Glimpses of Christian History Presents Pastwords #162: Historical and Biblical Interpretation Often Found in the Mind of the Beholder by Rev. Stephen Keenan ©2007

"The Pretended Reformation is Not the Work of God"

SECTION I.

. Can any one reasonably believe, that the change in religion brought about by Luther, is the work of God?

A. No one can believe it, unless he be utterly ignorant of the true nature of religion, and very illiterate in matters of history.

Q. Why do you make this answer?

A. Because, in the first place, the author of the Reformation is not a man of God; secondly, because his work is nor the work of God; thirdly, because the means which he used in effecting his purpose, are not of God.

Q. Why do you say Luther is not a man of God?

A. Because he has left us, in his works, abundant proof that, if God saw need for any reformation in his Church, such a man as Luther would not be selected to carry God's will into effect.

Q. What have you to blame in Luther's works?

A. They are full of indecencies very offensive to modesty, crammed with a low buffoonery well calculated to bring religion into contempt, and interlarded with very many gross insults to individuals of dignity and respectability.

Q. What does Luther say of himself?

A. That, when he was a Catholic, he fasted and watched and prayed, he was poor, chaste, and obedient; but when he became reformer, his heart was a prey to the most shameful passions, which he would not resist. (Vol. v. c. 1. ad Galat. chap. v. 14; Serm. on Matrim., ibid, p. 119.) He declared, that he would yield to neither emperor, nor king, nor devil; no, not even to the whole universe. (Respon. ad Maled. Reg. Angli.)

Q. What said his brother reformers of him?

A. That he was absolutely furious, that he impugned the known truth even against the reclamations of his own conscience. (Hospinian.) That he was puffed up with pride and arrogance, and seduced by Satan. (Ecolamp.) "How dare you," said Henry the VIII., "O Luther, lift your eyes before God or man, after having allowed yourself to be borne away by your concupiscence at the instigation of the devil." (Florimond, p. 299.)

Q. What says the Church of Zurich against Luther? (Confess. p. 61.)

A. It says, he is borne away by his devils; his tongue is filthy and full of devils; all his works are written at the impulse of the devil. Erasmus says, in his letter to Luther (1626): "All good people lament the schism with which your arrogant, unbridled, and seditious spirit, rends the world."

Q. Passing over his indecencies in silence, give us a specimen of his buffooneries and insults. What does he say to the King of England, replying to a book which the King had written against him? (Tom. ii. p. 145.)

A. He calls the King an ass, an idiot, a fool, whom very infants ought to mock.

Q. How does he treat Cardinal Albert, Archbishop and Elector of Mayence, in the work which he wrote against the Bishop of Magdeburg? (Tom. vii. p. 353.)

A. He calls him an unfortunate little priest, crammed with an infinite number of devils.

Q. What does he say of Henry, Duke of Brunswick? (Tom. vii. p. 118.)

A. That he had swallowed so many devils in eating and drinking, that he could not even spit any thing but a devil. He calls Duke George of Saxony, a man of straw, who, with his immense belly, seemed to bid defiance to Heaven, and to have swallowed up Jesus Christ himself. (Tom. ii. p. 90.)

Q. Was Luther's language more respectful, when he addressed the Emperor and the Pope?

A. No; he treated them both with equal indignities; he said that the Grand Turk had ten times the virtue and good sense of the Emperor,-- that the Pope was a wild beast, a ravenous wolf, against whom all Europe should rise in arms.

Q. What do you conclude from Luther's insolent, outrageous, and libertine manner of speaking, and from his character, drawn by himself and his reforming brethren?

A. That he was not the man to be chosen by God to reform his Church; for his language is the strongest proof that he was actuated, not by the Spirit of God, but by the spirit of the devil.

Q. May not his party say, that they care little about the manner of the man, if his doctrine be true,--- that it is not upon him, but upon the word of God, they build their faith?

A. If the Protestant doctrine be true, then God used Luther as a chosen instrument to re-establish his true faith; but no reasonable man can possibly believe the latter; therefore, neither can any reasonable man believe that the Protestant is the true faith.

Q. May it not be objected that there were individual pastors in the Catholic Church as worthless as Luther?

A. Yes; but all the pastors of the Catholic Church were not so at one and the same time; there were a hundred good for one bad pastor; whilst Luther, at the time we speak of, was the first and only teacher of Protestantism. Besides, Christ himself gives an unanswerable reply to the objection (Matt. xxiii): "The Scribes and Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses; all things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do, but according to their works do ye not." Again, some Catholic pastors may have been bad men, but still they were the lawful ministers of God, having succeeded to lawfully commissioned predecessors; but Luther stood alone, he succeeded to no one having lawful authority, from whom he could derive a mission. In fine, whatever may have been the lives of some vicious Catholic pastors, they taught nothing new, their teaching was what the best and holiest ministers of the Church taught. Hence, there was no innovation in matters of faith, or principles of morality. But Luther was the first, to teach a new doctrine, unknown in the world before his time.

