The History of the Reformation of Religion in Scotland: With Which Are Included Knox's Confession and The Book of DisciplineKnox, John
History
The History of the Reformation of Religion in Scotland: With Which Are Included Knox's Confession and The Book of Discipline
Knox, John
Reformation -- Scotland; Scotland -- Church history
Then began he to decipher the lives of divers Popes, and the lives
of all the shavelings for the most part; their doctrine and laws he
plainly proved to be directly repugnant to the doctrine and laws
of God the Father and of Christ Jesus, His Son. This he proved by
comparing the doctrine of justification expressed in the Scriptures,
which teach that man is "justified by faith only," and "that the
blood of Jesus Christ purges us from all our sins;" and the doctrine
of the Papists, which attributeth justification to the works of the
law, yea, to such works of man's invention as pilgrimage, pardons,
and other such baggage. That the papistical laws were repugnant
to the laws of the Evangel, he proved by the laws made concerning
observation of days, abstaining from meats, and from marriage which
Christ Jesus made free, and the forbidding whereof Saint Paul called
"the doctrine of devils."
In handling the notes of that Beast, given in the text, he willed
men to consider if these notes, "There shall one arise unlike to
the other, having a mouth speaking great things and blasphemous,"
could be applied to any other but the Pope and his Kingdom; for "if
these," said he, "be not great words and blasphemous, 'the Successor
of Peter,' 'the Vicar of Christ,' 'the Head of the Kirk,' 'Most
Holy,' 'Most Blessed,' 'that cannot err;' that 'may make right of
wrong, and wrong of right;' that 'of nothing, may make somewhat;'
that 'hath all truth in the shrine of his breast;' yea, 'that has
power over all, and none power over him;' nay, 'not to say that he
does wrong, although he draw ten thousand million of souls with
himself to hell:' if these," said he, "and many other, able to be
shown in his own canon law, be not grave and blasphemous words, and
such as never mortal man spake before, let the world judge.
"And yet," said he, "there is one note most evident of all. John,
in his Revelation, says that 'the merchandise of that Babylonian
harlot, among other things, shall be the bodies and souls of men.'
Now, let the very Papists themselves judge if ever any before
them took upon them power to relax the pains of them that were in
purgatory, as they affirm to the people that they do by the merits
of their Mass and of their other trifles, daily." In the end, he
said, "If any here"--and there were present Master John Major, the
University, the Sub-prior, and many Canons, with some Friars of both
the Orders--"will say that I have alleged Scripture, teaching, or
history, otherwise than it is written, let them come unto me with
sufficient witness, and by conference I shall let them see not only
the original where my testimonies are written, but I shall prove
that the writers meant what I have spoken."
[Sidenote: The People comment on Knox's Sermon against Papistry.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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