Maitland specified the mode in which the Reformer usually prayed for her majesty, as one thing which gave offence to him and his colleagues. Prayers and tears, it has often been alleged, are the only arms which Christians ought to employ against injuries. But those who have deprived them of other {114} weapons, have usually envied them the use of these also; and if their prayers have not been smoothed down to the temper of their adversaries, so as to become mere compliments to princes under colour of an address to the Almighty, they have often been pronounced to be seditious and treasonable.[128] Knox repeated his common form of prayer for the queen, and requested to be informed in what respects it was deserving of reprehension. “Ye pray for the queen’s majesty with a condition,” replied Maitland, “saying, ‘Illuminate her heart, if thy good pleasure be.’ Where have ye example of such prayer?”――“Wherever the examples are,” rejoined Knox, “I am assured of the rule, ‘If we shall ask any thing according to his will, he will hear us;’ and Christ commanded us to pray, ‘Thy will be done.’”――“But in so doing ye put a doubt in the people’s head of her conversion,” said Maitland.――“Not I, my lord; but her own obstinate rebellion causes more than me to doubt of her conversion.”――“Wherein rebels she against God?”――“In all the actions of her life, but in these two heads especially: that she will not hear the preaching of the blessed evangel of Jesus Christ, and that she maintains that idol the mass.”――“She thinks not that rebellion, but good religion.”――“So {115} thought they who offered their children to Moloch, and yet the spirit of God affirms, that they offered them unto devils, and not unto God.”――“But yet ye can produce the example of none that has so prayed before you,” said the secretary, pressing his former objection. “Well then,” said Knox; “Peter said these words to Simon Magus, ‘Repent of this thy wickedness, and pray to God, that, if it be possible, the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.’ And think ye not, my lord secretary, that the same doubt may touch my heart as touching the queen’s conversion, that then touched the heart of the apostle?”――“I would never hear you or any other call that in doubt,” replied Maitland.――“But your will is no assurance to my conscience.”――“Why say ye that she refuses admonitions?” said Maitland; “she will gladly hear any man.”――“But what obedience ensues? Or, when shall she be seen to give her presence to the public preaching?”――“I think never, so long as she is thus entreated,” replied the secretary. “And so long,” rejoined the Reformer, “ye and all others must be content that I pray so as I may be assured to be heard of my God, either in making her comfortable to his church, or, if he has appointed her to be a scourge to the same, that we may have patience, and she may be bridled.”