SECTION II.

Q. We are now satisfied that the author of Protestantism was not a man of God; show us, that his undertaking was not from God? --- what did he undertake?

A. He undertook to show that the Church had fallen into error, he separated himself from her, and formed his followers into a party against her.

Q. Could such an undertaking be from God?

A. No; for God has commanded us, not to sit in judgment upon the Church, but to hear and obey her with respect; "and if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican." (Matt. chap. xviii.)

Q. Was it the particular territorial Church of the Roman States, or the Universal Catholic Church, that Luther charged with having erred?

A. It was the Universal Church, he dared to calumniate in this manner.

Q. How do you prove this?

A. Before the time of Luther, there was no Christian society in the whole world, which believed the doctrines afterwards taught by Luther; consequently, he assailed not any particular sect or church, but the faith of the whole Christian world.

Q. Are you quite sure, that it is incontestably true, that no Christian body ever believed, before Luther's time, the new doctrines he began then to propagate?

A. So sure, that we have Luther's own authority for it. His words are (Tom. ii. p. 9): "How often has not my conscience been alarmed? How often have I not said to myself:--- Dost thou ALONE of all men pretend to be wise? Dost thou pretend that ALL CHRISTIANS have been in error, during such a long period of years.

Q. What was it that gave Luther most pain, during the time he meditated the introduction of his new religion?

A. A hidden respect for the authority of the Church, which he found it impossible to stifle.

Q. How does he express himself on this matter? (Tom. ii. p. 5.)

A. "After having subdued all other considerations, it was with the utmost difficulty I could eradicate from my heart the feeling that I should obey the Church." "I am not so presumptuous," said he, "as to believe, that it is in God's name I have commenced and carried on this affair; I should not wish to go to judgment, resting on the fact that God is my guide in these matters." (Tom. i. p. 364.) He evidently had a conscience, but pride was its ruler.

Q. What think you of the schism caused by Luther? Can one prudently believe that it is the work of God?

A. No; because God himself has forbidden schism as a dreadful crime. St. Paul (1 Cor. i. 10) says: "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no SCHISMS among you; but that you be perfect in the same mind and same judgment."

Q. What idea did Luther himself entertain about schism before he blinded himself by his infuriated antipathy to the Pope?

A. He declared, that it was not lawful for any Christian whatever to separate himself from the Church of Rome.

Q. Repeat the very words of Luther touching this important matter? (Tom. i. p. 116.)

A. "There is no question, no matter how important, which will justify a separation from the Church." Yet, notwithstanding, he himself burst the moorings which bound him to the Church, and, with his small band of ignorant and reckless followers, opposed her by every means in his power.

Q. What do you remark, on historical examples of conduct similar to this, ever since the birth of Christianity?

A. That in every age, when a small body detached itself from the Church, on account of doctrinal points, it has been universally the case, that the small body plunged by degrees deeper and deeper into error and heresy; and, in the end, brought by its own increasing corruption into a state of decomposition, disappeared and perished. Of this we have hundreds of examples; nor can Lutherans or Calvinists reasonably hope, that their heresy and schism can have any other end. They are walking in the footsteps of those who have strayed from the fold of truth, --from the unity of faith; and they can have no other prospect than that, of so many heresies, that have gone before them.

SECTION III.

Q. Why have you said, that the means adopted by Luther, to establish his new religion, were not of God? What were those means?

A. That he might secure followers, he employed such means as were calculated to flatter the passions of men; he strewed the path to heaven -- not like Christ with thorns but like the devil -- with flowers; he took off the cross which Christ had laid on the shoulders of men; he made wide and easy the way, which Christ had left narrow and difficult.

Q. Repeat some of Luther's improvements upon the religion of Christ?

A. He permitted all, who had made solemn vows of chastity, to violate their vows and marry; he permitted temporal sovereigns, to plunder the property of the Church; he abolished confession, abstinence, fasting, and every work of penance and mortification.

Q. How did he attempt to tranquilize the consciences he had disturbed by these scandalously libertine doctrines?

A. He invented a thing, which he called justifying faith, to be a sufficient substitute for all the above painful religious works, -- an invention which took off every responsibility from our shoulders, and laid all on the shoulders of Jesus Christ; in a word, he told men to believe in the merits of Christ as certainly applied to them, and live as they pleased, to indulge every criminal passion, without even the restraints of modesty.

Q. How did he strive, to gain over to his party a sufficient number of presumptuous, unprincipled, and dissolute men of talent, to preach and propagate his novelties?

A. He pandered to their passions, and flattered their pride, by granting them the sovereign honour, of being their own judges in every religious question; he presented them with the Bible, declaring that each one of them, ignorant and learned, was perfectly qualified to decide upon every point of controversy.

Q. What did he condescend to do for Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, in order to secure his support and protection?

