Scotland/Scots > Life of John Knox ; and, The life of Alexander Henderson

LIFE OF JOHN KNOX.
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by religion and the gospel, in the expression of his in¬
dignation and zeal; or whether the censures pronounced
by his accusers, and the principles upon which they pro¬
ceed, do not involve a condemnation of the temper and
language of the most righteous men mentioned in Scrip¬
ture, and even of our Saviour himself. But I ask, Is
there no apology for his severity to be found in the
characters of the persons against whom he wrote, and in
the state of his own feelings, lacerated, not by personal
sufferings, but by sympathy with his suffering brethren,
who were driven into prisons by their unnatural country¬
men, “as sheep for the slaughter,” to be brought forth
and barbarously immolated to appease the Roman Mo¬
loch ? Who could suppress indignation in speaking of
the conduct of men, who, having raised themselves to
honour and affluence by the warmest professions of
friendship to the reformed religion under the preceding
reign, now abetted the most violent proceedings against
their former brethren and benefactors? What terms
were too strong for stigmatizing the execrable system of
persecution coolly projected by the dissembling, vindic¬
tive Gardiner, the brutal barbarity of the bloody Bonner,
or the unrelenting, insatiable cruelty of Mary, who,
having extinguished the feelings of humanity, and di¬
vested herself of the tenderness which characterises her
sex, issued orders for the murder of her subjects, until
her own husband, bigotted and unfeeling as he was,
turned with disgust from the spectacle, and continued to
urge to fresh severities the willing instruments of her
cruelty, after they were sated with blood!
On such a theme ’tis impious to be calm ;
Passion is reason, transport temper here.—Young.
“ Oppression makes a wise man mad but, to use tne
words of a modern orator, with a more just applica¬
tion, “ the distemper is still the madness of the wise,
which is better than the sobriety of fools. Their cry is
the voice of sacred misery, exalted, not into wild raving,