The History of the Reformation of the Church of Scotland

That the blood of Jesus Christ purgeth us from all our sins. And the Doctrine of the Papists,¹ which attribute Justification to the works of the Law, yea, to the works of mens inventions, as Pilgrimage▪ Pardons, and other such baggage. That the Papistical laws repugned to the Laws of the Gospel, he proved, by the Laws made of observation of days,² abstaining from meats, and from Marriage, which Christ Jesus made free; and the forbidding whereof, Saint Paul calleth 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 another rise, unlike to the other, having a mouth speaking great things and blasphemous) could be applied unto any other, but to the Pope, and his kingdom: For if these (said he) be not great words and blasphemous,³ The Head of the Church, most holy, most blessed, that cannot err; That can make right of wrong, and wrong of right; That of nothing can make somewhat; And that had all verity in the Shrine of his breast; yea, That had power of all, and none power of him. Nay, not to say, That he doth wrong, although he draw ten thousand Millions of souls with himself to hell. If these (said he) and many other, easy to be shown in his own Cannon-Law, be not great and blasphemous words, and such as never mortal men spake before, let the world judge. And yet (said he) is there one most evident of all, to wit, 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 very Papists themselves judge, If any before them, took upon them power to relax the pains of them that were in Purgatory, as they affirm to the people that daily they do, by the merits of their Mass, and of their other trifles. In the end he said, If any here (and there were present Master John Maire, ⁴the University, the Sub-Prior, and many Cannons, with some Friars of both the Orders) that will say, That I have alleged Scripture, Doctor, or History, otherwise then 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 as I have spoken. Of this Sermon, which was the first that ever John Knox made in public, was divers brutes: