Cranmer goes on to denounce the "glorious and unquiet spirits, which can
like nothing but that is after their own fancy, and cease not to make
trouble and disquietude when things be most quiet and in good order."
{35} Their argument (Knox's favourite), that whatever is not commanded
in Scripture is unlawful and ungodly, "is a subversion of all order as
well in religion as in common policy."

Cranmer ends with the amazing challenge: "I will set my foot by his to be
tried in the fire, that his doctrine is untrue, and not only untrue but
seditious, and perilous to be heard of any subjects, as a thing breaking
the bridle of obedience and loosing them from the bond of all princes'
laws."

Cranmer had a premonition of the troubled years of James VI. and of the
Covenant, when this question of kneeling was the first cause of the
Bishops' wars. But Knox did not accept, as far as we know, the mediaeval
ordeal by fire.

Other questions about practices enjoined in the Articles arose. A
"Confession," in which Knox's style may be traced, was drawn up, and
consequently that "Declaration on Kneeling" was intercalated into the
Prayer Book, wherein it is asserted that the attitude does not imply
adoration of the elements, or belief in the Real Presence, "for that were
idolatry." Elizabeth dropped, and Charles II. restored, this "Black
Rubric" which Anglicanism owes to the Scottish Reformer. {36a} He "once
had a good opinion," he says, of the Liturgy as it now stood, but he soon
found that it was full of idolatries.

The most important event in the private life of Knox, during his stay at
Berwick, was his acquaintance with a devout lady of tormented conscience,