John Knox’s Theology of Prayer

Bibliography

Howie, John. The Scots Worthies According to Howie’s Second Edition, 1781: With

Explanatory Notes, Supplementary Matter, a Full Index of Persons and Places, and

an Appendix of Sermons, Edited by Andrew A. Bonar. Glasgow, Melbourne, and

Dunedin: McGready, Thomson, & Niven, 1879.

Knox, John. A Treatise on Prayer, or A Confession, and Declaration of Prayers of

Selected Writings of John Knox: Public Epistles, Treatises, and Exposition to the

Year 1559. Dallas: Presbyterian Heritage Publications, 1995.

_______. Select Practical Writings of John Knox. Edinburgh: Printed for the

Assembly’s Committee, 1845.

_______. The Form of Prayers and Ministration of the Sacraments, etc., used in the

English Congregation at Geneva. Vol. 4 of The Work of John Knox. Edited by

David Laing. Edinburgh: Printed for the Bannatyne Club, 1855.

_______. The Book of Common Order: or the Form of Prayers and Ministration of the

Sacraments, etc., approved and received by the Church of Scotland. Vol. 6 Part 2 of

The Work of John Knox. Edited by David Laing. Edinburgh: Printed for the

Bannatyne Club, 1864.

M’Crie, Thomas. Life of John Knox. Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1855.

Murison, David D. Knox: The Writer. Edinburgh: The saint Andrew Press, 1975.

Reid, W. Stanford. “Knox’s Attitude to the English Reformation,” Westminster

Theological Seminary 26 no. 1 (1963), 1-32.

_______. Trumpeter of God: A Biography of John Knox. New York: Charles

Scribner’s Sons, 1974.

Ridley, Jasper. John Knox. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.

Stalker, James. John Knox: His Ideas and Ideals. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1905.

The Presbyterian Pulpit, A Volume of Sermons by Ministers of the Synod of Michigan.

Monroe: Sermon Printing House, 1898.

[1] The place of Knox’s birth is uncertain. If we take the Gifford-gate as Knox’s place of birth, then he was born in Haddington, but if we take the village Gifford, then near Haddington. For this reason, historians use the ‘in or near Haddington,’ an expression which I have adopted in this paper.

[2] W. Stanford Reid, Trumpeter of God: A Biography of John Knox (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974).

[3] David D. Murison, Knox: The Writer (Edinburgh: The saint Andrew Press, 1975).

[4] Lemuel B. Bissell, Introduction to The Presbyterian Pulpit, A Volume of Sermons by Ministers of the Synod of Michigan (Monroe: Sermon Printing House, 1898), 5.

[5] John Knox, “A Treatise on Prayer, or A Confession, and Declaration of Prayers,” in Selected Writings of John Knox: Public Epistles, Treatises, and Expositions to the Year 1559, ed. Kevin Reed (Dallas: Presbyterian Heritage Publications, 1995), 71-100 For the standard, critical edition of this treatise, see The Works of John Knox, vol. 3, ed. David Laing (Edinburgh: Printed for the Bannatyne Club, 1854), 81-107. Since the Reed edition reflects modern spelling, punctuation, and grammar, subsequent quotations from Treatise on Prayer will be taken from this edition, which is also based on the definitive edition of Laing.

[6] Thomas M’Crie, Life of John Knox (Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1855), 55.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Knox, “A Treatise on Prayer, or A Confession, and Declaration of Prayers,” 73.

[9] Ibid., 74 ff.

[10] Ibid., 76 ff.

[11] Ibid., 79 ff.

[12] Ibid., 80 ff.

[13] Ibid., 85 ff.

[14] Ibid., 73. By perfect prayer, Knox does mean perfect in absolute sense, but perfect in the sense that it is right. Hence, perfect prayer means ‘right invocation of God.’

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid..

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid., 73-74.

[20] Ibid., 74.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid., 76.

[23] Ibid., 77.

[24] Ibid., 82.

[25] Ibid., (italics mine).

[26] Ibid.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ibid., 82-83.

[29] Ibid., 83.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid., 84.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Ibid., 77.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid., 78.

[38] Ibid.

[39] Ibid., 79.

[40] Ibid., 75.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Ibid., 94.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Ibid., 94-95.

[45] Ibid., 95.

[46] Ibid., 96.

[47] Ibid.

[48] Knox’s Treatise on Prayer seems to have been composed on August 1553, a month after Mary became a queen.

[49] Ibid., 100.

[50] Editor’s Note to Select Practical Writings of John Knox (Edinburgh: Printed for the Assembly’s Committee, 1845), 16.

