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…

It is not unknown,¹ that the prophets had revelations of God, which were not commune to the people, as Samuel had the revelation, that Eli and his posterity should be destroyed, that Saul should first be king and thereafter that he should be rejected, that David should reign for him. Micah understood by vision that Ahab should be killed in battle against the Syrians. Elijah saw that dogs should eat Jezebel in the fortress of Jezreel.² Elisha did see hunger come upon Israel by the space of seven years.³ Jeremiah did foresee the destruction of Jerusalem and the time of their captivity,⁴ and so diverse other prophets had diverse revelations of God,⁵ which the people did not otherwise understand,⁶ but by their affirmation, and therefore in those days were the prophets named Seers, because that God did open unto them that, which was hid from the multitude. Now if any man might have claimed any ⟨image 31⟩privilege from the rigour of the Law, or might have justified his fact, it should have been the Prophet. For he might have alleged for him self his singular prerogative, that he had above other men to have God's will revealed unto him by vision or by dream, or that God had declared particularly unto him, that his pleasure was to be honoured in that manner, in such a place, and by such means. But all such excuses doth God remove, commanding that the Prophet, that shall solicit the people to serve strange gods, shall die the death, notwithstanding that he allege for him self dream, vision, or revelation. Yea although he promise miracles, and also that such things as he promiseth come to pass, yet I say commandeth God, that no credit be given to him, but that he die the death, because he teacheth apostasy, and defection from God. Hereof your Honours may easily espy, that none provoking the people to idolatry ought to be exempted from the punishment of death. For if neither that inseparable con junction, which God him self hath sanctified betwixt man and wife, neither that unspeakable love grafted in nature, which is betwixt the father and the son, neither yet that reverence, which God's people ought to bear to the Prophets, can