A. He permitted him to keep two wives at one and the same time. The name of the second was Margaret de Saal, who had been maid of honour to his lawful wife, Christina de Saxe. Nor was Luther the only Protestant Doctor who granted this monstrous dispensation from the law of ent, seeing that the Scripture is so explicit on the subject. Gen. ii. Matth. xix. Mark x. speak of two in one flesh, but never of three. But Luther and his brethren were guided, not by the letter of the Scripture, but by the corrupt passions, wishes, and inclinations of men. To induce their followers to swallow the new creed, they gave them, in return, liberty to gratify every appetite.

SECTION IV.

Q. It is now quite clear, that Luther was not sent by God to reform the Church; is this also true of the other reformers? What say you of Calvin?

A. "What man," says Rousseau, "was ever more imperious, more divinely infallible than Calvin, who looked upon opposition as the work of Satan, and a crime which made one deserve to be burned alive."

Q. What says Walmer of him?

A. He says: "Calvin, I know, is violent and perverse; so much the better, he is just the man, we require, to attain our ends."

Q. What does Calvin himself say in his letter to the Marquess du Poet?

He says: "Do not fail to rid the country of those, who exhort the people to rise agianst us, ...monsters of that kind should be suffocated, as I did to Michael Servetus." (Original Letter -- Archives of the Marquess Monölimart.)

Q. What says the reformer Stancharus de Mediat. in Calv. Institut., No. 4?

A. "What demon," says he, "has induced you, O Calvin, to declaim with Arius against the Son of God? Is it that Antichrist of the North whom you adore?" Be on your guard, Christian reader, and you, above all, ministers of God, against the books of Calvin; they contain impious doctrine, the blasphemies of Arianism, as if the spirit of Servetus, escaping from the funeral pile, had passed whole and entire into Calvin. (Ibid, No. 3.)

Q. What says the Lutherans of Germany (Corp. doct. Christiani) of Calvin's doctrine, which makes God the author of sin?

A. That it ought to be, for every one, an object of horror and execration; that it is a madness, the ruin of morals, monstrous and blasphemous. Bullinger, himself a reformer, proves, from the Scripture, the Fathers, and the testimony of the whole Church, the falsehood of this doctrine of Calvin (Decad. iii. Serm. 10.)

Q. What say the English reformed Bishops on Calvinism?

A. They protest before God, that Calvin and his disciples, perverted every text of Scripture they quoted in favour of their Church of Geneva. (Survey of Pretended Holy Discipline, p. 44.)

Q. Was Calvin accused of shockingly immoral practices?

A. Yes; and it is said he bore the penal mark of these. Nay, the Church of Geneva, after being aware of the charge, did not even deny it, when made at Noyon against him, by Berthelier. After a judicial trial, his sentence was commuted into branding, instead of burning. (Campion and Card. Richelieu.)

Q. What says Calvin about Luther's doctrine?

A. That it was much better to build a new Church altogether than remain like Luther -- a half Papist. (Theol. lib. ii. p. 126.) He calls the Lutheran Church a pig-sty; and he styles Westphal, a great animal -- a dog -- and a fool. Such is the head and founder of the Presbyterian or Calvinistic Church.

Q. How did Calvin die?

A. A disciple of his own says: "Calvin ended his life in despair... of that shameful and loathsome disease with which God threatens the rebellious and accursed." "This I can attest, as I saw with my own eyes his dreadful and tragical end." (Feller. art. Calvin.) "God," say the Lutherans of Germany, "manifested his judgments on Calvin, whom he visited horribly by punishments, before his unhappy death: he so struck the heretic, that, despairing of salvation, and invoking devils, swearing and blaspheming, he breathed forth his malignant soul." (Conrad Schlus. in Theol. Calv. lib. ii. p. 72.)

SECTION V.

Q. What says Melanchthon on the character of Carlostadt?

A. He says he was a brutal man, devoid of talent or knowledge, who, so far from seeming to have the Spirit of God, neither knew nor practised the duties of civilized life. He bore evident marks of impiety, his doctrine was either Judaism or sedition, he condemned all laws made by Pagans, and made the law of Moses his only rule; when Nicholas Stork began to publish the Anabaptist fanaticism, Carlostad adopted it; like Luther, he violated his vow of celibacy by a sacrilegious marriage. (See Prayer for his Marriage in Florim.)

Q. What say the Lutherans of him? (Hist. Conf. August. fol. 41.)v

A. It cannot be denied, say they, that he was strangled by the devil, as so many witnesses have attested it, and so many authors have given it a place in their writings. His son, who survived him, returned to the bosom of the Church.

Q. What does Zwinglius say of himself?

A. That he was consumed by an unholy and incontinent fire, which had drawn upon him the reproach of the Churches, (Parenoes. ad Helvet. T. i. p. 113.)

Q. What says Luther of Zwinglius and his book?

A. "I do not," says he, "read the books of such men. They are out of the Church, are not only damned themselves, but are bringing other miserable wretches to perdition. (Schlussenb. lib. ii.) "Zwinglius," he says again, "is dead and damned." (T. ii. p. 36.) "We have no communion," say the Lutherans, "with the Zwinglians; they are actuated by the spirit of falsehood, and speak blasphemies against the Son of God." (See Epit. Colloq. 1564. p. 28.)

