Appeal to the Nobility and Estates of Scotland
To the nobility and estates of Scotland, John Knox wishes grace, mercy, and peace from God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, with the spirit of righteous judgment.
Right Honorable, neither love of this earthly life nor fear of bodily death alone moves me to explain the injuries done against me and seek redress from you, as lawful authorities appointed by God. I am moved partly by the reverence every person owes to God’s eternal truth, which everyone ought to confess and revere. I am moved also by my love for your salvation and that of my brethren in Scotland, who are misled by people who have no fear of God before their eyes.
In his infinite mercy, God has enlightened my mind and touched my dull heart, so that I clearly see and, by his grace, sincerely believe “that there is no other name given to men under the heaven, in which salvation consisteth, save the name of Jesus alone” (Acts 4). It is Jesus “who, by that sacrifice which he did once offer upon the Cross, hath sanctified for ever those that shall inherit the kingdom promised” (Heb 10).
In his overflowing grace, God has also made and appointed me, the most wretched among many thousands, a witness, minister, and preacher of this doctrine. I did not hesitate to communicate its substance to my brethren while I was with them in Scotland in 1556. I know that I am a steward, and that an account of the talent entrusted to me will be required by him who will accept none of the empty excuses fearful people offer (1 Cor 3; Matt 25).
Therefore, while I was among them, I faithfully and sincerely explained the word of salvation, as God supplied the means and according to the gift he granted me. God is my witness. I taught everyone to hate sin, which was and is so hateful before God that no sacrifice could satisfy his justice except the death of his only Son. I taught them to magnify the great mercies of our heavenly Father, who did not spare the very substance of his own glory, but gave him to the world to suffer the shameful and cruel death of the cross. By this means he reconciled his chosen children to himself (John 3; Rom 5, 8; 2 Cor 5).
I also taught the duty of those who believe themselves cleansed at such a price from their former filthiness. They are bound to walk in newness of life, fighting against the desires of the flesh (Rom 6; Eph 4, 5). They must strive at all times to glorify God through the good works he has prepared for his children to walk in (Eph 2).
I further affirmed, as my Master Christ Jesus taught me, “that whosoever denieth him, yea, or is ashamed of him, before this wicked generation; him shall Christ Jesus deny, and of him shall he be ashamed, when he shall appear in his Majesty” (Matt 10). Therefore I was not afraid to affirm that those who hope for everlasting life must avoid all superstition, vain religion, and idolatry. By vain religion and idolatry, I mean whatever is done in God’s service or honor without the express command of his own Word.
I believed this doctrine agreed so closely with God’s holy Scriptures that I thought no creature could be so shameless as to condemn any point or article of it. Nevertheless, your false bishops and ungodly clergy have condemned me as a heretic and this doctrine as heretical. They have pronounced a sentence of death against me and, as a sign of that sentence, have burned a picture of me.
I make known to Your Honors that I appeal from this false and cruel sentence, and from every judgment of that wicked generation, to a lawful and general council. I mean a council held according to the most ancient laws and canons, conducted by people whose own manifest impiety is not itself at issue for reform in that council. God has appointed you princes over this people and therefore requires you to defend innocent people suffering within your dominion. I most humbly ask Your Honors, in the meantime and until the present religious controversies are lawfully decided, to receive me and others most unjustly persecuted by these cruel beasts into your defense and protection.
Your Honors know that I am not alone in maintaining this cause against the pestilent generation of Papists. Most of Germany, Switzerland, the king of Denmark, the nobility of Poland, and many other cities and reformed churches appeal from the tyranny of that Antichrist. They earnestly call for a lawful and general council in which every religious controversy may be decided by the authority of God’s most sacred Word.
To that same council, as I have said, I appeal once again. I ask Your Honors to give my simple and plain appeal no less value or effect than if it had been made with greater formality, solemnity, and ceremony. Receive me into your protection and defense against the rage of tyrants as I call upon you as authorities ordained by God. I do not ask you to maintain me in any wrongdoing, error, or false opinion. I ask for the justice that God’s Word, ancient laws, and the decisions of the most godly councils grant to people accused or defamed.
