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AUGUST

19, 1531 –England. At Norwich, Thomas Bilney is burned at the stake for his unrelenting preaching against the invocation of saints and image-worship.

19, 1536 --Germany. Kaspar Olevianus is born. While in the act of saving the young Duke Hermann Ludwig of the Palatinate from drowning, he himself will be rescued by a servant. Believing this to be an act of Divine Providence, he will devote himself to the Word of God.

19, 1561 --Scotland. Mary, the eighteen-year-old queen of Scotland, arrives at Leith and is joyously received by most of her subjects. Queen Elizabeth has refused her safe conduct through England because of her refusal to sign the Treaty of Edinburgh, which recognizes Elizabeth as Queen of England. Because Mary claims herself to be the rightful Queen of England and has quartered the English armorial bearings upon her coat-of-arms, Elizabeth has ordered English cruisers in the Channel to intercept her, but they have failed due to heavy fog.

Mary, Queen of Scots found a formidable enemy in John Knox. When his book, The First Blast Of The Trumpet Against The Monstrous Regiment of Women, first appeared, the Queen called him to scold him for writing against women rulers --and so against her. Then she proceeded:

     "But yet, ye have taught the people to receive another religion than their princes allow: and how can that doctrine be of God, seeing that God commands subjects to obey their princes?"

Mr. Knox: "Madam, as right religion took neither original nor authority from worldly princes, but from the Eternal God alone, so are not subjects bound to form their religion according to the appetites of their princes."

     The Queen then proceeded to insist that the Bible characters mentioned by Knox had not resisted their sovereigns with the sword. He replied that if princes "exceed their bounds" and go beyond their just limits, "they may be resisted even by power." The Queen remained in a daze for "more than a quarter of an hour” at what seemed to her to be an astounding argument. Recovering herself she responded,

"Well, then, I perceive that my subjects shall obey you and not me."

Mr. Knox: "God forbid that ever I take upon me to command any to obey me or yet to set subjects at liberty to do what pleaseth them." He then proceeded to declare that God "commands queens to be nurses unto His people."

The Queen: "Yea, but ye are not the Church that I will nourish: I will defend the Kirk of Rome, for I think that it is the true Kirk of God." This was indeed a strong statement since nearly all her counselors are Protestant and when Parliament has almost universally approved the doctrines of the Reformation.

Mr. Knox: "Your will, Madam, is no reason; neither doth your thought make that Roman harlot to be the true and immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ."

The Queen: "My conscience is not so."

Mr. Knox: "Conscience, Madam, requires knowledge, and I fear that right knowledge ye have none."

The Queen: "Ye interpret the Scriptures in one manner, and they interpret in another; whom shall I believe? And who shall be judge?"

Mr. Knox: "Ye shall believe God, that plainly speaketh in His Word; and farther than the Word teacheth you. Ye shall neither believe the one nor the other. The Word of God is plain in itself, and if there appear any obscurity in one place, the Holy Ghost who is never contrarious to Himself, explains the same more clearly in other places."

     The views of the two are irreconcilable and they part with mutual courtesies. Outwardly the Queen maintained a friendly appearance, but immediately after the interview, Mr. Knox expressed his assessment of her character: "If there be not in her a proud mind, a crafty wit, and an indurate heart against God and His truth, my judgment faileth me." Such is the incident recorded by Mr. A. M. Renwick.



 

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