John Knox

John Knox was ordained a priest in the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland at the time when John Calvin began the Reformation of Geneva. The idea of the English Reformation began in Scotland in the heart and mind of Knox’s close friend George Wiseheart. Being familiar with Edinburgh, Wiseheart was chosen by King Henry VIII to go to Scotland to influence the potential marriage of Mary Stuart, the infant “Queen of Scots,” with Edward, the infant son of the King of England. Wiseheart was an unwilling servant of King Henry in this matter and his action set Catholic Scotland against him. When Wiseheart was burned at the stake by Cardinal Beaton, the action fired the heart of John Knox. From that hour he was the enemy of the Roman Catholic Church. Two years later, Beaton was assassinated by “parties unknown.”



Shortly after the death of Beaton, John Knox came to Edinburgh as a newly ordained priest, having been accused of “hatching the plot” against the cardinal, even though he did not personally take a hand in executing it. Soon Knox had a growing group of followers. He accused the Catholic clergy of Scotland of being “gluttons, wantons and licentious revelers, but who yet regularly and meekly partook of the sacrament.” Knox travelled to Geneva three times to study under Calvin who had a high regard for the young Scotsman. Knox returned to Scotland, was married at age 38, and was widowed a few years afterward.

John Knox had a personal feud with Mary Queen of Scots. Mary’s mother was Mary of Guise, a French woman married to King James of Scotland. Knox bore a terrible hatred toward Mary of Guise. His book, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, had Mary Tudor, Mary of Guise, and Mary Queen of Scots, in mind. As soon as Mary Queen of Scots had landed on Scottish soil, Knox fled fearing for his life. Before long he returned to Scotland and sought a personal interview with the queen, then 20-years-old, “with intent to bring her heart to Jesus.” Mary then tried her hand at converting Knox back to Roman Catholicism with bribes of political power. Stormy interviews followed, punctuated by lawsuits

In response to Knox’s prayers, Mary Queen of Scots is reputed to have said: “I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.”, Mary fled Scotland due to the rising resistance of the Scottish Reformers and was later put to death by an English court which had accused her of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth I. Knox was survived by the Scottish Covenanters, who drew up a compact in 1638 asserting their right, under God, to national sovereignty.

John Wycliffe

John Wycliffe was the first person to produce a hand-written translation of The Bible from Latin into English

In 1371 as an academic Oxford cleric he gained promotion into the government service of King Edward III. Desperate for cash to pursue the never-ending war with France, Edward's chief advisor, John of Gaunt, hoped to use Wycliffe's radical preaching as a means of coercing the clergy into paying higher taxes to the state.

Wycliffe was a reformist clergyman who held the view that The Bible was the only truly religious authority, so rejecting the teachings of the Pope and the Catholic Church. He believed that it was impossible to know whose souls would ultimately be saved, and that it was entirely possible for those of the clergy and the Pope not to be among those who would be saved. The Church rejected his teachings, and he was tried for heresy in 1377. However, John of Gaunt stood by him in court, causing the trial to break up in confusion.

Yet Wycliffe's teachings had struck a dangerous chord amongst the people. During the chaotic end to the trial, the London congregation had rioted; an example of how the Commoners had become more confident in demanding their rights and an indication of the new social freedoms arising in the wake of the Black Death.

Wycliffe strongly believed that The Bible ought to be the common possession of all Christians, and needed to be made available for use in the common language of the people. National honour seemed to require this, since members of the nobility possessed The Bible in French.

Wycliffe set himself to the task. His translation of the New Testament, was smoother, clearer, and more readable than the rendering of the Old Testament by his friend Nicholas of Hereford. Wycliffe’s younger contemporary John Purvey revised the whole in 1388. Thus the mass of the people came into possession of The Bible; even as the misguided cry of Wycliffe’s opponents stated: "The jewel of the clergy has become the toy of the laity." For this reason the Wycliffe-ites in England were often designated by their opponents as "Bible men."

Although the Wycliffe Bible was hand written rather than printed it is evident how widely it was available in the fifteenth century because in spite of the zeal with which the Church hierarchy sought to destroy it, there still exist about 150 manuscripts.

