{71} When free from fever, he relieved the tedious hours of captivity, by committing to writing a confession of his faith, containing the substance of what he had taught at St Andrews, with a particular account of the disputation which he had maintained in St Leonard’s Yards. This he found means to convey to his religious acquaintances in Scotland, accompanied with an earnest exhortation to persevere in the faith which they had professed, whatever persecutions they might suffer for its sake.[98] To this confession I find him referring, in the defence which he afterwards made before the bishop of Durham. “Let no man think, that because I am in the realm of England, therefore so boldly I speak. No: God hath taken that suspicion from me. For the body lying in 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.”[99] Notwithstanding the rigour of their confinement, the prisoners who were separated found opportunities of occasionally corresponding with one another. Henry Balnaves of Hallhill had composed, in his prison, a treatise on Justification and the Works and Conversation of a Justified Man. This having been conveyed to Knox, probably after his return from the coast of Scotland, he was so much pleased with the work, that he divided it into chapters, and added some marginal notes, and a concise epitome of its contents; {72} to the whole he prefixed a recommendatory dedication, intending that it should be published for the use of his brethren in Scotland, as soon as an opportunity offered.[100] The reader will not, I am persuaded, be displeased to have some extracts from this dedication, which represent, more forcibly than any description of mine can do, the pious and heroic spirit which animated the Reformer, when “his feet lay in irons;” and I shall quote more freely, as the book is rare.