that either we speak evil of God, either yet that by our writings, preaching, or reasoning, it justly can be proved that our opinion is evil of His eternal majesty, power, and wisdom, and goodness, that then we refuse not to suffer the same punishment which by the authority of Plato ye judge us worthy of.... What is your study to win us, and whether our doctrine be a horrible error or not, I do not now dispute. Thus you reason:――

“‘God created man a very good thing; and dare you say that God ordained a very good thing to destruction? thus God delights in the destruction of that which is good. Man at his creation was a just and innocent creature, for before the transgression there was no evil neither in Adam nor in us; and think you that God ordained his just and innocent creatures to condemnation? What greater tyranny and unrighteousness can the most wicked man in the world, yea, the devil himself, do, than to condemn the innocent and just person? Hereby may we see that these careless men are more abominable than the Atheists who believe that there is no God. But these affirm God to be as bad as the devil, yea, and worse; forasmuch as the devil can only tempt a man to death, but he can compel none to fall into condemnation; but God may not only tempt, but also compel by his eternal decree the most part of the race to destruction, and has so done, as they say, so that of necessity, and only because it was his pleasure and will――then must God be worse than the devil; for the devil only tempted man to fall, but God compelled them to fall by his immutable decree. Oh, horrible blasphemy!’”¹

¹ Knox’s _Works_, Volume V., pages 88‒90.

To these questions Knox has given no satisfactory answer, nor has anyone else. They have engaged the minds of many writers, but so far as theological exposition is concerned, they remain in much the same state at the present day; though few cultivated preachers would now attribute the wrathful and avenging character to God, which it was common to do in the sixteenth century. The statement of the theory of the eternal decree in any form is extremely difficult, if not impossible, in connection with the doctrine of the conditional and limited salvation of the human race, especially when it is deemed right to employ all the examples of what is called the pouring out of God’s wrath upon the enemies of the Jews, and upon the Jews themselves, when their turn came. From one standpoint this is the weak side of Calvinism; yet to many it has been, and is now, exceedingly fascinating to imagine that they know the eternal counsel of God, and are able to formulate His will and intention.

One other quotation and then I will leave this subject. “If God reprobated man before the foundation of the world, then God reprobated man before he had offended; and if God reprobated and damned man before he offended, then is death the reward of God’s ordinance before the world, and not the reward of sin. But the apostle teaches us, that by sin death entered into the world, and also that death is the reward of sin. I pray you, does either God’s law, or man’s law, condemn any man before he has offended? I am certain ye are not able to prove it to be so; then ought you to be ashamed to burden God with such unrighteous judgment. Does not God rather forgive the offence already committed? Let him be your God who condemns the innocent before he offended; but he shall be my God who pardons and forgives the offence already committed, who in his very wrath thinks upon mercy. And so with Job will I conclude,――‘The great God casts away no man.’” Knox’s answer to this is as follows:――“How ignorantly and how impudently ye confound the eternal purpose of God’s reprobation with the just execution of his judgments I have before declared, and therefore here it only rests to admonish the reader that most unjustly ye accuse us in that ye say, that we hold and teach that God damned man before he offended. This ye be never able to show in any of our writings; for constantly, in word and writing, we affirm that man willingly fell from God, and made himself a slave to Satan before that death was inflicted upon him; and so neither make we death to be the reward of God’s ordinance, neither do we burden Him with unrighteous judgments.”¹ This reasoning is not to the point; the adversary’s objections are deductions from the theory of the eternal decree of predestination, election, and reprobation, which were all fixed before the foundation of the world. It is no refutation to say that his opponent cannot find the words which he used in their writings. How could man “have willingly fallen from God,” when, according to their theory, God had it all inexorably settled before the creation? These are questions which the human mind cannot settle dogmatically; they are immeasurably beyond its powers. But when men assume that they can form definite ideas and pronounce true judgments upon these mysterious and in a sense inscrutable matters, and enforce people to profess their belief in them, suffering and persecution often ensued, and men are tortured and put to death for not believing what they are unable to understand; not only so, but for not believing things which no human being has ever yet been able fully to comprehend. The arrogance of those that presume to fix what the eternal counsel of the Godhead is and must be, can hardly be expected to manifest much respect for the people who do not think and believe as they do. We need not be surprised, therefore, that intolerance was a characteristic of men that professed to know the eternal counsel and will of the Supreme Being. Seeing that they were thoroughly convinced and firm in their faith, they deemed it their highest duty to compel others to adopt their creed, that they too might have a chance of entering into the glories of heaven, and of escaping the torments of hell. It is easy for us now, with more varied, wider, and more minute knowledge of nature and mankind, to point out the weak side of the great men of the sixteenth century; but we are bound, at the same time, to recognise the noble and unfaltering spirit which the leaders of the Reformation displayed, however much we may deplore the use of coercive means which they were far too eager to wield.