Just as Luther's version had great influence upon the German language, so Wycliffe's influenced English, by its clarity, beauty, and strength. The complete text is available on line. Google John Wycliffe’s Translation



3:1. And [unto] BY the angel. — The next important messenger to the Church was John Wycliffe. "It was in 1378 A. D., the year of the 'Great Schism of the West,' when two popes were elected, one in Rome and the other in Avignon, that Wycliffe came out as the great Doctrinal Reformer. Workman, in Dawn of the Reformation, writes: 'Wycliffe's spiritual earnestness was shocked, his theory destroyed by the spectacle of two popes, each claiming to he the sole head of the Church, each labeling the other as Antichrist. To Wycliffe, the year of the Schism, 1378, was the crucial year of his life. He first urged that both popes should be set aside as having little in common with the Church of the Holy God. From this position of neutrality he quickly passed into one of antagonism to the Papacy itself.' In his Mediaeval Church History, Archbishop Trench says: 'The year 1378 marked the turning-point in Wycliffe's career. Hitherto he had concerned himself with matters of mixed ecclesiastical and political import, but henceforth he devoted himself exclusively to doctrinal matters and came out as the Reformer. He began in earnest the translation of the Bible into English, and took the next decisive step by an open attack, forced upon him by his studies of the Bible, against Transubstantiation.' Wycliffe thus attacked the very bulwark of Antichrist's stronghold, for the doctrine of Transubstantiation, or the sacrifice of the Mass, annulled the true sacrifice of Christ. Because of this, the Papal system became in God's sight the 'desolating abomination.' (Dan. 11:31.)" — Edgar.


Of the church in Sardis. — "Sardis is said to mean that which remains, as if it signified something out of which life or virtue had gone. The nominal church during this period had a form of godliness without its power. Sardis was the remains of the true Church, which had been driven into the wilderness; but when the persecution began to subside, her zeal also abated." — Z. 16-347.



Write. — Wycliffe wrote the first translation of the Bible into English.



These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God. —The seven lamps of fire (Rev. 4:5), or seven eyes
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sent forth into all the earth (Rev. 5:6); i. e., perfect knowledge. — Rev. 1:4.



And the seven stars. — How each of the Lord's messengers was kept! St. Paul had (supposedly) eight years of liberty after his first imprisonment, planted the Gospel in Spain and revisited the scenes of earlier labors; St. John is said to have been thrown into a caldron of boiling oil, but escaped unharmed and died of old age; Arius died a natural death; as did Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther and william tyndale, although all had reason to expect martyrdom at the hands of ecclesiasticism. The year that Peter Waldo died, his tenets were condemned by an ecumenical council. "Wycliffe preached unmolested; but the Council of Constance (May 6, 1415) condemned his doctrines, and in 1428 his remains were dug up and burned; the ashes were cast into the adjoining Swift, which, as Wordsworth poetically remarked, conveyed them through the Avon and the Severn into the sea, and thus disseminated them over the world. His doctrines, carried into Bohemia, originated the Hussite movement. The New Testament was published about 1378, and the entire Old Testament was completed shortly before his death." — McC.


I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest. — Many who admired Wycliffe were not real Christians. A man not willing to go to the stake for his religion has none.



And art dead. — Spiritually. — Luke 9:60.



3:2. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that [are] WERE ready to die. — Many among Wycliffe's admirers lost faith and love, and to that degree died, while others had some spiritual life. These the Lord desired to awaken, to strengthen, to encourage. — Eph. 5:14.



For I have not found thy works perfect before MY God. — Revised Version reads, "For I have found no works of thine fulfilled before My God."



3:3. Remember [therefore] how thou hast received. — Received the entire Word in the English tongue.



And heard. — Wycliffe was the author of more than 200 works, chiefly tracts, on the Ransom.



And hold fast, and reform. — (Diaglott) Had Wycliffe's labors been properly appreciated, the Reformation would have been set forward 150 years.



If therefore thou shalt not [watch] REPENT. — Change your course of conduct.
I will come on thee as a thief. — "Many today have the Sardis characteristics." To such, this is a warning.

Vaudois Waldenses persecution

2:18. And [unto] BY the angel. — The messenger to the fourth epoch of the Church was Peter Waldo. "Peter, an opulent merchant of Lyons, surnamed Valdensis, or Valdisius, from Vaux, or Waldum, a town in the marquisate of Lyons, being extremely zealous for the advancement of true piety and Christian knowledge, employed a certain priest, called Stephanus de Evisa, about the year 1160, in translating, from Latin into French, the four Gospels, with other books of Holy Scripture. But no sooner had he perused these sacred books with a proper degree of attention, than he perceived that the religion which was now taught in the Roman church differed totally from that which was originally inculcated by Christ and His Apostles. Struck with this glaring contradiction between the doctrines of the pontiffs and the truths of the Gospel, and animated with zeal, he abandoned his mercantile vocation, distributed his riches among the poor (whence the Waldenses were called poor men of Lyons, and forming an association with other pious men who had adopted his sentiments and his turn of devotion, he began to assume the quality of a public teacher, and to Instruct the multitude in the doctrines and precepts of Christianity.

