citly in the "Buke of Discipline May 20. 1560"; his words

are:

"The Tabill of the Lord is then most rychtlie ministred, quhen it approacheth most ney to Christis awin actioun. But plane it is, that at that Supper, Christ Jesus sat with his discipillis, and thairfoir do we juge, that sitting at a table is most convenient to that holie actioun :....

"That the Minister breik the breid, and distribute the same to those that be nyxt unto him, commaunding the rest, every one with reverence and sobrietie, to breake with other, we think it nyest to Christis actioun, and to the perfite practice [of the Apostles,] as we read it in Sanct Paull.-Laing's Knox, Vol. 2, p. 114.

Such was Knox's studied and uniform language on five occasions, at intervals from 1550 to 1560, that is to say before contemporaneous with, and subsequent to the Book of 1552: and it is abundantly plain that he objected to kneeling at the Sacrament from an alleged (need we doubt it a real, however mistaken,) reverence for Christ's institution: he accounted it a mere human (not even an apostolic) polity, and, as such, not convenient, but superstitious and idolatrous.

Unless, then, it can be certainly affirmed that Knox held. that Christ was neither adorable nor adored when giving Himself to His disciples at the institution of the Eucharist, we are not, I conceive, entitled to argue that he refused to kneel, when the Church commemorated that act, because it betokened a worship of Christ: rather we ought, I think, to argue that he designed to render the same honour to Christ which was due and rendered by His Apostles when receiving from Himself His Body and Blood; and that had he been convinced of kneeling being the "most nigh to Christ's own action" he would not have accounted it either superstitious or idolatrous, but just that posture which "is most convenient to that holy action," because he considered " that it was most sure to follow the example of Christ" and "the perfect practice of the Apostles".

But I proposed also to enquire whether kneeling, as implying worship of Christ, was obnoxious to the Scotch Reformer on account of his views of Christ's Eucharistic Presence.

One statement of his opinions, two years before his remon

P

strance against the Rubric of Edward's 2nd Book, occurs in "A summary, according to the Holy Scriptures, of the Serament of the Lord's Supper. 1550"; it is as follows:

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First, we confess that it is ane holie actioun, ordaynit of God....

By it "he confirmeth and sealleth up to us his promeis and communion....

"And also that heirwith the Lord Jesus gathereth us unto ane visibill bodie....and....calleth us to rememberance of his Death and Passioun......

"And as concerning theis wordis, Hoc est corpus meum,.... we acknowledge that it [transubstantiation] is no artikill of our faith which can saif us......And again, yf we do not believe his bodilie presence in the bread and wine, that sall not dampn us, but the absence out of our hart throw unbelief.

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'Now, yf thai wold heir object, that....yit ar we bound to believe it because of God's word.... we answer, That we believe God's Word, and confess that it is trew, but not so to be understand as the Papistis grosslie affirme. For in the Sacrament we receive Jesus Christ spirituallie, as did the Fatheris of the Old Testament, according to St. Paulis saying. And yf men wold weill way, how that Chryst, ordeyning this Halie Sacrament of his bodie and blude, spake theis wordis Sacramentallie, doubtless thai wold never so grosslie and foolischlie understand thame, contrary to all the Scriptures, and to the exposition of St. Augustine, St. Hierome, Fulgentius, Vigilius, Origines, and many other godlie writers."-Laing's Knox, Vol. 3, p. 74.

Another evidence of what was uppermost in his mind, at the time now under consideration, is found in a passage of his" Admonition," of which I have already (at p. 104) quoted the conclusion; he exclaims in his own, and indeed the period's, strong and coarse style:—

"Transubstantiation, the byrde that the Devel hatched by Pope Nicholas, and sythe that tyme fostered and nurryshed by al his children, prestes, freres, monks, and other his conjured and sworne souldiers, and in this laste dayes, chiefly by Stephen Gardiner and his blacke broode in England,-Transubstantiation (I saye) was not then clearly confuted and myghtely overthrowen, and therefore God put wysedome in the tounges of his ministers and messengers to utter [i.e. to disclose or expose] that vayne vanitie: and specially gave such strength to the penne" of that reverend father in God, Thomas Cranmer, Archebysshop of Canterbury, to cut the knottes of develyshe sophistrie, lyncked and knyt by the Devil's Gardener, and his blynd bussardes, to holde the veritie of God under bondage, that rather I • Referring to "Cranmer's Defence," &c. 1550.

thinke they shal condemne his workes, (whiche, notwithstanding, shal continue and remaine to their confusion), then they shal enterprise to answer the same."-Laing's Knox, vol. 3, p. 279.

Further; two years after this; in "The maner of the Lorde's Supper" as "used in the Englishe Congregation at Geneva" 1556, "approued, by the famous and godly learned man, John Caluyn" and which Knox assisted to prepare, the "exhortation" says:

:

“.... let us not suffer our mindes to wander aboute the consideration of these earthlie thynges (which we see present to our eis, and fele with our handes,) to seek Christ bodely presente in them, as if he were inclosed in the breade or wyne, or as yf these elementes were tourned and chaunged into the substaunce of his fleyshe and blood."-Laing's Knox, vol. 4, p. 194.

