John Knox On The Lord’s Supper, Part 3: Right And Biblical Administration

by on July 22, 2025 | Comment

In the previous two installments, we have been arguing that, in light of the perceived softening of some Protestants’ attitudes with regard to the Roman Catholic Mass, a reexamination of a classical Reformed and Protestant theological view of the Roman Mass might be in order. We have done so briefly by observing the writings of the Scottish Reformer, John Knox. Though not as prolific in his theological writings as Reformation luminaries like Luther and Calvin, the so-called Father of Scottish Presbyterianism’s writings on the matter are instructive and illuminating when it comes to discerning classical Protestant views towards Rome and her Mass.

We have noted Knox’s hardline condemnation of the Roman Mass in his “Vindication of the Doctrine that the Sacrifice of Mass is Idolatry,”1 and his positive articulation of a biblical doctrine of the Lord’s Supper in his “Summary, According to The Holy Scriptures, of the Sacrament of The Lord’s Supper.”2

In this third article, before getting to the polemical and ultimately pastoral agenda behind Knox’s vehemence regarding the Lord’s Supper, we are going to survey Knox’s stance regarding the administration and distribution of the Lord’s Supper. While contemporary audiences might be tempted to write off Knox’s insistence as overly scrupulous, preferential, and nitpicky, when we dig a little deeper into what drove his fervor, we find that his concerns were well-founded and not unusual given his historical context. While some may still ultimately disagree with the particular conclusions or applications of Knox’s views, we find that they were not arbitrary or snobbish but driven by a serious concern in light of the prevailing theological milieu of his day.

In our previous two articles, we examined some theological treatises that Knox penned while he was ministering in the Church of England (ca. 1554–59). While in Berwick, he had not a few thoughts regarding the proper (or improper) administration and distribution of the Lord’s Supper and the ceremony surrounding it. Likewise, after his tenure in England, while pastoring the English Protestant refugee church in Frankfurt, he experienced similar conflict regarding the proper administration, distribution, and ceremony pertaining to the sacrament.

Kneeling at Berwick

In 1549, Knox arrived in England after being released from a two-year French captivity on a galley ship. He was appointed as a preacher in Berwick-upon-Tweed by the English government under the Protestant regime of Edward VI. Shortly after his arrival in Berwick, the first Book of Common Prayer was implemented as the mandatory, unifying liturgical order for all the Church of England. Knox, however, apparently felt at liberty to employ a slightly altered liturgy when he administered the Lord’s Supper there. From a surviving manuscript fragment, it is clear that Knox wrote some of his own prayers for the communion service.3 This would seem to indicate not only that Knox felt at liberty to revise and adapt certain portions of the English communion liturgy, but that he did so because he must have felt some dissatisfaction with the prayers and wording as they were currently presented. Knox was insistent on practicing the sacrament and inculcating a theology of the sacraments that was not merely a compromise based on custom or tradition but one that he believed was derived solely from the teaching and example of Scripture.4

Knox’s communion order at Berwick is essentially identical to the later-codified communion order for the Church of Scotland5—yet, some ten years prior to its Scottish implementation, Knox was practicing this same thoroughly Protestant liturgy under the ministrations of the Church of England. Knox’s communion liturgy that he employed at Berwick was not a radical departure from the 1549 English Prayer Book’s liturgy, nor was it dissimilar from other communion liturgies drafted by his Reformed contemporaries (Bucer, Calvin, à Lasco, etc.). Knox’s Berwick liturgy, following the sermon, had the following order of elements: Trinitarian invocation, prayer of preparation, reading and instruction on the Supper from 1 Corinthians 11, a fencing of the table from unqualified participants, confession of sin, absolution, prayer for the church, prayer for the monarch, and then the distribution of the communion elements.6

Knox’s Berwick liturgy, though pared down from the full prescriptions of the Book of Common Prayer, was in line with the wider Reformation-era communion liturgies. Moreover, there is a fair degree of liturgical similarity with what one might call the “Continentally-influenced” Knox and his pared-down Berwick liturgy, and even remarkable overlap between the Continental Reformed communion liturgies and the English Prayer Book communion liturgy.

