s
regarded by Knox as rather of the nature of magic than of prayer, the
surplice was a Romish rag, and there was some other objection to the
congregation's taking part in the prayers by responses, though they were
not forbidden to mingle their voices in psalmody. Dissidium valde
absurdum--"a very absurd quarrel," among exiled fellow-countrymen, said
Calvin, was the dispute which arose on these points. The Puritans,
however, decided to alter the service to their taste, and enjoyed the use
of the chapel. They had obtained a service which they were not likely to
have been allowed to enforce in England had Edward VI. lived; but on this
point they were of another opinion.

This success was providential. They next invited English exiles abroad
to join them at Frankfort, saying nothing about their mutilations of the
service book. If these brethren came in, when they were all restored to
England, if ever they were restored, their example, that of sufferers,
would carry the day, and their service would for ever be that of the
Anglican Church. The other exiled brethren, on receiving this
invitation, had enough of the wisdom of the serpent to ask, "Are we to be
allowed to use our own prayer book?" The answer of the godly of
Frankfort evaded the question. At last the Frankfort Puritans showed
their hand: they disapproved of various things in the Prayer Book. Knox,
summoned from Geneva, a reluctant visitor, was already one of their
preachers. In November 1554 came Grindal, later Archbishop of
Canterbury, from Zurich, ready to omit some ceremonies, so that he and
his faction might have "the substance" of the Prayer Book. Negotiations
went on, and it was proposed by the Puritans to use the Geneva service.
But Knox declined to do that, without the knowledge of the non-Puritan
exiles at Zurich and elsewhere, or to use the English book, and offered
his resignation. Nothing could be more fair and above-board.

There was an inchoate plan for a new Order. That failed; and Knox, with
others, consulted Calvin, giving him a sketch of the nature of the
English service. They drew his attention to the surplice; the Litany,
"devised by Pope Gregory," whereby "we use a certain conjuring of God";
the kneeling at the Communion; the use of the cross in baptism, and of
the ring in marriage, clearly a thing of human, if not of diabolical
invention, and the "imposition of hands" in confirmation. The churching
of women, they said, is both