John Knox.docx

1、John KnoxSelected Writings of John Knox: Public Epistles, Treatises, and Expositions to the Year 1559Editors NoteWhen Knox visited Scotland in 1555-56, his preaching was eagerly received throughout the country. He preached in homes, and administered the sacraments to scattered Protestants in his hom

2、eland.The papal authorities were alarmed by his success, and summoned him to appear before a convocation. To the surprise of the prelates, Knox appeared in Edinburgh, accompanied by a contingent of Protestants, with the intention of disputing the claims of his Romish adversaries. The Papists quickly

3、 backed off, setting aside their summons. Therefore, on the day of the summons, May 15, 1556, Knox seized the opportunity to preach in Edinburgh, in a greater audience than ever before he had done in that town (see KnoxsHistory, inWorks, vol. 1, p. 251).That same month, at the request of Scottish no

4、bles, Knox sent a letter to the queen regent, seeking her protection for Protestant preachers, and asking for a fair hearing of their doctrine. The regent dismissed the letter, passing it on to the prelates and jesting that the letter was a satire.After Knox departed for Geneva, the Papists renewed

5、their proceedings, tried Knoxin absentia, condemned him, and burned him in effigy.In 1558, from Geneva, Knox published an enlarged version of his letter to the queen regent. He reproduced the text of his original epistle, interspersed with additional comments to bring the main arguments home with gr

6、eater force. Knox made it clear that he did not consider the issues a joking matter. The augmented version of the letter is that which follows here.This epistle is particularly interesting as it addresses the duty of magistrates to promote true religion. It reveals the prophetic spirit which was typ

7、ical of much of the reformers ministry.Letter to the Queen Dowager,Regent of Scotland(Augmented Version)TO THE EXCELLENT LADY MARYDOWAGER, REGENT OF SCOTLANDThe cause moving me, right honourable, to present this my supplication unto your grace, enlarged and in some places explained (which being in t

8、he realm of Scotland, in the month of May 1556, I caused to be presented to your grace), is the incredible rage of such as bear the title of bishops, who against all justice and equity have pronounced against me a most cruel sentence, condemning my body to fire, my soul to damnation, and all doctrin

9、e taught by me to be false, deceitful, and heretical. If this injury did tend to me alone, having the testimony of a good conscience, with silence I could pass the matter, being assured that such as they curse and expel from their synagogues (for such causes) shall God bless, and Christ Jesus receiv

10、e in his eternal society. But considering that this their blasphemy is vomited forth against the eternal truth of Christs evangel (whereof it has pleased the great mercy of God to make me a minister), I cannot cease to notify as well to your grace, as unto them, that so little I am afraid of their t

11、yrannical and surmised sentence, that in place of the picture (if God impede not my purpose) they shall have the body to justify that doctrine which they (members of Satan) blasphemously do condemn: advertising your grace in the meantime, that from them, their sentence, and tyranny, and from all tho

12、se that list maintain them in the same, I do appeal to a lawful and general council, beseeching your grace to take in good part that I call you for witness, that I have required the liberty of tongue, and my cause to be heard before your grace and the body of that realm, before that any such process

13、 was laid against me, as this my letter directed to your grace does testify.THE BEGINNING OF THE LETTERThe eternal providence of the same God, who has appointed his chosen children to fight in this transitory and wretched life a strong and difficult battle, has also appointed their final victory, by

14、 a marvellous fashion; and the manner of their preservation, in their battle, is more marvellous (Gen. 3:15-24; Matt. 10:16-39; Acts 14:1-20). Their victory stands not in resisting, but in suffering; as our sovereign Master pronounces to his disciples, that in their patience should they possess thei

15、r souls (Matt. 5:10-12; John 14, 16). And the same foresaw the prophet Isaiah, when he painted forth all other battles to be with violence, tumult, and blood shedding, but the victory of Gods people to be in quietness, silence, and hope: meaning that all others that obtain victory do enforce themsel

16、ves to resist their adversaries, to shed blood, and to murder (Isa. 9). But so do not the elect of God, but they sustain all things at the commandment of him who has appointed them to suffer, being most assuredly persuaded, that then only they triumph, when all men judge them oppressed.1For in the c

