rophet to his time. It is assumed that Knox
took the same view,[22] and that he held himself to have had, if not a
prophet's supernatural endowment and vocation, at least a special
mission and an extraordinary call. The question is complicated by other
things than the special and extraordinary work which he, in point of
fact, achieved. We find that, in the course of that work, Knox, a man of
piercing intuitions in personal and public matters, repeatedly committed
himself to judgments, and even predictions, which were unexpectedly
verified. And some of these he himself regarded, as we have seen already
in his deliberate Meditation, as not intuitions merely, but private
intimations given by God to his own heart and mind. Naturally, too, a
man of Knox's devout and yet passionate temper was disposed to lay as
much stress upon these incidents as they would bear; while the
marvel-mongers around him, and in the next generation, went farther
still. But the main fact to remember is, that Knox all his life insisted
that such incidents, whatever their occasional value, were no part of
his original mission, and were outside the bounds of his life-long
vocation. The passage in which he is disposed to make most of them is
the following; and it is worth quoting also, because of the striking
terms in which he incidentally describes his real work and permanent
call. He is explaining why, after twenty years' preaching, he has never
published even a sermon, and now publishes one with nothing but
wholesome admonitions for the time. (This wholesome sermon was the one
which so much offended Darnley.)

'Considering myself rather called of my God to instruct the
ignorant, comfort the sorrowful, confirm the weak, and rebuke
the proud, by tongue and lively voice in these most corrupt
days, than to compose books for the age to come: seeing that so
much is written (and that by men of most singular condition),
and yet so little well observed; I decreed to contain myself
within the bonds [bounds?] of that vocation, whereunto I found
myself specially called. I dare not deny (lest that in so doing
I should be injurious to the giver), but that God hath revealed
to me secrets unknown to the world; and also that he hath made
my tongue a trumpet, to forewarn realms and nations, yea,
certain great personages, of translations and changes, when no
such things were feared, nor yet were appearing; a portion