God’s Word requires that no one die unless found guilty and deserving of death for an offense committed. The offense must be clearly proved by two or three witnesses (Deut 17). Ancient laws permit a just defense to those accused, however horrible their crimes. Godly councils require that no bishop or other ecclesiastical person accused of a crime take part in judgment, consultation, or council where the case of their accusers is to be tried.
These are the things I ask Your Honors to grant me: that the doctrine our adversaries condemn as heresy be tested by the simple and plain Word of God; that a just defense be admitted for us who maintain the battle against this pestilent generation of Antichrist; and that our adversaries be excluded from judging our cause. Our accusation is directed against no single individual, but against that entire kingdom. We do not doubt that we can prove it to be a usurped power opposed to God, his commandment, and the order Christ Jesus established in his church through his chief apostles. Indeed, we do not doubt that we can prove the pope’s kingdom to be the kingdom and power of Antichrist.
Therefore, my lords, I cannot cease asking you, in the name of Christ Jesus, to bring this matter under examination. By your authority as the estates of the realm, compel those who wish to be called bishops to stop cruelly murdering people who seek to promote God’s glory by exposing the damnable impiety of that man of sin, the Roman Antichrist. Compel them also to answer the charges brought against them for failing to instruct rightly the flock entrusted to their care.
1. Answer to Objections
I know that two questions will arise here. First, is my appeal lawful and to be admitted, since I have been condemned as a heretic? Second, are Your Honors bound to defend those who call for your support in this case, since your bishops, who claim all authority in religious matters, have already condemned me by their sentence?
I have no doubt that I can prove both points most clearly. First, my appeal is entirely lawful and just. Second, Your Honors cannot refuse to defend me when I call for your aid without thereby declaring yourselves rebels against God, supporters of murderers, and shedders of innocent blood.
The Appeal Is Just and Lawful
I do not intend to discuss at length the just grounds civil law gives me for appealing from their unjust sentence. As for their canon law, it is accursed by God. I will touch only on the points everyone acknowledges as just grounds for appeal.
(1) They could not lawfully summon me, because at that time I was outside their jurisdiction, charged with preaching Christ’s gospel in a free city not subject to their tyranny.
(2) I received no notice of their summons. Their contrived malice was so secret that, when a copy of the summons was requested, it was refused.
(3) I could have had no free or safe access to Scotland, having previously been exiled from it by their unjust tyranny.
(4) They neither could nor can be competent and impartial judges in my case. Before any summons was issued against me, I had accused them in my letters published to the Queen Dowager. I had brought charges against them, offering to prove them at the risk of my life. These charges render them unworthy not only of ecclesiastical authority but even of being tolerated within a commonwealth professing Christ.
My accusation preceded their summons. Therefore, neither under God’s law nor under human law can they be competent judges in my case until I am allowed to prove my accusation against them publicly and they are compelled to answer as accused criminals. I will plainly prove that not only bishops but also popes have been removed from all authority and from pronouncing judgment until they cleared themselves of accusations made against them. Further, I will prove that bishops and popes have most justly been deprived of every honor and office for smaller crimes than those with which I can charge the whole rabble of your bishops.
But this is not my chief ground. For the present, I will be content to show that God’s prophets and the preachers of Christ Jesus may lawfully appeal from the sentence and judgment of the visible church to a hearing before the temporal magistrate. God’s messengers may appeal from unjust sentences, and the civil authorities are bound to admit their appeals. God’s law binds the magistrate to hear their cases and defend them from tyranny.
God commanded the prophet Jeremiah to stand in the court of the Lord’s house and preach a sermon to this effect: Jerusalem would be destroyed and exposed to the contempt of every nation on earth, and that famous temple of God would be made desolate like Shiloh. This would happen because the priests, prophets, and people did not walk in the law God had set before them, nor would they obey the voices of the prophets he sent to call them to repentance (Jer 26).
For this sermon Jeremiah was arrested, and the priests, prophets, and people pronounced a sentence of death against him. When word of this reached the princes of Judah, they went up from the king’s house to the Lord’s temple and sat in judgment to examine the case further. But the priests and prophets persisted in the cruel sentence they had already pronounced, saying, “This man is worthy of the death; for he hath prophesied against this city, as your ears have heard.”