SECTION VI.

Q. The German reformers were not then messengers of heaven, but emissaries from a very different quarter; is this also true of the leading English and Scottish reformers? What say you of Cranmer?

A. He was chief advisor to Henry VIII., the greatest monster that ever disgraced Christianity, in all the sacrileges and murders he committed: his name should be everlastingly execrated. The cold blooded, persidious, impious, blasphemous caitiff expired amidst the flames he had himself kindled. (Cobbett, Letter ii. n. 64. Hist. Reform.)

Q. How did this first Protestant Archbishop prepare himself for consecration?

A. By committing perjury: before going to the altar, where he had, in the usual way, to swear obedience to the Pope, he went into a chapel, and there swore, that he would not keep the oath to the Pope, if it prevented him from helping the King to reform, that is, to plunder the Church. (Ibid, let. ii. n. 65.)

Q. How did Cranmer behave as to the divorce of Henry?

A. Knowing that the King was already married to Ann Boleyn, and that the intercourse between them was incestuous and adultress, he, with matchless hypocrisy and impudence, as head of the Church, pronounced a divorce against the lawful wife, Queen Catherine; and thus, for the good of the King's soul, permitted him to live on, in the most abandoned state. (Ibid.)

Q. What did this Cranmer do shortly after?

A. He annulled this very marriage, which he had declared valid, and declared the fruit of it illegitimate; and this he did in the . (Ibid, p. 76)

Q. Had this wicked man been a priest?

A. Yes; and he had, notwithstanding his vow, one wife in Germany alive, and another in England. (Ibid, letter iii. n. 104.)

Q. Was Cranmer a persecutor?

A. He aided Henry in all his robberies and murders. "Those horrid butcheries," says Cobbett (ibid, n. 98), "were perpetrated under the primacy of Cranmer, and by the help of another ruffian named Thomas Cromwell, who shared with Cranmer the work of plunder, and afterwards shared in his disgraceful end."

Q. Did Cranmer pronounce another divorce in favour of the King?

A. The King had married Ann of Cleves; he soon disliked her, and wished to have Catherine Howard; Cranmer again sat in judgment for the good of Henry's soul, and declared the King and Queen single people again. (Ibid, letter vii. n. 188.)

Q. When Henry died, had Cranmer sworn to see his will executed?

A. Yes; and he violated that oath in various ways shortly after. In the midst of which perjuries, he had the hypocrisy to attend a solemn High Mass. (Ibid, n. 195, 196.)

Q. What took place after the High Mass?

A. The cream had been taken by the wife-killing King Henry, by the plunder of the monasteries; the skimmed milk remained for Cranmer and the Protector. These declared the Catholic religion false and wicked; they had crowned Edward as a Catholic; they had taken the oaths as Catholics; they had sworn to uphold that religion; they had taken the King to High Mass; and now, as a necessary consequence, they combine to plunder the altars, the parish churches, and, above all, the cathedrals. (Ibid, n. 196, 197.)

Q. What was the next move of this prince of hypocrites, Cranmer?

A. He had, during the reign of Henry, condemned people to the flames for NOT BELIEVING Transubstantiation; now, he condemns them for believing it. He filled England with foreign traders in religion. Perhaps the world has never, in any age, seen a nest of such atrocious miscreants as Luther, Calvin, Zwinglius, Beza: every one of them was notorious for the most scandalous vices. The consequences to the morals of the people were terrible; all historians agree that vice and crimes of all sorts were never so great or so numerous before. (Ibid, 199, 200, 201.)

Q. What did this founder of English Protestantism do when Edward died?

A. He invited Mary and Lady Jane to London to console their brother, whilst he really intended to put both into prison. A secret messenger was sent to Mary to give her hope, and yet Lady Jane is proclaimed Queen; and Cranmer orders Mary to submit as a dutiful subject; yet, after all, this miscreant band, in a few days after, actually proclaim Mary Queen. Cranmer, the master-plotter against Mary, actually now tossed his cap into the air, as an expression of his joy that Mary was Queen. No reign, no age, no country, ever witnessed rapacity, hypocrisy, meanness, perfidy, such as England witnessed in those who were the destroyers of the Catholic, and the founders of the Protestant Church. (Ibid, n. 219, 220, 221.)

Q. What now took place as regards Cranmer?

A. His sentence of divorce, and his Protestant religion were both upset, and this, by the very parliament which had confirmed the one and established the other. Cranmer is confined, and hearing, that Mass is celebrated in his cathedral, he writes an inflammatory address, for which he is committed to the Tower. (Ibid, 226.)

