At the General Assembly of the Kirk, the just petitions of the ministers and commissioners of kirks were despised at the first, with these words, "As ministers will not follow our counsels, so will we suffer ministers to labour for themselves, and see what speed they come." And when the whole Assembly said, "If the Queen will not provide for our ministers, we must; for both Third and Two-part are rigorously taken from us, and from our tenants." "If others," said one, "will follow my counsel, the gaird[225] and the Papists shall complain as long as our ministers have done." At these words the former sharpness was coloured,[226] and the speaker alleged that he did not refer to all ministers, but to some to whom the Queen was no debtor; for what Third received she of burghs? Christopher Goodman answered, "My Lord Secretary, if ye can show me what just title either the Queen has to the Third, or the Papists to the Two-part, then I think I should solve whether she were debtor to ministers within burghs or not." But thereto he received this check for answer, "_Ne sit peregrinus curiosus in aliena Republica_;" that is, "Let not a stranger be curious in a strange commonwealth." The man of God answered, "Albeit I be a stranger in your polity, I am not so in the Kirk of God; and its care does no less appertain to me in Scotland than if I were in the midst of England." [225] Guard; civil establishment. [226] Modified; dissembled. [Sidenote: John Knox demands the Judgment of his Brethren.] Many wondered at the silence of John Knox; for in all those quick reasonings he opened not his mouth. The cause thereof he himself expressed in those words: "I have travailed, right honourable and beloved Brethren, since my last arrival within this realm, in an upright conscience before my God, seeking nothing more, as He is my witness, than the advancement of His glory, and the stability of His Kirk within this realm; and yet of late days I have been accused as a seditious man, and as one that usurps to myself power that becomes me not. True it is that I have given notification to the Brethren in divers quarters concerning the extremity intended against certain faithful men for looking at a priest going to Mass, and for observing those that transgressed just laws; but that therein I have usurped further power than is given to me, until I be condemned by you, I utterly deny.