Moved by the Holy Spirit, Jeremiah began his defense against their tyrannical sentence in these words: “The Lord,” he said, “hath sent me to prophesy against this house, and against this city, all the words which you have heard. Now therefore make good your ways, and hear the voice of the Lord your God, and then shall he repent of the evil which he hath spoken against you. As for me, behold I am in your hands.” He was speaking to the princes. He continued, “Do to me as you think good and righteous. Nevertheless know you this most assuredly, that if ye murder or slay me, ye shall make yourselves, this city, and the inhabitants of the same, criminal, and guilty of innocent blood. For of a truth the Lord hath sent me to speak in your ears all those words.”
Then the princes and the people said, as the text tells us, “This man is not worthy of death, for he hath spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.” After some dispute, the prophet was delivered from that danger.
This event and its history plainly prove everything I have affirmed. God’s servants may lawfully call for the civil magistrate’s help against an unjust sentence of death, whoever pronounces it. The civil sword also has power to restrain the fury of priests and acquit those they have condemned. The princes acquitted the prophet whom the priests had condemned.
God’s prophet was condemned by those who alone were then recognized on earth as the visible church: the priests and prophets in Jerusalem, the successors of Aaron. They had been charged to speak to the people in God’s name. The people had been commanded to hear the law from their mouths, and anyone who rebelled or disobeyed was to die without mercy (Deut 17).
These men, thus authorized by God, first excommunicated Jeremiah because he preached differently from the general body of prophets in Jerusalem. Then they arrested him, as you have heard, and pronounced the sentence written above. Nevertheless, the prophet appealed from it. That is, he sought help and defense against it, earnestly asking the princes for protection.
Although he says, “I am in your hands, do with me as ye think righteous,” he neither despises nor neglects his life, as though he did not care what became of him. Rather, with these words he most urgently admonishes the princes and rulers of the people, making them understand what God will require of them (Deut 17; Jer 1; Deut 1, 10). It is as though he were saying:
“You princes of Judah and rulers of the people are responsible for judging impartially between the parties, acquitting the just and condemning the wrongdoer. You have heard a sentence of death pronounced against me by those whose lips ought to speak no deceit, because God himself has sanctified and appointed them to speak his law and pronounce judgment fairly. But they have abandoned the living God and taught the people to follow vanity. Thus they have become mortal enemies of all God’s true servants. I am one of those servants, rebuking their iniquity, apostasy, and departure from God. This is the only reason they seek my life.
“It is entirely contrary to fairness, law, and justice that I should suffer death merely because my enemies pronounce that sentence. God sent me to call them, this people, and you back to his true service, from which you have all departed. I stand before you, whom God has made princes. Your power is above their tyranny. I present my case to you. I am in your hands and cannot resist suffering what you think just.
“But I must not conceal this one thing, lest my gentleness and patience make you negligent in defending me as I appeal to your judgment in my just cause, or encourage my enemies to seek my blood: if you murder me, which you do if you fail to defend me, you make not only my enemies guilty of my blood, but also yourselves and this whole city.”
These words plainly show that God’s prophet, condemned to death by the priests and prophets of the visible church, sought aid, support, and defense from the princes and temporal magistrates. He warned that his blood would be required at their hands if they did not use their authority to defend him from his enemies’ fury.
He also gave just grounds for his appeal and reasons why he ought to have been defended. God had sent him to rebuke their vices and departure from God. He taught no doctrine God had not already pronounced in his law. He desired their conversion to God, continually calling them to walk in the ways God had approved. Therefore, he boldly asked the princes, as God’s lieutenants, to defend him from the blind rage and tyranny of the priests, despite their claim to authority to judge every religious matter.
He did the same when he was cast into prison and afterward brought before King Zedekiah. After defending his innocence and affirming that he had offended neither the king, his servants, nor the people, he finally pleaded with the king for his life (Jer 38), saying:
“But now, my Lord the King, take heed, I beseech thee, let my prayer fall into thy presence, command me not to be carried again into the house of Jonathan the scribe, that I die not there.”
