A04923:65
The appellation of John Knox from the cruel and most iniust sentence pronounced against…The appellation of Iohn Knoxe from the cruell and most iniust sentence pronounced against…
The appellation of John Knox from the cruel and most iniust sentence pronounced against him by the false bishops and clergy of Scotland, with his supplication and exhortation to the nobility, estates, and co[m]munaltie of the same realm.The appellation of Iohn Knoxe from the cruell and most iniust sentence pronounced against him by the false bishoppes and clergie of Scotland, with his supplication and exhortation to the nobilitie, estates, and co[m]munaltie of the same realme.
Geneva: printed by J. Poullain and A. Rebul?, 1558
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
For the three children were delivered from the furnace of fire, and Daniel from the den of lions to the confusion of their enemies, to the better instruction of the ignorant kings, and to the perpetual comfort of God's afflicted children. And Abdemelech in the day of the Lords visitation, when the king and his council did drink the bitter cup of God's vengeance,1 did find his life for a pray, and did not fall in the edge of the sword, when many thousands did perish. And this was signified unto him by the prophet him self at the commandment of God before that Jerusalem was destroyed. The promise and cause were recited unto him in these words, ⟨image 29⟩I will bring my words upon this city unto evil and not unto good: but most assuredly I shall deliver thee because thou hast trusted in me, sayeth the Lord. The trust and hope, which Abdemelech had in God, made him bold to upon him self, being but a man, to the king and to his hole council, who had condemned to death the Prophet, whom his conscience did acknowledge to be innocent. For this did he speak in the presence of the king sitting in the port of Benjamin: My Lord the king, saith Abdemelech, these men do wickedly in all things, that they have done to Jeremiah the Prophet. Advert and take heed my Lords, that the men, who had condemned the Prophet, were the king, his princes, and council, and yet did one man accuse them all of iniquity, and did boldly speak in the defence of him of whose innocency he was persuaded. And the same, I say, is the duty of every man in his vocation, but chiefly of the nobility, which is joined with their kings to bridle and repress that folly and blind rage. Which thing if the nobility do not, neither yet labour to do, as they are traitors to their kings, so do they provoke the wrath of God against them selves and against the realm, in which they abuse the authority, which they have received of God to maintain virtue and to repress vice. For hereof I would your Honours ⟨p. 28⟩were most certainly persuaded, that God will neither excuse nobility nor people, but the nobility least of all, that obey and follow their kings in manifest iniquity, but with the same vengeance will God punish the Prince, people, and nobility conspiring together against him and his holy ordinances: