An answer to a letter of a Jesuit named Tyrie, be John KnoxAn answer to a letter of a Iesuit named Tyrie, be Iohne Knox

This reason containeth in it sic folly besides the obscurity and generality of it,¹ that we stand in doubt at what member we shall begin to confute the same. But because his greatest strength appeareth to stand in this, that before a thousand years, there were people in all the world that believed otherwise then we believe: To that h••d we will first answer & say. That gram ted, that before a thousand years there was people in all the world that trowed as Papists now trow, what shall thereof yet be concluded, that our Kirks are new found? And will he say that our Evangel is but newly invented? A good dialectis• •ne would answer: that albeit the antecedent were granted, the consequent may justly be denied. And the reason is, because that nether doeth the Kirk, the faith of the same, nor the authority of the Evan gel ⟨image 14⟩of Christ Jesus, depend upon that which men believed before that it was published. Nether yet is the age of the Kirk to be counted from the time, when it pleased God of his mercy, either to reveal his word to any Realm or Nation that before was ignorant of it, or yet to reform abuses which have taken root amongst the people of God be the negligence of men. And that this reason and proposition is true: the consideration of the planting of the Kirk, and of the divers reformations maid within the same shall witness. When God called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans,² and maid to him y• promise of the bli••ed seed, and after gave unto him the sign of Circumcision: were there not people dispersed universally upon the face of the earth, who trowed and thought that they had a good and perfect Religion? Yea, even that same Religion (as they supposed) wherein Noah served God. And yet we know that the spirit• of God damneth the multitude of that age of Idolatry: and thereintill magnifies the mercy of God, who from that corrupted multitude called Abraham, & be grace maid him the Father of the faithful. No• ⟨image 15⟩