KNOX LEAVES ENGLAND by Stephen Nelson Haskell

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 12, 1881

KNOX LEAVES ENGLAND.

By Stephen Nelson Haskell

BY ELD. S. N. HASKELL.

It was only by the entreaty of friends that John Knox was induced to leave England, even after Parliament had repealed all laws in favor of the Reformation. The day had passed, after which all persons holding to that faith were liable to the pains decreed against heretics, and still he continued to preach. His enemies, who had previously failed in their attack upon him, now had the law and the support of royalty on their side, and it became evident to his friends, and himself as well, that should he remain in the kingdom, his life would be sacrificed. No sooner however, did he reach a foreign shore, from which his mind turned to his fellow preachers, whom he had left immured in dungeons, and the people lately under his charge, scattered as sheep without a shepherd, than he began to reproach himself for the course he had taken, and his desire to return was almost irresistible. In writing to his mother-in-law he thus expresses himself:—

"The spiritual life of such as sometimes boldly professed Christ, is to my heart more dear than all the glory, riches, and honor in earth; and the falling back of such men as I daily hear do fall back to that idol again, is to me more dolorous than I trust corporal death shall be, whenever it shall come at God's appointment. Some will ask then, Why did I flee? Assuredly I cannot tell. But of one thing I am sure, the fear of death was not the chief cause. . . . But my fleeing is no matter: by God's grace I may come to battle before the conflict be ended. And haste the time, O Lord! at thy good pleasure, that once again my tongue may praise thy holy name before the congregation, if it were in the very hour of death. . . I would not bow my knee before that most abominable idol for all the torments that earthly tyrants can devise, God so assisting me, as his Holy Spirit presently moveth me to write unfeignedly. And albeit that I have in the beginning of this battle, appeared to play the faint-hearted and feeble soldier, yet my prayer is, that I may be restored to the battle again." Farther on he says, "For a few sermons by me to be made within England, my heart at this hour could be content to suffer more than nature were able to sustain."

During this season of retirement he had time to review his past life, and carefully consider the manner in which he had discharged the sacred trust committed to him as a minister of Jesus Christ; and it appears from his writings at this time that however others may have regarded him, he himself found much reason for self condemnation. In speaking of his labors, which had been almost incessant, he says: "I satisfy peradventure, many men in the small labors I take; but I satisfy not myself; I have done somewhat, but not according to my duty." He reproaches himself for not having been more diligent in visiting "the ignorant and distressed, and administering to them the instruction and comfort which they craved;" for not having been sufficiently plain in admonishing offenders, etc. "Besides these," he continues, "I was assaulted, yea infected with more gross sins; that is, my wicked nature desired the favors, the estimation, and praise of men."

He did not, however, in this hour of adversity and solitary meditations, cease to labor for the cause he so much loved. Not able to instruct the people orally he seized the pen as a means of communication with them. In this way he warned his brethren in England against defection from the religion they had professed, appealing in the most impressive and eloquent manner to their consciences, their hopes, and fears; adjuring them by all that was sacred, and all that was dear to them, as men, as parents, and as Christians, not to turn back from their good profession, and plunge themselves and their posterity into the gulf of ignorance and idolatry.