Q. What now happened to Cranmer?

A. Brought at last to trial and condemnation, he proposed to recant all his errors; he signed six different forms of recantation. He, who had established it, declared now that the Protestant religion was false; that the Catholic religion, which he now believed, was the only true religion; that he had been a horrid blasphemer; that he was unworthy of forgiveness; that he prayed the people, the Queen, and the Pope, to have pity on, and to pray for, his wretched soul; that in this, his recantation, he was without fear, or hope of favour, and was actuated only for the discharge of his conscience. It was, after a debate in council, decided that such a monster should not escape justice; that it could be no honour to the Church, to see reconciled to her a wretch covered with robberies, sacrileges, perjuries, treasons, and bloodshed. Finding now that he must die, and carrying in his breast all his malignity undiminished, he re-recanted the above recantation, and expired protesting against the very religion in which, only nine hours before, he called God to witness, he firmly believed. Thus died Cranmer, in his sixty-fifth year, twenty-nine years of which, were spent in a series of acts, which, for wickedness in their nature, and mischief in their consequences, are without any thing approaching to a parallel in the annals of human infamy. (See Authorities in Lingard; Cranmer's Life.)

Q. What inference would you draw from all this?

A. That England was not more fortunate, in her first Protestant apostle, than Germany or Geneva, and that Catholics ought sincerely to regret, that the noble and learned sons of the once pious and religious England, should have fallen victims to the delusion, that if God's Church required reformation, He would have chosen such an unhallowed miscreant for that purpose.

SECTION VII.

Q. Cranmer and his associates in the English reformation were any thing, but men sent by God, to reform his Church; was Knox, the founder of Presbyterianism, a man of the same stamp?

A. According to our latest and best Scottish Protestant historian, he was a dreadful compound of vice, as you shall shortly be convinced.

Q. In what year was Knox born?

A. In 1505. He studied in Glasgow, where he took priest's orders, before the canonical age. When he commenced reformer, he was forty years old. (Tytler, vol. vi p. 2.)

Q. What does Beza say of him?

A. That he was condemned, as a heretic, and degraded from the priesthood. (Ibid, p. 3.) This accounts for his reforming propensities.

Q. What was his first act with which we are acquainted?

A. He cast his lot with the assassins of Cardinal Beaton; he openly declared his approval of their principles, and thus became a participator in murder. (Ibid. p. 3.)

Q. What took place in the Castle of St. Andrews in 1546?

A. Knox, who had retreated into the Castle, and joined the murderers, declared with these murderers, that they would give up the Castle, the moment they received a Papal absolution from the murder of the Cardinal; and yet, while he was emitting this declaration, he and they were writing to Henry VIII., that he should try to delay the absolution, that they only wished to gain time, and that they had no notion of giving up the fortress. What hypocrisy, for an emissary from heaven! (Ibid, p.8.)

Q. By whom was Knox empowered to preach? Is there any proof that God sent him?

A. He received his mission from John Rough, a dismissed chaplain, and without any other order, began to give the work, with as much confidence, as if he had been sent by God. (Ibid, pp. 9, 10.)

Q. What happened on the Festival of St GIles to a religious procession headed by the Bishops and the Regent?

A. It was assaulted by Knox's party, who had resolved on revenge. Royalty was insulted, religion was outraged in the persons of her chief pastors, and according to Knox, down went the very cross itself (Ibid, 77.)

Q. Had Knox the merit of being even a courageous apostle of error?

A. Oh no; he was very unlike St Peter or St Paul; he was reported to the Queen as a seducer; he fled; and Tytler says, "he betrayed some want of the ardent courage of the martyr." (Ibid, 80, 81.)

Q. When Knox fled to Geneva, what was the conduct of his fanatical followers?

A. They described the Bishops of the Church as members of Satan, declared they would strive against them unto death, denounced vengeance against the superstition of Rome; even toleration, says Tytler, was at an en. (Ibid, p.84.)

Q. What happened when Knox had the courage to return?

A. He delivered a fanatical tirade against idolatry; his enraged followers demolished the altar of St Giles, broke in upon the shrine, and shivered its ornaments to pieces. They then rushed to the houses of the black and grey friars, and these magnificent edifices were at once spoiled of their wealth their altars, and every ancient and hallowed relic, were torn down and defaced. (Ibid, pp. 99, 100.)

Q. What did Knox's congregation say in its third Letter? (Keith, p. 87.)

A. It was addressed to The Pestilent Prelates (Catholic Bishops); it arrogated to Knox and his murderous followers the appellation of the CONGREGATION OF CHRIST; it called their opponents, the offspring of the man of sin; and "concluded," says Tytler, "in a manner which none can read without sorrow, uniting expressions of extremest vengeance and wrath, with the holy name of God (Ibid, p. 104.)

Q. What were the consequences of Knox's fanatical ravings?

A. At Crail, Anstruther, and St Andrews, he spoke like a madman to the mob; he profaned the sacred name of Christ, to blind and excite his ignorant followers, who, immediately afte, demolished altars, broke down crosses, and levelled the Dominican and Franciscan monasteries to the ground. (Ibid, pp. 108, 109.)

