have always something or other to complain
about." Bullinger and Gualterus "were unwilling to contend with these
men like fencing-masters," tired of their argufying; unable to "withdraw
our entire confidence from the Bishops." "If any others think of coming
hither, let them know that they will come to no purpose." {261a}

Knox may have been less unsympathetic, but his advice agreed with the
advice of the Genevans. Some of the seceders were imprisoned; Cecil and
the Queen's commissioners encouraged others "to go and preach the Gospel
in Scotland," sending with them, as it seems, letters commendatory to the
ruling men there. They went, but they were not long away. "They liked
not that northern climate, but in May returned again," and fell to their
old practices. One of them reported that, at Dunbar, "he saw men going
to the church, on Good Friday, barefooted and bare-kneed, and creeping to
the cross!" "If this be so," said Grindal, "the Church of Scotland will
not be pure enough for our men." {261b}

These English brethren, when in Scotland, consulted Knox on the dispute
which they made a ground of schism. One brother, who was uncertain in
his mind, visited Knox in Scotland at this time. The result appears in a
letter to Knox from a seceder, written just after Queen Mary escaped from
Lochleven in May 1568. The dubiously seceding brother "told the Bishop"
(Grindal) "that you are flat against and condemn all our doings . . .
whereupon the Church" (the seceders) "did excommunicate him"! He had
reviled "the Church," and they at once caught "the excommunicatory
fever." Meanwhile the earnestly seceding brother thought that he had won
Knox to _his_ side. But a letter from our Reformer proved his error, and
the letter, as the brother writes, "is not in all points liked." They
would not "go back again to the wafer-cake and kneelings" (the Knoxian
Black Rubric had been deleted from Elizabeth's prayer book), "and to
other knackles of Popery."

In fact they obeyed Knox's epistle to England of January 1559. "Mingle-
mangle ministry, Popish order, and Popish apparel," they will not bear.
Knox's arguments in favour of their conforming, for the time at all
events, are quoted and refuted: "And also concerning Paul his purifying
at Jerusalem." The analogy of Paul's conformity had been rejected by
Knox, at the supper party with Lethington in 1556. He had "doubted
whether either James's commandment or Paul's obedience proce