'Considering myself rather called of my God to instruct the ignorant, comfort the sorrowful, confirm the weak, and rebuke the proud, by tongue and lively voice in these most corrupt days, than to compose books for the age to come: seeing that so much is written (and that by men of most singular condition), and yet so little well observed; I decreed to contain myself within the bonds [bounds?] of that vocation, whereunto I found myself specially called. I dare not deny (lest that in so doing I should be injurious to the giver), but that God hath revealed to me secrets unknown to the world; and also that he hath made my tongue a trumpet, to forewarn realms and nations, yea, certain great personages, of translations and changes, when no such things were feared, nor yet were appearing; a portion whereof cannot the world deny (be it never so blind) to be fulfilled, and the rest, alas! I fear shall follow with greater expedition, and in more full perfection, than my sorrowful heart desireth. Those revelations and assurances notwithstanding, I did ever abstain to commit anything to writ, contented only to have obeyed the charge of Him who commanded me to cry.'[23] And when he did 'cry,' from the pulpit or elsewhere, he was careful to found his claim to be heard, not on private intimations, but on God's open word. As early as 1554 he denounces judgment to come upon England (which, by the way, was not fulfilled in the sense which he expected), but he adds immediately-- 'This my affirmation proceedeth, not from any conjecture of man's fantasy, but from the ordinary course of God's judgments against manifest contemners of his precepts from the beginning;'[24] and more fully in another contemporary document-- 'But ye would know the grounds of my certitude: God grant that hearing them ye may understand and steadfastly believe the same. My assurances are not the marvels of Merlin, nor yet the dark sentences of profane prophesies; but, 1. the plain truth of God's word, 2. the invincible justice of the everlasting God, and 3. the ordinary course of his punishments and plagues from the beginning, are my assurance and grounds.'[25] This was early in his career. At its close Knox, now very frail, was deeply aggrieved by the troubles caused by Lethington and Kirkaldy, who held the castle of Edinburgh. His verbal predictions of their coming end, as reported (after the event however) by those around his death-bed, and his assurance at the same time of 'mercy to the soul' of the chivalrous Kirkaldy, are among the most striking incidents of this kind in his life. But in his Will, written contemporaneously on 13th May 1572, he says,