Q. Was Knox a hypocrite?

A. He used the service-book of Edward VI., whilst he condemned it in his heart (ibid, 119); and, at the very time when he intended to overturn all authority in church and state, he says in a letter to an English knight: "Persuade yourself, and assure others, that we mean neither sedition nor rebellion against any just and lawful authority." (Ibid, p. 199.)

Q. Had Knox really approved of the murder and murderers of Cardinal Beaton?

A. Tytler, remarking on a letter of his, says, his words go far to intimate his approval of their conduct. Knox, in this letter, speaking of Henry, calls him the GOOD father of Elisabeth. What shocking hypocrisy! -- the wife-destroyer is called good by the founder of Presbyterianism! (Ibid, 138.)

Q. What did his holy congregation do immediately after he wrote to England, declaring that neither sedition nor rebellion was his object?

A. They bound themselves, not only to subvert the Catholic religion, but to overturn the governmen of the Regent. (Ibid, pp. 142, 143.) After the lapse of a short time, Knox and Willock advised the congregation actually to depose the Regent. (Ibid, p. 145.) The congregation proceeded to carry this advice into execution; they tell their sovereign's representative, that, for weighty reasons, her authority is suspended by them, -- an act which even Tytler declares to be open rebellion. (Pp. 146, 147.)

Q. What does this convicted hypocrite do next?

A. He has the presumption to tell his rebel followers, that they must call on the eternal God, to aid them in their rebellion (Ibid, p. 150;) and then he advises the unprincipled Elisabeth, who was bound by league with France, not to aid the rebels of Scotland, to evade this treaty, by sending, as if without her consent, a thousand men or more into Scotland; and then, to cover her treachery, by declaring them rebels after their arrival in the latter country. (Ibid, p. 152.)

Q. When the Regent died in 1560, full, as Tytler says, of faith and hope, what was the conduct of the savage ministers of reform?

A. Even on her death-bed, she was annoyed with their ranting, against the abomination of the Mass; and they refused to her remains, a decent Christian burial. (Tytler, p. 164; Calderwood MS. Brit. Mus. vol. i. p. 421.)

Q. Why did Knox and his congregation depend on the aid of the nobles in subverting the religion of the country?

A. "Because," says Tytler, "many of the nobles had already tasted the sweets of ecclesiastical plunder, and were little disposed to give up what they had won." (Ibid, p. 174.)

Q. Did Knox desire, like a disinterested apostle, to leave this Church plunder in the hands of the nobles?

A. No; he first called upon the parliament (using the sacred name of Jesus) to persecute with vigour the Romish clergy, and deprive them of every thing. He next told them that this demand was not his but GOD'S; and then concludes by demanding, for his congregational ministers, a share of the Church plunder, with which the nobles were unwilling to part. (Ibid, 180, 181.)

Q. Was this persecution of the Catholic clergy carried into effect?

A. It was ordained, that all who said Mass, or dared even to hear Mass, were, for the first offence, to be punished with the confiscation of goods; for the second, with banishment from the kingdom; and for the third, with death. Thus did the very hypocrites, who, only a little before, were brawling about liberty of conscience for themselves, openly compel others to swallow their absurd religious nostrums, under the penalty of death. (See Tytler, p. 185.)

Q. What says Goodman, Knox's intimate friend, writing to Cecil, the English minister?

A. He exhorts Cecil to put the bloody Bishops to death, as God had himself already pronounced sentence of death against them, and openly upbraids Cecil with leniency. (Ibid, p. 186.)

Q. Did Knox show any disposition to share in the spoils of the Church?

A. "There were none," says he, "within the realm more unmerciful to the poor ministers than those which had the greatest rents of the churches." (Knox, p. 276.) He calls those who robbed the churches, thieves, and wonders why they do not restore, not to the true owners, but to him and his gang of unsent ministers. "If," says he, "the ministry of the Church had their own, the kitchens of the nobles would lack two parts of what they unjustly possess. "Some," says he, "were licentious, some had greedily gripped the possessions of the Church, and others thought, that they would not lack their part of Christ's coat." (Knox, p. 276; Tytler, ibid, 188, 189.) So this founder of Presbyterianism considered the riches of the Church, as Christ's coa, and seemed to wish the whole coat to himself and his abettors. (See Tytler, pp. 250, 251.)

Q. Did Knox counsel murder?

A. When the holy sacrifice of the Mass was to be offered in the Queen's chapel, Knox inveighed so bitterly against it, that the furious Master of Lindsay, in armour, rushed to the door, declaring that the priests should die the death. This madman was prevented from executing his purpose by Lord James, who opposed him at the door of the chapel, for which Lord James was ironically and bitterly reprehended by Knox. (Ibid, pp. 237, 238.) At a subsequent period, the death of a Papal envoy was resolved on by the murderous family of Knox, and he was saved only by the peremptory remonstrance of the Earl of Mar. (Ibid, 263.) "Knox and his brethren, "says Tytler, "excited feelings of resentment, and his endeavours were seldom accompanied by sound discretion or Christian love." (Ibid, p. 269.)