¹ Knox’s _Works_, Volume V., pages 110, 111.

Perhaps the most interesting class of Knox’s writings is his letters, of which upwards of a hundred are included in Dr. Laing’s edition of his works. They chiefly relate to the Reformation and the historical events of the time; and many of them are valuable. His letters also show him in a more amiable light than that in which he is usually represented. He had a warm and tender heart, and for all his reputed harshness of demeanour and his inflexible firmness of purpose, he was by no means a man of blood; indeed there is no evidence that he was ever accessory to the death of any one for his religious opinions. In his history of the Reformation there are passages full of comic humour. The description of the scene that happened in Edinburgh, at the close of the procession on St. Giles’ day, is a fair example of his wit――“The people began to cry down with the idol, down with it; and so without delay it was pulled down.... Then might have been seen so sudden a fray as seldom has been seen among that sort of men within this realm; for down goes the crosses, off goes the surplices, round caps corner with the crowns. The Gray Friars gaped, the Black Friars blew, the priests panted and fled, and happy was he that first got to the house; for such a sudden fray never came among the generation of Antichrist within this realm before.”¹

¹ Knox’s _Works_, Volume I., page 260.

The Literature of the Reformation in Scotland may be said to close with George Buchanan, whose life was prolonged to a comparatively old age. Buchanan was born on the lands of Moss, in Stirlingshire, in the beginning of February, 1506. The spot of his birth was a few yards from the river Blane, and about two miles to the south-east of the village of Killearn. On his father’s side he was of Celtic descent, and probably Gaelic was his mother tongue; and, at least, it is clear that he was quite familiar with that language; as he had the feeling and intuition of a Celt, which was manifested throughout his writings. He probably received the elements of his education at the schools of Killearn and Dumbarton. At the age of fourteen he was sent to the University of Paris, in which he spent two years, mainly devoted to Latin, and writing verse in that language. He returned to Scotland in weak health in 1522, and it was nearly a year ere he recovered. In 1525, Buchanan proceeded to St. Andrew’s University to complete his first stage in the curriculum of Arts, and, as mentioned in a preceding page, he was under the teaching of John Mair. In October, 1525, he graduated as a Bachelor of Arts, so it appears that his studies in Paris must have been recognised by the Faculty of St. Andrews. Buchanan returned to Paris in the summer of 1526, and entered the Scots College; and in March, 1528, he graduated Master of Arts. Shortly after, he commenced his teaching career as a regent in the University of Paris. He returned to Scotland in 1535, and immediately became closely connected with the Court of James V. At this time he wrote the poem entitled “Somnium,” which gave great offence to the order of the Franciscans, who thenceforth in Scotland, England, France, Portugal, and Italy, pursued him with every weapon at their command. Buchanan was engaged by James V. as tutor to one of his natural sons――Lord James Stuart, then a child, not the James who was afterwards known as the Regent Moray, but another natural son of the King, of the same name, who died in 1558. Thus Buchanan was brought into very close connection with the Court, and then the King prompting him to write more satires against the Franciscans, he produced two severe writings against them. But the resentment of the friars and the clergy was roused, and Buchanan soon realised that even the countenance of the King would not protect him from their wrath; and, as mentioned in a preceding chapter, he escaped and fled to England, and shortly after proceeded to France. From this time (1539), for upwards of twenty years, Buchanan was mainly engaged as a professor in the Universities of France and Portugal, and occasionally acted as a private tutor to the sons of personages of high rank. At this period thought, creeds, doctrines, and opinions, were in a state of great agitation and transition throughout Europe, which rendered the calling of a public teacher one of extreme difficulty and danger. Buchanan did not escape the anxieties, the troubles and dangers then associated with his mode of life; for he had often to face privation, and to encounter extreme difficulties and perplexities in his career abroad. In March, 1547, under an engagement to act as a professor in the Faculty of Arts in the University of Coimbra, Buchanan proceeded to Portugal, and left France. For a short time, under the management of Gouvéa, the principal of the institution, everything succeeded delightfully, but he suddenly died in the end of the year 1547.

