A47584:1263
The History of the Reformation of the Church of Scotland
The history of the reformation of the Church of Scotland containing five books : together with some treatises conducing to the history.The historie of the reformation of the Church of Scotland containing five books : together with some treatises conducing to the history.
London: printed by John Raworth for George Thomason and Octavian Pullen, 1644
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.
The Sword of Gods wrath is already drawn,1 which of necessity must needs strike, when grace offered is obstinately refused. You have been long in bondage of the devil, blindness, error and Idolatry, prevailing against the simple Truth of God in that your Realm, in which God hath made you Princes and Rulers: But now doth God of his great mercy call you to repentance,2 before he pour forth the uttermost of his vengeance: He crieth to your ears, That your Religion is nothing but Idolatry; he accuseth you of the blood of his Saints which hath been shed by your permission, assistance and powers: For the tyranny of those raging Beasts should have no force, if by your strength they were not maintained.3 Of those horrible crimes doth now God accuse you, not of purpose to condemn you, but mercifully to absolve and pardon you,4 as sometime he did those whom Peter accused to ⟨p. 32⟩have killed the Son of God, so that ye be not of mind nor purpose to justify your former iniquity. Iniquity I call not only the crimes and offences which have been, and yet remain in your manners and lives, but that also which appeareth before men most holy, with hazard of my life I offer to prove abomination before God;5 that is, your whole Religion to be so corrupt and vain, that no true servant of God can communicate with it, because that in so doing he should manifestly deny Christ Jesus and his Eternal Verity. I know that your Bishops, accompanied with the swarm of the Papistical vermin, shall cry, A damned heretic ought not to be heard. But remember, my Lords, what I protested in the beginning, upon which ground I continually stand;6 to wit, That I am no heretic, nor deceivable Teacher; but the servant of Christ Jesus, a Preacher of his infallible Verity, innocent in all that they can lay to my charge concerning my Doctrine; and therefore by them, being enemies to Christ, I am unjustly condemned: From which cruel Sentence I have appealed, and do appeal, as before mention is made; in the mean time most humbly requiring your Honours to take me in your protection, to be auditors of my just defences, granting unto me the same liberty which Ahab, a wicked King, and Israel at that time a blinded people, granted to Elijah in the like case; That your Bishops, and the whole rabble of your Clergy,