While the Book of Common Prayer gave directions regarding the actions and gestures of both the minister and the congregation, including specifying every word which was to be uttered in the communion liturgy, it said nothing about the posture in which the congregation should receive communion. While for many centuries, the Eucharist had customarily been received by kneeling, this practice was nowhere required (at this point) in the Book of Common Prayer. Knox made no public criticism of the Prayer Book, and he followed its directives when he officiated the Supper in Berwick. He did, however, instruct his congregation to receive communion not by kneeling but by remaining seated. Technically, he was not disobeying anything that the Prayer Book specified, and it does not appear that he referred to sitting at communion in any of his sermons at this stage in his ministry.7

Knox insisted on administering the Lord’s Supper in a biblically regulated manner, with the minister serving bread and wine to seated congregants,8 rejecting kneeling as a medieval vestige lacking scriptural warrant. Knox’s seeming fixation against kneeling ultimately stemmed from his opposition to the doctrine of transubstantiation, which was still pervasive in the Church of England at the time. For Knox, the posture of kneeling signaled that the bread and wine had mystically transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ, and the communicant was kneeling at the Supper because Christ was physically, locally present in that sacrament. Believe it or not, for Knox, all of this theological understanding was bound up and communicated in the posture of kneeling, and he opposed taking the posture in the Lord’s Supper because he deemed it, ultimately, idolatrous.9

Superstition at Frankfurt

Following the death of Edward VI and the accession of Mary I to the English throne in 1553, many Protestants—including Knox—took refuge on the European Continent. Knox was eventually dispatched to Frankfurt, Germany to pastor the congregation of English refugees there. Upon arrival in early 1554, Knox walked into an already bubbling conflict: two contesting parties within the congregation at odds with one another, one preferring a worship service more influenced by Calvin’s Genevan liturgy, and one more closely tied to the English Book of Common Prayer.

Without rehearsing all the various elements and orders of the two liturgies, suffice it to say that the two communion liturgies are decidedly distinct, with the Genevan order being far more abbreviated. A pared-down version of the English liturgy was temporarily adopted for the sake of compromise, however. The temporary liturgy would likely have included prayers (collects), a recitation of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, Scripture readings, a sacramental explanation/exhortation, and the distribution of the elements, all of which make an appearance in Knox’s later liturgies in the Book of Common Order. Presumably, then, Knox should not have had great objection to this compromise liturgy. With emotions high and tempers sometimes flaring, it may have been difficult to see in the moment, but given the evidence and the subsequent actions of those who remained in Frankfurt after Knox’s departure, it stands to reason that these two parties were actually far closer together ideologically than either side realized.10

If it is true that the two parties were more closely aligned than they realized, then why was Knox’s vehement opposition to aspects of the Prayer Book party’s demands? It seems, for Knox, a great deal hinged on the call-and-response aspects of the liturgy and the kneeling of the communicants before the priest in order to receive the elements of the Supper. For Knox, these particulars carried too many remaining vestiges of medieval/Roman Catholic theology and were, therefore, to Knox’s mind, idolatrous.11

Driving Knox’s concern in all this matter was a fear of Christians engaging in idolatrous practices of superstition. Knox saw any worship devised or defended on the basis of mere human creativity as idolatry, and understanding this allows one to better apprehend Knox’s vehement objection to “apparently innocuous set phrases of prayer and worship” in Frankfurt.12

Knox’s aversion to set forms of words must be understood in a wider context of the Protestant Reformation and early modern religious thought. In their report to Calvin on the 1552 Prayer Book litany, Knox and William Whittingham described these phrases as “conjuring of God by the mystery of the incarnation, the holy Nativity and circumcision, by his baptism and temptation.”13 The use of the word “conjuring” was deliberate. It carried a connotation of a purposeful employing of key words and phrases as powerful things in of themselves—a core tenet of medieval theology—which the early Reformers viewed as tantamount to a softened form of sorcery.14 In a similar vein, the preface to the order of baptism in Knox’s Form of Prayers states, “[I]t is evident, that the Sacraments are not ordained of God to be used in private corners as charms or sorceries, but left to the Congregation, and necessarily annexed to God’s Word as seals of the same.”15

Conclusion

 For Knox, superstition was a serious spiritual danger. Words and symbols were not meaningless. For many of the early Reformers, there was a strong objection to using non-scriptural forms of words in order to attempt to manipulate circumstances (or even the Lord himself) so as to secure spiritual benefits. For Knox and other early modern Protestants, the superstitious invocation of a word or phrase was akin to conjuring or magic. Elsewhere, Knox referred to the Roman Mass as “the devil’s sacrament and seal,” like the “tacit pact” that a sorcerer or witch would employ.16 As Cameron puts it, for Knox, “the Mass was, literally, diabolical.”17 Thus, to Knox’s mind, for the English Prayer Book to continue borrowing such phraseology from the old medieval liturgy was not a light thing and was something to be avoided at all costs for the honor of God and for the spiritual protection of congregants. This understanding underscores Knox’s attitude as to why the sacraments ought to be a ceremony included within public worship and not performed in private as a kind of quasi-magical ritual.18 