The following year Buchanan and other humanists connected with the college were assailed by the Jesuits, and public charges of heresy were made against them. Buchanan and other two were seized and imprisoned in a dungeon. After long confinement they were brought to trial, and for several days subjected to the most cruel reproaches, although no accusers were even named, and they were sent back to prison. Towards Buchanan the Jesuits were especially bitter; they accused him of writing a poem against the Franciscans, and of having eaten flesh during Lent, and that in conversation with some young Portuguese, when the subject of the Eucharist was mentioned, he had said that Augustine was far more with the heretics than the Church in his teaching on that subject. After the inquisitors for a year and a half had worn out Buchanan’s patience and their own, they shut him up for some months in a monastery, in order that he might be more accurately instructed by the monks, who proved neither unkindly nor ill disposed, though they were utterly ignorant of religious truth. It was mainly at this time that Buchanan translated a number of the Psalms into various measures. At length, being restored to liberty, he embarked at Lisbon in a Cretan ship, and sailed for England, where he arrived towards the end of 1552; but shortly after proceeded to France, where he was again engaged in public and private teaching, sometimes in Italy and sometimes in France. After having experienced many vicissitudes in foreign lands, in 1561 Buchanan returned to his native country, after an absence of twenty-two years.

On his return to Scotland, Buchanan became allied with the Protestant party. He was not, however, a reformer in the same sense as Knox or Calvin; he had more of the characteristics of a humanist and a scholar, a man of genius and of letters. Buchanan became connected with the court, and in 1562 he was acting as classical tutor to Queen Mary; and in February, 1563, he was appointed to interpret documents written in foreign languages, “that the Queen and council might thereafter understand the same.” He addressed several of his short poems to Mary herself, and he wrote and addressed a remarkable poem to her on the birth of James VI. in 1566. The Earl of Moray, as Commendator of the Priory of St. Andrews, appointed Buchanan principal of St. Leonard’s College in 1566, an office which he held till 1570. Afterwards Buchanan became attached to the party opposed to the Queen, and was closely associated with the Regents Moray, Lennox, Mar, and Morton. In 1570 he was appointed tutor to the young King, and directed to devote attention to his education; and, along with Peter Young, Buchanan was in 1572 and 1578 confirmed by acts of the Privy Council in his office as “Master” to the King. When Lennox became Regent, Buchanan was made Director of Chancery, and then Keeper of the Privy Seal, an office which he held till 1578; and in virtue of this office, he had a seat in parliament. He died on the 28th of September, 1582, in the seventy-seventh year of his age.¹

¹ _Register of the Privy Council_, Volume I., page 234; Volume
II., pages 181, 689, 702, 708. Very full information of the
life and of the writings of Buchanan will be found in Dr.
Irving’s _Memoirs_, published in 1807, the second edition in
1817. Buchanan kept up a literary correspondence with some
of the most learned and famous scholars of the age. A very
able, discriminative, and exceedingly interesting biography
of Buchanan, by Mr. P. H. Brown, was published in 1890;
it is the best account of the life and works of this great
Scotsman which has yet appeared.

Although Buchanan wrote very little in the language of the people, his Latin works have had much influence, not only in Scotland but also on the Continent. He was universally recognised as an elegant Latin poet, and a very successful writer of classic prose.

A review of his Latin poems does not come within the scope of this work, but his prose writings demand some notice. His largest and most popular work is the History of Scotland in twenty books. Though the early portion of it is unmistakably fabulous, it is written throughout with great animation and force. For the part of it which relates to the history of the sixteenth century, he is an original and contemporary authority, and from his official position it may reasonably be assumed that he had access to the most trustworthy sources of information for the later portion of his history. Though an ardent party man, he had a strong sense of justice, a good judgment, and a love of truth. His narrative is enriched with wise and just political reflections, and his sentiments are almost always liberal, and for the time even radical. This feature of his History drew down upon it the vengeance of all who were attached to Romanism, all the enemies of freedom and all the lovers of despotism; even at this day, there are some who utterly detest the political principles of George Buchanan. The personal responsibility of kings for their conduct which he emphatically asserted in his history, was the most unpalatable of all opinions, and it met with virulent and bitter opposition.