Q. What does Randolph, writing to Cecil, say of Knox and his holy family?

A. He says, they pray that God will either turn the Queen's heart, or give her a short life. From what charity or spirit this proceedeth, I leave to be discussed by the great divines; all this, too, whilst, Lethington says, the Queen (Catholic) behaved with much forbearance. "Knox, in his language," says Tytler, "was coarse, Lethington scoffed at him, Morton ordered him to hold his peace, and Randolph regretted that he had more zeal than charity. (Ibid, p. 270.)

Q. Was the character of Knox that of treachery?

A. Tytler says: "To excite suspicious, and interrupt the good understanding between the two Queens (Mary and Elisabeth), became a favourite object with Knox." (Ibid, p. 278.)

Q. Did Knox and his party take the persecution of the Catholics into their own hands?

A. When the Catholics fled to the woods and mountains where they worshipped in silent solitude, the Presbyterians under Knox took the law into their own hands, seized the priests, and declared that, without having recourse to Queen or council, they would with their own hands execute upon idolators the punishment contained in God's word. (Tytler, p. 281.) On the 19th of May thereafter, the Archbishop of St Andrews, the Prior of Whithhern, the Parson of Saanquhar, and others, were tried and condemned for celebrating Mass. (Ibid, 280.) The insolence of Knox, to the Queen and council, excited the indignation of both Catholics and Protestants. (Ibid, 283.)

Q. Did Knox and his party, who must have been cognizant of each others movements, plot the death of Darnley?

A. The Presbyterians, led by Moray and Argyle, attempted to overawe their sovereign; they asked aid from the English Queen; it became a mere matter of debate, whether it would be best to assassinate Darnley or to deliver himto England. (Tytler, vol. vi. p. 343.) Randolph, writing to Cecil, says: "They" (the Presbyterians) "conclude that they find nothing, but that God must send him a short end." (P. 343.) Randolph seems to regret that so many should risk life, land, and goods, and concludes, - "only to remedy so much mischief, he (Darnley) must be taken away" (Ibid, p. 344.)

Q. As regards the murder of Darnley, what said Maitland, in the presence of Moray and the principal nobility and council, all, or nearly so, of Knox's congregation?

A. That they could find a way to get her Majesty quit of Darnley, and that Lord Moray, though a Protestant, would look through his fingers, and see them do this (murder Darnley) and say nothing thereto. It is certain, says Tytler, that Mary commanded these murderers to abandon any such design, and to leave every thing to God; yet the bond or agreement for the murder of Darnley was entered into by these wretched reforming miscreants. (See Tytler, vol. vii, p. 52, 53.)

Q. Were Knox and Craig, the two founders of Presbyterianism, directly connected with the murder of Rizzio, Queen Mary's secretary?

A. Tytler, vol. vii. pp. 20, 21, 22, establishes this fact beyond a doubt: "Knox and Craig," he says, "were made acquainted with the conspiracy; and with these were associated all the leading reformers, with Darnley at their head. These bloody men, who were all religion without, and real demons within, held a general fast at the very time they intended to steep their hands in a brother's blood.

Q. What sort of sermons were given, during this week of humiliation, by Knox and the ministers, when just about to commit murder?

A. The subjects chosen were such as seemed calculated to prepare the public mind for resistance, violence, and bloodshed, - subjects, such as the slaying of Oreb and Zeeb, the cutting off the Benjamites, the hanging of Haman, &c. (Ibid, p. 28; Knox, pp. 340, 341.)

Q. Can you give any other proof that Knox, the apostle of Presbyterianism, was clearly implicated in this murder?

A. He fled in the most cowardly manner, immediately after the murder, to the fastnesses of Kyle, where he remained concealed for a year. (Ibid, pp. 35, 36, 40, 41, and 119.)

Q. Who were the parties chiefly engaged in this dastardly murder?

A. Tytler says: "Morton succeeded in securing the cooperation of the reformed Church; he next drew in Moray; and he then obtained the support of Elisabeth and her chief ministers, Cecil and Leicester." (Ibid, p. 20.)

Q. What did Knox do when he found the King murdered, and the Queen in prison?

A. He had the courage to return, to join with the murderers of Rizzio and Darnley in denouncing vengeance against the murderers of the King, -- a murder they evidently had committed themselves, and of which, there can be little doubt that Knox was at least cognizant; and they concluded by resolving to put sown, by force of arms, the Catholic religion. (Ibid, p. 120.)

Q. What was done by the reformers, Lindsay, Ruthven, and Knox, at the coronation of Queen Mary's infant son at Stirling?

A. The two former swore, what they knew to be false, that Mary's demission of the crown was her own free act; and after witnessing this gross act of perjury, Knox preached the sermon. (Ibid, 139.)

Q. What does Tytler remark on Lethington's speech, where he congratulates the reformers, that they had secured their religion without iron or bloodshed?