[51] John Knox, “The Form of Prayers and Ministration of the Sacraments, etc., used in the English Congregation at Geneva,” in The Works of John Knox, vol. 4, ed. David Laing (Edinburgh: Printed for the Bannatyne Club, 1855), 141-214. Hereafter will only be referred to as The Form of Prayers and Ministration of the Sacraments.

[52] Editor’s Note to Ibid., 146-47. The other four ministers are: William Whittingham, Anthony Gilby, John Foxe, and Thomas Cole.

[53] Added to this Form are the following: various Prayers, Calvin’s Catechism, and Sternhold’s and Hopkins’ Psalms in English metre.

[54] Editor’s Note to Ibid., 148. See also Editor’s Note to John Knox, “The Book of Common Order: or the Form of Prayers and Ministration of the Sacraments, etc., approved and received by the Church of Scotland,” in The Works of John Knox, vol. 6, part 2, ed. David Laing (Edinburgh: Printed for the Bannatyne Club, 1864), 277. Hereafter will only be called The Book of Common Order. It is also known as Knox’s Psalms and Liturgy, or otherwise just Knox’s Liturgy.

[55] Editor’s Note to Knox, “The Book of Common Order,” 283. This Book of Common Order continued to be used until it was superseded by the Directory of the Westminster Divines.

[56] Knox, “The Book of Common Order,” 298-380.

[57] W. Stanford Reid, “Knox’s Attitude to the English Reformation,” Westminster Theological Seminary 26 no. 1 (1963), 2, 6.

[58] This Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1549, underwent three revisions: first in 1552, second in 1559, and third in 1662.

[59] Reid, “Knox’s Attitude to the English Reformation,” 6.

[60] Ibid., 28.

[61] Ibid., 24, 31

[62] James Stalker, John Knox: His Ideas and Ideals ( London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1905), 217.

[63] Reid, “Knox’s Attitude to the English Reformation,” 24, 25.

[64] Ibid., 31.

[65] Editor’s Note to Knox, “The Book of Common Order,” 278.

[66] Ibid., 281.

[67] Ibid., 283.

[68] Ibid.

[69] Ibid.

[70] Knox, “A Treatise on Prayer, or A Confession, and Declaration of Prayers,” 75.

[71] Ibid.

[72] Ibid., 85.

[73] Ibid.

[74] Ibid., 85-86.

[75] Ibid., 86.

[76] Ibid.

[77] Ibid.

[78] Ibid.

[79] Ibid., 76.

[80] Ibid., 91-92.

[81] Ibid., 76.

[82] Ibid., 92.

[83] Ibid., 79.

[84] Ibid., 80.

[85] Ibid.

[86] Ibid.

[87] Ibid.

[88] Ibid.

[89] Ibid., 80-81.

[90] Ibid., 83.

[91] Ibid., 92.

[92] Ibid., 100. Yes, it is true that Knox later became indifferent to the queen, refusing to pray for her. However, he did this to show that even in his prayer he could not tolerate the wickedness of the queen. In 1571, Knox was accused “of sedition, of railing against the Queen, etc.—from his pulpit in St. Giles’s.” Knox “admitted that he had boldly called wickedness by its own terms, as he called a spade a spade. As to not praying for the Queen, he answered, ‘I am not bound to pray in this place, for sovereign to me she is not; and I let them understand that I am not a man of law that has my tongue to sell for silver or favour of the world.’” G. Barnett Smith, John Knox: The Scottish Reformation (Edinburgh: The Religious Tract & Book Society of Scotland, 1905), 143.

[93] Cited in Bissell, Introduction to The Presbyterian Pulpit, A Volume of Sermons by Ministers of the Synod of Michigan, 5.

[94] Ibid., 5-6.

[95] Knox, “A Treatise on Prayer, or A Confession, and Declaration of Prayers,” 85.

[96] Ibid.

[97] Knox, “The Book of Common Order,” 357, 370.

[98] Knox, “The Form of Prayers and Ministration of the Sacraments, etc., used in the English Congregation at Geneva,”164.

[99] John Howie , The Scots Worthies According to Howie’s Second Edition, 1781: With Explanatory Notes, Supplementary Matter, a Full Index of Persons and Places, and an Appendix of Sermons, ed., Andrew A. Bonar (Glasgow, Melbourne, and Dunedin: McGready, Thomson, & Niven, 1879), 61.

[100] Cited in Ibid.

[101] Cited in Ibid., 63.

Brian Golez Najapfour is a Master of Theology student at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. A member of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) and International John Bunyan Society (IJBS), he is originally from the Philippines.ff