John Knox

The life of John Knox is largely a narrative of persecution. I was already aware of this as I began reading Iain Murray’s A Scottish Christian Heritage, but I was surprised to learn that among his experiences was nineteen months spent as a slave in a French galley, chained to a bench with six other men pulling a fifty-foot-long oar. Following his release in 1549, he enjoyed a scant four years of peace in England before “Bloody” Mary Tudor ascended to the throne and restored Roman Catholicism as the state religion (her half-brother and predecessor, Edward VI, had been Protestant). Knox fled England, ending up finally in Geneva. His exile ended in 1559, when Mary Tudor died, and the Protestant faith was publicly restored in England.

His years of exile served as preparation for difficult years to come. “Of the lessons he had learned during that period,” Murray writes, “there are three which stand out:”

   1. Knox became a man of prayer. Prayer as ‘an earnest and familiar talking with God’, is not natural to us. It is be sanctified trouble and by the recognition of our own helplessness that were learn to pray. ‘Out of weakness made strong’ is the biblical principle. ‘Call upon me in the day of trouble’, became a promise of special significance to Knox. His first writing when the Marian persecution broke in England in 1554, was on What True Prayer Is, How We Should Pray, and For What We Should Pray. In another place he says that the Apostle Peter, as he sought to cross the water to Jesus, was allowed to sink because there was in him too much ‘presumption and vain trust in his own strength’. ‘Unless it had between corrected and partly removed,’ he comments, Peter ‘had never been apt or meet to feed Christ’s flock’ this was surely what Knox himself was being taught. He says that he wrote so much on prayer because,

I know how hard is the battle between the spirit and the flesh, under the heavenly cross of affliction, where no worldly defence but present death does appear. I know the grudging and murmuring complaints of the flesh . . . calling all his promises in doubt, and being ready every hour utterly to fall from God. Against which rests only faith, provoking us to call earnestly and pray for assistance of God’s Spirit; wherein, if we continue, our most desperate calamities shall be turned to gladness, and to a prosperous end. To thee alone, O Lord, be praise, for with experience I write this and speak.

   . . .

   2. Knox’s lone exile made him and international Christian. Had he remained always in Scotland he might have remained as parochial as some of his contemporaries. It was in God’s design that he spent most of his time away from home among the English. These were the people against whom his forefathers had fought but in Christ the old enmity was gone. He was ahead of his time in foreseeing a common Protestant faith binding the two nations together, and that hope became central to his life. ‘Grant, O Lord,’ he prayed, ‘we never enter into hostility against the realm and nation of England.’ . . .

   3. It was during Knox’s exile, and especially in the final years in Geneva, that the master-principles which governed his thought on Reformation came to maturity. In outline, they may be stated as follows:
   i. We exist for God’s glory; therefore zeal for the honor of God is essence of true piety; conversely, to despise God, to offend his majesty, is the darkest form of human depravity. The indignation Knox felt against Roman Catholicism sprang from this source. He saw it as a system bound up with giving to men and to idols that which belongs to God alone. . . .
   ii. Christians are bound to a universal obedience to the Word of God, no matter what the cost, no matter what the consequences. More particularly, nothing is lawful to the church unless it is to be found in Scripture. To quote the Reformer’s later words to Queen Elizabeth: ‘Whatsoever He approves (by his eternal word) that shall be approved, and what he damneth, shall be condemned, though all men in the earth should hazard the justification of the same.
   iii. The true church is to distinguished from the false church in this manner; the true has Christ as its living head, it hears his voice it, follows him, and a stranger it will not follow. This church, further, is to be kept separate from the world by the faithful exercise of discipline in order that reproach is not brought upon God by the character of it’s members, so that the good is not affected by the evil, and so that those corrected may be recovered.

—Iain Murray, A Scottish Christian Heritage (Banner of Truth, 2006), 13–15.

I love reading of the last days of great saints. While death is a fearsome thing to most, for the believer it is a gateway into life — life like we have not yet known, and cannot imagine. At long last, we will be at home with the Lord, free from all pain and suffering, disappointments and failures, and, most wonderful of all, free from sin. It is a day we should all long for, and be able to say with John Newton, “It is a great thing to die.” John Knox was such a man, and so was able to pass from this world in peace. Iain Murray writes,

   In the spring of 1572, while Knox was still in St. Andrews, there was a marked decline in his health, yet in August he was able to return to Edinburgh, and, after thirteen months absence, preach again in the pulpit of St. Giles. But the vast congregation could no longer hear his now feeble voice, and thereafter he chose the pulpit of the much smaller Tolbooth Church where he began to preach on the crucifixion on 21 September. The English ambassador reported on 6 October, ‘John Knox is now so feeble as scarce can he stand alone, or speak to be heard of any audience,’ Yet he was able, on Sunday, 9 November, to preach at the installation of his successor, James Lawson. It was the last time he was to leave his home. The following Thursday he had to lay aside reading and on the Friday, confused which day it was he declared he meant to go to church and preach on the resurrection of Christ. A week later, with increasing difficulty in breathing, he ordered his coffin to be made and waking hours were now spent in hearing Scripture read (especially Isaiah 53, John 17 and Ephesians), saying good-bye to friends, and speaking brief words of testimony and prayer: ‘Live in Christ. Live in Christ, and then flesh need not fear death – Lord, grant true pastors to thy Church, that purity of doctrine may be maintained.’
   On Monday, November 1572, he insisted on rising and dressing but within half an hour he had to be put back to bed. To the question of a friend, Had he any pain?, he replied: ‘It is no painful pain, but such a pain as shall soon, I trust put an end to the battle.’ There was further intermittent conversation that day and the last reading of 1 Corinthians 15 at which he exclaimed, ‘Is not that a comfortable chapter?’ About eleven o’clock that evening, he said, ‘Now it is come’, and, lifting up one hand, he passed through his final conflict in peace. In the words on his secretary, Richard Bannatyne,

In this manner departed this man of God: the light of Scotland, the comfort of the Church within the same, the mirror of godliness, and pattern and example of all true minister.

—Iain Murray, A Scottish Christian Heritage (Banner of Truth, 2006), 32–33.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. (Psalm 116:15)

We’re using Sketches from Church History in our home school curriculum. Recently, our current church history student (Daughter #2) was assigned to write poems about Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Knox. Creative as she is, for some reason it proved to be a difficult assignment. Ever helpful, I attempted to assist, offering my considerable poetic talents. Alas, it was to no avail. Finally, I produced verses of my own (yes, even home school parents occasionally help their children cheat). They are reproduced here, for your edification.

Luther
Luther was a humble monk,
His head tonsured and shiny;
He charged the church with heresy,
Which made the pope get whiney.

Calvin
A Doctor of Theology
Was Calvin, and a genius;
He, too, accused the papacy
With doctrines dark and specious.

Zwingli
Luther and Zwingli had a fight
Which made poor Martin roar:
Ulrich drove him to madness,
And scrawling on the floor.

Knox
Scottish Reverend Mr. Knox
Annoyed the queen down to her socks;
She tried to put him in a box,
But he evaded — clever fox!

My submissions were all rejected.