Therefore, Knox’s vehemence in this matter was not rooted in some maniacal fixation on his own preferences but rather was based on his opposition to superstitious religious practices and the congregation’s participation therein. Given the early modern Protestant understanding of the conjuring of particular words and phrases as being a kind of soft witchcraft, one is afforded a paradigm for Knox’s strident opposition in this matter. Whether one agrees with Knox’s tact or tactics in applying the pastoral principle is a separate discussion.

Having given consideration to Knox’s opposition to the Roman Mass, his doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, and his concern for a proper, biblical administration of the sacrament in light of his religious and theological context, we will return in one final article to offer some analysis of the polemical and pastoral heart that drove Knox’s opposition to the Mass and his defense of the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.

Notes

  1. Knox, “A Vindication of the Doctrine that the Sacrifice of Mass is Idolatry,” in The Works of John Knox (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2015), 3:33–70.
  2. Knox, “A Summary, According to The Holy Scriptures, of the Sacrament of The Lord’s Supper,” in Works of John Knox, (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2015), 3:71–75.
  3. Knox, Works, 3:8; John Knox, “The Practice of the Lord’s Supper in Berwick,” in John Knox and the Church of England (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1875), 290–97.
  4. See Scots Confession Chapter 22 in Knox, Works, 2:115–17.
  5. See Knox, “The Form of Prayers And Ministration of the Sacraments . . . ,” Works, 4:191–97.
  6. Jonathan Gibson and Mark Earngey, ed., Reformation Worship: Liturgies from the Past for the Present (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2018), 550.
  7. Jasper Godwin Ridley, John Knox, First Edition (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 1968), 93.
  8. Knox, “Letter to Berwick, 1552,” in Peter Lorimer, John Knox and the Church of England (London: Henry S. King, 1875), 261.
  9. Knox, “Letter to Berwick, 1552,” 261.
  10. Euan Cameron, “Frankfurt and Geneva: The European Context of John Knox’s Reformation,” in John Knox and the British Reformations, 1st edition (Routledge, 2020), 60, 67.
  11. Knox, Works, 3:34-46.
  12. Euan Cameron, “Frankfurt and Geneva: The European Context of John Knox’s Reformation,” in John Knox and the British Reformations, 1st edition (Routledge, 2020), 62.
  13. William Whittingham, “A brieff discours,” in Knox, Works, 4:23.
  14. Cameron, “Frankfurt and Geneva: The European Context of John Knox’s Reformation,” 63.
  15. Knox, Works, 4:186. The editor here points out a marginal note that states, “The transgression of God’s ordinance is called iniquitie and idolatrie, and is compared to witchcrafte and sorcerie. 1 Sam. 15. c.”
  16. Knox, Works, 3:196–97, 212.
  17. Cameron, “Frankfurt and Geneva: The European Context of John Knox’s Reformation,” 64; Knox, Works, 3:284–86.
  18. Knox, Works, 4:186.

©Sean Morris. All Rights Reserved.

You can find this whole series here. 

RESOURCES

Heidelberg Reformation Association
1637 E. Valley Parkway #391
Escondido CA 92027
USA
The HRA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization

    Post authored by:

  • Sean Morris
    Author Image

    Sean was educated at Grove City College, Reformed Theological Seminary (Jackson, MS), Edinburgh Theological Seminary, and the University of Glasgow (Scotland). He earned his PhD from Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. He is an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America, and serves as a minister at the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, TN. He also serves as the Academic Dean of the Blue Ridge Institute for Theological Education and has published numerous theological and devotional articles. Sean lives in Oak Ridge with his wife, Sarah, and their children.

    More by Sean Morris ›

Subscribe to the Heidelblog today!


Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comments are welcome but must observe the moral law. Comments that are profane, deny the gospel, advance positions contrary to the Reformed confession, or that irritate the management are subject to deletion. Anonymous comments, posted without permission, are forbidden. Please use a working email address so we can contact you, if necessary, about content or corrections.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.