17、ross of Christ always is included a secret and hidden victory, never well known till the sufferer appears altogether to be (as it were) exterminated. For only then did the blood of Abel cry to God, when proud Cain judged all memory of his brother to have been extinguished (Gen. 4:9-10).And so, I say

18、, their victory is marvellous. And how that they can be preserved, and not brought to utter confusion, the eye of man perceives not. But he, whose power is infinite (Isa. 40, 41, 51), by secret and hidden motions, touches the hearts of such as, to mans judgment, have power to destroy them, of very p

19、ity and compassion to save his people; as that he did the hearts of the Egyptian midwives, to preserve the men children of the Israelites, when precept was given by Pharaoh of their destruction (Ex. 1:15-22); the heart of Pharaohs daughter likewise to pity Moses in his young infancy, exposed to the

20、danger of the waters (Ex. 2:5-6); the heart of Nebuchadnezzar to preserve the captives alive, and liberally to nourish the children that were found apt to letters (2 Kings 25; Jer. 52); and finally the heart of Cyrus, to set at liberty the people of God, after long bondage and thralldom (Ezra 1).2An

21、d thus does the invisible power and love of God manifest itself towards his elect from time to time, for two causes specially: first, to comfort his weak warriors in their manifold temptations, letting them understand that he is able to compel such as sometimes were enemies to his people, to fight i

22、n their cause, and to promote their deliverance; and secondarily, to give a testimony of his favour to them that by all appearance did live before (as St. Paul speaks) wanting without God in the world, as strangers from the commonwealth of Israel, and without the liege of his merciful promise and fr

23、ee grace made to his church (Eph. 2:12).For who could have affirmed that any of these persons aforenamed had been of that nature and clemency, before occasions were offered unto them? But the works of mercy shown to the afflicted have left us assurance that God used them as vessels of honour. For pi

24、ty and mercy shown to Christs afflicted flock, as they never lacked temporal reward, so if they are continued (and are not changed into cruelty), they are assured signs and seals of everlasting mercy to be received from God, who by his Holy Spirit moves their hearts to show mercy to the people of Go

25、d oppressed and afflicted.ADDITIONThis preface I used, to give your grace occasion more deeply to consider what has been the condition of Christs members from the beginning, that in so doing, you might see that it is no new thing that the saints of God are oppressed in the world; that you, moved by

26、earnest contemplation of the same, might also study rather to save them from murder (although by the wicked counsels of many you were provoked to the contrary), than to be a slave of Satan, obeying his servants your clergy, whose fury is bent against God and his verity truth. But this will after fol

27、low in our letter, which thus proceeds.LETTERYour grace perchance does wonder to what purpose these things are recited, and I in very deed cannot wonder enough that occasion is offered to me (a worm most wretched) to recite the same at this present time. For I have looked rather for the sentence of

28、death, than to have written to your grace in these last and most wicked days, in which Satan so blinds the hearts of many, that innocents are damned, and their cause never tried.ADDITION3Hereof you cannot be ignorant. For besides these whom you hear from time to time to be murdered most cruelly in F

29、rance, Italy, Spain, Flanders, and now of late years besides you in England (for no cause, but that they profess Christ Jesus to be the only Saviour of the world, the only Mediator betwixt God and man, the only acceptable sacrifice for the sins of all faithful, and finally, the only Head to his chur

30、ch 1 John 2:1-2; 1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 6:26-27; 10:12; Eph. 5:23) besides these, I say (of whom you heard the bruit report), you have been witness that some within the realm of Scotland, for the same cause, have been murdered most cruelly, whose cause was never heard with indifferency impartiality. But m

31、urderers occupying the seat of justice have shed the blood of Christs true witnesses: which albeit did then appear to be consumed away with fire, yet is it recent in the presence of him for whose cause they did suffer, and ceases not to call for vengeance, with the blood of Abel, to fall not only up

32、on such as were authors of that murder, but also upon all that maintain those tyrants in their tyranny, or that do consent to their beastly cruelty.Take this not as the affirmation of any man, but hear and consider the voice of the Son of God: Fulfill, says he, the measure of your fathers, that all the blood which has been shed, since the blood of Abel the just, till the blood of Zechariah, etc. may come upon this generation (Matt. 23:32, 35).4Hereby it is evident that the murderers of our time, as well as in the time of Christ, are guilty of the blood that has been shed from the beginning.