The text testifies that the king ordered the place of his imprisonment to be changed. This makes it clear that the prophet sought help from the civil authority more than once. First the princes, and afterward the king, acknowledged that their office required them to deliver him from the unjust sentence pronounced against him.
If anyone thinks Jeremiah did not appeal, because he merely declared the wrong done to him and asked for defense according to his innocence, let that person understand that I appeal in no other way from the false and cruel sentence your bishops have pronounced against me. There can be no other just ground for appeal than innocence harmed or suspected of being harmed, whether through a judge’s ignorance or through the malice and corruption of those who exercise tyranny under the name of justice.
If I were a thief, murderer, blasphemer, open adulterer, or any offender whom God’s Word commands to suffer for a crime committed, my appeal would be vain and ought to be rejected. But I am innocent, and the doctrine your bishops have condemned in me is God’s eternal truth. Therefore, I have no less liberty to seek your defense against their cruelty than the prophet Jeremiah had to seek the aid of the princes and king of Judah.
This will appear more plainly in the case of Saint Paul. After his arrest in Jerusalem, he first claimed the liberty of Roman citizens to avoid torture when the captain intended to examine him under questioning. Later, in the council, where no righteous judgment could be expected, he declared that he was a Pharisee and that the accusation against him concerned the resurrection of the dead. Finally, in Festus’s presence, he appealed from every hearing and judgment by the priests at Jerusalem to the emperor (Acts 22, 23, 24, 25). Since this last point chiefly concerns my own case, I will say something about it.
After Paul had been accused several times, as the Acts of the Apostles makes clear, the chief priests and their faction finally came to Caesarea with Festus the governor. Festus brought Paul before them for judgment. They accused him of horrible crimes, but could not prove them. The apostle defended himself, affirming that he had offended neither the law, the temple, nor the emperor.
But Festus, wishing to please the Jews, said to Paul, “Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these things in my presence?” Paul replied, “I stand at the justice seat of the Emperor, where it behoveth me to be judged: I have done no injury to the Jews, as thou better knowest. If I have done any thing unjustly, or yet committed crime worthy of death, I refuse not to die. But if there be nothing of these things true whereof they accuse me, no man may give me to them: I appeal to Caesar” (Acts 25).
At first sight, it may appear that Paul greatly wronged Festus the judge and the whole priestly order by expecting greater fairness from a cruel tyrant than from that entire assembly and learned company. No doubt Festus understood this when he pronounced these words: “Hast thou appealed to Caesar? Thou shalt go to Caesar.” It is as though he were saying:
“As a man who wishes to understand the truth before pronouncing sentence, I have asked you to go to Jerusalem. There, the learned men of your own nation can hear your case and decide it. The controversy concerns religion. You are accused of being an apostate from the law, a violator of the temple, and a transgressor of their fathers’ traditions. I am ignorant of these matters and therefore want information from those learned in the religion under dispute. Yet you refuse to let so many godly fathers hear your case. You appeal to the emperor, preferring him to all our judgments, apparently for no purpose but to gain time.”
Thus it might have appeared not only that Paul wronged the judge and the priests, but also that his case was highly suspect. He refused the judgment of those everyone supposed had the greatest knowledge of God’s will and religion. He also appealed to the emperor, then at Rome, far from Jerusalem, a man ignorant of God and an enemy of every virtue.
But the apostle considered the nature of his enemies and what they had planned against him from the first day he began to speak freely in Christ’s name. He was not afraid to appeal from them and from the judge who wished to please them. They had openly declared themselves enemies of Christ Jesus and his blessed gospel. They had sought Paul’s death, even through factions and treasonable conspiracy. Therefore, he would by no means admit any of that priestly order either as judges in his case or as hearers of it, as Festus requested.
Instead, he grounded his appeal on strong reasons: he had offended neither the Jews nor the law, but was innocent; therefore, no judge ought to deliver him into his enemies’ hands. With his appeal founded on these reasons, he disregarded both Festus’s displeasure and the outcry of the ignorant multitude. He boldly appealed from any hearing before them to the emperor’s judgment, as I have said.
