'A Sermon on Isaias xxvi, 13-21. Preached on Sunday 19th August, 1565, by John Knox , Minister of Christ Jesus, In the Public audience of St. Giles' Church in Edinborough, for the which the said John Knox was inhibited preaching for a season.'
THE courage and eloquence displayed by Hugh Latimer in England was shared in Scotland by another champion of the Reformation, John Knox. Never fearing the face of any man and often threatened with dagge and dagger, he became the leader of the Reformed Church in Scotland, and by his indefatigable preaching, laid the foundations of the Scottish Kirk.
It is curious that of all the sermons of a man whose eloquence was so renowned, only one is preserved. And this he wrote down indigestly amid the terrible roring of gunnes and the noyce of armour, but yet truely so far as memory would serve of those things he spake for which he was discharged to preach. Lost are those famous extempore exhortations, which led Mary Queen of Scots to cry out in a vehement fume, that ' never Prince was used as she was,' while Knox answered ' Without the preaching place, Madame, I think few have occasion to be offendit at me; and thair, Madame, I am nott maister of myself but must obey Him who commandis me to speik plane, and to natter no fleshe upon the face of the earth.'