A. He says, he scarcely knows which most to condemn, -- the inaccuracy of Lethington's picture, or the hardihood evinced by its coming from his lips; since the rising of Moray against the Queen's marriage, the murder of Rizzio, the assassination of Darnley, the imprisonment of the Queen (he might have added the murder of Cardinal Beaton, and the butchery of the sainted Mary in England), were all, more or less, connected with the establishment of the reformation in Scotland. (Ibid, pp. 163, 164.)

Q. Were Knox or his followers remarkable in the results of their teachings?

A. Their confession of faith doomed all who heard Mass to death. They made all who held any public office swear to extirpate Popery; they warred with their own laity for the spoils of the Church (ibid, pp. 163-4-5); they employed the very men who did murder Darnley, to accuse their own virtuous Queen of that awful crime. (Ibid, p. 221.) Nay, Knox himself advises Cecil to strike at the root that is, to murder Mary (ibid, p. 247); and in this fiendish advice, he dares to profane God's sacred name. "Strike at the root," says he; "turn your eye unto your God; God grant you wisdom; yours to command in God' -- John Knox with one foot in the grave. Gracious God! Whilst this minister, the head of the Presbyterian Church, counsels the murder of his own sovereign, he has the hypocrisy to pray that God may grant wisdom to the murderer ! ! !

Q. What sort of character was Moray, the leader, as Tytler styles him, of the reformed party. (Ibid, p. 254.)

A. Whilst this Protestant author speaks of him as a man having deep feelings of religion, he himself, almost in the next sentence, points him out as a man, not only without religion, but totally destitute of honour, principle, and even of humanity. He consented, says Tytler, to the murder of Rizzio; he leagued himself with the murderers of the King; he used the evidence of these murderers to convict his sovereign; he betrayed Norfolk, treacherously delivered up Northumberland; he made the most ignominious offers to Elisabeth; and how difficult is it, says our author, to think that religious truth could have a place in his HEART, whose last transaction was to aggravate the imprisonment, if not to recommend the death, of his own sister and his sovereign. (Ibid, p. 254-5.)

Q. How did the hoary hypocrite, Knox, behave on the murder of Moray?

A. He had the body of the above monster placed before the pulpit, and preached his funeral oration from these words: "Blessed are the dead WHO DIE IN THE LORD." (Tytler, vol. vii. pp. 254, 255.)

Q. What is the next move of this holy reformer?

A. He openly calls for the death of his lawful Queen, pronounces the threatenings of the law against all who maintain that wicked woman, and declares that the plague shall never cease in the land, as long as she and her supporters remain unpunished, according to the sentence of God's law. (Ibid, p. 287.) In page 295, you will find this cowardly hypocrite flying again for fear of the Hamiltons. In page 332, we find this apostle closing his career, as he had lived, a very model of hypocrisy. The persecutor -- the sacrilegious participator in murder -- the regicide in desire -- the plunderer of God's temple -- the instigator to the murder of God's people -- the man who cared not what means he used, so he attained his end -- now closes his criminal course, and falls into the hands of the living God with a lie upon his lips. "God knows," he says, "that in my heart I never hated the persons of those against whom I thundered God's judgments; I did only hate their sins, and laboured to gain them to Christ." Yes, if to murder, were to gain them ! !

Q. Is it at all likely, that God could select such a character, for the reformation of his Church?

A. When we consider the men whom God, in every age, chose as ministers of his mercies to man -- Moses, Aaron, the Prophets, the Apostles; when we reflect, that whatever these men were, before their appointment to a Divine Mission, they were, from the moment of such appointment, mild, holy, merciful, full of zeal, but zeal tempered with the most refined and exalted charity, -- we must come to the conclusion, that the man who would consider Knox, or any one of the great reforming leaders, as an instrument, in the hand of God, either for the establishment or the reformation of religion, must have lost his reason.

Q. If then neither the authors of Protestantism, nor their work itself, nor the means they adopted to effect their purpose, are from God, what are their followers obliged to?

A. They are obliged, under pain of eternal perdition, to seek earnestly and re-enter the true Church, which, seduced by Luther and his associates, they abandoned: If they be sincere, God will aid them in their inquiry.

Q. What is the situation of the man who does not at once acquit himself of this obligation?

A. He is the victim of heresy and schism; the thing he calls a church, has no pastors lawfully sent or ordained; hence, he can receive none of the Sacraments, declared in Scripture to be so necessary to salvation.

Q. What think you of those (they are many) who are at heart convinced that the Catholic Church is the only true one, and are still such cowards as to dread making a public profession of their faith?

A. "He," says our Saviour (Luke ix. chap. 26 ver.) "who shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him the Son of man shall be ashamed, when he shall come in his majesty."

Q. What think you of those who are inclined to Catholicism, but out of family considerations, or for fear of the world, neglect to embrace it?

A. Our Saviour (St Matth. x.) tells such, that he who loves father or mother more than God, is unworthy of God.

Q. What say you to those who become Protestants, or remain Protestants, from motives of worldly gain or honour?

A. I say with our Saviour, (St Mark viii.) What will it avail a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?