But the work in which Buchanan most fully and logically developed the principles of political freedom is the _De Jure Regni apud Scotos_, published in 1579. This work was written in the form of a dialogue, and is a masterly compend of political thought. It at once excited a large degree of attention.¹ The principles which he enunciated were clear and decisive; they were derived from reason and experience, and unflinchingly directed against every form of tyranny. The argument was put in the following form:――Men were naturally formed for society, but in order to arrest the internal broils that sprang up among them, they created kings, and in order to restrain the power of their kings, they enacted laws. As the community is the source of legal power it is greater than the king, and may therefore judge him; and since the laws are intended to restrain the king in case of collision, it is for the people, not for the ruler, to interpret them, as otherwise they could have no assurance that their interests would be safe. It is the duty of the king to associate himself with the law, and to govern exclusively according to its decisions. A king is one that rules by law, and in accordance with the interests of the people; but a tyrant is one that rules by his own will, and contrary to the interests of the people. An opinion has been promulgated that a king who is hampered by recognised constitutional ties, may be resisted if he violates them, but that a tyrant who reigns where no constitution exists must be always obeyed; this view, however, is wholly false. The people may justly make war against such a ruler, and may pursue him till he be slain. Buchanan illustrated and sent home these political opinions by examples drawn from history. He had also the merit of completely disentangling politics from the puerile conceits and endless subtleties of the Catholic theologians.

¹ There were several editions of the dialogue published in a
separate form, in 1580, 1581, one at Glasgow 1750; one at
London 1765; and it has been repeatedly translated into
English: besides it was printed with all the editions of
Buchanan’s works, except the first. As we have seen, it was
condemned by the Scottish parliament in 1584, but probably
this had little effect in retarding its circulation. At the
end of last century there was a manuscript version of the
dialogue in English, in the Lambeth Library. In 1680, a
translation was published, but the place of printing was
concealed: English translations of it appeared at Edinburgh,
1691; at London, 1689, 1721, 1799.

There have been many editions of Buchanan’s other works,
of the history there have been at least twenty editions.
His translation of the Psalms into Latin metre was long
and universally admired, and has passed through numerous
editions both in England and Scotland, and in other
countries. In the beginning of the present century Dr.
Irving wrote――“Buchanan’s paraphrase continues to be read
in the principal schools of Scotland, and perhaps in those
of some other countries. Lauder’s attempt to supersede it
by that of Johnston proved unsuccessful. During the lifetime
of Buchanan, it had begun to be introduced into the schools
of Germany; and its various measures had been accommodated
to appropriate melodies, for the purpose of being chanted by
academics. Pope Urban VII., himself a poet of no mean talent,
is said to have averred that it was a pity it was written by
so great a heretic, for otherwise it should have been sung
in all churches under his authority.”――_Memoirs of the Life
and Writings of Buchanan_, pages 130‒131.

Buchanan’s writings in the Scottish dialect are two political pamphlets, which were written in support of the King’s party, one entitled “An Admonitioun direct to the trew Lordis maintenaris of Justice and Obedience to the King’s Grace,” and the other called the “♦Chamaeleon.” They both originated from the critical state of the Kingdom immediately after the murder of the Regent Moray, and show the keen and practical interest which Buchanan took in the politics of his day; and also his insight into the real position of the nation at the time. In the _Admonitioun_ his chief contention is that the only hope for religion and liberty in Scotland depended on the safety of the young King; and the aim of the pamphlet was to show the King’s supporters the national ruin that would issue from the defeat of their cause. He insisted that the Hamiltons were the chief enemies of the King’s cause. The _Chamaeleon_ was directed against Maitland of Lethington, who had joined the Queen’s followers, and used his talents and energy to subvert the King’s party; and he more than any one else was the moving spirit of Mary’s party. Lethington was then in the Castle of Edinburgh, and tidings having reached him that such a pamphlet was forthcoming, on the night of the 14th of April, 1571, Captain Melvin was sent from the Castle to Lekpreuik’s house to seize him, and if possible to obtain the manuscript of the offensive pamphlet. The printer, however, having had warning, made his escape; but the publication of the _Chamaeleon_ was stopped, and it was not printed till 1710. Lekpreuik went to Stirling, and there he printed in the summer of 1571 Buchanan’s _Admonitioun_ direct to the trew Lordis. These two pamphlets of Buchanan are very good specimens of Scottish prose literature; although the form of his sentences is in the Latin style, the expression is clear and effective. The Scottish Text Society have recently published Buchanan’s two Scottish pamphlets, edited by Mr. P. Hume Brown.

♦ “Chamaelon” replaced with “Chamaeleon”