Once more; let me call attention to "The Confessione of the Faythe," 17 Aug. 1560, where in Chap. xxi, “Off the Sacramentis" we read thus::

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in the Supper, rychtlie used, Christ Jesus is so joyned with us, that he becumis the verray nurishment and foode of our saullis. Not that we ymagine any transsubstantiatioun of bread into Christis naturall body, and of wyne in his naturall bloode, (as the Papistes have perniciouslie taught and dampnablie beleved;) but this union and communioun whiche we have with the bodye and bloode of Christ Jesus in the rycht use of the sacraments, is wrocht by operatioun of the Holy Ghost, who by trew faith caryes us above all thingis that ar visibile, carnall, and earthlie, and maikis us to feid upoun the body and bloode of Christe Jesus, whiche was ones brokin and schedd for us, whiche now is in the heavin, and appeareth in the presence of his Father for us. And yit, notwithstanding the far distance of place, whiche is betwix his bodye now glorified in the heavin, and us now mortall in this earth, yit we most assuredlie beleve, that the bread which we break is the communion of Christis body, and the cupp which we bless is the communion of his bloode.....But all this, we say, cumis by trew fayth, whiche apprehendeth Christ Jesus, who onlie maikis his Sacramentis effectuall unto us; and thairfoir, whosoever sclandereth us, as that we affirmed or beleved Sacramentis to be onlie nakid and bair signes, do injurie unto us, and speak against a manifest treuth. But this liberallie and francklie we most confess, that we maik ane distinctioun betwix Christ Jesus, in his naturall substance,* and betwix the elementis in the Sacramentall signes; so that we will neather wirschip the signes in place of that which is signified by thame; neather yit do we dispyse and interpret thame as unprofitable and vane;...."-Laing's Knox, vol. 2, pp. 114 and 115.

* "In the old printed copies, 'in his eternall substance.'

Now it is unnecessary, for my purpose, to enquire whether these quotations imply a full appreciation, by their author, of the Catholic Doctrine of the Real Objective Presence; though, in truth, some of the language exceeds what probably would be used by many who disclaim all sympathy with Knox, and would be sorry to lie under the least suspicion of not being greatly in advance of his Sacramental views. The question here is-are they inconsistent with such a belief in Christ's Eucharistic Presence as could accord worship to Him in the Sacrament of the Altar ("the Supper" as Knox calls it); or must they have excluded all idea of both from the mind of him who used them? I humbly think not.

It is abundantly evident, indeed, that a vehement antipathy to the doctrine of TRANSUBSTANTIATION was uppermost in Knox's thoughts; and that he dreaded, as its necessary consequence, the belief of a "carnall," "bodely," "naturall," "grosslie" affirmed, presence of Christ "inclosed" in the elements: though, on the other hand, he advocates the use of the term "sacramentallie" as being consonant to Holy Scripture and the "exposition" of the Fathers, whose teaching he does not shrink from avowing, howsoever he may have construed it; and he, apparently, accepts Cranmer's published "Defence" as a true exponent of Eucharistie Doctrine.

But in his Formulary of 1560, which may not with any fairness be assumed to record higher and more Catholic sentiments than he held in 1552, he uses an expression which I cannot but consider as warranting the negative answer just given to the question suggested by the before-cited passages. For Knox's "Confession," after pointing out "ane distinctioun betwix Christ Jesus, in his naturall substance, and betwix the elementes in the Sacramentall signes," declares this conclusion-" so that we will neather wirschip the signes in place of that which is signified by thame; neather yet do we dispyse and interprete thame as unprofitable and vane." As, however, Sacraments are just before declared not "to be onlie nakid and bair signes"; but "the bread which we break is the communion of Christ's body, and the cupp which we bless is the communion of his bloode," "notwithstanding the

far distance of place, whiche is betwix his bodye now glorified in the heavin, and us now mortall in this earth," need we infer that Knox meant to refuse adoration in the Sacrament to Him Whose Body and Blood he declares (here and in the "Summary") to be "spirituallie" communicated "in the rycht use" of the Lord's Supper? Rather, should we not endeavour to construe, in the most Catholic sense of which they are fairly capable, the (necessarily well weighed) terms of this public Formulary of Faith; and therefore charitably assume that he did mean to uphold the worship "of that which is signified," while rightly condemning the worship of "the signes." Let it be granted here, for argument's sake, that the utmost he meant to teach was-that in the act of reception only Christ was sacramentally present to communicate Himself-and there seems sufficient in such a doctrine to have led him to kneel at that time in token of adoration of Christ, if only he could have regarded that posture as consistent with his theory of legitimate worship and, more especially, of the pattern to be followed in the Celebration of the Eucharist.

Moreover it is important to recollect that at the very period when Knox raised his objection to "kneeling at the tyme of the receavinge of the Sacrament," he must have concurred in the theological decisions of the English Convocation; unless indeed he received the Forty-two Articles of 1552 in a nonnatural sense for his signature (and the signatures of the other five Royal Chaplains*) is attached to a copy of them

* As it is of some importance to know whether Knox was or was not one of King Edward's six Chaplains, it seems worth while to advert to a statement made by Mr. Barnes the Editor of a new Edition of Strype's Memorials of Cranmer, 2 vols., Routledge and Co., 1853.

At p. 423, Vol. 1, Strype, after mentioning the application to the Archbishop (see p. 96) to present Knox to All-hallows Bread-street, makes this remark :"This Knox was the man whose name was so dashed in the King's Journal, where the names of the King's six Chaplains were inserted, that Bishop Burnet could not read it. (Collect. Vol. ii. p. 42.)"

To this passage Mr. Barnes the Editor, appends the following note "[vol. ii. part 2, p. 43. Notwithstanding that Knox has been hitherto supposed to have been one of Enward VI.'s chaplains, upon the authority of Burnet, of which Strype availed himself, it is now positively proved that his was not the name, 'dashed in the King's Journal,' the Editor of this work for the Ecclesiastical History Society, with the assistance of Sir Frederic Madden, having discovered that the name erased was Eastwick,' and not 'Knox.']"

It is not clear whether the Editor intends in this note to deny absolutely that Knox was one of the Royal Chaplains, or whether he only means to say that this