John Knox in Affliction.
By S. N. Haskell
AFFLICTION and persecution have ever been intimately connected with the usefulness of the reformers, and John Knox had his share. In June, 1547, a French fleet accompanied by a land force, appeared before St. Andrews, where Knox and his friends had taken refuge, to assist in the reduction of the castle. After a brave and vigorous resistance, the besieged were obliged to surrender, which they did upon the conditions that the lives of all in the castle should be spared, and that they should be transported to France, and if they deserved it, from there to any other country excepting Scotland. The capitulation, however, was violated and all were retained as prisoners of war. Some of the principal gentlemen were incarcerated in dungeons, while others were confined on board the French galleys. These persons, among whom was John Knox, were bound in chains, and, in addition to the rigors of ordinary captivity, were treated with all the indignities offered to heretics. Solicitations, threatenings, and violence, were all employed to make the prisoners recant their religion, or at least countenance the popish worship, but not a single individual of the whole company, on land or water, could be induced to symbolize with its rites in the smallest degree. When mass was said, they were threatened with torture if they did not give the usual signs of reverence, but instead of this they covered their heads as soon as the service began. This imprisonment lasted nineteen months, and so great was its severity that the health of John Knox became greatly impaired by it, indeed, he seems to have never fully recovered from its effects. During this time he was seized with a fever from which no one in the ship thought he would recover. But even under these circumstances his fortitude of mind remained unsubdued. To the anxious, desponding inquiries of his fellow-prisoners, whether he thought that they would ever obtain their liberty, his uniform answer was, “God will deliver us to his glory, even in this life.” While very sick, his attention was directed to the land, and he was asked if he recognized the place. (They were then near St. Andrews.) “Yes,” he replied, “I know it well; for I see the steeple of that place where God first opened my mouth in public to his glory; and I am fully persuaded, how weak so ever I now appear, that I shall not depart this life till that my tongue shall glorify his goodly name in the same place.” But although he possessed great elevation and tranquility of mind during the greater part of his imprisonment, it seems from his writings that he considered it in answer to prayer. When first thrown into cruel bonds, insulted by his enemies, without any apparent prospect of release, he was not a stranger to the anguish of despondency. While referring to the exercises of his mind at this time, in a treatise on prayer, after speaking of his anguish of mind, his vehement tribulation and afflictions and the apparent hopelessness of his case, he says that in his greatest calamity, and when his pains were most cruel, contrary to carnal reason, he was enabled through the mercy of God to rise above it all. “Blessit be his halie name.” “And therefore,” says he, “dare I be bold in the truth of God’s word, to promise that notwithstanding the vehemence of trouble, the long continuance thereof, the desperation of all men, and the fearfulness, danger, and anguish of our own hearts, yet, if we call constantly to God, that beyond the expectation of all men, he will deliver.” “From the pit of tribulation,” says he, “such prayers ascendeth into God’s presence.” When free from fever, during his captivity, he improved his time in writing, and prepared a confession of his faith, containing in substance what he preached at St. Andrew’s. This, accompanied with earnest exhortations to his friends in Scotland, to persevere, regardless of the persecutions which they might suffer for its sake, in the faith which they had professed, he found means to send to that country. Subsequently, he thus referred to the writing of this confession of faith: “Let no man think, that because I am in the realm of England therefore I so boldly speak. For the body lying in the most painful bands, in the midst of cruel tyrants, his mercy and goodness provided that the hand should write and bear witness to the confession of the heart, more abundantly than ever yet the tongue spake.” Through the personal interposition of Edward VI. of England, with the king of France, he obtained his liberty in 1549, and immediately repaired to England.