"Soon after Peter had assumed the exercise of his ministry, the archbishop of Lyons, and the other rulers of the church in that province, vigorously opposed him. However, their opposition was unsuccessful; for the purity and simplicity of that religion which these good men taught, the spotless innocence that shone forth in their lives and actions, and the noble contempt of riches and honors which was conspicuous in the whole of their conduct and conversation, appeared so engaging to all such as had any sense of true piety, that the number of their followers daily increased. They accordingly formed religious assemblies, first in France, and afterwards in Lombardy; from whence they propagated their sect throughout the other provinces of Europe with incredible rapidity, and with such invincible fortitude that neither fire nor sword, nor the most cruel inventions of merciless persecution, could damp their zeal, or entirely ruin their cause. All they aimed at was to reduce the form of ecclesiastical government, and the manners both of the clergy and the people, to that amiable simplicity and primitive sanctity which characterized the Apostolic ages, and which appear so strongly recommended in the precepts and injunctions of the Divine Author of our holy religion.
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"In consequence of this design, they complained that the Roman church had degenerated from its primitive purity and sanctity. They denied the supremacy of the Roman pontiff, and maintained that the rulers and ministers of the Church were obliged, by their vocation, to imitate the poverty of the Apostles and to procure for themselves a subsistence by the work of their hands. They considered every Christian as, in a certain measure, qualified and authorized to instruct, exhort and confirm the brethren in their Christian course. They at the same time affirmed that confession made to priests was by no means necessary, since the humble offender might acknowledge his sins and testify his repentance to any true believer, and might expect from such the counsel and admonition which his case demanded. They maintained that the power of delivering sinners from the guilt and punishment of their offenses belonged to God alone; and that indulgences in consequence were the criminal invention of sordid avarice. They looked upon the prayers and other ceremonies that were instituted in behalf of the dead, as vain, useless, and absurd, and denied the existence of departed souls in an intermediate state of purification. It is also said that several of the Waldenses denied the obligation of infant baptism. They adopted as the model of their moral discipline Christ's sermon on the mount, which they Interpreted and explained in the most rigorous and literal manner; and consequently prohibited and condemned in their society all wars, and suits of law, and all attempts toward the acquisition of wealth." — Buck.

"Waldo's translation of the four gospels into French was the first appearance of the Scriptures in any modern language. The possession of these books soon discovered to Waldo that the Church was never designed to be dependent on a priesthood, even for the administration of the sacraments; and he became so obnoxious to the church that he was anathematized by the pope. No longer safe in Lyons, Waldo and his friends took refuge in the mountains, and there formed those communities from which the simple doctrines of Christianity flowed out all over Europe. Provence, Languedoc, Flanders, Germany, one after another tasted of the refreshing waters. Waldo traveled in Picardy, teaching his reformation doctrines, hundreds of years before Luther was born. He finally settled in Bohemia, where he died in 1179, the same year in which his tenets were denounced by an ecumenical council. The Waldensian Church was a light on the mountains during the Dark Ages." — McC.
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Of the church In Thyatira. — "Thyatira seems to mean 'the sweet perfume of sacrifice.' It was the period of Papal persecution." (Z.'16-347.) From the time of Peter Waldo's witness in 1160 until the next special messenger to the Church appeared, 1378, was a period of 218 years.

Write. — The first translation of the Bible into a modern language — French — was the work of Waldo.

These things saith the Son of God, who hath His eyes like unto a flame of fire. — "To watch over His faithful ones as they wandered through the dark valleys or hid in the darker caves of earth." (Z'16-347; Rev. 1:14.) His eyes search out every secret thought. — Rev. 2:23.

And His feet are like fine brass. — "To walk by their side as they sealed the rugged mountains or wandered footsore and weary, seeking a place to plant the seeds of Truth." (Z.'16-347; Rev. 1:15.) His feet "trample to fragments everything impure." — Cook.

2:19. I know thy works. — The Lord remembers that Peter Waldo was the first to translate His Word into a modern language.
And charity, [and service,] and faith, and [thy] patience, and thy works. — The Lord remembers that Peter Waldo literally "sold all that he had and gave to the [Lord's] poor."

[And] thy last works to be more than the first. — (Diaglott.) "So general and widespread became the so-called heresy that Innocent III determined to crush it out — 'exterminate the whole pestilential race' was the language of which he made use. The commission he gave to the authorities was to burn the chief of the Vaudois (Waldenses), to scatter the heretics themselves, confiscating their property, and consigning to perdition every soul who dared to oppose the pope. Joined with 'His Holiness; in his relentless persecution of the Waldenses was Dominic, the father of the Inquisition. Such has been the history of the Waldenses all through the ages — subject to untold Buffering from persecution; then enjoying, in the quiet valleys of Piedmont, comparative tranquility for a time; then assailed by their ever-relentless foe, the Roman Catholic Church, which has spared no pains, by fire and slaughter, and the horrors of the Inquisition, to put an end to the unfortunate victims of their violence." (McC.) How evident it is that the followers of Peter Waldo have given a larger witness by their sufferings (their "last works") than they did by the first works (the translation of the Gospel into French)!

2:20. Notwithstanding I have [a few things] MUCH against thee. — The fourth epoch of the church nominal