This sermon, delivered with a considerable portion of that popular eloquence for which Knox was afterwards so celebrated, made a great noise, and excited much speculation among all classes.[85] The preachers {62} who had preceded him, not even excepting Wishart, had contented themselves with refuting some of the grosser errors of the established religion; Knox struck at the root of popery, by boldly pronouncing the pope to be antichrist, and the whole system erroneous and antiscriptural. The report of this sermon, and of the effects produced by it, having reached Hamilton, the bishop‑elect of St Andrews, he wrote to Winram, who was vicar‑general during the vacancy of the see, expressing his surprise that such heretical and schismatical tenets were allowed to be taught without opposition. Winram was at bottom friendly to the reformed doctrine; but he durst not altogether disregard this admonition, and therefore appointed a convention of the learned men of the abbey and university to be held in St Leonard’s Yards, to which he summoned Knox and Rough. The two preachers appeared before that assembly. Nine articles, drawn from their sermons, were exhibited, “the strangeness of which,” the sub‑prior said, “had moved him to call for them to hear their answers.” Knox conducted the defence, for himself and his colleague, with much acuteness and moderation. He expressed high satisfaction at appearing before an auditory so honourable, modest, and grave. As he was not a stranger to the report concerning the private sentiments of Winram, and nothing was more abhorrent to his own mind than dissimulation, he, before commencing his defence, obtested him to deal uprightly in a matter of such magnitude. “The people,” he said, “ought not to be deceived or left in the dark; if {63} his colleague and he had advanced any thing unscriptural, he wished the sub‑prior by all means to expose it; but if, on the other hand, the doctrine taught by them was true, it was his duty to give it the sanction of his authority.” Winram cautiously replied, that he did not come there as a judge, and would neither approve nor condemn; he wished a free conference, and, if Knox pleased, he would reason with him a little. Accordingly, he proceeded to state some objections to one of the propositions maintained by Knox, “That, in the worship of God, and especially in the administration of the sacraments, the rule prescribed in the scriptures is to be observed without addition or diminution; and that the church has no right to devise religious ceremonies, and impose significations upon them.” After maintaining the argument for a short time, the sub‑prior devolved it on a grey‑friar, named Arbugkill, who took it up with great confidence, but was soon forced to yield with disgrace. He rashly engaged to prove the divine institution of ceremonies; and, being pushed by his antagonist from the gospels and acts to the epistles, and from one epistle to