From these two examples, I do not doubt Your Honors understand that God’s servants, oppressed by tyranny, may lawfully seek a remedy against it, whether by appealing from their oppressors’ sentence or by imploring the help of civil magistrates. What God approved in Jeremiah and Paul, he cannot condemn in anyone treated in the same way.
I could cite accounts from the early church to the same purpose, such as those of Ambrose and Athanasius. The former would not be judged anywhere but Milan, where his doctrine had been heard by his entire church and received and approved by many. The latter would by no means yield to councils where he knew men conspiring against God’s truth would sit in judgment and consultation.
But God’s Scriptures are my only foundation and assurance in every weighty and important matter. Therefore, I have considered the two earlier testimonies sufficient both to prove my appeal reasonable and just, and to show Your Honors that you cannot refuse to admit it with a clear conscience.
If anyone thinks it arrogant or foolish for me to compare myself with Jeremiah and Paul, let that person understand that the cause must be considered, rather than the person. Just as God is unchanging, the truth of his glorious gospel has equal dignity whenever it is attacked, however weak the members who suffer for it may be. God will reveal what I think of myself when the secrets of every heart are disclosed. Those with whom I have lived can testify in part to whatever arrogance or pride they discern in me.
But the doctrine and cause condemned in me by that adulterous and pestilent generation of Antichrist’s servants, who wish to be called bishops among you, I neither fear nor am ashamed to confess and declare before man and angel to be the eternal truth of the eternal God. In that respect, I do not hesitate to compare myself with any member in whom the truth has been attacked since the beginning. For it was the truth Jeremiah preached in these words:
“The Priests have not known me,” saith the Lord, “but the Pastors have traitorously declined and fallen back from me” (Jer 2). “The Prophets have prophesied in Baal, and have gone after those things which cannot help. My people have left the fountain of living waters, and have digged to themselves pits which can contain no water” (Jer 1).
It was also true that the pastors and watchmen in Isaiah’s days had become dumb dogs, blind, ignorant, proud, and greedy (Isa 56). Finally, it was true that the princes and priests were murderers of Christ Jesus and cruel persecutors of his apostles (Acts 3, 4).
Likewise, it is an utterly certain truth that those who have condemned me, the whole rabble of the papal clergy, have departed from the true faith and listened to deceitful spirits and doctrines of devils (1 Tim 4). They are stars fallen from heaven to earth, fountains without water, and, finally, enemies of Christ Jesus, deniers of his truth, and horrible blasphemers of his death and passion (Jude 1; 2 Pet 3).
Further, just as that visible church had no crime of which it could justly accuse either the prophets or the apostles except their doctrine, those who seek my blood have no other crime to charge against me. Mark the charge: I affirm, and always offer to prove, that the religion now maintained by fire and sword is no less opposed to the true religion taught and established by the apostles than darkness is to light or the devil to God.
I also affirm that those who now claim the title and name of the church are no more the chosen bride of Christ Jesus than the synagogue of the Jews was the true church of God when it crucified Christ Jesus, condemned his doctrine, and persecuted his apostles.
Therefore, my battle is against the proud and cruel hypocrites of this age, just as the battle of those most excellent instruments of God was against the false prophets and malignant church of their ages. No one ought to think it strange that I compare myself with those whose cause I share. Nor ought you, my lords, to judge yourselves less indebted and bound to me as I call for your support than the princes of Judah considered themselves bound to Jeremiah. They delivered him at that time despite the sentence of death pronounced against him by the visible church.
So much for the rightfulness of my appeal. In the tender compassion of Christ Jesus, I ask Your Honors not to regard it as superfluous and vain. Admit it, and receive me into your protection and defense. Secured by you, I may then have access to my native country, which I have never wronged, so that I may freely and openly declare my confession on every point now in controversy before the whole realm. I also ask you, by the authority you have from God, to compel those who have long blinded and deceived both you and the people to answer the charges brought against them.
But lest any doubt remain that I ask more of you than you are bound in conscience to grant, I hope to prove in a few words that you cannot deny my petition without incurring God’s severe displeasure.
