A Great Witness

Straightforward in many ways, complex in others, he knew that he was tactless and readily admitted to being churlish, yet he was an admired pastor, a patient counselor and affectionate husband, father and friend. He shrank from violence, but his moral courage never failed. The contrast between sensitivity and his vehement denunciation of anyone of whom he disapproved may seem to us puzzling, until we realize that the profits of the Old Testament harangued their contemporaries in exactly the same outspoken manner. As always, Knox took the Bible as his model. This searing honesty discomfited his friends as well as his enemies, but his unflinching faith in God earned him the respect not only of the leading reformers of his day but of the machinating politicians at the Scottish and English courts.

John Knox, Roslyn K Marshall, pp. 215, 216.